Forget About World Heritage: What Are the Values? A Research Into Lay People’s Heritage Perception in World Heritage Nominations Thijs Konijnendijk supervisor: dr. H. Renes Masterthesis Human Geography & Planning Universiteit Utrecht Forget About World Heritage: What Are the Values? A Research Into Lay People’s Heritage Perception in World Heritage Nominations Thijs Konijnendijk Student No. 3017540 Supervisor: dr. H. Renes Masterthesis Research Master Human Geography & Planning Universiteit Utrecht, August 2010 Cover illustration: World Heritage Site Schokland and Surroundings Image by Thijs Konijnendijk 2 Preface The preface of a thesis is often seen as an opportunity to boast about the many long hours spent or the litres of coffee needed to complete a work of some acceptable scientific value. And although I cannot deny that such conditions apply to the present report as well, the one thing that was most apparent, available and experienced during the writing of this thesis was joy. It simply was joyful to go to the bottom of literature on cultural landscapes and historic buildings and to design a survey which would be held under so many people. Joy too is what I encountered when talking to the experts I interviewed, as well as enthusiasm for the subject they had specialized in and the work they had accomplished. Last, but certainly not least, I also enjoyed discussing my research with my colleagues, supervisor, friends and family who were always there when I had questions or concerns about my progress. For this joy and enthusiasm, as well as all the information and help they offered, I want to thank all the people who participated in my survey and those who I have interviewed: Ms. Sfakianaki and Ms. Korkka, Mr. Oost, Mr. Paulowitz, professor Von Droste zu Hülshoff, Mr. Schulze, professor Fowler, Mr. Hogestijn, Ms. van Zijl and Ms. Westrik. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank Ms. Rössler of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and mr. Baars of the Nationaal Restauratiefonds for answering my questions and sending me numerous very useful literature suggestions, Michael Roth for sending me his article, Benedict Goes of ICOMOS Netherlands and Willem Ledeboer of the Netherlands Institute Athens for helping me to find interview contacts, Mr. van Zwol of the Rietveld Schröderhouse and Ms. Roefs of Museum Schokland for granting me permission to survey visitors at their museums, and the people working at the Rietveld Schröderhouse Ticket Office for helping me to collect surveys. My sincerest thanks go out to my supervisor dr. Hans Renes, who I have grown to know and respect far beyond his position and knowledge as historical geographer. The challenges he posed and his suggestions towards literature, interview contacts and practicality regarding fieldwork, as well as his pragmatic mindset, helpfulness and the very pleasant conversations we had will remain a great source of inspiration for a long time to come. Having finished writing this thesis, which will conclude my research master Human Geography and Planning at Utrecht University, the only thing remaining is to express the hope that reading it will be as much joy as writing it has been for me during the better part of the master programme. Thijs Joost Konijnendijk, August 2010 3 Summary This research has set out to investigate how lay people’s perceptions of historic buildings and Cultural Landscapes influence the definition and selection of World Heritage sites in nomination procedures. UNESCO is increasingly aware of the fact that conservation and management of World Heritage sites depends to a great extent on local participation and support: in order to conserve World Heritage sites, local communities must see the value and benefit of preserving, and act accordingly by maintaining traditional life styles and generally conserving the site or landscape. This growing awareness has led to an increasing importance of local participation at potential and actual World Heritage sites (Fowler, 2004; Mitchell et al, 2009; UNESCO, 2003; 2008; Rössler, 2006). The way in which local participation takes place in actual nomination procedures has however hardly been researched, nor have lay people’s heritage perceptions, crucial to the conservation of the site as they may be, have been related to nomination procedures. The very few studies that did research this kind of topic, such as van der Aa (2005), Jones (2007), Stenseke (2009) and Mitchell et al (2009), related to World Heritage issues in general, participation in landscape maintenance, participation in the maintenance of a Cultural Landscape and participation in World Heritage management plans respectively. The main conclusion which could be drawn from these four studies was as follows: in World Heritage nomination procedures, there are trends of increasing importance of information exchange amongst stakeholders and of participation. Participation in landscape management can make decisions regarding these landscapes more legitimate and supported by local communities, which enhances conservation. Also, the nomination procedure is led by key people from either local or higher scale levels who have to operate within a framework of stakeholders and power relations between those stakeholders. Although these conclusions are highly relevant to the present research, they did not take into account local perceptions of heritage, while the perceptions of heritage by lay people may vary to a great extent depending on site- and personal characteristics. Studies from Ganzeboom (1983), Coeterier (1987; 2000; 2002), Roth (2006) and Huysmans & de Haan (2007) proved that both site characteristics such as elements in the façade of an historic building and a layered image and story in historic landscapes, and personal characteristics such as age, level of education and knowledge of the site may influence heritage perception. In addition, Asworth & Graham (1997) and Lowenthal (2008) found that the increased popularity of heritage in society may also influence lay people’s stance towards heritage. None of the studies mentioned above, however, focused on lay people’s perception of World Heritage sites, nor did the studies on the World Heritage nomination procedure specify how key people in the nomination operate, or how power relations structure the nomination procedure. This research therefore set out to answer the following research question: To what extent do lay people’s perceptions of historic landscapes differ from their perceptions of historic buildings, and to what extent do both perceptions influence the definition and selection of UNESCO World Heritage Cultural Landscapes and Sites? This research question was investigated by surveying lay people and interviewing experts. The survey included 360 questionnaires for two case studies: the World Heritage sites Rietveld Schröderhouse (an historic building) and Schokland and Surroundings (a cultural landscape), at which the inhabitants of the area and the visitors of the site were sampled. The interviews included experts who had worked at or with the World Heritage Centre in Paris, or who were closely involved in the nomination procedure for one of the two case studies mentioned above. The analysis of these empirical data led to results regarding the differences in perceiving World Heritage sites, and to insight in what way and why participation in nomination procedures takes shape. Interestingly, the differences in perception of the Rietveld Schröderhouse and Schokland begin with the overall perception score which was considerably lower for the monument than for the landscape. The people from the two samples regarding the Rietveld Schröderhouse 4 perceived the monument less positively than those from the samples regarding Schokland perceived the landscape, which suggests that the Rietveld Schröderhouse did not answer to the physical perception parameters as well as Schokand did. More important differences in perception, however, were caused by a number of personal characteristics. First of these was the level of education, which was found to be of influence on the perception of the Rietveld Scröderhouse and not on the perception of Schokland, whereas the existing literature suggested that the level of education should not be of influence on heritage perception at all. Another difference was found in the influence of gender: in the sample of inhabitants of Utrecht, concerning the perception of the Rietveld Schröderhouse, gender was found to have an influence on the perception of the monument whereas this influence was not found for Schokland and was not expected by the existing literature. These were the main differences between heritage perceptions found in the survey. The extent to which lay people’s perceptions of Cultural Landscapes and historic buildings differ can therefore be considered limited, considering the effect of the factors included in this research. The construction of different perceptions on the basis of physical characteristics remains unchallenged by this research, but some differences in the influence of personal characteristics have been found. In the attempt to relate local heritage perceptions to the UNESCO World Heritage nomination procedure, however, the extent to which the perceptions do not differ turned out to be more interesting because the role of perceptions is of similar and evident importance in the appreciation of World Heritage for all samples. As nominations need support of local communities to be successful, the local appreciation of World Heritage