Steering resilience in coastal and marine cultural heritage

Abstract

Coastal and marine cultural heritage (CMCH) is at risk due to its location and its often indefinable value. As these risks are likely to intensify in the future, there is an urgent need to build CMCH resilience. We argue that the current CMCH risk management paradigm narrowly focuses on the present and preservation. This tends to exclude debates about the contested nature of resilience and how it may be achieved beyond a strict preservationist approach. There is a need, therefore, to progress a broader and more dynamic framing of CMCH management that recognises the shift away from strict preservationist approaches and incorporates the complexity of heritage’s socio-political contexts. Drawing on critical cultural heritage literature, we reconceptualise CMCH management by rethinking the temporality of cultural heritage. We argue that cultural heritage may exist in four socio-temporal manifestations (extant, lost, dormant, and potential) and that CMCH management consists of three broad socio-political steering processes (continuity, discontinuity, and transformation). Our reconceptualisation of CMCH management is a first step in countering the presentness trap in CMCH management. It provides a useful conceptual framing through which to understand processes beyond the preservationist approach and raises questions about the contingent and contested nature of CMCH, ethical questions around loss and transformation, and the democratisation of cultural heritage management.

The complexity of evaluating, categorising and quantifying marine cultural heritage

“…Therefore, a priority of ecosystem-based ocean management needs to be a better understanding and accounting of both tangible and intangible marine cultural heritage by developing context-specific, pluriversal and dynamic processes to acknowledge, safeguard and promote these cultural connections to the ocean and coast (see [39]). As emphasised by Bernard [35], "Many cultural beliefs and practices have been undermined and transformed by changing modes of production, social organisation and beliefs brought about by colonialism, capitalism and Christianity", and EBM should absolutely avoid repeating this same tradition.…”

What are heritage values? Integrating natural and cultural heritage into environmental valuation

“…Drawing on knowledge from the heritage field, we incorporate a nuanced understanding of the interplay between materiality and non‐materiality. We also draw on ongoing discourse in the heritage sector where heritage is considered temporally dynamic and changeable rather than static and fixed (DeSilvey, 2012; DeSilvey & Harrison, 2020; Flannery et al, 2022; Fredheim & Khalaf, 2016; Ounanianan et al, 2021; Stephenson, 2008; Tengberg et al, 2012), indicating that perceptions of the environment, what is thought of as heritage and how it is valued can change over time. This perspective can be useful in considering environmental challenges with temporal dimensions (Everard et al, 2016; Kendal & Raymond, 2019).…”

Holistic Strategies Based on Heritage, Environmental, Sensory Analysis and Mapping for Sustainable Coastal Design

“…There is a need to develop a broader and more dynamic framework for managing CMCH that recognizes the departure from traditional preservation methods and takes into account the complexity of the socio-political contexts of heritage [19].…”