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Assessing the Values of Cultural Heritage Research Report the Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles Assessing the Values of Cultural Heritage

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Assessing the Values of Cultural Heritage Research Report the Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles Assessing the Values of Cultural Heritage Assessing the Values of Cultural Heritage Research Report The Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles Assessing the Values of Cultural Heritage Research Report Edited by Marta de la Torre The Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles Project coordinator: Marta de la Torre Report editor: Marta de la Torre Design/Production coordinator: Joe Molloy Copy editor: Sylvia Tidwell Copyright © The J. Paul Getty Trust The Getty Conservation Institute Getty Center Drive, Suite Los Angeles, CA - Telephone - Fax - Email [email protected] http://www.getty.edu/gci The Getty Conservation Institute works internationally to advance conservation and to enhance and encourage the preservation and understanding of the visual arts in all of their dimensions—objects, collections, architecture, and sites. The Institute serves the conservation community through scientific research; education and training; field projects; and the dissemination of the results of both its work and the work of others in the field. In all its endeavors, the Institute is committed to addressing unanswered questions and promoting the highest possible standards of conservation practice. The Institute is a program of the J. Paul Getty Trust, an international cultural and philanthropic institution devoted to the visual arts and the humanities that includes an art museum as well as programs for education, scholarship, and conservation. Contents Introduction Marta de la Torre and Randall Mason Essays Assessing Values in Conservation Planning: Methodological Issues and Choices Randall Mason Anthropological-Ethnographic Methods for the Assessment of Cultural Values in Heritage Conservation Setha M. Low Economic Valuation of Cultural Heritage: Evidence and Prospects Susana Mourato and Massimiliano Mazzanti Numbness and Sensitivity in the Elicitation of Environmental Values Theresa Satterfield Cultural Capital and Sustainability Concepts in the Economics of Cultural Heritage David Throsby Meeting Participants Acknowledgments T to the contributions of many who helped us define directions and identify critical issues. The work of Randall Mason and Erica Avrami at the start of this research set the stage for the discussions of a group of specialists that met at the Getty Conservation Institute in March . The names of those participating in that meeting are included at the end of this report. We would like to acknowledge their valuable contribution and con- tinued support of this project. Introduction By Marta de la Torre and Randall Mason T on the research on values and This democratization is a positive development in economics of cultural heritage which was started at the our field and bears witness to the importance of heritage Getty Conservation Institute in .1 The early results in today’s society. Nonetheless, this aperture has brought of this project highlighted some issues fundamental to the new considerations to the discussions and has made them field that were in need of further consideration. Among much more complex. Today the opinions of experts are these were the lack of recognized and widely accepted often a few among many, in an arena where it is recog- methodologies for the assessment of cultural values, as nized that heritage is multivalent and that values are not well as the difficulties of comparing the results of eco- immutable. In this changed environment, the articulation nomic and cultural values assessments. and understanding of values have acquired greater impor- The research we report in this publication starts tance when heritage decisions are being made about what to address these issues by focusing on methods of identify- to conserve, how to conserve it, where to set priorities, ing, articulating, and establishing cultural significance. and how to handle conflicting interests. Cultural significance is used here to mean the importance of As conservation professionals, we are familiar a site as determined by the aggregate of values attributed and comfortable with the assessment methods used by to it. The values considered in this process should include traditional heritage experts. However, to identify and those held by experts—the art historians, archaeologists, measure “social” values, we must venture into new areas. architects, and others—as well as other values brought The stakeholders of social values are usually members of forth by new stakeholders or constituents, such as social the public who have not traditionally participated in our and economic values.2 work or had their opinions taken into consideration. Value has always been the reason underlying her- Today, as we recognize the importance of including all itage conservation. It is self-evident that no society makes stakeholders in the process, we must turn to other disci- an effort to conserve what it does not value. Why, then, plines to bring these new groups into the discussions. this current interest in values? Until recent times, the The papers in this report present some tools that heritage field was relatively isolated, composed of small have been used in other fields and that hold promise for groups of specialists and experts. These groups deter- the tasks at hand. The first paper offers a review of the mined what constituted “heritage” and how it should be issues associated with the assessment of values in relation conserved. The “right to decide” of these specialists was to cultural heritage. As an introduction to the methods validated by the authorities who funded their work. presented in other contributions, it includes an overview There was a tacit agreement between the groups with the of the “expert” methods already in use in the cultural field power to act. and identifies some of the challenges that lie ahead as we In recent decades, the concept of what is heritage attempt to integrate these more traditional tools of the has evolved and expanded, and new groups have joined cultural field with others that must be imported to serve the specialists in its identification. These groups of citi- new needs. The anthropological and ethnographic meth- zens, of professionals from other fields, and of representa- ods presented by Setha M. Low are some of the methods tives of special interests arrive in the heritage field with introduced relatively recently to assess social values, and their own criteria and opinions—their own “values”— they are already being used to bring new groups of stake- which often differ from our own as heritage specialists. holders into the values identification process. The field of environmental conservation has a relatively long tradition of consultation with a broad spectrum of stakeholders. Approaches from the environmental field are often held up as examples to be emulated in the heritage field, and Theresa Satterfield’s contribution analyzes the assessment heritage values is not likely to be a threat to the sover- tools most used in that discipline. Her balanced evaluation eignty of the field, but it still requires a change of attitude should help us as we consider importing into our field and training. The inevitability of trade-offs and compro- some of those methods. mises and the respectful and meaningful gathering of dif- Economists seem to have the most developed ferent modes of valuing have to be recognized. and widely accepted value assessment tools. However, as Using new methods from different fields means has been discussed in our earlier report on the economics collaborating with more and different professionals of heritage,3 these tools might not be as accurate in meas- (anthropologists and economists, for instance). Such uring cultural values as has been accepted in the past. collaboration raises questions about who is in charge of A number of economists are now searching for ways which part of the process. What are the relative roles and of honing their tools to make them more useful in the contributions and responsibilities of this different cast heritage field. Susana Mourato and Massimilano Mazzanti of characters? Does the conservation professional’s role give us a detailed account of the tools used in their field become that of an orchestrator of specialists? Or of one and of the weaknesses and strengths of the various meth- specialist among others? It seems that the conservation ods. Not surprisingly, recognizing that conservation is professional has moved to play the dual role of specialist multidisciplinary, their conclusions point to collaboration and orchestrator. The tasks associated with the latter with other disciplines. function call for new ways of thinking as well as for Discussions of values, of how social contexts new skills. shape heritage and conservation, and of the imperative of In the last paper of this report, David Throsby public participation are issues that challenge conventional provides us with some principles that can help to shape notions of conservation professionals’ responsibilities. the new role of the conservation specialist. Advocating How to champion conservation principles (traditional the principles of sustainability, we can moderate the dis- ones, centered on the sanctity and inherent meaningful- cussions of a broad set of stakeholders while setting in ness of material heritage) while managing an open, demo- place a number of filters that will promote decisions in cratic process that may conclude by underselling conser- this arena that protect the heritage while making it rele- vation in favor of other social goals? This issue gets to the vant to society. essential nature of the field and of conservation as a pro- The challenge
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