Studying the Global Imagination
from an Ethnography of the Unesco WHLs
In this paper I intend to start thinking about what I propose to call
GTS (Global Taxonomic Systems): institutionalized taxonomic systems
through which transnational agencies shape, and organize a global
imagery, acting, as well as tools of planetary governance able to mould
attitudes, values and emotions of millions of people. Among these
taxonomic systems, the universe of sport, with its world federations, the
apparently less formalized world tourism (with its stereotyping and areal
specializations), the even widening space covered by the classifications
of typical food. These scenarios are united by a cross-border character,
by the presence of institutional agencies capable of giving organization
in the world through precise taxonomic schemes, and by sharing an often
implicit support to – and an equally implicit ability to mould a – «moral
economy», a «global hierarchy of values» closely linked to the spread of
neoliberal ideologies. Much of the analysis will be carried out, however,
beginning with the case of the Unesco material and immaterial WHLs