Applying the UNESCO Competence Framework for Cultural Heritage Management at Chiang Mai, Thailand Open Access

This article describes and reflects on an innovative exercise by researchers and practitioners from the Chiang Mai World Heritage Initiative team (henceforth, Chiang Mai team), Deakin University and the UNESCO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCO Bangkok) between June and December 2022. This project aimed to develop a management system and capacity-building strategies for the proposed World Heritage property of Chiang Mai, Thailand, using the UNESCO Competence Framework for Cultural Heritage Management (henceforth, Competence Framework) (Sweet et al., 2021). Chiang Mai, alongside another recently inscribed World Heritage property, the Plain of Jars in Laos, were two case studies within a broader regional project, Reinforcing Competencies for Cultural World Heritage Site Management in Southeast Asia, identified by UNESCO Bangkok to test the efficacy of the Competence Framework. The project team comprised two academics from the Chiang Mai World Heritage Initiative, three academics from Deakin University, two practitioners from UNESCO Bangkok, with one practitioner from IUCN and another from the Plain of Jars Project acting as observers. This paper is a collaboration between the team members from the Chiang Mai World Heritage Initiative and Deakin University.

In 2015, Thailand entered the “Monuments, Sites and Cultural Landscape of Chiang Mai, Capital of Lanna” into its World Heritage Tentative List and the nomination has been in progress since (World Heritage Centre, 2015). The Lanna Kingdom (kingdom of a million rice fields) prospered in current-day northern Thailand from the thirteenth century. For more than 700 years, the city developed in relation to the shifting geopolitical landscape of Southeast Asia. It has a complex history and heritage and the fortified Lanna capital of Chiang Mai is now a thriving city and tourism destination. Much of the local population practices Lanna Buddhism and speaks the local Lanna or “kam muang” language (World Heritage Centre, 2015). The nomination is proposed on the following criteria:

• Criterion i: A masterpiece of urban planning, illustrated in its urban morphology and square-based fortification, is considered outstanding among the ethnic Tai settlements in upper mainland Southeast Asia.

• Criterion ii: It exhibits an important interchange of human values. Over 700 years, Chiang Mai has cultivated a profound relationship with the natural environment of the sacred Doi Suthep mountain, manifested through the palimpsest of pilgrimage routes, festive ceremonies and vibrant processions to revere the relics of Lord Buddha at the apex of the mountain.

• Criterion iii: It is an exceptional testimony of the 13th c. Lanna civilization. Within its historic district of 532 hectares, the Old Chiang Mai Town encompasses 99 distinctive Buddhist temples bearing traces of the splendid architectural craftsmanship of the northern Tai people. Among these, 73 are active, with syncretic rituals and practices mixing the worship of indigenous deities of nature, ancestral guardian spirits, Buddhist reliquaries and palladium.

• Criterion vi: The monuments and sites of the serial nomination are tangibly associated with ceremonies, festivals and other traditions organised by the temples and communities regularly.

While this paper does not comment directly on the directions of Chiang Mai’s World Heritage nomination, observations about the nomination are provided where they illustrate wider issues and opportunities, particularly for South and Southeast Asia. At this stage, it is not known whether or when the nomination will be submitted. This is in the hands of the Government of Thailand, and there may be other Thai nominations that are given the same or greater priority. The nomination proposal for this property has taken a serial approach, allowing a range of sites to be selected. The construction of the justification for Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) is well advanced, although there are still questions about the inclusion of components, boundaries and buffer zones and the challenges of establishing a workable management system for a serial property made up of sites and areas with different ownership, protection and management arrangements. A booming tourism industry and burgeoning population mean that Chiang Mai is also undergoing rapid urbanisation, while its more traditional agricultural economy is impacted by increasing climate change effects (Kusakabe et al., 20142020). As Chiang Mai is a living historic city, it is essential to ensure strong community involvement to manage its rich and diverse heritage. Yet, like many other places in the region, current heritage management practices are less effective because of issues arising from top-down, state bureaucratic processes and the challenges of siloed approaches to heritage perpetuated by tangible-intangible and nature-culture binaries. All these factors meant that Chiang Mai was an excellent case study for understanding the potential for applying the UNESCO Competence Framework for Cultural Heritage Management (2020).

The primary aim of this project was to develop a management system and capacity-building strategies for the aspiring World Heritage property of Chiang Mai, Thailand. The research team adopted an action research approach to achieve this broad research aim. The core tenets of action research are premised on its participatory nature, democratic impulse and capacity to contribute to both knowledge and practice (Carr and Kemmis, 2003). These aligned well with our research objectives, which envisioned an inclusive and sustainable management system through collaborative processes with actors who are normatively associated with heritage management and conservation in Chiang Mai and also those that are often overlooked. Furthermore, the stages of planning, acting, observing and reflecting (Gray, 2009, p. 383) in action research were key aspects of testing the efficacy of the Competence Framework in Chiang Mai. The way this methodology was deployed in our research will be elaborated in more detail in the following subsection.

The need for enhancing the capacity of organisations and individuals working in World Heritage contexts has gained momentum since the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) and its partners developed the World Heritage Capacity Building Strategy in 2011 (Wijesuriya, 2017b). Against this backdrop, the UNESCO Competence Framework is a significant development for the heritage profession and practice in the Asia-Pacific region. Developed through intensive collaborative processes between regional and global heritage organisations, educators and site managers in the Asia-Pacific region, the creation of the Competence Framework was motivated by a desire to improve professional education and career mobility in the heritage sector across Southeast Asia and also aimed to articulate the knowledge, skills and personal attributes required to work at different levels of authority operating across World Heritage properties (UNESCO, 2020). However, during its development, its potential for capacity-building and organisational assessment also emerged. The Competence Framework aims to develop four competence areas required for heritage management in both institutional and individual contexts, and these are: (1) Core competences, (2) Managerial competences, (3) Specialised technical competences and (4) Personal competences. The competence areas cover four levels of personnel in World Heritage management settings, from vocational workers to decision-makers (UNESCO, 2020). The focus for this project was on developing Chiang Mai’s Core Competences; Applying Laws and Regulations (ALR); Heritage Policies, Principles, Processes and Ethics (HER); Community Rights and Knowledge (CRK); Heritage Education and Interpretation (HED) and Sustainable Development (SUS) (Figure 1).

The broadening of the scope and definition of heritage over recent years has created varied challenges for heritage professionals in ways that extend beyond the technicalities of conservation and management (de la Torre, 2013; Winter, 2013). Many communities in the region also face threats of climate change that impact the well-being of heritage places, associated practices and communities (Harvey and Perry, 2015; Jigyasu, 2020). Heritage is also entangled in various ways in local or cross-border conflicts in the region (González Zarandona et al., 2023). Although these issues are evident in every region, they are particularly acute in the Asia-Pacific. Tackling these challenges in the region is complicated by other barriers, such as entrenched colonial frameworks and top-down approaches to heritage management and conservation (Chapagain, 2017; Sinha, 2017).

These challenges require heritage managers to rethink and adapt conventional management and conservation approaches (Aoyagi cited in UNESCO, 2020, p. 6). The Competence Framework provides tools to systematically work through these issues, and its application in real-world scenarios is therefore of interest to both heritage practice and academic research. Our work in Chiang Mai demonstrates the multiple benefits of collaboration between academics and practitioners, as it allowed for management issues to be identified from diverse viewpoints, also resulting in the cross-pollination of ideas and approaches. It also provided an opportunity to test theoretical approaches to the management and safeguarding of a living historic city, whilst also shedding light on the difficulties that might arise when applying these to practical situations. In this context, and as will be demonstrated in more detail in the following discussions, the Competence Framework has wide applicability.

At the time the project was conducted, 26 attributes had been identified for the proposed World Heritage nomination, consisting of 12 ruined fortified structures and 11 Buddhist temples of different categories based on scale (large and small) and surrounding contexts (urban and forest settings). At the national level, they involve the Fine Arts Department (FAD) – the central government agency for conserving Thailand’s national heritage – which has responsibilities for Chiang Mai’s built heritage and the National Office of Buddhism (Figure 2). All the temples with historic structures are listed on Thailand’s National Register of Ancient Sites ^[1].

The temples also have lay communities supporting ritual practices, major annual events and their everyday use and care. The local agencies involved with the heritage attributes vary depending on their location. Chiang Mai City Municipality is involved with facilities for urban temples but less involved with the temples in forested areas, which are under the National Park Office. For this pilot project, the team applied the Competence Framework to a representative sample of attributes; a large temple (Wat Chedi Luang) (Plate 1) and a smaller one (Wat Inthrawat/Wat Ton Kwen) (Plate 2), several urban archaeological sites and the Doi Suthep National Park. The major issue for all actors, including the central government agencies, was how to practically manage a World Heritage property constituting diverse heritage places and practices. Moreover, local community groups were concerned with how they could live their everyday lives with the World Heritage designation and continue to participate in protecting, safeguarding and managing their heritage. They also wondered what support was available from relevant government agencies to meet the international expectations of World Heritage listing. Meanwhile, the FAD also had questions about the mechanisms for coordinating all the stakeholders involved in monitoring, managing, protecting and planning for all the attributes in the proposed World Heritage property. There was also concern about its range of capacities since it is primarily involved in conserving the tangible heritage of royal monuments and archaeological sites, rather than historic properties in a large living city with multiple dimensions of heritage.

These were the challenges the project team needed to identify and address. For instance, how would the stakeholders at both local and national levels divide the tasks involved in managing these sites to meet the expectations of World Heritage status? Moreover, what stakeholder capacities (at individual and organisational levels) needed to be assessed to determine which skills, expertise and instruments must be enhanced to achieve a robust management and conservation framework for the proposed World Heritage property? Relevant stakeholders such as the Chiang Mai City Municipality, lay supporter communities and Buddhist monastic orders were informed that work would be undertaken to assess their management capacities to advance the World Heritage nomination.

Following the stages of planning, acting, observing and reflecting in the action research approach, each team member was assigned a distinctive task to achieve the overall project aim. The Chiang Mai team would apply the Competence Framework to the different actors on the ground, they would then convene fortnightly/monthly with the Deakin University team, UNESCO Bangkok and observers from IUCN and the Plain of Jars project to share the results. The Deakin University team would then provide technical insights and prompts (focusing on the Community, Rights and Knowledge competence area) to advance the Chiang Mai nomination. The primary objectives were to focus on the specific competences and actors required to safeguard proposed attributes, examine the current management capacities to manage those attributes that will eventually form part of the property’s OUV, reflect on potential capacity-building strategies to enhance the competences of key actors, and finally brainstorm possible organisational structures that will be inclusive of the diverse actors and tangible and intangible aspects of Chiang Mai’s heritage (Sweet et al., 2021).

For this project, the Competence Framework was deployed in conjunction with some parts of the then-draft Enhancing Our Heritage (EoH) 2.0 Toolkit ^[2]. The use of some of the tools from the EOH Toolkit helped to clarify persistent management issues at the property. EoH tool 4, for example, helped comprehensively map organisations and individuals related to Chiang Mai’s diverse heritage. This process identified the range of actors (and heritage values) normatively associated with heritage components as well as others that are often overlooked in conventional, top-down approaches to heritage management and conservation. Further insight was gained by applying EoH tool 7, which interrogated the human and financial capacities of these actors. The use of the EoH tools in tandem with the Competence Framework also had the advantage of building a deepened understanding of World Heritage requirements for key stakeholders. This comprehensive understanding has proved valuable for assessing the roles, responsibilities, organisational structures and the management and expertise capacities of the different actors involved in protecting the heritage attributes. It therefore has made a significant contribution to the ongoing work to conceptualise an effective, inclusive and sustainable management system for Chiang Mai (Sweet et al., 2021).

The Competence Framework can be used to assess the capacities of heritage management institutions as well as those of individuals against the core competence areas of Applying Laws and Regulations (ALR); Heritage Policies, Principles, Processes and Ethics (HER); Community Rights and Knowledge (CRK); Heritage Education and Interpretation (HED) and Sustainable Development (SUS) (UNESCO, 2020). At Chiang Mai, the team focused on assessing the competences of organisations and individuals in the representative sample of attributes (i.e. the temples, archaeological sites and Doi Suthep National Park). The competence of organisations was evaluated using the organisational capacity assessment derived from the Competence Framework. Two modes of assessment; rapid and detailed, were used to assess individuals. Rapid assessments are plain language assessment tools based on the Competence Framework, designed to assess the competences of individuals working in World Heritage sites. Participants were asked to complete a self-assessment on the core competence areas and score themselves on a scale of 1–4 ^[3]. This was followed by detailed assessments in the form of interviews with selected participants. The median score from the organisational, rapid and detailed assessments formed the baseline score for each competence area, providing clarity on the available capacities, gaps and potential management effectiveness for Chiang Mai’s heritage (Figure 3).

Applying the Competence Framework on a sample of attributes indicated that the Chiang Mai City Municipality played the least role in managing heritage sites while the lay supporter communities were the most involved, followed by the FAD and the abbots of the temples. It also found that the staff of local agencies and communities were financially more stable than the central agencies. The large-scale temple (Wat Chedi Luang) was the most financially sustainable organisation with ample funds, while Chiang Mai City Municipality and lay communities were also stable, although they had much lower reserves. For human and organisational capacity, the FAD had the highest level of human and organisational capacity, while the National Park Office had the most limited capacity due to fewer permanent staff.

In the five core competency areas, we found that all government agencies were strong in Applying Laws and Regulations (ALR) but weak in understanding Community, Rights and Knowledge (CRK). The local communities were the opposite, with much stronger competency in Community, Rights and Knowledge (CRK) but a limited understanding of heritage laws and regulations. All stakeholders lacked the full range of expertise needed to protect and manage Chaing Mai’s cultural heritage. In the FAD’s Chiang Mai Branch Office – responsible for eight provinces in the northern region of Thailand – there was neither an architect nor landscape architect, core expertise needed for the long-term conservation of several proposed attributes. The Chiang Mai City Municipality’s Building Department, responsible for the public parks and landscape of the historic town, and the National Park Office, which maintains public facilities such as road networks, signage and rest areas for visitors in forest areas, including the Doi Suthep National Park, also lacked architects and landscape experts. Moreover, there was minimal coordination between the three government agencies to implement the Landscape Masterplan for the historic town and the sacred Doi-Suthep mountain, which are integral components of the proposed Chiang Mai World Heritage nomination. The analysis also revealed that movable objects in temple museums were not sufficiently considered in developing this nomination, limiting recognition of the city’s cultural richness.

In terms of Community, Rights and Knowledge (CRK) and Heritage Education and Interpretation (HED), the key government agencies (FAD and National Park Office) needed to improve media communication and heritage interpretation strategies and foster better communication with local communities. This was particularly important as the heritage sites in Chiang Mai and Doi Suthep National Park are inhabited by various ethnic groups. Moreover, none of these national agencies employ anthropologists, media/heritage interpretation specialists or community development professionals to work with communities and improve public relations. The Chiang Mai City Municipality provides knowledge and interpretation of cultural heritage through its local museum programme but not permanently. Overall, government agencies are short of expertise and impeded by financial constraints. Local groups such as Buddhist temples and their lay supporters also have similar shortages but are more financially stable due to their larger numbers.

While the Competence Framework was useful for mapping existing capacities and gaps, it also shed light on the limitations of its application. While it was adept in evaluating the organisational capacities of government agencies, its metrics were less useful for assessing non-government organisations and other community-based actors who are also important for safeguarding Chiang Mai’s heritage. Like many World Heritage and other heritage places in the region, traditional knowledge systems are integral to sustaining Chiang Mai’s cultural and spiritual significance, but there was a tendency to undervalue community-based management systems within the existing management infrastructure. Other limitations include the Competence Framework’s ability to adequately evaluate the role of gender in its assessment.

These findings demonstrate that it can be challenging to craft an effective management system across a range of public institutions and non-state/community-based actors, each with its priorities and areas of competence. Coordination can be difficult, impeding efficient operations. In this case – as with others worldwide – the results suggest that it could be beneficial to create a new management system or agency to ensure the ongoing coordinated management of the future World Heritage property. This conclusion is further supported by several wider observations by the project team regarding the application of World Heritage concepts and requirements to complex heritage places that will be discussed in the remainder of this paper.

Like many other countries in the region, Thailand has a relatively centralised national regime for designating important heritage places, particularly World Heritage nominations. Therefore, the work undertaken at Chiang Mai highlighted issues that apply to other places working toward developing World Heritage nominations. In the remaining sections of this paper, we touch on several striking lessons emerging from this project. These go beyond the immediately practical outcomes described above and raise issues of how World Heritage designation is utilised by States Parties in the region. It is not new to acknowledge that the concept of OUV highlights some values and omits others or to recognise that this can also be replicated in national designation systems aligned with international heritage norms (Buckley, 2018; Cameron, 2015). Chiang Mai demonstrates the difficulties arising from these common tendencies, illustrating issues to be overcome for many aspiring World Heritage properties in Asia. These include the consequences of state-led heritage designation and the tensions arising from artificial tangible-intangible and nature-culture binaries, which can be exacerbated by the application of international heritage requirements and concepts together with challenges of managing important heritage places located within dynamic urban contexts.

The combined process of applying the Competence Framework and parts of the EoH 2.0 Toolkit identified the roles and views of actors and values both normatively and non-normatively associated with this site, especially those peripheral to conventional management processes. More broadly, Chiang Mai faces challenges arising from the application of international heritage norms to non-Western heritage places (Karlstrom, 2013; Khanjanusthiti, 2017; Wijesuriya, 2017a). This is evident in the current bureaucratic approach to heritage management and conservation, which may contribute to the decline of traditional management and safeguarding strategies and the imposition of structures and practices that adopt siloed approaches to heritage management. Such approaches can be detrimental to places such as Chiang Mai (and other similar places) where religious, political and cultural factors are closely intertwined.

While management and conservation issues of built heritage were often at the forefront of our project discussions, applying the Competence Framework also brought to light a lack of organisational capacity to manage the less material aspects of the city’s heritage, which tended to filter out intangible heritage practices in favour of the architectural, archaeological and artistic qualities of nominated sites. The focus on the built environment and inattention to intangible heritage elements can be seen in Chiang Mai, particularly in the context of the Inthakin (City Pillar) Festival in honour of the city’s guardian spirit and the role played by spirit medium families who facilitate it (Plate 3). Primarily concerned with prolonging the life of the city, this festival is central to the culture and identity of its people (Fukuura, 2011; Johnson, 2011). Applying the Competence Framework highlighted the pressures on these cultural practices and traditional knowledge systems and raised important questions about their management. For example, declining interest among younger males from spirit medium families to continue in traditional roles is a primary concern for safeguarding this practice. This also highlighted embedded cultural/gender norms that preclude female members of spirit medium families from continuing these practices and ensuring their survival.

Other pressures also became evident, such as the tensions between localised Buddhist/animistic practices and orthodox Buddhist practices. Thailand’s conservation agenda focuses on Buddhist sites. This is also evident in its National Register, which mainly comprises orthodox Buddhist sites (Peleggi, 2002, p. 28). This is unsurprising given that in Thailand (like other majority Buddhist nations in the region), Buddhism is not only a signifier of national identity but also a key element of political authority (Peleggi, 2002, p. 31). As a cultural practice falling outside orthodox religious and heritage spheres, the Inthakin Festival and other vernacular practices could be neglected or even discouraged. These non-conventional heritage forms also lack the supportive infrastructure available to conventional heritage places, further reinforcing the dichotomies between the ways orthodox Buddhist monastic and vernacular cultural spaces and practices are managed and safeguarded.

The advice (at the time of the project) from the FAD was that the Inthakin Festival (including its practitioners – the spirit medium families) be recognised under a separate Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) nomination rather than being included in the World Heritage nomination. Yet, intangible heritage, even that inscribed on the UNESCO Intangible Heritage List, is perceived by many State Parties as secondary to World Heritage (Meskell, 2013, p. 157), with intangible elements often safeguarded only in so far as it serves the conservation of the tangible (Poulios, 2014). As Sinha (2017, p. 1) contends, the management and protection of physical heritage spaces in isolation of their rich everyday culture and vernacular traditions for economic and other bureaucratic purposes has resulted in an “overwhelming focus on ‘tangible’ or material heritage without any vocabulary or tools to address the issue of safeguarding ‘intangible heritage’”. Such challenges, however, are not unique to Chiang Mai or the Asian region. As Buckley and Sullivan argue in the context of Australia, heritage practice is still largely place-oriented, with few formal systems that can adequately recognise intangible elements that are not associated with place (2014, p. 39).

Moreover, the tendency to use different international designations for distinct aspects of a heritage area is not uncommon within the Asia-Pacific region. For example, South Korea’s Jeju Island has overlapping designations for natural and cultural heritage via the World Heritage List, UNESCO Global Geoparks, Ramsar Wetlands, Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) and the Intangible Heritage List (Schaaf and Clamote Rodrigues, 2016). Because these might be different perspectives of the “same” heritage, it has become common practice for multiple international designations to be noted parallel to World Heritage inscription. This growing practice of matching different heritages with different forms of international recognition is understandably pragmatic but does not address the need for coordinated management and protection nor does it reflect how heritage is practised and experienced by local communities. The continued development of programmes and instruments (particularly in World Heritage) to deal with these different heritage categories has reinforced their divide (Cameron, 2020; Chapagain, 2017).

A second dimension for Chiang Mai arising from conventional heritage identification and management approaches is the artificial disentanglement of nature and culture in associative landscapes and the poor recognition of natural areas and resources to hold cultural meaning and spiritual significance (Taylor and Lennon, 2011). The culture-nature divide in management and conservation has been shown to leave each side less meaningful than local experiences suggest, while also creating the basis for future mismanagement. Such attitudes towards heritage also stem from the institutionalisation of colonial legacies which privilege the material and monumental aspects of heritage over intangible aspects and also exacerbate the nature-culture duality (Byrne et al., 2013). While Thailand may not have been subjected to the colonial legacies entrenched in heritage systems across much of South and Southeast Asia, it has certainly been impacted by it. The delineation of “national” borders in Southeast Asia by imperial powers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (superimposed on existing, pre-colonial territorial conflicts), has inevitably shaped Thailand as a territorial entity (Peleggi, 2007). The tensions regarding these new nation-states including the “ownership” of heritage on its borderlands were dramatically exposed following the World Heritage inscription of the Preah Vihear Temple, located on the Thai-Cambodia border by the Cambodian government in 2008. This UNESCO designation ultimately led to a border war with neighbouring Thailand which also claimed ownership of the temple (Silverman, 2011; Williams, 2011).

There are also other complexities underpinning Chiang Mai’s heritage preservation landscape, particularly those tensions within the Thai government that might result in the valorisation of aspects aligned with national narratives in the World Heritage List, rather than distinctive regional (Lanna) cultural traditions (Johnson, 2011, p. 511; Peleggi, 2007, p. 15). As with elsewhere in the world, in Thailand, heritage is pivotal to the nation-building agenda. The appropriation of local/regional heritage into the “national” fold through listing on (national/international) heritage registers and exhibiting them as part of national collections is a way of transforming the abstract notion of historical memory into the physical manifestation of the nation while also disrupting their significance to local communities (Peleggi, 2002, pp. 31–33). This also points to conflicts between central and peripheral heritage governance structures – resulting in contrasting or even competing management and conservation agendas between local and national heritage agencies. Given that World Heritage creates demands for state resources, these dynamics cannot be discounted and could partly explain the uncertainty around the submission of the Chiang Mai nomination.

The tangible-intangible and nature-culture dichotomies embedded in international heritage frameworks such as the World Heritage List, and the effective dismantling of these dualities, remain challenging (Chapagain, 2017; Taylor and Lennon, 2011). As Chapagain (2017, p. 27) observes, overemphasising even minor differences between tangible-intangible (or nature-culture) can result in framing often-complementary heritage elements as separate or even antithetical. Responding to these issues, many scholars contend that the future of heritage management and conservation should focus on the reintegration of tangible-intangible and natural-cultural heritage through holistic management and conservation approaches (Chapagain, 2017; Sinha, 2017; Wijesuriya, 2008). Achieving an integrated approach has been a focus of the heritage field for many decades, with advances evident in the development of values-based approaches to heritage (de la Torre, 2013), people-centred approaches (Wijesuriya, 2015), including important work done in integrating nature-culture (ICOMOS and IUCN, 2021; Panorama: Solutions for a Healthy Planet, 2023), and the recent heritage place approach (Ishizawa and Jo, 2024). Despite global shifts, our work at Chiang Mai indicates that many of its bureaucratic heritage policies and processes are rooted in outdated Western heritage management and conservation models. Introducing new measures, therefore, requires national institutional barriers to be addressed.

The challenges of managing Chiang Mai’s diverse heritage show us that the existing normative approaches are inadequate to manage heritage holistically, particularly as they lack the nuance or capacity to fully consider associative dimensions of heritage or the intricacies of traditional heritage management structures. Many other Asian examples illustrate these key points. In Nepal’s Pashupatinath Temple (located in the World Heritage-listed Kathmandu Valley), a binary approach to heritage has created challenges when managing and conserving heritage elements that are closely intertwined (Chapagain, 2017, p. 26). While not entirely dispensing with the functional categorisation of heritage, Chapagain (2017, p. 27), for example, contends that heritage first needs to be approached from a holistic viewpoint and that any classifications be recognised afterwards and only as necessary. Another example from the Kathmandu Valley discussed by Tiwari and colleagues (2017, p. 142) illustrates how state recovery and reconstruction efforts of local heritage places following the devastating 2015 Ghorka earthquake happened in isolation of local communities, creating a host of conservation issues. Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley, therefore, is a point of caution for Chiang Mai, where the overwhelming focus on the management and conservation of the tangible has resulted in the de-emphasis of the intangible, the disregard of natural components and the isolation of local communities that are key to the uses and meanings of cultural/sacred places.

Another relevant example is Borobudur, Indonesia, a globally iconic Buddhist monument. Over time, issues arising from the approach to conserving the “monument” have emerged due to the “complete disconnection between the local community and heritage”, and the separation of the monument from its landscape setting (Nagaoka, 2015, p. 145). Despite significant investment by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to adopt a participatory approach to Borobudur’s management, including a buffer zone that had functional importance to local communities, state heritage agencies enforced a typical “top-down” approach when creating management zones for the World Heritage area (Nagaoka, 2015, p. 145; Tanudirjo, 2013). These management zones included some “people-free areas”, resulting in the resettlement of people living in them. A complex web of management responsibilities was established with limited or no involvement or benefits to local communities living near one of the most recognisable and heavily visited World Heritage sites (Nagaoka, 2015, p. 145; Tanudirjo, 2013, p. 66). Tanudirjo (2013) argues that authoritarian heritage management approaches have obscured the local realities of Borobudur, in which the temple is the locus of everyday heritage practices, including the annual Vesak pilgrimage to mark the Buddha’s birth, traditional Wayang (shadow puppet) performances and Eid-ul-Fitr celebrations at the end of Ramadan of the predominantly Muslim local communities (Tanudirjo, 2013, p. 70). Efforts are underway to apply a landscape perspective to the World Heritage areas to enhance local participation, demonstrating the importance of grounding World Heritage management approaches (Tanudirjo, 2013; Nagaoka, 2015). Certainly, as Cooray (2017, p. 129) argues in the context of the World Heritage site of Sigiriya, Sri Lanka, the surrounding landscape is not merely a setting for World Heritage but an essential component of it, which has continued meaning to present-day local communities.

Approaching heritage holistically also means that conventional heritage management frameworks dependent on state resources become unsustainable (Sinha, 2017, p. 5). An integrated approach based on local realities and governance would achieve much in terms of safeguarding heritage, as this would put communities at the centre of landscape history and placemaking (Muangyai and Lieorungruang, 2008, pp. 61–63; Taylor and Lennon, 2011, p. 546). The decade of implementation of the UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) (UNESCO, 2011) offers several ways forward for Chiang Mai, including the need to consider the heritage of urban areas holistically and within their cultural, natural and historical settings, inviting the development of better management tools which are people-centred (WHITRAP and City of Ballarat, 2016). Given these shifts, it is unsurprising that the HUL approach has been enthusiastically received in many parts of the Asian region (Pereira Roders and Bandarin, 2019; Silva, 2020). This aligns with current global efforts to forge new World Heritage management tools that do not separate nature-culture or tangible-intangible heritage (ICOMOS and IUCN, 2021; Panorama: Solutions for a Healthy Planet, 2023), although their implementation depends on a willingness by States Parties and national heritage institutions to embrace them and the implications of looking at urban areas in this way.

In the case of Chiang Mai, another possible way for an integrated management approach is illustrated by the possible inclusion of the Doi Suthep sacred mountain in the nomination. Wonglanka and Han (2020, p. 30) have described the mountain as the “centre of Chiang Mai” and essential to the nomination. The animistic practices of the Indigenous Doi Pui Hmong people play an important role in the everyday management and conservation of the area’s forest and other natural resources and ensure the transmission of traditional cultural knowledge to future generations (Muangyai and Lieorungruang, 2008, pp. 61–63; Wonglaka and Han, 2020, p. 30). This exemplifies how community-led heritage management approaches often present a sustainable alternative to bureaucratic heritage governance systems, as they stem from a “deep sense of ownership and belonging … resulting in a conscious participation of resource conservation” (Muangyai and Lieorungruang, 2008, p. 63). This demonstrates that changed approaches to the identification of values can ensure effective management outcomes. Moreover, localising global norms can also guarantee effective long-term outcomes, requiring efforts to combine state-led and community-centred perspectives.

There is increasing evidence of the benefits of community-based conservation at World Heritage and other sites (Barrow and Pathak, 2005; Maharjan and Barata, 2020). Barrow and Pathak (2005) contend that communities are critical in caring for everyday cultural landscapes and that cultural value, sacredness and centrality for the sustenance of livelihoods are incentives for communities to safeguard heritage. Conservation becomes a viable and sustainable practice when it benefits the wider community (Sinha, 2017, p. 5; Wijesuriya, 2017b, p. 12). There are certainly merits to recognising communities as stewards of heritage, but if these heritage places lack formal protection mechanisms, heritage and associated communities, especially those in rapidly developing contexts, remain at risk.

Achieving an integrated management and conservation framework for Chiang Mai is challenging. Some scholars argue for a revolutionary shift in the approaches and mechanisms of management and conservation, even calling for an overhaul of existing systems and the establishment of new heritage governance bodies (Chapagain, 2017, p. 24; Sinha, 2017, p. 7). Sinha (2017, p. 7) posits that achieving such dramatic change will not be easy and overcoming the territorial boundaries of state organisations would be the most challenging aspect. Taking an immediately pragmatic approach, we recommend adopting a participatory, community-centred/led approach to heritage management and safeguarding measures for certain aspects of Chiang Mai’s heritage. However, as Poulios (2014, p. 23) argues, it is imperative to set the terms of community involvement for this to succeed. One way forward could be ensuring that communities are adequately supported and resourced and that their expertise and authority are formally recognised within heritage management structures. Secondly, following the recommendations of Sinha (2017, p. 7), we agree that there is much to be gained by enhancing public-private partnerships in managing Chiang Mai’s heritage. Like many other complex urban and serial World Heritage properties, there is a need for a coordinating mechanism, steering committee or World Heritage management authority that can work with the different government heritage departments, the National Office of Buddhism, community groups and others to provide holistic solutions for the management and conservation of Chiang Mai’s rich and diverse heritage.

Applying the Competence Framework at Chiang Mai has been a valuable exercise for assessing the organisational capacities of its current management infrastructure and a significant first step in formulating a holistic, inclusive and integrated heritage management framework. It has also, importantly, provided a better understanding and recognition of the scope of community-based actors (community elders, knowledge bearers and practitioners) for managing Chiang Mai’s heritage. In the future, the resolution of the nomination of Chiang Mai to the World Heritage List can be done the “usual” way or could instead take the opportunity to become a leader and a model of more effective and locally sustainable approaches to heritage management in Thailand and beyond. Moreover, the process of applying and questioning the Competence Framework also revealed important issues for the team preparing the Chiang Mai World Heritage nomination, including the application of international heritage norms in non-Western contexts, illuminating additional values and attributes and their management and revealing added complexities of entrenched gender norms in the context of safeguarding traditional cultural practices in the twenty-first century. The long-term safeguarding of Chiang Mai’s heritage will require the recognition and coordinated involvement of secular and religious governance and the recognition of community agency. These are lessons that will be of widespread relevance for the future of heritage management and safeguarding throughout Asia.

The authors from Deakin University received funding from UNESCO Bangkok to engage in a series of interactive consultation sessions with the Chiang Mai World Heritage Initiative Project Team as they applied the UNESCO Competence Framework for Cultural Heritage Management to design an organisational management structure and formulate capacity-building strategies for diverse actors involved with the property. All authors wish to thank Dr Montira Horayangura Unakul and Injee Kim (UNESCO Bangkok) for their support of this project. They also acknowledge the valuable insights of Thongsavanh Khammanichanh (Site Manager/Deputy Director - Plain of Jars World Heritage Office, Laos) and Leticia Leitão (IUCN) in the consultation sessions. A further thanks to Leticia for graciously sharing the tools of the draft 2.0 version of the Enhancing Our Heritage Toolkit with the team. The authors are also grateful to Dr Richard Englehardt for his generous feedback on an earlier version of this paper. They are also thankful to the two anonymous reviewers of this paper.