Unpacking Heritage and Human Rights in Peru: A View from Archaeological World Heritage Management

ABSTRACT This paper critically appraises the context of archaeological UNESCO World Heritage management in Peru and proposes human-rights-based approaches as a lens that can problematise heritage practice and suggest an alternative framework to the status quo. Human-rights-based approaches are considered as means to foster more equitable practices within UN policies. Through an analysis of the Peruvian heritage regime, this study shows how conventional state-based management prioritising monument conservation has produced landscapes of exclusion, but also uneasy tensions between the rights of different actors. Furthermore, it shows that the overprotection of pre-colonial remains, historically at the centre of heritage policies, have delayed the exploration of measures to address the rights of present-day communities living in and around archaeological sites. I will illustrate this through an examination of two World Heritage cases – the Chan Chan Archaeological Complex and the Qhapaq Ñan Andean Road System – which represent two contexts and approaches to heritage management. I argue that the application of human-rights-based approaches in a context like Peru may go beyond debates on cultural or heritage rights and serve as a tool for attending to communities that are often marginalised.