Heritage at Risk: The Authority and Autonomy of a Dominant Preservation Framework

Abstract

Against the backdrop of increasing social change, an urgency courses through contemporary life for weaving the past into the present. The process of folding past conditions into present ones is selective; it has to be, given the richly textured inheritance bestowed on each passing generation (Trouillot 1995). The result over the past century plus has been a gradual refining of practices and ways of talking about what came before, encompassed by the concept of 'cultural heritage.' Cultural heritage is variously invoked as something (some object, site, building, landscape, traditional practice) with historic connections that must be properly tended to, as well as the field of expertise that has developed around this care. Over time, or at critical moments provoked by shifting events, these practices and languages of heritage became incorporated into political and legal institutions with jurisdiction over local, regional (e.g., state), national, or international bodies of governance. National standards have traditionally been the most influential in institutionalizing how heritage is dealt with, but increasingly so too are international norms codified within an expanding oeuvre of global conventions, recommendations, lists, safeguards, management guidelines, and reports picked up as 'best practices.

From ark to bank: extinction, proxies and biocapitals in ex-situ biodiversity conservation practices

“…There are clear parallels here with observations made of cultural heritage as defined by endangerment and 'risk' (e.g. Harrison 2013; Rico 2015Rico , 2016; see also Bennett et al 2017).…”

Embracing change: how cultural resilience is increased through cultural heritage

“…What is more, all such efforts of protecting cultural heritage in the name of cultural resilience and peace are directly linked to a distinctive 'threats-based' heritage paradigm defining a larger 'heritage at risk' framework (Holtorf 2015;Rico 2015Rico , 2016. This framework has been applied throughout the natural and cultural heritage sectors and has motivated countless well-known efforts from saving Stonehenge to saving tigers, the Yanomami and the Ozone layer.…”

Reclaiming post-disaster narratives of loss in Indonesia

“…Focusing heritage preservation efforts on the safeguarding of pre-existing heritage resources is a known and dominant approach in the management of post-conflict and post-disaster cultural heritage resources which defines an important axiom behind various (if not all) discourses behind heritage preservation: cultural heritage heals communities, and even 'cultures' (Rico 2015). This dominant discourse posits that what has already been identified as having heritage value is integral to the wellbeing of a people, because, this discourse argues, the familiar or known built landscape matters in various ways.…”

“…This dominant discourse posits that what has already been identified as having heritage value is integral to the wellbeing of a people, because, this discourse argues, the familiar or known built landscape matters in various ways. This is an essential element of a heritage rhetoric that anchors its preservation discourse on identifying the built landscape as a landscape 'at risk' (Rico 2014(Rico , 2015. It claims, for example, that a heritage landscape is integral to the construction of contemporary identities as traditions are put in an intimate relationship to landscapes and objects that had actual or speculative connection to the emergence of said identitiesa connection that must be preserved in perpetuity.…”