‘Lost in translation’? Peace education and the operational limits of world heritage tourism in Iran

This study examines the extent to which UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHSs) operationalise peace education through tourism. While UNESCO frames WHSs as spaces capable of fostering intercultural dialogue and mutual understanding, limited research has explored how these aspirations are translated into heritage governance and tourism management practices. Using a comparative case study approach, the research investigates ten UNESCO WHSs in Iran through semi-structured interviews with site managers and curators, participant observation, and documentary analysis. Drawing selectively on Bourdieu’s concepts of field, habitus, and symbolic capital as interpretive tools, the study examines how institutional structures, managerial priorities, and geopolitical dynamics shape the implementation of peace-oriented practices within heritage tourism contexts. The findings reveal a significant gap between UNESCO’s normative peace discourse and the operational realities of heritage tourism governance. Although heritage managers frequently emphasise cultural preservation and national identity, explicit peace education strategies remain limited, fragmented, or implicitly embedded within broader interpretive frameworks. The study contributes to heritage and tourism scholarship by conceptualising WHSs as contested heritage fields in which peace education is socially and institutionally negotiated rather than automatically generated through cultural exposure alone. The paper concludes by discussing implications for heritage governance, tourism management, and peace-oriented cultural policy frameworks.