UN’s ‘Decade of Culture for Sustainability’: How colonial legacies and neoliberalism distort global heritage governance
Original framing: “From Viet Nam’s initiative to global action for culture and sustainable development” — bing news
The voices missing include: (1) **Artisans in Global South cities**, who face displacement when ‘heritage zones’ are gentrified (e.g., *Jakarta’s Old Town* redevelopment); (2) **LGBTQ+ communities**, whose cultural expressions (e.g., *Brazil’s *Festa Junina* queer traditions*) are often erased from ‘official’ heritage narratives; (3) **Migrant workers**, who sustain cultural economies (e.g., *Vietnamese domestic workers in Singapore* preserving folk traditions while denied citizenship); and (4) **Environmental refugees**, whose cultures are destroyed by ‘development’ projects (e.g., *Indigenous communities in the Philippines* resisting mining under the guise of ‘economic growth’).
The UN’s ‘Decade of Culture for Sustainable Development’ is a symptom of how post-colonial states and neoliberal institutions co-opt heritage to legitimize their rule, while Indigenous and marginalized communities bear the costs.
Vietnam’s initiative, though culturally resonant, risks replicating the extractive patterns of past UN declarations—where ‘cultural preservation’ becomes a tool for state control or corporate profit, not a mechanism for justice. The solution lies in centering *Indigenous governance models* (like New Zealand’s *Te Tiriti o Waitangi*) and *anti-extractivist economies* (such as debt-for-culture swaps), while using *trickster tactics*—like Anansi’s irony or Eshu’s inversion—to expose the UN’s complicity in cultural theft. Without these shifts, the decade will merely repackaging old colonial logics under a ‘sustainable’ veneer, leaving the most vulnerable cultures—and the planet—even more precarious.