Notions of social cohesion in the making of World Heritage Cities : discursive repertoires articulating social cohesion notions in the UNESCO documents framing the nomination and management of World Heritage Cities inscribed between 2017 and 2021

UNESCO guidelines for the management of historic cities and World Heritage (WH) sites have pointed out that urban heritage can foster social cohesion. Scholars have also suggested that heritage has the potential to (positively) influence social cohesion. However, it remains unclear how this outcome can be achieved. A central challenge is that social cohesion is a contested and mouldable concept that is subject to interpretations and can encompass diverse notions. Hence, before exploring how urban heritage can contribute to social cohesion, it was necessary to investigate what social cohesion can mean in the context of urban heritage. Using discursive institutionalism as a theoretical foundation and integrating perspectives from critical heritage studies, this research examines how social cohesion notions are articulated in discursive repertoires in UNESCO documents that framed the nomination and management of urban areas inscribed as WH between 2017 and 2021. The analyses and discussions of the investigation were structured using a conceptual framework that integrates eleven recurrent notions considered part of or necessary for social cohesion – which in this research are called constituents of the concept – and three typologies into which social cohesion constructs can be grouped: relational, ideational, and distributive. This research demonstrates that the analysed UNESCO documents articulate multiple notions related to the constituents and typologies of social cohesion. These notions are articulated in various discursive repertoires and provide opportunities to use WH processes to promote social objectives. As for the relational typology, which focuses on fostering and maintaining social relations, the UNESCO documents articulate notions that encourage interaction and enable the regulation and protection of social dynamics. Turning to the ideational typology of social cohesion, which focuses on reinforcing identities, the processes for the identification of Outstanding Universal Values and designation of WH cities move towards critical approaches that acknowledge the power of heritage to shape the acceptance and othering of the many groups converging in cities. In this way, WH can help negotiate and promote intragroup and intergroup social cohesion in cities. Finally, regarding the distributive typology of social cohesion, which aims to address disparities, although the UNESCO guidelines and heritage experts acknowledge unwanted impacts of WH designations related to inequality, such as gentrification and commodification processes, recommendations or statements enabling the use of WH to recognise and address disparities are rarely articulated.