Interview
Minja Yang
World Heritage Convention
Minja Yang was born and raised in Tokyo. She holds a BA in sociology from Georgetown University and a Masters and Doctorate in political science from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.
She joined the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 1979, where she worked for the protection of refugees from Indochina and East Africa. In 1989, she began her career at UNESCO and worked for the protection and development of the Angkor region of Cambodia for almost five years. She then joined the World Heritage Centre in 1994 as head of the Asia-Pacific unit. During this period, she was also responsible for the Documentation and Information unit, as well as the special program for World Heritage cities, created on her initiative. In 1999, she became Deputy Director of the Centre, a post she held until 2004. From 2005 to 2009, she headed the UNESCO office in New Delhi. Throughout her career, she has dedicated herself to strengthening local capacities for the management of cultural resources and for a heritage-sensitive approach to urban development.
Since 2010, Minja Yang has been president and professor at the Raymond Lemaire International Center for Conservation (RLICC) at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. She also acts as a consultant to several organizations, including the Association of French World Heritage Properties and the Association of Cultural Meeting Centers. She also sits on the Journal of Heritage Management's advisory committee. Among her recent publications is an article “Culture in Moving the MDGs to the Post-2015 Development Agenda: Some Reflections on the Role of Living Heritage for Sustainable Development,” published in 2015 in Perceptions of Sustainability in Heritage Studies directed by Marie-Theres Albert.
The following audio extracts are from an interview with Minja Yang by Christina Cameron in December 2019 in Paris. She describes her vast experience of the World Heritage Convention, and recounts the challenges of its operationalization on the ground, particularly in urban areas. She called for more efforts in the conservation and interpretation of the sites inscribed on the World Heritage List, and suggests in this regard more partnerships with universities.
Interview with
Minja Yang
December 2019 in Paris
The following audio extracts are from an interview with Minja Yang by Christina Cameron in December 2019 in Paris. She describes her vast experience of the World Heritage Convention, and recounts the challenges of its operationalization on the ground, particularly in urban areas. She called for more efforts in the conservation and interpretation of the sites inscribed on the World Heritage List, and suggests in this regard more partnerships with universities.
- 1. The World Heritage Convention
- 1a. Involvement of Minja Yang in World Heritage
- 1b. Reform agenda at Cairns
- 1c. Policies and decisions that influenced the implementation of the Convention
- 1d. Successes and failures of the Convention
- 2. The World Heritage Committee
- 3. Advisory bodies : ICOMOS, UICN et ICCROM
- 4. Involvement of States Parties
- 5. Terrorism and deliberate destruction of World Heritage
- 6. Involvement of civil society
- 7. Recognition of sites of recent conflicts
Oral Archives of the
World Heritage Convention
Under the leadership of the Canada Research Chair on Built Heritage at the University of Montreal, an international team of researchers conducts interviews with pioneers of World Heritage to capture memories of important moments in the history of UNESCO Convention.
Launched in 2006, this initiative is part of the UNESCO History project that celebrated the 60th anniversary of the creation of UNESCO. The Oral Archives project records the precious witness of people closely associated with the creation and implementation of the Convention. Their recollections and views have greatly enriched the book by Christina Cameron and Mechtild Rössler, Many Voices, One Vision: The Early Years of the World Heritage Convention (Ashgate/Routledge, 2013).
