Understanding Cultural Heritage as a System and Process that belongs to local Communities
Dr. Matthias Ripp
Activating Culture?? & Heritage??? for Sustainable Development and Resilience; Expert, Consultant, Coach, Speaker; European Capitals of Culture Expert Panel Member
Acknowledging that heritage is now better understood as being both determined by and the responsibility of local communities, their participation from the outset is clearly essential to reach a common understanding of the objectives connected to it (Ripp and Rodwell 2016). To shape this action space for the best possible benefit, the identification andintegration of all stakeholders is essential. Definitions of stakeholder are various, from thoseinstitutions and individuals who have a dominant political and financial interest in a place, to anyone who has physical or intellectual access to it. Three classifications are useful:
- primary, direct users (local community);
- secondary, indirect users (incoming traders, consumers and tourists, service providers, and other employment andvisitor-related categories); and
- tertiary, influential (governmental, non-governmental, academia,and outside investors).
Visitors to the Móra Ferenc Múzeum in Szeged (mripp/flickr)
The complexities and inter-relationships inherent in today’s comprehension of cultural heritage–community-oriented, dynamic rather than static, systemic not linear–demand Management systems, especially within administrations and institutions, that replace “the usual sector or onedimensional pproaches with new transversal or multidimensional ones, aligning different policy areas and resources … taking into account the role of each part in the whole structure” (European Union 2010). It is the communities of practice (Wenger 1998), the informal, selfgenerating networks that condition whether an organization functions as a dynamic system, and are critical to its ability to function effectively in today’s world. [..]
The modern understanding of cultural heritage is fluid and dynamic. At its core, it represents a holistic understanding that perceives cultural heritage as “a social and political construct encompassing all those places, artefacts and cultural expressions inherited from the past which, because they are seen to reflect and validate our identity as nations, communities, families and even individuals, are worthy of some form of respect and protection” (Labadi and Logan 2015: xiii). From an initially object-based approach, heritage is now understood as representing a system of diverse entities with an increasingly strong emphasis on communities and the varied use of heritage by them over time (Kalman 2014). [...]
photo: Szeged street view (mripp/flickr)
Following this assessment on the role of communities in heritage practice and after developing a modernunderstanding of cultural heritage, these findings have serious implications for organisations, active in thefield of cultural heritage, heritage professionals and heritage communities. The following points may illustrate these changes:
- People must have the first priority in cultural heritage, not objects;
- A holistic understanding of the heritage at stake, is the only way forward to take the complexity of heritage into account;
- Communication in connection with cultural heritage needs to take into account a comprehensive understanding of what communication today is, rather systemic and multi-directional than linear;
- Heritage projects need interdisciplinary teams with diverse scientific and work-related backgrounds;
- Actors and affected people in cultural heritage need a flexible mind-set rather than a rigorous linear step-by step approach.
- A modern understanding of cultural heritage includes to give a more prominent role to local communities.
This modern understanding also needs different actors, different mind-sets, different skills and most important a different attitude to activate cultural heritage for the benefit of all.
Please read the full article (with references) here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325398758_Heritage_as_a_System_and_Process_that_Belongs_to_Local_Communities_Reframing_the_role_of_local_communities_and_stakeholder
The reference is: Ripp, Matthias (2018): Heritage as a System and Process that Belongs to Local Communities. Council of Europe
I have written it as an "opinion paper" as part of a Faro Convention Research Workshop organized by COE. You will the published paper here rm.coe.int/herit...255and
Feedback is very much welcome!
Heritage Consultant & Directora ICOMOS Chile / ISC 20C Heritage
6 年"Let's get this change going together!" ...that′s de way !! Let′s be part of the change and be profesional, critics, ambitious and demand more of us and the others, doing what it should be and not what it is.
Artist and Art Teacher | Freelance Museum Learning & Engagement
6 年Broadly speaking I agree too; however, sometimes 'community involvement' is misinterpreted as 'getting what we want done for free' by some stakeholders. Meaningful, sustainable community involvement is about creating engagement beyond the scope of the initial activity and engendering a sense of ownership from the ground up, as chosen by participants, even if that is at odds with cultural significance & activities as perceived and sometimes imposed by funders.
Head of Church Buildings and Pastoral at the Diocese of Ely, Art Historian, Historic Buildings Conservator, MBA
6 年I don't disagree with any of this, but there are some real inherent tensions in some of your ambitions.? I work with historic churches.? Many people in England see the involvement of the local and wider "community" as a purely practical means to finding sustainable shared and new uses for historic church buildings.? We also work under the assumption that "public money = public access", so anything funded by the Lotto will also have a strong community bias. ? I would go further and say that the influence of local communities in the future direction taken by historic churches is what will, ultimately, provide them with a new stratum of history - a layer of future historic significance, if you like. ? However, you also state an ambition for a "holistic understanding" of the heritage.? Are we requiring the local community to gain that holistic understanding?? I see a lot of community-led projects where an idea has become a proposal and then a project, based on no such holistic understanding . Those of us who like to think we know better then gasp in horror at what is proposed. ? And then I step back and wonder how many of our wonderful medieval rural churches came about precisely as products of local, insular ,even ignorant ambition, and how today we love them all the more because of that.
Avocat à la retraite
6 年Un rappel essentiel, considérant les événements du dernier mois à Montréal et Paris, autour de SLAV et Kanata
Archaeologist re-wilding a 19th century estate in the French Limousin (future 'forest bathing B&B')
6 年Super Matthias, very interesting! I will share among our associated scholars. What do you think about local communities that don't feel owner/stakeholder of the heritage site, for example because it's is not related to their narrative or because the government doesn't give access to it, do you still consider them stakeholder in the heritage management system because of their spatial proximity??