Assessing stakeholders’ perspectives towards the conservation of the built heritage of Suakin, Sudan

Abstract

The conservation of built heritage is recognized as a vehicle for sustaining local identity, and a powerful instrument for urban regeneration. The problem of how to engage local culture in this process, however, has received comparatively little attention, despite the recognition of 'stakeholders' and the importance of their involvement. This research examines how collaboration between stakeholders might be established to conserve and thus help regenerate the historic and largely abandoned port town of Suakin. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives of Suakin's stakeholder groups, and supported through archival analysis and observational studies. The intention was to explore the stakeholders' views of the 'conservation drivers', 'conservation practice', and 'conservation challenges and enablers' affecting Suakin. The stakeholders' response provides a preliminary status to the various perspectives concerning the conservation of Suakin's built heritage. The findings identify a number of major issues impacting Suakin's conservation and reveal a potential for implementing a comprehensive and inclusive conservation approach. The research establishes the case for further research to determine best methods to enable stakeholders to collaboratively address the issues impacting Suakin's conservation. This approach to stakeholder involvement represents a new step toward the conservation of Suakin, and a new contribution toward the conservation process.

Attitudes matter: Measuring the intention-behaviour gap in built heritage conservation

“…Current literature on the challenges of heritage conservation (Ashley, Osmani, Emmitt, Mallinson, & Mallinson, 2014;Gonçalves, Mateus, & Silvestre, 2019;Perovic, Coffey, Kajewski, & Madan, 2016;Roy & Kalidindi, 2017) identifies a performance gap between conservation intentions and its actual implementation in the design and construction stages. In common, these studies point to the behaviour of the different stakeholders in the processfrom decision-makers to occupantsas the leading cause for the performance gap.…”

“…While demonstrating that practitioners are aware of the importance of heritage for sustainable development in the social, economic, and environmental dimensions, this study also states that the challenges of incorporating sustainability in practice "are still unresolved" (Ajzen, 2002a). (Ashley et al (2014) interviewed representatives of the different stakeholders involved in the conservation of built heritage in Sudan, from governments to major investors, such as UNESCO, but also local investors, architects, engineers, and end-users. The findings show financial restrictions, stakeholder collaboration, and knowledge and awareness as primary problems.…”

“…Further, the research of Ashley et al (Ashley et al, 2014) identifies a dissociation between stakeholder groups, which attribute responsibility to each other. In Australia, Perovic, Coffey & Kajewski (Perovic et al, 2016) used interviews in real practice case studies to research the repeating issues affecting heritage-listed conservation projects.…”

“…The research of Roy & Kalidindi (Roy & Kalidindi, 2017) interviewed conservation professionals in India to investigate the reasons for project failure in terms of time, cost, and quality. As (Ashley et al, 2014), it identifies, resource constraints, lack of know-how, and stakeholders' cooperation among the main issues. An earlier research used a focus group with different stakeholders to identify the main challenges in professional practice (Gonçalves et al, 2019).…”

Drivers of community participation in heritage tourism planning: an empirical investigation

“…Despite the growing consensus on participatory tourism planning, there is presently little knowledge of how policy-makers can approach and engage communities in decision-making effectively (Ashley, Osmani, Emmitt, Mallinson, & Mallinson, 2015). Although participatory tourism models place most emphasis on the definition and management of stakeholders (e.g.…”