Universal heritage value, community identities and world heritage: forms, functions, processes and context at a changing Mt Fuji

ABSTRACT

Numerous international documents underline the high identity value of cultural heritage for local communities and its potential for sustainable development. Simultaneously, the inclusion in UNESCO’s World Heritage List depends on the outstanding universal value that presumes a global community and prioritises global heritage value before the local ones. This setup holds potential tension.

This paper discusses how to define heritage communities and access their heritage identities, differentiating between landscape forms, functions, processes and context. The case study of Mt Fuji World Heritage is used to illustrate the model. While global and national communities emphasise the form of the heritage and policies target the preservation of the present visual shape, the local and religious communities identify with the functions and practices embodied by the sites. Not all communities identify with the proposed interpretative context for Mt Fuji heritage value. Additional tension arises from the Eurocentric mind-set behind world heritage expertise.

KEYWORDS:

• Religious heritage
• landscape identity
• landscape change
• Japan
• outstanding universal value

Introduction: world heritage and community identity

In recent years, a variety of international policy documents have underlined the role of heritage in creating sustainable communities. According to UNESCO, sustainable development is at the core of the World Heritage (WH) Convention through its Article 5 (UNESCO, 1972):

Each state party … shall endeavour … to adopt a general policy which aims to give the cultural and natural heritage a function in the life of the community and to integrate the protection of that heritage into comprehensive planning programs.

However, the convention does not specify how state parties should proceed. The Council of Europe’s Farø convention (CoE, 2005) insists that all groups associated with culturally significant landscapes should participate in heritage management at all stages ‘in the process of identification, study, interpretation, protection, conservation and presentation of cultural heritage, public reflection and debate on the opportunities and challenges’ (CoE, 2005). The same is repeated in UNESCO’s Strategic Action Plan for the Implementation of the WH Convention 2012–2022 (UNESCO, 2011) which emphasises sustainable development through connecting conservation to communities and considering their present and future environmental, societal and economic needs.

Community, and the beneficial effects of identifying with heritage properties, are central to this argument. Protection and sustainable use of landscapes with which communities identify should empower communities emotionally, socially and economically. Landscape identity is supposed to bind the community together. Yet, it remains unclear who makes up a community, how to recognise one and how exactly communities identify with their heritage sites. Except for the Farø convention, these documents define community geographically as ‘locals’ and their identification with the heritage site is considered stable and self-evident.

Nevertheless, the core of WH nominations is Outstanding Universal Value (OUV): ‘cultural and/or natural significance that is so exceptional as to transcend national boundaries and to be of common importance for present and future generations of all humanity’ (UNESCO, 2015, p. IIA, 49). Thus, WH always envisions a global community whose values and perceptions of the heritage, verbalised by the community of experts, are primary in relation to the ‘local’ communities. To guarantee the permanence of the heritage value, the state parties need to present a unified Interpretation strategy and educational activities for promoting the OUV. This setup holds potential tension, since UNESCO’s ideas of universality and monumental heritage, based on European authorised heritage discourse, have often been criticised for not accommodating the value systems of non-European cultures (Byrne, 1991; Cleere, 2001; Daugbjerg & Fibiger, 2011; Munjeri, 2004; Smith, 2006, and others).

Global, national and local communities, each with their own, sometimes conflicting, heritage values intertwine in WH. In the following article, I will address two main theoretical questions: (1) how can heritage communities be defined; and (2) how we can access their respective heritage identities. To do so, I use a conceptual framework presented in Widgren (2004) that differentiates between forms, functions, processes and context in landscapes, and apply this to a challenging case study of Mt Fuji WH. Mt Fuji is a particularly illuminating case not only because it is a sacred site in a non-European context, but also because mountains’ visibility fosters communities well beyond its geographical location.

The case study is informed by the following sources.

1. Documentation from the intermediary archive of the Shizuoka Prefectural Government (not indexed, closed for public).

2. Semi-structured interviews with officials in nine municipalities and two prefectural governments. The interviewees held different institutional ranks but all of them either were or had been main officers in charge of WH matters.

3. Semi-structured interviews with NGO members (Fuji-san Club, volunteer guide groups)

4. Participant observation and guided field visits at all included properties;

5. Local and national media;

6. Focus group with the residents in Fujinomiya city (February 2017).

Identity, forms, functions, processes and context in heritage

Much has been written about landscape identity, particularly the national one, but also on the identity value of everyday landscapes. An ambiguous term, it has been used both in the meaning of ‘the spatial character of the landscape’ as well as the relation between landscapes and people who identify with them (Egoz, 2013; Loupa Ramos, Bernardo, Carvalho Ribeiro, & Van Eetvelde, 2016; Stobbelaar & Pedroli, 2011).

Landscape identity is not an essential characteristic of space but a social and personal construction that conveys certain values to material features. If landscape identity is the ‘perceived uniqueness of a place’ (Stobbelaar & Pedroli, 2011), then the difference between the ‘normal’ and ‘heritage’ landscapes is that of degree and not kind. At national identity level, landscapes are assumed to embody the history and morals of the forefathers, representing the national character in a tangible way. At community level, landscape and heritage identity surge from everyday interactions with the place. Everyday activities shape both physical and discursive aspects of landscapes, as practices inscribe meanings to space (Ingold, 2000; Wylie, 2007). This, however, does not mean that landscape/heritage identity is a personal construct, divorced from power relations—it is also collective, through embedment into societal habitus (sensu Bourdieu, 1977) in the process of landscape socialisation. Since meaning making is always based on interpretation, cultural codes and past experience, there is no self-evident connection between the identity and landforms that represent it.

Russell (2010) has argued that heritage is grounded in people’s relation to it—in the emotions, affects, perceptions, cognitions and processes. Thus, its protection should also take emotion seriously. Affect-conscious heritage management should pay attention to embodied practice and performance, asking what is done in this place, rather than what heritage objects can be found. Importantly, the practices of heritage making and identity-building include off-site locations of consumption and other interwoven socio-technical systems (Harrison, 2015).

A common critique against embodied practice-based theories of landscape identity is that they are uncritical of power issues or changing identities. (Wylie, 2007, pp. 180–186). I am sceptical about ideas of local landscape identities forming gradually in slow interaction with the environment. Communities, surrounding socio-economic structures and political order change constantly and sometimes abruptly, thus both individuals and groups can rewrite their place identities repeatedly. A heritage site may have evolved during a long period but its inscription is directly related to the perceived threat to preservation, a sense of disconnect.

Therefore, a successful conceptual model for tracing heritage identity should account both for change and the contemporary state of tangible material remains, as well as affects and actions, cultural or political discourses surrounding heritigisation. The conceptual set proposed in Widgren (2004) could be useful here. Widgren differentiates between landscape forms (natural and built environment, e.g. shrine buildings, a stratovolcano), functions that these forms fulfil (religious worship, beauty, physical exercise), processes that sustain these forms and functions through action (praying, painting, climbing) and context, that is, cultural, historical, political background relevant for the interpreter (Shintoism, Western art, nature protection). As we have argued previously (Nugin et al., 2019), culture and landscapes are internally heterogeneous phenomena, where the constituent layers seldom change at the same speed. Any of these four elements can change without causing immediate shifts in the others: functions can change while the form is preserved (preferred heritage management), form can change while functions remain; or interpretative context can change, but processes, functions and forms are retained. This distinction is extremely useful in disentangling contradictive landscape identities.

Classically, functions, processes and context are considered the realm of intangible heritage. While many argue that all heritage is essentially intangible, authorised heritage discourse still tends to separate the tangible and intangible, defining heritage via material artefacts or structures that are ‘real’, unlike identity and affection that ‘may exist’ (Munjeri, 2004; Smith, 2006). The language of the WH documents (including reference to ‘properties’) deliberately objectifies heritage, conveying that heritage manifests its value inherently physically (Smith, 2006, p. 99). Heritage management clearly favours physicality when the authenticity requirement can result in the removal of the site from the WH List in case of extensive changes to the material form, whereas changes in functions, processes and community interaction do not impact authenticity. For the communities involved however, it is the intangible aspects of heritage that determine its value, and the distinction between tangible and intangible is not relevant (Swensen, Jerpåsen, Sæter, & Tveit, 2013).

Mt Fuji WH

Mt Fuji was inscribed in UNESCO WH List as a cultural heritage site Fujisan, sacred place and source of artistic inspiration in 2013, but the history of its nomination goes back to 1992 when Japan ratified the WH Convention.¹ That same year, several NGOs in Shizuoka and Yamanashi prefectures set up a ‘Council for Coordinating Mt Fuji WH Nomination’ in the natural heritage category and started collecting signatures for a petition. In 1994, 2 460 000 signatures were presented to the Parliament. The Ministry of Environment carried out an investigation but concluded in 2003 that Mt Fuji did not fulfil the criteria. In 2005, a new NGO was formed for promoting WH nomination in the cultural heritage category, finally leading to the sites’ inscription in 2013 under the lead of the prefectural governments.²

Mt Fuji is a serial nomination, including 25 components on 20 702 ha under the administration of 13 municipalities in Yamanashi and Shizuoka prefectures (Figure 1). The inscription was made on the bases of criteria (iii) ‘unique … testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization’, and (vi) ‘to be directly or tangibly associated with … artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance’ (UNESCO, 2015). In Mt Fuji’s case, it meant the tradition of ‘mountain worship from ancient times to the present day’, ‘linked to a deep adoration of Fujisan that inspired countless works of arts depicting what was seen as its perfect form’ and that ‘had an outstanding impact on the development of Western art’ (Nomination, 2013; my emphasis). The initial criteria, (vii) exceptional natural beauty and (iv) an outstanding cultural landscape, were dropped.

Figure 1. Location of Fujisan WH in Shizuoka and Yamanashi Prefectures, Japan, with main component parts mentioned in this paper.

(Source: author).

The component parts consist of (1) the mountain area above 1500 m, including the mountaintop worship site and four ascending routes with their religious and lodging facilities; (2) the compounds and buildings of the shrines that served as entrance points to ascent, and oshi³ lodging houses for pilgrims; (3) natural landscape elements that became pilgrimage destinations (lava caves, waterfalls, lakes and springs) and (4) classical viewpoints featured in art. In short, the OUV of Fujisan is defined via its role as an object of especially Shinto worship and its form as the source of artistic inspiration, whereas the cultural and natural landscapes that they are based on were not considered unique enough. ICOMOS had recommended to remove one of the viewpoints, Miho-no-Matsubara pine grove, from the nomination, stating that it is simply ‘a place from which to appreciate the form of the mountain’ and not its ‘integral part’ (ICOMOS, 2013). Eventually, Fujisan was inscribed together with Miho-no-Matsubara but with six requests, including the necessity to improve the overall vision and the interpretation strategy (UNESCO, 2013).

Community of the mountain?

Determining the communities and heritage identity for a complex exceeding 20 hectares is undoubtedly challenging. To complicate matters further, the OUV of Fujisan is not related to local land use practices. Instead, the inscribed shrines and lodgings once catered for pilgrims from the entire Kanto region and not all villages on the mountain were involved in the business. Viewpoints present another challenge, as they are located far from the mountain. The following section outlines several possible communities, whose heritage identities are revealed through how they relate to the forms, functions, processes and contexts of Fujisan WH.

‘Locals’

In practical politics, the ‘locals’ tend to be the inhabitants of the administrative units immediately bordering a heritage component. In Japan, all objects included in the WH nomination need to be registered as important cultural properties first. This requires an agreement from all landowners whose properties border the site or who currently have a right for its economic use. So, for example, to designate the Fuji Five Lakes as important cultural properties, it was decided to delimit the property with the lake surface, excluding the shores, so as to reduce the number of signatories. Nevertheless, at Lake Yamanakako and Lake Kawaguchiko this meant the signatures of almost 140 and 220 leisure boat businesses, respectively, eventually causing a 1-year delay in WH nomination.⁴

In case of prior designation as an important cultural property, further signatures were not required for WH registration. In such cases, both prefectural and municipal governments held open hearings where plans were introduced to the ‘locals’. Due to social dynamics in male-dominated Japan, there is a tendency for the ‘locals’ to be represented by the chairs of neighbourhood associations, mostly retired men.

This design might be practical, but it does not help to delimit heritage communities since many societal groups are not represented and the hearings do not favour bottom-up suggestions. The administrative definition of the local community pinpoints neighbours, but neighbours are not necessarily the users of the heritage. It does not specify how the heritage relates to community identity or what activities can be restricted or structures dismantled without damaging the community function. Shifting our attention from what there is (shrines, caves, routes—the forms) to what is done in these places and what for (functions and processes), we can differentiate communities and groups who relate to the component parts through different landscape identities.

Shinto shrines are directly linked to Mt Fuji OUV as an object of worship, yet shrines vary in their importance beyond their townships. As we will see, the religious community invoked in the WH nomination are pilgrims whose flow stopped in the beginning of the 20th century. Therefore, these sanctuaries have survived in their present state only because they have been incorporated into community life without pilgrimage business as well.

An obvious function of shrines is to practice faith, so theoretically shrine registers could be used for defining heritage communities. However, the Japanese sense of religion is relatively loose and the religious membership is non-institutionalised. Most people carry out both Shinto and Buddhist rituals without considering themselves religious or attending one definite temple or shrine (Mullins, 2011). They can be registered as members in multiple religious centres simultaneously, without regularly visiting any. To trace a community that identifies with a shrine, it would be necessary to turn away from the religious-administrative definition and look at who does what in these places.

Actual commitment to the shrine is most visible through the participation in monthly cleaning and reconstruction activities, including donations for erecting torii gates and lantern posts. Their advantage is that they leave a material trace. Nevertheless, for the local community it may not be the material outcome (form) that is important but the process, possibility to decide what is done, and the function of the construction: 40% of the ‘locals’ surveyed in Fujinomiya⁵ expressed concern that heritage nomination would result in restrictions concerning reconstruction according to their needs.

A good example is Yamamiya Sengen-jinja Shrine, a small shrine in Fujinomiya City with a relatively local role since the 19th century. This is a unique shrine where instead of the main hall there is an open prayer space with a constellation of lava stones (Figure 2). The prayer space is situated at the end of the lava flow from an eruption 2000 years ago and is surrounded by a concrete fence. As historically there was no forest on the slopes, Mt Fuji was visible behind it. The surrounding fence was crowd-financed and erected by the shrine congregation in the mid-20th century. When registering the shrine as a national cultural property, the fence was considered irrelevant for its heritage value and destined for removal. The shrine community protested. City government interpreted this as locals’ affection to the structure (form of the heritage) and decided to leave it, only to be confronted with the community’s discontent again. A focus group in the neighbourhood revealed that they were now upset because they had hoped for replacing the concrete with something better. In short, for the neighbourhood it was not the physical fence (form) that was important, but its function and the fact that they had erected it—a process through which they enacted their devotion.

Figure 2. Yamamiya shrine’s concrete fence and prayer space with lava stones. Mt Fuji can be seen as a shadow behind the plantation forest. Originally the prayer space was surrounded by natural lava stone mounds.

(Source: author).

Sanctuaries also function as meeting points and develop secondary functions that may have a limited relation to religious or WH values, but are important for communities’ quality of life. These secondary functions tend to be less respected than religious needs. One example is the ritual washing pond at Fujisan Honmiya Sengen Jinja shrine in Fujinomiya City (Figure 3). After the flow of pilgrims stopped in the early 20th century, this pond continued to be used by the neighbourhood, especially children, for bathing. This spontaneous activity was restricted with the national cultural property registration and was not projected as a mundane continuation of a religious practice.

Figure 3. Ritual pond formed from Mt Fuji’s snow-melting water at Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha shrine in Fujinomiya city. It is no longer allowed to enter the pond.

(Source: author)

These restrictions appear to affect those objects that fit the context of ‘cultural heritage’ more comfortably. For example, Shiraito-no-taki falls in the same Fujinomiya city were registered as a Natural Monument and here the restoration works gave people access to water, but restricted economic activities.

Religious community

Religious value stands at the core of the Mt Fuji WH. According to the Nomination file, the volcanic eruptions created a sense of reverence that led to many Japanese religions and sects worshipping the mountain. (Nomination, 2013, p. 36) The nomination dossier mentions prehistoric as well as Buddhist belief systems, but a closer analysis shows that the OUV focuses on Shintoism. A majority of the sites relate to the 17-19th century worship called Fuji-kō, widespread in present Tokyo, Chiba and Saitama prefectures: all the abovementioned shrines, caves and waterfalls are parts of the Fuji-kō pilgrimage route to the summit. Murayama Sengen-jinja shrine is the only Buddhist temple included, and even this is registered as a shrine rather than a Buddhist temple. Since Buddhist ascetic practices have played an important part in mountain worship and Buddhism and Shintoism were not separated until the end of the 19th century,⁶ there are no historical reasons why the Buddhist sites should be omitted. Unique prehistoric sites are also excluded.

Who, then, is the religious community of the Mt Fuji WH? Mountain hut keepers ground their economic rights in the history of worship ascent but at present their identity is more professional than religious. Fuji-kō, the central religious group in the nomination, is dwindling in numbers and they participate actively in only a couple of component parts (mostly in Fujiyoshida), while local religious communities actively use other parts. I argue that the OUV is more grounded in the national imagination of a unified Shinto religion than the rich array of real religious communities. For example, the Murayama Sengen-Jinja shrine’s community identifies as Buddhist and continues the Buddhist ascent tradition, but its inscription underlines its Shinto history. When an NGO Fujinomiya Women’s Network decided to gather local lore on the Murayama and Yamamiya sanctuaries, they were warned against distributing the book through voluntary guides’ offices because it contained ‘local and irrelevant stories’⁷ that depart from the WH interpretative strategy. Although they oversee the structure of their sanctuaries (forms), they are not in charge of their stories (context), while their processes (Buddhist practice) are deemed ‘inauthentic’.

In fact, apart from Fuji-kō, mountain worship around Mt Fuji is thriving. Many old worship sites have become power-spots for modern urbanites, while numerous new religions carry out their ceremonies. The landscape identity of these groups is considered irrelevant for the WH site unless they regularly use some of the registered shrines, even though the functions, processes and context of their practices are closely related to the OUV. The nominating party has opted for an interpretative context of the national community, rendering non-matching communities invisible, despite their strong connections to the religious value of Mt Fuji.

Climber’s community

Climbers’ practice is historically rooted in Mt Fuji’s heritage value—mountain worship. Annually, two to three hundred thousand climbers ascend Mt Fuji in a period of two and half months, sixty per cent using the Yoshida trailhead in Yamanashi Prefecture, closest to Tokyo.⁸ Although ascending routes and their infrastructures are crucial to heritage, and religious ascent is at the core of communicating heritage value, the process of climbing and its management by the local governments are poorly linked to the long-term history of this religious practice.

The most common climbing pattern is to take public transport or a car to the Fifth station (at 2305 m in the Yoshida trailhead) and start the ascent from there (Yamamoto, Jones, & Aramaki, 2014). The climbers are young and many have no prior climbing experience, nor do they regularly practice sports. For the Japanese and foreign climbers alike, sunrise is the preferred time for reaching the summit; therefore, more than half of the climbers start the ascent in the darkness to arrive in time for the sun salute.

This climbing pattern is problematic from a safety perspective. It clearly presents challenges for heritage management, but it also highlights the detachment of modern climbing practices from the heritage value of historical religious pilgrimages.

Greeting the sunrise at the summit was a natural part of historical pilgrimage practice, but today’s climbers hardly relate to this tradition. Starting the ascent from the Fifth station means that the climbers bypass all religious sites below, whereas for the religious pilgrims, the visits to shrines at each stage of the mountain as well as purification rites at lava caves and waterfalls were crucial parts of the religious experience (Earhart, 2011).

It can be argued that the climbers’ community identifies rather with the natural than the cultural heritage value of the place. The information materials distributed to climbers confirm this supposition. These documents, such as the Mt Fuji Country Code,⁹ establish rules for best behaviour and recommendations for safe climbing. Despite Mt Fuji being a cultural heritage site, the rules pertain only to the natural environment: it is prohibited to disturb plants or animals, remove rocks, scratch or paint graffiti on the rocks, soil the toilets. There is no mention of cultural objects, although looting has been a long-term issue for the shrines. As a result, shrines that were located on more abandoned trails have either moved the whole building down to the village (like Fuji Omuro Sengen-jinja Shrine transferred from the Second Station to Lake Kawaguchiko in 1973)¹⁰ or gathered the divine statues from the mountain shrines and sites into one lockable storage room (such as at Gotemba Fifth station).¹¹

Consequently, rules regarding cultural properties would in fact be necessary in the climbing guidelines and their absence underlines the perceived divide between the ‘heritage tourists’ and ‘climbers’ on the management level, as well as among the climbers themselves. Although some forms and processes resemble the religious pilgrimages, the climbers’ community carries a very distinct identity due to its different context and functions.

Regional and non-administrative

Discursive change from natural to cultural heritage has created considerable confusion, especially in cases like the Fuji Five Lakes that were already included in a national park and whose cultural property designation without any built structures is counterintuitive for the Japanese understanding of ‘nature’ and ‘culture’. The same is true of the mountain itself that has always been considered ‘nature’, despite huge anthropogenic influences. Here the expert tendency to increase the range of the ‘cultural’ category, considering most of today’s landscapes anthropogenic phenomena, is at odds with the Japanese interpretation where ‘cultural’ is strictly reserved for constructions, whereas ‘natural’ can easily accommodate anthropogenic features. This tension between cultural and natural context is important for rendering visible those groups whose identity is strongly related to Mt Fuji but who do not identify with the proposed OUV.

Regional groups, not motivated by administrative borders, have been major players in Mt Fuji’s environmental protection and WH nomination, but their Mt Fuji lies in the context of ‘natural heritage’. Fuji-san Club is a citizen group that has been instrumental to the process. Founded in 1998, their main activities are environmental monitoring; the clean-up and mapping of illegally dumped garbage; environmental education and ecotourism. Their most famous feat is the installation of bio-composting toilets on the mountain to solve the extensive pollution caused by climbers’ excrements that do not decompose in the high mountain environment. Local, regional and central governments had all been refusing to deal with the issue and started to invest in bio-toilets only after Fuji-san Club successfully installed them in some high mountain huts and proved their functioning through several years. Although some of the club’s members backed the campaign for cultural heritage nomination, they hoped that inscription would force the state to deal with overuse by climbing and massive pollution on the mountain. In short, their context remained natural heritage management.

Throughout the years, Fuji-san club has become a visible stakeholder also on the policy level, but many smaller citizen groups whose membership does not depend on administrative borders would be invisible to heritage management unless we pay attention to their activities: the functions and processes that are likely to be grounded in the context of natural, not cultural heritage value. These communities could never be traced down through administrative indices but are crucial for the mountain’s development.

In fact, a mountain’s community extends beyond its immediate surroundings. Membership of Fuji-related citizen groups covers the entire Kanto area where the mountain is visible. This was also the case of the Fuji-kō religious community that was spread all over the visibility zone of the mountain and expressed its identity connection with the distant volcano through erecting the so-called Fujizuka—stone mounds imitating the shape of Mt Fuji. It can be argued that the state party should have nominated some Fujizuka for demarcating the widespread cultural identification with the mountain, but eventually Miho-no-Matsubara (Figure 4) is the only component that stands for the Japanese admiration of Mt Fuji from afar. Yet, Miho-no-Matsubara was only included in the inscription with references to art, that is, its national and global value, and regional non-administrative community identity remained invisible.¹²

Figure 4. Miho-no-matsubara is a set of a sand beach, pine forest, sea and a mountain—a classical landscape image in the Japanese arts.

(Source: author).

National and global community

National and global communities of heritage are neither identical, nor do they share the same values and expectations. The state party composes the nomination departing from what they expect the external experts to appreciate and what they themselves consider important, presentable and not shameful. It is not simply a matter of removing exclusive national interest and achieving a general picture, valid for the whole humanity, it is also a matter of internalised expert discourse that is grounded in European enlightenment understanding of aesthetics, religion and culture.¹³ Therefore, the state party nomination may already propose stories that have been cropped to fit the imagined expert discourse, but not necessarily local perceptions. When assets become WH, their beneficiary changes: now it is humanity at large that has the foremost rights of access, consumption and inheritance (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 2006, p. 184), even though ‘humanity’ does not bear the same responsibility for maintenance as the locals. In other words, ‘global heritage aspirations [might] be just as exclusionary as the narrower national ones’ (Daugbjerg & Fibiger, 2011, p. 142), overriding interpretations and heritage identities of lower level communities.

Mt Fuji is widely utilised to symbolise the Japanese nation both in inward and outward communication. It greets the visitor in all imaginable forms: on the Japan Rail Pass cover, a thousand yen note, random travel advertisements, and goods of all sorts. Both Americans and Japanese extensively used images of a snow-clad Mt Fuji in WW II propaganda (Earhart, 2011; Figure 5) and even today, the Japanese self-defence forces love to take PR pictures on their vast training grounds at the foot of Mt Fuji. The use of its iconic cone shape is so ubiquitous that it is impossible to give a comprehensive overview. What is characteristic, however, is its use as a visual iconic form, devoid of life processes.

Figure 5. B-29 Superfortress bombers near Mount Fuji, Japan, in July 1945.

Source: https://ww2db.com/  United States National Parks Service, public domain.

The iconic language for depicting Mt Fuji was defined in the woodblock prints of the early modern period, in the context of flourishing mountain worship in the present-day Kanto region. But its career as a symbol of the Japanese nation became possible only once the modern nation was formed, and with the help of the first foreign visitors. Japonisme and European fascination with woodblock prints promoted Mt Fuji from a regional to national symbol, at the same time removing the vivid everyday motifs of the woodblock art from the iconic picture.¹⁴ Both nomination documents and the ICOMOS evaluation are extremely focused on this form and its impact on the European arts. The ICOMOS evaluation reads:

The images of Fujisan on early 19th-century Ukiyo-e prints … have not only had a significant impact on many Western works of art, but have established Fujisan as a symbol of Japan and Japanese culture throughout the world. … (ICOMOS, 2013)

The delegates of the WH Committee seconded this in their comments. As a proof of heritage value, Estonian and French delegates seized the opportunity to mention some more artists from their countries who also were inspired by the mountain. Against ICOMOS’ recommendations, Miho-no-Matsubara is inscribed because delegates unanimously find it related to the spirituality of the mountain, expressed through artworks that have had worldwide impact.

Since the preservation of visual forms is a standard in heritage management, the aesthetic impact of a view was a readily understood ‘global value,’ which was immediately put into practice. To preserve views, municipalities have started burying power lines in locations with undisturbed vistas of the mountain, imposing limitations to flashy signs, and replacing concrete tetrapods at Miho-no-Matsubara beach for more handsome ones. Although this description does not display any community identities, it does not deny any local interpretations either, therefore, the resultant policies have not been contested.

However, my field work indicated that not all community groups comprehend the inscription as the ‘object of worship’ equally. There is no space for a detailed religious history, but it was through nation-building processes that the symbiotically existing Shinto and Buddhism were separated and Shinto was promoted as a national religion. On one hand, it was a new nation’s aspiration to become Modern like the monotheist Western countries. On the other, it was an internalised Orientalism: in the mirror of the Western admirers searching for the noble savage, the Japanese society re-cast itself as the animists who lived in harmony with nature.¹⁵ The nomination file states:

the awe with which Fujisan was regarded, based on the uniquely Japanese religion of Shinto, inspired a tradition that emphasized coexistence with the natural environment. (Nomination, 2013, p. 147)

As we have seen, the rendering of Shinto as an independent institutionalised religion is neither historically correct, nor does it correspond to the identities and practices of today’s loose religious communities, but it rather serves two purposes for the nominating party. First, several interviewed officials mentioned that the monotheist Westerners had difficulties with understanding the animism and the symbiotic relationship between different belief systems, they felt it was easier for the global community ‘to digest’ if they simplified the religious context. Second, it takes Mt Fuji back to the context of natural heritage. Such institutionalisation of animism reinforces recent trends of ecologic nationalism in Japan that depict the Japanese as a wise animist culture that has lived in harmony with nature through centuries. Clearly, this internalised Orientalism does not accommodate those communities who daily tackle the omnipresent environmental issues of the mountain.

Discussion

Above I demonstrated how invisible community identities can be rendered visible through a simple shift of attention from heritage forms to processes, functions and context, asking who does what and why. In the context of changing communities and landscapes, this distinction helps to uncover continuities and discontinuities with historical traditions and avoid discrediting changing landscape identities as inauthentic. If heritage/landscape identity is a process, a relation, then its change is natural and should not discredit the identity as non-valid.

Registering a WH requires constructing a storyline, indicative of the site’s OUV—its value for the global community. In theory, this should not mean that the local values disappear, but in practice the heritage value and meanings of the site are narrowed down to fit the storyline. Life and history, however, are always more multifaceted than a single story and we may argue that heritage sites have been preserved until today exactly because they could be adapted to changing societies, needs and identities. Appointing one authoritative interpretation as the leading value of the site and preserving the extant form of the heritage curbs the adaptation process. For many heritage sites, it may be their only chance for survival. Yet, it inevitably means that the versatility of functions and narrative contexts are reduced through the authorised heritage discourse, especially concerning the landscapes of everyday lives, the landscape identity of local and regional groups and the historical depth of the place.

Despite increasing insistence from ICOMOS and UNESCO that state parties should include more versatile stories and pay due respect to the dark side of the heritage, national pride coupled to WH makes inclusiveness difficult. Insistence on one coherent interpretation of the global value results in unfortunate instances where heritage communities are ‘re-educated’ about the value of their sites and, like in the example of Murayama-Yamamiya legends, part of their identity is declared historically inauthentic. At worst, such heritage sites are in danger of becoming ‘landscape mummies’—sites with perfectly authentic form but no life-sustaining functions and processes that would nurture landscape identity. A ‘landscape mummy’, like a regular mummy, needs constant life support from outside for its maintenance. They are not sustainable on their own in the present state. Currently central, prefectural and municipal governments finance heritage maintenance in Japan, whereas much of the work on the ground relies on elderly volunteers. However, with today’s extreme rate of depopulation accompanied by a boom of WH nominations, it is probable that not all the ‘mummified’ heritage sites, divorced from their communities, will be sustainable.

The tendency to forcefully narrow down heritage value is particularly problematic in cases where the visual form of the heritage is in focus, like at Mt Fuji. Concentrating on the visual form alone renders functions, processes and context behind it invisible. Undoubtedly, locals also enjoy looking at Mt Fuji because of its form, but their experience of the place is much more versatile. Clashes between different contexts—that is the Japanese concept of nature and popular religion versus the grand culture narrative and institutionalised Shinto religion of the OUV—have resulted in difficulties for some related communities to connect to the WH. Administratively unrelated communities that organise around nature protection are excluded from WH value altogether, despite being a driving force in its environmental management. Climbers still stick to some of the forms and processes identifiable in the religious communities included in the OUV, but their context of action, needs and purposes are profoundly different. It may be tempting to appeal to the superficial continuity of pilgrimage tradition for a greater legitimacy of the heritage, but for a functioning solution for Mt Fuji’s most burning issue—vast pressure by the growing number of visitors—crucial differences in these groups’ identity and behaviour need to be addressed. Distinction between forms, functions, processes and contexts could be one easily accessible tool for practitioners to pinpoint communities whose support is essential for keeping the heritage alive. It also helps to establish what is valuable for each group.

Mt Fuji WH is luckily still quite far from mummification, except for some religious buildings, but its future health will depend on how different important functions, processes and contexts are embedded in the WH framework. This demands not only commitment from the national and local heritage management, but also more discussion at UNESCO and ICOMOS level of essentialised concepts of community, identity and OUV. This discussion has been going on for some time but as Eurocentric concepts have been profoundly internalised also by the local experts, a more vigorous push is necessary for the local management to have the courage to campaign for less standard definitions and values.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks all the people who have taken their time to answer my questions. I also thank Junzo Uchiyama, Lize-Marié van der Watt, Cristian Ortiz-Villalón and Thomas Edward Jones for their help and advice during the research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Shizuoka Municipal Government and the Estonian Research Council under Grant IUT2-44.

Notes

1. The following account is based on the Shizuoka Prefecture’s archival material; documentation of the Ministry of Environment (http://www.env.go.jp/nature/isan/kento/); Noguchi, 2014; Sano, 2008; interview with Watanabe Toyohiro (24 February 2017), media materials.

2. Until 2006, nominations were limited to Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Environment.

3. Oshi—guides who made both secular and religious travel arrangements for worship-ascents in 18th–20th centuries.

4. Interviews with Yamanaka-ko and Kawaguchi-ko municipal officers, 1–2 November 2016.

5. National cultural properties’ site management plan for Fujinomiya city(http://www.city.fujinomiya.lg.jp/fujisan/llti2b0000001m9p-att/llti2b00000071jb.pdf).

6. See Earhart, 2011 for a more detailed history of worship.

7. Female guide in her 50s, interview in Yamamiya, 13 February 2017.

8. Ministry of Environment, http://kanto.env.go.jp/to_2017/29_7.html.

9. http://www.fujisan-climb.jp/en/manner/index.html.

10. Nomination 2013, p. 97–99, interview at Kawaguchi city office 1 November 2016.

11. Mountain hut owner, a woman in 70s, interviewed 29 October 2016.

12. See e.g. delegates utterances at the 37th congress, afternoon session, accessible at http://whc.unesco.org/.

13. See Smith, 2006; Winter, 2014 for a wider debate.

14. It is characteristic that the nomination file mentions only Fuji-related works of art and literature from the ‘high culture’, omitting popular ‘low’ genres such as comic theatre kyōgen.

15. Japanese alleged harmony with nature is a long-discussed topic in Japanese studies. See, for example; Reitan, 2017.