1. Co-Constructing Frames to Warrant Preservation of Iraq’s Cultural Heritage
M. Karen Walker
m.karen.walker.phd@gmail.com • (703) 625-1298
March 2011
The past and current state of Iraq’s cultural patrimony enfolds many stories. The stories
most prominent in the public’s mind focus on loss—decades of looting, deliberate destruction,
and willful neglect of Iraq’s cultural sites and artifacts and intangible culture. The 2003 looting
of the Baghdad museum propels the plot, functioning rhetorically as a synoptic moment that
generated a series of justificatory arguments and warrants for preserving Iraqi cultural heritage.
Employing frames analysis of public statements regarding Iraqi cultural heritage, my inquiry
seeks to shed light on the key moments and voices that have shaped public deliberation and to
assess the role of Iraqi cultural specialists in promoting community reconciliation.
I adhere to Entman’s definition of framing, the process of “selecting and highlighting
some facets of events or issues, and making connections among them so as to promote a
particular interpretation, evaluation, and/or solution.”1
My analysis seeks to understand the
motivational and rhetorical force that a particular frame possesses and conveys in public
argument: how the rhetor targets a problem and solution, blames those responsible, and directs a
course of action.2
The connections and clustering of certain frames can give an argument the
capacity for regeneration as new information and experience is enfolded into an existing
narrative structure.
My analysis works the intersection of argumentation theory and frames analysis, starting
with two premises. First, frames are future-focused; the structure of experience projects
1
Entman, Projections of Power, 5.
2
Ahram, “Symbolic Frames,” 116.

2. Co-Constructing Frames - 2
knowledge (or more appropriately, a knowledge claim) into a future state.3
The construction of a
forward trajectory increases the utility of framing in deliberative argument, which is likewise
oriented for decision-making on future policies and a desired end state. Second, a frame has a
synoptic quality that allows it to function as a warrant for a deliberative claim or inventional
topoi. When stated explicitly in argumentative discourse, a frame gives license to a valid
inference between evidence of a problem and its remedy. As an act of invention, frame selection
is a judgment of the most appropriate discursive action in response to the rhetorical situation and
its exigence.4
With repeated use over time, a particular frame may offer socially accepted
backing for the inferential leap from data to claim, and provide a commonplace for rhetorical
invention.5
The current framing of Iraq’s cultural heritage did not appear fully constructed. As my
analysis illustrates, the predominant frame—that Iraq’s heritage belongs to all humanity—has
been co-constructed over time by Iraqi and U.S. officials, Iraqi cultural specialists, and their
advocates and mentors. Rhetorical tracings suggest a future trajectory toward restoration with
sense of pride as an emotive quality. Whereas the imperatives for Iraqi cultural heritage
preservation include unity and reconciliation frames, these particular frames are attributed to
Western academics.
A review of aspirational statements written by a small group of students at the Iraqi
Institute for the Conservation of Antiquities and Heritage suggests a high degree of consonance
between the frames that dominate public or mediated discourse and the rhetorical invention of
individuals charged with the preservation and conservation of Iraq’s ancient artifacts. This
consonance breeds confidence in the ability of Iraqi cultural heritage specialists to participate in
3
Reese, “The Framing Project,” 150.
4
Crosswhite, “Awakening the Topoi,” 173.
5
Van Gorp, “The Constructionist Approach,” 64.

3. Co-Constructing Frames - 3
the framing process and thereby add their voice to matters of policy and community
reconciliation.
Iraqi cultural specialists have a dual role as participants in the framing process. They
interject specialized and field-dependent knowledge claims into the public debate, speaking with
the authority of the Government of Iraq, but also promote community interests as members of
Iraq’s civil society. The ever-present choice between these two roles bestows the ability to re-
articulate ephemeral public conversations on cultural patrimony as governmental decisions on
cultural policy, and to re-articulate government cultural policies as a support for community
reconciliation.6
How does one recognize the rhetorical vestiges of reconciliation? I suggest that one
place to look is the construction of frames to warrant the public’s support of Iraqi policies and
partnerships to preserve, conserve, and display Iraq’s cultural artifacts. Through my analysis, I
seek to confirm that Iraqi cultural specialists are participating in the construction of frames; to
assess the fit between national frames and the stated purposes of a small community of Iraqi
cultural heritage professionals; and to reflect upon the potential enactment of one’s professional
identity to achieve reconciliation through praxis.
Narrative Frames Warranting the Preservation of Iraqi Cultural Heritage
My analysis is based on a review of 120 news articles, news releases, public statements
and speech texts collected through a Lexis-Nexis search and the news archive for the State
Department’s Iraq Cultural Heritage Project. The articles encompass a four-year time period,
from December 2005 to December 2009. The date range was designed to encapsulate narrative
frames leading up to the partial re-opening of the Iraqi National Museum in February 2009.
6
Wahl-Jorgensen, “An Interview with Seyla Benhabib,” 964.

4. Co-Constructing Frames - 4
Additional events that fed the framing process include the Fall 2006 resignation and flight of Iraq
National Museum director Donny George; the five-year anniversary of the looting of the Iraq
National Museum and high-profile events marking the return of stolen artifacts; the official
launch of the State Department’s Iraq Cultural Heritage Project in October 2008; and associated
January 2009 announcement of the “Future of Babylon” project.
The dominant frame and its evolution. The framing analysis yielded 20 individual
themes that could be considered the repertoire of available justificatory arguments or warrants
for preserving Iraqi cultural heritage. Among the most durable, expansive, and self-regenerative
frames: Iraq’s cultural heritage belongs to all humanity. Equating the loss of Iraq’s cultural
heritage with a loss for all of human heritage provides the core theme, with the tautology
appearing in situational variations over time.
Closely related to the “all humanity” frame is Iraq’s place as the progenitor of
civilization, i.e., “looting affects all of us because these are the roots of all Western tradition.”7
In contrast to the “all humanity” frame, which sets Iraq in an outward pose, “civilization” allows
a certain degree of possessiveness, as expressed by Prime Minister Maliki: “Iraqi antiquities
represent the Mesopotamian civilization, which is our national treasure.”8
Iraq’s Ambassador to
the United States offered a more adroit formulation that entwined both sentiments: “Iraqi
heritage does not concern Iraq only. It belongs to all humanity. Our great ancestors showed
remarkable ingenuity and enterprise ... they left us a description of the dawn of civilization
which, given its extreme antiquity, was marked by an amazing coherence and sophistication.”9
7
Andrew Hermann, “Oriental Institute Exhibit Highlights Looting of Iraq: Thefts Continue to Damage ‘Roots of
All Western Civilization,’” Chicago Sun-Times, April 10, 2008.
8
“Maliki, Pepe Benedict XVI Discuss Iraq Security,” Aswat Al-Iraq, July 25, 2008.
9
“Iraq Cultural Heritage Project,” Fact Sheet issued by the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs, U.S.
Department of State, October 16, 2008; also found in the prepared remarks for Ambassador Sumaia’ie, released by
the Iraqi Embassy on October 16, 2008.

5. Co-Constructing Frames - 5
Ambassador Sumaida’ie’s statement provided the marquee quote for the October 2008 launch of
the Iraq Cultural Heritage Project, and rejuvenated the all humanity-civilization frame within the
meta-narrative.
The framing device of “discovery” completes the triad to warrant immediate protective
action, as illustrated in the following claim: “About 90 per cent of Iraq’s archaeological sites are
still underground and a wealth of temples and palaces that have yet to be excavated are being
targeted by looters. Digging several metres (sic) below ground, they are leaving a landscape that
has been likened to the surface of the moon.”10
The triadic humanity-civilization-discovery
frame seeks to motivate immediate action to stop the looting. The loss of artifacts to looting,
degradation and urbanization inhibits scholarly discovery and the sharing of knowledge about
early civilizations. The sharing of knowledge, in turn, is how Iraq will emerge from isolation;
and only by breaking out of its isolation will Iraq experience its cultural renaissance.
The framing process is organic; a frame takes root in public discourse, interacts with its
environment, buds out, and replants itself. In this fashion, the humanity-civilization-discovery
triad provides the root for a new frame that creates an obligation to care for cultural sites and
artifacts. The obligation frame takes two forms of purposeful action, stewardship and
guardianship. More so than guardianship, the stewardship frame pays the obligation forward, to
future generations. The argument is tightly wound in the following quote from Donny George,
at the time still serving as Chairman of the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage: “It is
our duty to protect the cultural heritage of the people of Iraq, which is also the cultural heritage
of mankind, to preserve it for the coming generations.”11
More than two years later, Assistant
Secretary of State Goli Ameri would reprise this formulation when launching the Iraq Cultural
10
Dayla Alberge, “Stop the Looters Destroying History,” The Times of London, October 25, 2006.
11
Lisa S’derlindh, “Iraq: Priceless Assyrian Relics Used for Target Practice,” Inter Press Service, June 13, 2006.

6. Co-Constructing Frames - 6
Heritage Project: “The values of culture, of heritage, are central to human life and it is the one
thing that we all have in common. Efforts to share the benefits of cultural heritage and to protect
and preserve humanities heritage for future generations is what binds us all together.”12
Stewardship itself is split among two motives: restoration, an altruistic interpretation
with antecedents from the civilization frame; and recovery, a utilitarian interpretation with
entailments such as future prosperity, frequently paired with tourism. Restoration and recovery
appeared initially in tandem, a pragmatic response to a series of high-profile events in April and
June 2008, in which the United States and Iraq’s neighbors announced the repatriation of stolen
artifacts. The finer distinction between restoration and recovery within the meta-narrative is
derived from the symbolic meaning of these acts and the Iraqis’ response.
Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki employed the restoration frame on the occasion of the partial
re-opening of the Iraqi National Museum in February 2009: “We do not want only to be proud
of our past, but we want also to be partners and active participants in the human civilization.
Opening this museum is a stage at which we stop to derive morals and lessons, the first being
that … [Iraq] is not a nation without roots.”13
On this same occasion, Iraq’s Minister for State
Tourism and Antiquities, whom one would expect to adopt the utilitarian frame focused on
attractions and their amenities, gestured instead toward restoration of Iraq to its former glory,
expressing his desire for visitors “to see that Baghdad is still the same as it was in their eyes and
has not turned to ruins, as the enemies of life wanted.”14
Their words possess an emotive quality
in Iraqis’ sense of pride.
12
Assistant Secretary of State Goli Ameri at Announcement of Iraq Cultural Heritage Project, October 16, 2008.
13
Lennox Samuels and Saad al-Izzi, “Baghdad’s Red Carpet,” Newsweek, February 23, 2009.
14
Steven Lee Myers, “Far From Whole, Iraq Museum That Was Looted Reopens,” New York Times, February 23,
2009.

7. Co-Constructing Frames - 7
In contrast to stewardship, the guardianship frame assigns obligation based on past
wrongs, with the attitude of repentance, and the purpose of providing Iraqis with stability for
rebuilding. Examples from news coverage typical of the guardianship frame include the
following, which appeared in the press around the fourth anniversary of the looting of the Iraq
National Museum: “Occupying powers in Iraq have signally failed to invest the funds and
energies needed to protect the cultural heritage of Iraq which is ultimately under their
guardianship”15
; “the British government had an obligation to the Iraqi people”16
; “Just as we
(Americans) caused the damage in the first place, we have the power to repair it”17
; and “We’re
the ones who took over this country. We’re the ones who occupied it, and under our occupation,
this great thievery has happened. We owe a debt to human history and culture.”18
USA Today
reporter Charles Levinson characterized a U.S. Government grant to refurbish the Iraq National
Museum as “making amends,” using his story lead to amplify the view of Iraq’s Ministry of
Tourism: “It’s good for people to fix their mistakes, even if they were unintentional.”19
Illustrating the dynamic nature of the framing process, in her remarks launching the Iraq
Cultural Heritage Project, First Lady Laura Bush inverted guardianship from a U.S. to an Iraqi
responsibility: “many of us may not realize that the people of today’s Iraq are the guardians of
10,000 years of history.” The introduction of the Iraq Cultural Heritage Project into the
unfolding and continuing meta-narrative created the potential for new off-shoots in the framing
process. The guardianship frame integrates with the stewardship frame; Mrs. Bush sublimated
15
Marie Woolf, “Desecration of the Cradle of Civilization,” The Independent, April 15, 2007.
16
Ibid.
17
James Hossack, “Route 66, Iraqi Sites Among Most at Risk,” Agence France Presse, June 6, 2007.
18
Tara Burghart, “Exhibit Details Destruction of Iraq’s Cultural Heritage,” AP Worldstream, April 10, 2008.
19
Charles Levinson, “Boosts for Museum, Zoo Touted as Step Forward for U.S., Iraq,” USA Today, October 24,
2008

8. Co-Constructing Frames - 8
U.S. responsibility for the direct care and protection of Iraq’s cultural heritage, focusing instead
on capacity-building for Iraqi cultural preservation specialists.
Academics participated in this revision; an example is this quote by the President of the
Oriental Institute’s Field Museum: “It’s taken [the U.S. Government] a long time to figure out
how to do it. But they are finally doing. And in an intelligent way: training Iraqis to do it
themselves, not sending foreigners over to impose our ideas on them.”20
The emergence of Iraq
from isolation would be achieved through practice in contemporary methods on conservation and
preservation. Iraqi officials, including the Minister of Culture, would subsequently address
isolation not only as technical advancement but also in the sharing of culture and values through
traditional and people-to-people diplomacy, returning attention to “restoration” and its forward
momentum of an Iraqi “renaissance.”21
The foregoing analysis illustrates the rhetorical richness and sustaining power of the
originating “all humanity-civilization-discovery” frame. A small set of minor themes round out
the repertoire of frames available to proponents of preserving and conserving Iraq’s cultural
patrimony. I term these frames “minor” for several reasons. First, the minor frames have a
distinct attribution that limited their accessibility to Iraqis themselves. Second, the characteristic
pattern of the minor frames’ appearance across time is one of sprouting and wilting. Third, the
minor frames, like minor notes in a major key, create dissonance in their impact or discomfort in
their use.
Minor frames within the repertoire. Minor frames emanate from advocates and
academics, in contrast to the major frames co-constructed with Iraqi officials and cultural
heritage specialists. Terrorist finance is one such minor frame. It is most often attributed to
20
Ron Grossman, “Safeguarding Iraq’s Antiquities,” Chicago Tribune, October 16, 2008.
21
“Iraq in Focus: U.S. Embassy and Ministry of Culture Launch Iraq Cultural Heritage Project,” U.S. Embassy
Baghdad news release, October 20, 2008.

9. Co-Constructing Frames - 9
Matthew Bogdanos, an active duty Marine Colonel serving in Iraq during the 2003 invasion, who
was chosen to lead the investigation into the stolen artifacts. Bogdanos and the team he
assembled are credited with recovering approximately 5,500, and exposing how the profits from
the black market in artifacts funded terrorist (and later insurgent) activities.22
Bogdanos remains
an advocate for increased budgets for art theft squads and efforts “to create a climate of universal
condemnation, rather than sophisticated indulgence, for trafficking in undocumented
antiquities.”23
In only one report did the terrorist/insurgency frame become a direct motivator for action:
“The continued looting of sites and museums around the country is harming more than just our
pursuit of history: It is probably helping to fund the insurgency that is targeting American
soldiers.”24
As a matter of logic, the qualification of “probably” dilutes the claim, but the
exigence to save American soldiers’ lives maintains its potency.
Bogdanos’s own arguments are not exclusive to anti-terrorism and counter-insurgency;
rather, the “all humanity” frame served as a justification for continued vigilence:
I need the world to understand the continuing cultural catastrophe that is represented by
the pillaging of such a shared heritage. … It is crucially important to me and our shared
cultural heritage that this stuff isn’t seen just as a bunch of old alabaster with funny
writing on it. It speaks and resonates with all cultures. The Sacred Vase of Warka …
speaks to all of us, whether we are Jewish, Muslim or Christian.25
Bogdanos also attempted to motivate action using the civilization frame, not in the affirmative
case but rather by inferring barbarism as its antonym: “The continued failure to protect an
artistic heritage going back to the dawn of civilization has convinced many in Iraq and the
22
http://www.marines.com/main/index/winning_battles/history/leaders/col_matthew_bogdanos, accessed October
31, 2010.
23
Matthew Bogdanos, “The Terrorist in the Art Gallery,” New York Times, December 10, 2005.
24
Reid Wilson, “Looting Human Heritage in Iraq,” The National Journal, January 27, 2007.
25
Jacob Stockinger, “Lost and Found: Recovering Pillaged Iraqi Art is Expert’s Goal,” The Capital Times,
Madison, WI, April 17, 2006.

10. Co-Constructing Frames - 10
Middle East that we do not care about any culture other than our own,” and furthermore, if
Mesopotamia’s cultural patrimony were protected from looters, “Al Jazeera would have to find
other ways to show TV clips of Western indifference to Arab culture, and the terrorists would
have to find another income source.”26
This argument—that failure to protect Iraqi cultural
heritage is an act of ignorance and disrespect that negates America’s civilized self-image—is
echoed by Iraq’s Ambassador to UNESCO, in an attempt to draw urgent attention to stop the
smuggling of Iraqi artifacts: “It is a cry in the wilderness. ... None of the Iraqis who are
shouldering this responsibility can move a muscle to confront this savage onslaught. All these
states, particularly those that we describe as civilized, are ignoring this issue.”27
Whereas the “barbarism” frame failed to achieve any degree of repetition, U.S. officials
would remain sensitive to the criticism, and offered indirect rebuttals. For example, First Lady
Laura Bush, when launching the Iraq Cultural Heritage Project in October 2008, reassured her
audience that “Americans understand the importance of preserving cultural heritage—as
evidenced by our many museums, our National Park sites, and our initiatives like the National
Register of Historic Places.”28
Similarly, a January 2009 Department of State news release
described the Future of Babylon project as an exemplar of “the American people’s commitment
to the preservation of human heritage and their respect for the culture of Iraq.”29
Stability emerged as a minor frame in late 2007, as the results of the U.S. military surge
were being realized. Nominally, the addition of stability serves the argumentative purpose of
removing a counter-claim for action to protect Iraqi cultural heritage. The success of the surge
26
Matthew Bogdanos, “Fighting for Iraq’s Culture,” New York Times, March 6, 2007.
27
“Al-Jazeera TV Programme Reports on Stealing of Iraqi Antiquities.” BBC Monitoring Middle East-Political,
November 20, 2007.
28
Mrs. Bush’s Remarks at the Launch of the ‘Iraq Cultural Heritage Project,’” News Release, Office of the First
Lady, October 16, 2008.
29
“The Future of Babylon,” U.S. Department of State News Release, CQ Federal Department and Agency
Documents, January 7, 2009.

11. Co-Constructing Frames - 11
and relative stability allow U.S. and British governments and their military forces to turn their
attention from warfighting to rebuilding. To cite a prominent example, Mrs. Bush described U.S.
engagement in promoting Iraq’s cultural heritage as contingent upon security gains and increased
stability.30
Proponents of cultural preservation efforts invoked “stability” in a different way,
illustrated in this November 2007 statement from UNESCO: “The preservation of one of the
world’s richest and most ancient heritages is at stake. The rehabilitation of Iraqi cultural heritage
is vital to restoring stability in the country, to rebuilding dialogue, social cohesion and,
ultimately, peace.”31
The non-governmental proponents’ formulation inverted the subject-object
relationship; the grammar places stability in the consequential rather than contributing position
of the action. During the October 2008 launch of the Iraq Cultural Heritage Project, Ryan
Crocker, then U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, sought to deconstruct the stability frame altogether,
asking the audience assembled to “recall that we have negotiated two agreements,”32
with the
emphasis on the Strategic Framework Agreement that would establish cooperative ties in
science, technology, education and culture (along with other pillars of the bilateral relationship).
Unity is a third minor frame that first appeared in opinion pieces by Western academics.
For example, archaeologist Anthony Tuck, writing for the Tufts Daily, articulated the unity frame
as follows: “For a country such as Iraq, where tribal and sectarian instincts are quickly replacing
Baathist fascism as the political order of the day, we will find no better reservoir of potentially
unifying imagery than that supplied by the region’s archaeological record,” adding that cultural
30
“U.S. Unveils Iraq Culture Aid,” Agence France Presse, October 16, 2008.
31
“Illegal Trade in Iraqi Cultural Heritage Must End, Says UN Expert Committee,” States News Services,
November 16, 2007.
32
Gina Chon, “U.S. Helps Iraqis Reclaim Their Past with Museum Project,” Wall Street Journal, October 20, 2008;
Riyadh Muhammad, “Program Seeks to Preserve Iraqi History,” New York Times, October 20, 2008.

12. Co-Constructing Frames - 12
artifacts provide “an iconographic language that transcends Sunni, Shiite and Kurd.” 33
Academic
Victoria Coates employed this frame also, blogging in Human Events Online about her plans to
travel to Iraq on an assessment mission of Iraq’s cultural heritage:
The objects and sites … are not Shi’ite or Sunni. They’re not even Christian, Muslim or
Jew. They speak to a common cultural heritage on which we all have drawn, and so
reflect fundamental human achievements such as writing, the rule of law, even the
concept of the calendar. As such they are literally the stuff of national unity, and the
restoration and revitalizatioon of the Baghdad Museum could be an excellent—not to
mention symbolic—focal point for the reconciliation process.34
The unity frame appeared again in the last lines of First Lady Laura Bush’s remarks
launching the Iraq Cultural Heritage Project, with the simple declarative that “The Iraq Cultural
Heritage Project will promote national unity by highlighting the rich heritage that all Iraqis
share,”35
which in its reading seems more cliché than call for action. These quotes illustrate the
use of the unity frame but also hint at why the unity and reconciliation frames have largely failed
to resonate among Iraqis themselves. The directional force of the frame is from the outside in; it
is an imposition, and one that presumes that divisions within Iraqi cultural history and memory
are attributed to religious belief alone.
Cultural genocide is fourth minor frame voiced by advocates. Within the set of published
articles analyzed the frame is limited and circumstantial in its use. For example, when contacted
for reaction to Kurdish authorities’ plans to dynamite caves to create shade for picnickers visiting
Khinnis, home of standing monuments of ancient Assyria, Washington-based Director of the Iraq
Sustainable Democracy Project offered this comment: “For the workers, it is just a public works
project rather than an act of cultural genocide. This is just another example of us being treated as
33
Anthony Tuck, “Nation Building with the Antiquities of Iraq,” University Wire, March 9, 2006.
34
Victoria Coates, “‘Academic’ Boots on the Ground in Baghdad,” Human Events Online, April 4, 2007.
35
“Mrs. Bush’s Remarks at the Launch of the ‘Iraq Cultural Heritage Project,’” News Release, Office of the First
Lady, October 16, 2008.

13. Co-Constructing Frames - 13
second-class citizens. Destroying the site would be a nail in the coffin of the ethnic cleansing of
Assyrians in northern Iraq—our ancestral home.”36
I outline both major and minor frames to help readers appreciate the richness and texture
of the public discourse concerning the imperatives for preserving, conserving, and promoting
Iraqi cultural heritage. The combination of major and minor frames presents a full repertoire of
warrants and claims that both support and constrain the rhetorical invention of individual cultural
heritage specialists. Within the mediated public sphere, the proponents of Iraq’s cultural heritage
perform both legitimizing and representational functions. We can hope but not assume that
selection of frames is deliberate, and that those who have access to the media are cognizant of,
and faithful to, those for whom they speak. How individual cultural heritage specialists make
use of frames as a rhetorical resource is yet unanswered. In the next section, I offer some insight
into this question by analyzing the mission and vision statements of a small group of
professionals attending a summer training course at the Iraqi Institute for the Conservation of
Antiquities and Heritage located in Erbil, Iraq.
Finding Resonant Frames Among a Small Group of Cultural Heritage Specialists
The Iraqi Institute for the Conservation of Antiquities and Heritage, located in Erbil, Iraq,
is one of the components of the State Department’s Iraq Cultural Heritage Project. The Institute
provides an experiential learning environment for professionals in the fields of archaeology and
related disciplines, who receive in-service training to allow them to better manage sites and
museum collections under their direct purview. During the course, students participate in a class
exercise to articulate their individual mission and vision statements, for either the Institute or the
institution—such as a regional museum—where they work. The summer class was composed of
36
Lisa S’derlindh, “Iraq: Priceless Assyrian Artifact Used for Target Practice,” Inter Press Service, June 13, 2006.

14. Co-Constructing Frames - 14
nine students, five men and four women, with diverse ethnic and regional affiliations—Arab and
Kurd, living and working in provinces in both the South, Central, and Northern regions of Iraq,
including provinces seeking to normalize relations and resolve disputed boundaries.
The commonality of frames appearing in public discourse and the students’
mission/vision statements suggests that Iraqi cultural heritage specialists have the potential to
participate in the construction of national frames that warrant the protection of Iraqi cultural
heritage. I found a tight fit for a select number of frames employed consistently by the students.
The students focused on the importance of understanding and explaining the development of
Mesopotamian civilization and its development into the Assyrian, Parthian, and Islamic periods.
The students’ mission and vision statements promise “benefit of the local society and Iraq and
above all humankind.” In this formulation, placing local society on the same plane as humankind
suggests that social construction of the “all humanity/civilization” frame continues, with a
reminder to include within its scope Iraq’s contemporary communities. The students’ collective
or class mission and vision statement adopts the “all humanity” frame, with the espoused vision
to “raise awareness of the importance of Iraqi heritage to all Iraqis and to the world.” The “all
humanity” frame appeared in the collective vision statement of the prior class, convened in
November 2009: “Year by year the graduates of the Erbil Institute will be the best able to
preserve and restore cultural heritage for Iraq and the world.”
The “discovery” frame is also present in the students’ mission and vision statements, but
typically qualified by their learning and use of sophisticated methods and equipment. The
“discovery” frame appears to have potential for continued construction, picking up on the
students’ incorporation of “innovation,” “inventing new ways [of conservation] commensurate
with the surrounding environment,” and “unprecedented new ideas”—connecting methods,

15. Co-Constructing Frames - 15
technology, and practice to pride in their work and in their cultural institutions. The emotive
quality of “pride” is more pronounced in the students’ collective or class mission and vision
statement, with the vision that the students who graduate from the Iraqi Institute “will be ideal to
support Iraqi cultural heritage institutions” and that the Institute itself “will have a top
international reputation for the quality of the cultural heritage research and education carried out
by its staff and students.” The students’ attention and frequent references to collaboration
provide a fresh layering of meaning and shared purpose within the “stewardship” and
“restoration” frames, both of which speak to the necessity of bringing Iraq out of isolation. The
“stewardship” frame itself is less common, although when used is done so boldly: “The Institute
concept for the future is transferring the modern technology, so that the coming generation [is
able] to start from the [where] we stopped.”
One student’s vision statement includes the combining of disciplinary specialties, so that
an Iraqi trained in this field can be “the excavator, archaeologist, and conservator at the same
time.” In a practical sense, this vision suggests the need for pedagogical reform within Iraqi
universities, to reduce the disciplinary stovepipes that currently affect Iraqi university graduates
as a whole. In a symbolic sense, this vision suggests students’ capacity to play multiple roles and
adopt a hybrid professional identity, and to model for others a flexibility within their public
persona that in turn allows identification with others of different ethnic, regional, and religious
communities—just a thought, not an expectation.
The public framing processes and the students’ mission and vision statements clarify our
thinking on the potential for cultural patrimony to stand as a rhetorical resource for community
reconciliation and Iraqi national unity. Iraqi cultural heritage specialists are experiencing a
luminal moment in the creation of their professional identities, but are not yet full participants in

16. Co-Constructing Frames - 16
discourses constitutive of Iraqi national identity. The students’ focus on Iraq’s ancient history,
and Mesopotamian artifacts especially, may be a function of the professional development
context; the absence of reference to events in Iraq’s modern history could represent a lack of
readiness to engage as easily as a desire to promote consensus. The harnessing of cultural
patrimony and historical memory with reconciliation and unity remains an endeavor largely
external to Iraqis. The suggestion alone is insufficient; a more facilitative approach in the Iraqi
context, and a comprehensive approach to helping professionals emerge from isolation, may
catalyze the bottom-up framing of shared cultural patrimony for unity and reconciliation.
More immediately, managers of public and cultural diplomacy programs may wish to de-
emphasize utilitarian rationales for Iraqi cultural heritage programs, such as tourism and
economic development, in favor of more altruistic frames. Diplomatic engagement and public
outreach can continue to amplify arguments framed within the all humanity-civilization-
discovery triad, which appear to resonate with Iraqi cultural heritage professionals. Furthermore,
public and cultural diplomacy programs would benefit from the addition of fora and
communication channels for Iraqi professionals to participate in the framing process, for
example by introducing their own vocabulary of innovation and invention into the all humanity-
civilization-discovery meta narrative. Awareness of which frames resonate among Iraqi cultural
heritage specialists adds a welcome degree of certainty to the investment in institutional supports
for the Iraqi public sphere. Lastly, public and cultural diplomacy programs can incorporate the
stewardship and restoration frames as goals and objectives, thereby tapping into both cognitive
and emotive ties to Iraq’s cultural heritage.

17. Co-Constructing Frames - 17
Works Cited
Ahram, Ariel I. “Symbolic Frames: Identity and Legitimacy in Iraqi Islamist Discourse.”
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