Social Responsible Heritage Management - Empowering Citizens to Act As Heritage Managers

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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 188 ( 2015 ) 27 – 34

Heritage as an Alternative Driver for Sustainable Development and Economic Recovery in South East Europe Social responsible heritage management - empowering citizens to act as heritage managers

Darko Babiüa,*

aFaculty of Humanities and Social Sciences - University of Zagreb, Ivana Luþiüa 3, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia

Abstract

Heritage management, realised foremost by varied heritage interpretation(s), is foremost multidisciplinary task. Contemporary understanding of the heritage management takes into account all relevant (i.e. site/county/country/region specific factors) be it social or economic beside essential preservation. It tends toward ensuring tangible (and intangible, or more precise indirect) benefits for local communities and by this toward development of the society in general. Critical heritage studies over the last few years significantly influenced perception of heritage, thus consequently the essence of heritage management and heritage interpretation. Stress on participative approach became crucial, where multi/poli-vocality is self-understandable. Surprisingly this practice could be easily tracked to early 1970s and the eco-museums movement which is quite revealing experience. Paper tends to demonstrate how practices of eco-museums could be interlinked with the very contemporary requests - needs for participative heritage interpretation and management approaches. Finally it will point out toward social responsible heritage management which could be recognised as sort of the request for very new heritage literacy.

© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (©http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.). Selection and peer-review under responsibility of Institute of National Economy Peerfrom-review Romanian under Academy. responsibility of the Scientific Committee of Heritage Sagittarius 2014.

Keywords: heritage management, eco-museums, heritage literacy

1. Introduction

During the last decades we have witnessed the expansion of the concept of heritage (intangible foremost) and parallel with it rise of interests for a comprehensive and multifaceted understanding of the meanings and the roles heritage plays in our society. Yet it could be noticed that still very often a heritage is presented as a self-explanatory category, in the sense it somehow possess intrinsic and unquestionable values while the main concerns are connected with its use. In other words the main issue regarding heritage exists on the level of use, or more precisely quality

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +385 1 6002348; fax: +385 1 6002438. E-mail address: [email protected]

1877-0428 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of Heritage Sagittarius 2014. doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.03.335 28 Darko Babić / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 188 ( 2015 ) 27 – 34

heritage management. While we could easily agree heritage management has important, in fact, a vital role our point here tends to go deeper into construction of heritage management, to present several layers which this syntagm includes and finally to argue for more social responsible heritage management which could empower locals/citizens to act as a holders of heritage, and thus heritage managers. All of us working in the field of heritage always have twofold role - we are heritage professional on the one hand and heritage consumers at the same time. This position implies privileges but at the same time asks for responsible attitudes towards those in the name of who we at the moment manage heritage, and who are real owners if it - people.

2. Duality of heritage

Our Eurocentric, western way of perception of the World and thus heritage too (which we impose to others) was up to very recently focused only on materiality. It is thus hardly surprise we ended completely confused by thesis that heritage is actually entirely intangible. While with the idea of immateriality we cope be recognizing the same in our own cultures (language, dance, traditional skills etc.) some researchers in the field of critical heritage studies, as for example L. Smith, further confuse us by saying that "There is, really, no such thing as heritage." (Smith 2006 : 11) as she claims in the book Uses of Heritage. P. Howard in the book Heritage: management, interpretation, identity published in 2003 presents only seemingly contradictory stance when saying that heritage can be really anything what we want, where the will is crucial and that "things actually inherited do not become heritage until they are recognized as such. Identification is all." (Howard 2003 : 6). Finally in this elementary investigation of possible challenges of conventional perceptions of heritage statements of B. Graham, G. J. Ashworth and J. E. Tunbridge must be mentioned too. They consider that "heritage can be visualized as a duality - a resource of economic and cultural capital" or in other words that heritage is actually "a commodity, moreover one that is simultaneously multi- sold in many segmented markets places" (Graham , Ashworth & Tunbridge 2000 : 22). The presented statements impose unfairly more questions than answers about definition of heritage, i.e. its construction which are, or supposed to be, crucial prerequisite for successful heritage management. According to contemporary ideas coming from critical heritage studies movement heritage does not actually exist until any specific elements inherited from the past, but also those created in the present, are identified and labelled as such according to our current preferences. B. Graham, G. J. Ashworth and J. E. Tunbridge will say that we therefore have an access to a specific resource from which certain elements (deliberately picked) are turned into a particular kind of product intended to meet very certain (but always contemporary) needs. Since conversion of resources into a product intended for consumption is evident, in their opinion heritage is already at its base a form of commodification (Graham, Ashworth & Tunbridge 2000 : 22). But even more in the case of heritage we have double form of usage and consumption - on the one hand on cultural or socio-political level, and on the other at economic level whereby in both cases heritage possesses certain market values (Graham, Ashworth & Tunbridge 2000 : 17-22; Ashworth, Graham & Tunbridge 2007 : 36-45). The most common methods of heritage exploitation as economic resources are relatively well known (cf. Ashworth & Howard 1999; Graham, Ashworth & Tunbridge 2000; Howard 2003; Rypkema 2005; Ashworth, Graham & Tunbridge 2007 etc.) and easily identifiable associated primarily with creation of development strategies (i.e. regeneration and/or development plans in rural or urban areas) or for use and promotion of tourism, usually as it the most important component. After all heritage is unquestionably the most important driver of global tourism. Question does heritage possess intrinsic values from the economic perspective is insignificant as long as it serves desirable purposes, while discussion in the direction of sustainability of resources (almost exclusively regarding materiality) and about the rights of ownership (and, therefore, rights of use) are in general still inadequate although in fact should be in focus as long as, which is practically always the case, this kind of heritage use is explained foremost by benefiting local communities. In general there is nothing wrong with this approach and it, quite usually (at least in Europe) indeed benefit local people in some sense. Still sincere socially responsible heritage management must take into account another level of use of heritage, the socio-political one, which have important influence while remaining often hidden. Why do we consider heritage and care for heritage important? Who defines it and how? What affects and determines our position towards it? Finally, who controls it and how, on whose behalf and to what purpose? All those questions must be posed before considering heritage management as something taken for granted. In addition to being an economic resource that can be converted into a more or less successful commercial Darko Babić / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 188 ( 2015 ) 27 – 34 29 product another character of heritage is that it is very powerful cultural or socio-political resource. By deliberate use of heritage it is possible to create and influence a whole range of important relations within a given society/ies, i.e. establishment of power relations and dominance. This reasoning stems from the idea of representation (i.e. attribution of what heritage is, or is not) where designated heritage is used to maintain or when necessary reconstruct full range of socio-cultural values and meanings. More specifically the process includes use of selected elements (where it is not so important here are they tangible or intangible, or even actual or fictional) which via a particular interpretation are converted into heritage and thus becomes a specific medium which communicates complex levels and characteristics of identity/ies (Graham, Ashworth & Tunbridge 2000 : 41). The only, but extremely noteworthy problem here is the fact that those in charge of creating heritage are always a small group of heritage professionals or more precise those on which they are dependent - a situation which L. Smith (Smith : 2006) perfectly described as a dominance of the authorized heritage discourse. Authorized heritage discourse means we are still living in the World where significant minority defines values and meaning for several times greater majority be it on the World scale (Eurocentric vs. other cultures heritage approaches) or indeed within the same (here our, Western) culture. This well established position is more and more questioned over recent years especially within critical heritage studies. Arguing here on the same line, in direction of needed further empowerment of citizens to act as heritage managers of its own heritage we would like to go back into the past for some four decades and to point out at the eco-museums which could be identified as forerunners of community- participate approach of heritage management.

3. Somehow different heritage management rooted in eco-museums

In the late 1960s and early 1970s (revolutionary 1968 certainly had influence) kind of conscious, mental turning point in development of the relation in between man and the heritage in which it exists (i.e. that surrounds it) was set. Taking particularly here into account museum and heritage sector critical years was 1971 when in the central France in the area of approximately 500 square kilometres around the towns of Le Creusot and Montceau-les-Mines the World's first eco-museum started its existence. Mentioned area has witnessed major changes after the World War II, mostly because the Schneider family, who had owned industrial complexes the local economy depended on, were accused of collaboration with the Nazi regime, so entire administration was moved to Paris. A dislocated management meant lack of interest, which was followed due to changes in the economy, by a complete neglect and deterioration of industrial plants and the loss of jobs for roughly 150,000 local people. The answer to this unique situation in line with at that time existing French regional development policy came from museologists Hugues de Varine, Georges Henri Riviere and Marcel Evrard who proposed The Museum of Man and Industry, a museum with aim to start-up the local economy again, but also and perhaps much more importantly, help the local population to rediscover meanings - their own identity and to open new development possibilities. The Schneider family's 18th Century château was set as the centre of the Museum. Inside it an adequate presentation of the historical development and key features of the region were presented, as well as everyday life of the local citizens including their industrial and artistic products. In this manner the Castle was defined as a starting point for learning about and exploration of heritage of the entire region. In the rest of the area, a specific form of a fragmented museum was developed. Fragmented or scattered museum means that by local people recognised valuable elements in the landscape and any tangible and/or intangible testimonies were processed and interpreted in situ, at the site of their origin and without moving them into the main museum building. This enabled an important theoretical and practical breakthrough - from an exclusive focus on the museum building and its collection towards the wholeness of the territory the museum is covering. The primary task of the lowest possible number of hired museum/heritage experts was to launch the Museum and act as a sort of catalysts of entire process, performing only the most demanding technical tasks (e.g. multifaceted researches, cataloguing, organization of complex activities, representing museum's interests toward the authorities and similar). In the year 1973 when the Museum was completed it became known in the museum world foremost due to its definition of the museum collection published in the Museum International journal (printed by the UNESCO) claiming any movable or unmovable object within predefined community's perimeter is a hypothetical part of the Museum. It introduces an 30 Darko Babić / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 188 ( 2015 ) 27 – 34

idea of a kind of cultural ownership by local community, which has nothing to do with legal ownership (Varine 1973 : 244). The Museum's audience, i.e. users, was perceived in a similar way. It was implied that the Museum's audience is made of the entire community - all individuals living in the defined area/territory where the Museum exists were considered as its active users, as visitors and as managers at the same time. In a number of features, the Museum of Man and Industry differed from all museums of that time - especially in the already mentioned points towards ideas of collections, territory and users, but also in the relations inside the Museum and organization of museological work. By this, taking into consideration we are talking here about the early 1970s, an extremely important theoretical and practical swing is reached - from exclusive focus on a museum conducted solely as a strictly defined and very concrete museum building towards the totality of interpretation of heritage within defined territory covered primary by the idea of scattered museum, and lead by local people.

Fig 1. The main building (Castle) of the eco-museum Le Creusot-Montceau-les-Mines in France (Photo D. Babiü).

Summing up all till now mentioned and anticipating any created eco-museum does not tend to be practically applicable prototype which can be easily copied to other places/spots, but an ideal of thinking toward heritage we firmly believe an eco-museum model has capacity to adapt or cover an idea of universal heritage, in a sense of desperately needed glolocalisation. Or in other words it has capacity to be sufficiently adaptable to cultural diversities and different perceptions of values and meanings heritage implies (within different cultures) surpassing not only the form of so-called traditional museum, but also model of Eurocentric heritage management (lead by an authorized heritage discourse) and therefore stands as an example of a new attitudes (more participative) which are trying to define the essence of human relationship toward heritage. In one of the most concise and by many the most understandable definition of the eco-museum René Rivard established an analogy, or more precisely distinction, in between hitherto traditional museums which consists of building + collections + specialist + visitors while an eco-museum includes territory + heritage + memory + population (Rivard according to Davis 1999 : 73). In addition some other authors tried to capture essence of eco- museum, with more or less success. Late Canadian museologist P. Mayrand in 1985 (Mayrand 1985 : 200-201) noticed that an eco-museum is a Darko Babić / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 188 ( 2015 ) 27 – 34 31 community collective workshop which runs throughout a territory which a population considered as its own. Frenchman André Desvallees (Desvallees according to Davis 1999 : 69) in 1987 mentioned that an eco-museum must be a museum of identity because it incorporates time, space and reflections of local community, and at the same time a museum of the territory where the prefix eco symbolizes importance of the natural and social environment in which an eco-museum is located. Mark Watson in its definition presented in 1992 and published in the Encyclopedia of Industrial Archaeology considers an eco-museum a project which allows population of an area to discern its identity through its buildings, ecology and geology as well as documents and oral history and to make study of the same as something not only limited to educated experts (Ecomuseum 1992 : 225). P. Davis in his attempt to primarily fathom basic indicators of an eco-museums will conclude that "the one characteristic that appears to be common to all ecomuseums is the pride in the place they represent ... ecomuseums seek to capture the sense of place - and in my opinion it would appear that this is what makes them special" (Davis 1999 : 238-239). More than three decades after founding of the first eco-museum participants gathered around an idea of forming the European network of eco-museum at the workshop entitled "Long term networking: eco- museums and Europe" which took place in May 2004 in Trento, Italy and adopted the declaration which defines an eco-museum as "a dynamic way in which communities preserve, interpret, and manage their heritage for sustainable development. An ecomuseum is based on a community agreement" (Murtas & Davis 2009 : 151). Prime value of this definition, among numerous others existing, is besides being very concise and thus relatively easy to understand precisely in pointing out (often neglected) idea of using of heritage foremost for local development. At this point, we cannot avoid notice similarities between the definitions of an eco-museums and some basic ideas regarding desirable heritage management we discussed before which need to overcome the challenges of heritage dissonance (cf. Graham, Ashworth & Tunbridge 2000). In addition here present descriptions of an eco-museums evidently shows that users (i.e. community/population) cannot have a passive role (cf. Smith 2006 : 34-35). An eco-museum from its begging and during entire life-span is based on participation and active involvement of a local community and as such it is a kind of opposition to the dominant authorized heritage discourse. Aiming at the coherent interpretation of causal relationship of a man and a natural environment in which humans exists beyond traditional division of heritage on the cultural and the natural spheres, the eco-museums introduced notion of conceptual sensibility toward by human organized but by nature shaped landscapes. Eco-museum in this sense forms truly bottom-up approach and gives a different meaning to the phrase of heritage management. Pursuant to these, in our opinion, an eco-museum is therefore perhaps the shortest possible to define as a dynamic heritage management which enables communities to direct their own development. Without pretending to definitively determine here a compelling museological concept within above presented definitions we foremost want to highlight some features of the eco-museum which anticipated (nearly forty years ago) some contemporary thoughts by incorporating actions and awareness toward totality of the heritage and the significance of its use (in sense of participative approach and sustainable development). Thus eco-museums, created in France in the early seventies of the last century are special kind of materialization of a new way of thinking about relationship between man/society and the environment in which it exists. Although some activities carried out by an eco-museums could be identified in earlier institutional experiences (in forms of an open-air museums or heimat museums) eco-museums possess distinctive characteristics which started the very new heritage based participatory development process based on theoretical and practical considerations on relation between the man and its heritage.

4. Importance of heritage interpretation

P. Mayrand, undoubtedly one of the main protagonists of the eco-museums movement, in his attempts to explain the eco-museum phenomena used a model of 'creativity triangle' in which heritage interpretation plays a crucial role.

32 Darko Babić / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 188 ( 2015 ) 27 – 34

Fig. 2 Illustration of P. Mayrand's creativity triangle within a 3 year cycle of development of an eco-museum (according to Davis 1999: 71)

According to him the triangle of creativity perfectly illustrates a process of creation of an eco-museum. It always must begin with an initiative coming from a local people assisted only if necessary by heritage experts. Here diverse forms of interpretive activities within defined geographical area are created. The existence of (this initial) heritage interpretation will sensitize members of the community and direct their interests toward the territory in which they live and accordingly rise awareness about interdependence (of a man and its territory) including pride of their own identity. As a direct consequence community members are becoming more active and over time reconsider other heritage actions including a request toward creation of an eco-museum. Finally, thanks to established feedback ensured by an eco-museum, the population is now able to re-interpret itself and empowered to create guidelines and manage its own development (Rivard 1985 : 202-205; Davis 1999 : 71-73; Mayrand & Mairesse 2000). D. Poulot states that an eco-museums significantly reshaped the social use of heritage because they contributed toward development of a new forms of interpretations where society becomes aware what they are thanks to constant questioning of owning, or more precisely local community becomes conscious who it really is (Poulot 1994 : 77). In this sense community, people living in a particular territory, finally knows its construed or interpreted image (foremost based on heritage) and thus could influence and manage development. Looking from contempoorary perspective it means users are turned into active participants in process of determining meaning where not only multicultural but indeed poly-vocal interpretation of heritage (Corsane 2005 : 11), the basic prerequisite for responsible heritage management which empower real owners of heritage to act as heritage managers, is presented.

5. Critical heritage literacy

As we already explained usage of heritage is always twofold. Its application as an economic resource is, generally speaking, accepted and quite common today. Not surprisingly for majority of people, but as well significant number of heritage professionals heritage management is foremost connected with this idea. But heritage has ability to determine values and meanings through a process of selection (of certain elements which will become heritage) thus a resource with very strong and important socio-political function which forms particular sort of knowledge. The nature of this knowledge, which constructs heritage, is always dependent on present time and relevant socio- geographic circumstances. Heritage as the knowledge is incomparably less discussed than heritage as an economic resource although the first in fact represents prerequisite for the later. A heritage is the heritage not because of its intrinsic values (since tthose do not exists, they are associated through a process of representation) but because of manipulation, as "subjected to Darko Babić / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 188 ( 2015 ) 27 – 34 33 the management and preservation/conservation process, not because it simply ‘is’" (Smith 2006 : 3). Or in other words "what makes these things valuable and meaningful - what makes them ‘heritage’, or what makes the collection of rocks in a field ‘Stonehenge’ - are the present-day cultural processes and activities that are undertaken at and around them, and of which they become a part" (Smith 2006 : 3). If so, and we are convinced in it, heritage management which will address its knowledge share is at least equality important as management of an economic side although the first is still fully set aside in discussions, by users but even more importantly heritage professionals. What we argue is that the basic idea of heritage is actually a specific form of management of values and meanings and that heritage and heritage (knowledge) management are inseparable categories. To be able to manage heritage in this sense people, those who own heritage (no matter be it local, regional, national or international) must be aware and understand the process of construction of heritage. Introducing literacy in this context seems extremely important and interesting. Although a basic concept of the literacy is always dependent on existing information and communication forms which characterize any society (thus in Western of being able to read and to write) literacy at the same time could be understand as ability to navigate in specific social context defined by specific characteristics of a group, i.e. local culture. Applied on the idea of heritage it necessarily implies that heritage literacy is a form of heritage management which is simultaneously a sort of knowledge management too. People or local communities must be able to understand process of construction of heritage to be able to navigate within. Only after ensuring this kind of awareness and participation in knowledge heritage management they could extends it rights of ownership over heritage toward heritage management in economically based relations. It is evident that within this approach the idea of interpretation becomes crucial, where necessity of introduction of the heritage literacy is the only possible way of needed participative and comprehensive interpretation which will over further heritage management empower people to use heritage in a way they consider as the most appropriate and the best for their own development.

6. Instead of conclusion

Here introduced idea of the heritage literacy is conceptually similar to citizenship literacy where the first could indeed be a vital part of the second. Heritage literacy embraces an idea of systematic, global, lifelong and holistic methods in which each individual (or a group) must have an inalienable and guaranteed right to participate, benefit and use heritage toward self-definition, self-esteem and creation of its/their own experiences coming for endless collective heritage of humanity. Implemented by an individuals or a collective (i.e. local communities) it represents a commitment toward the real universal values humanity possesses and it is a basic prerequisite to ensure our overall development in direction of common prosperity. Empowering local people, real guardians of a heritage and enabling them in open and democratic process to participate in a heritage management is the only way how it could be reached. This practice initially started over a four decades ago in France with an eco-museums movement but still remains not enough widespread, thus deserves more attention. In any other case the heritage of humanity will remains nothing more than a mirror of a moment of existing power relations which shamelessly do not respect and do not use humans diversity so reach in its differences, with all its beauties and endless creativeness in order to achieve the common good. To reach the last heritage literacy as a sort of social responsible heritage management which could ensure citizens to become heritage managers is indeed necessary.

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