A Tale of Two Villages: Institutional Structure and Sustainable Community Organizations

Abstract

This paper describes the organizational features of community-controlled economic development ventures associated with heritage sites located in two contrasting rural communities, one in Ireland and the other in Belize. The paper demonstrates that sustainable community organizations share institutional governance features that refl ect general principles previously identifi ed by scholars of common pool resources and community heritage tourism projects. The paper argues that archaeologists or heritage specialists working with local communities to develop sustainable economic development projects are more likely to succeed if attention is paid to the establishment of appropriate governance institutions for the project that are rooted in local conditions but follow proven governance principles.

A Political Economy of Heritage and the Commons: A First Sketch Focusing on Greece

“…Ostrom 1990; Harvey 2012; Hardt & Negri 2009;Dardot & Laval 2019). The enquiries focus on management patterns, institutions, design principles but also social dilemmas in their governance (Gould 2014;Benesch et al 2015;Bertacchini 2015;Uzer 2015;Hammami 2015;Baillie 2015). In this s pectrum, even though some studies engage in the exploration of specific cases, discussing applied heritage management aspects in detail (processes of inclusion, production and governance, see for example contributions in Gould & Pyburn 2017), they regularly fail to address ontological enquiries related to the resources, critically explore their (ethnographic) context in its historicity and/or consider the future of the heritage commons arrangements, giving rise to a number of queries: Can we actually consider the heritage commons potential in the contemporary (public) management settings?…”

“…How is it different from the 'sustainable heritage management' models and aspirations currently trending in the bibliography? But for a limited amount of scholarship (Gould 2014), lack of holistic arguments keeps the field relatively untapped, offering sparse and narrow narratives on specific case-studies (for example, Menatti 2017; Gonzalez 2014), limiting horizons to the deliberation of heritage services (Kolembas & Billas 2019: 104). Although a reality for other public resources, commons as an organisational principle for heritage has not been explored systematically and largely remain unrelated to the current problematic management of cultural heritage.…”

Can cultural economy be social? Discussing about the rural heritage of Greece

“…When discussed, heritage commons are normally presented as similar to environmental commons or considered as cultural commons, a treasury of the community's imagined identity, part of the aspired and yet utopian democracy of the commons (Bollier, 2016;Lieros, 2016, p. 232). In some instances, they are idiosyncratically conceptualized or examined in very specific hypotheses and case studies (Benesch, 2016;Gonzalez, 2014;Gould, 2014), under-theorized or approached through economistic viewpoints (Bertacchini et al, 2012). They are rarely treated as containers of values, worthy of meticulous research not only to better understand local, regional and global identities but also to inform potential arrangements for their viable management (Lekakis, forthcoming).…”

The DEEPSAL Project: Using the Past for Local Community Futures in Jordan

“…Such situations raise questions of how much communities are involved in electing to be part of such projects, their knowledge of the actors involved, and the control and influence they have (Atalay 2010, Aas et al, 2005. The variety of challenges has meant that many projects have lacked sustainability in providing tangible impacts either crumbling once the outside actor has completed their 'project' or needing repeated grants to continue, and often leaving expensive infrastructure (including visitor centres and museums) to maintain, even though building such infrastructure has often denoted 'success' both in the eyes of local communities and those directing development initiatives (Gould 2014). These issues are of course not restricted to sustainable development projects involving cultural heritage, but as archaeology increases its activities and rhetoric in this area its track record needs to be examined and lessons learnt for the future.…”