The Change in Global Perspective on Heritage Conservation

How did you come up with the idea for the book?

Trudi Sandmeier (TS): In 2013, after an exciting and wide-ranging conversation over lunch, we decided to create a new seminar titled ‘Global Perspectives in Heritage Conservation’ in the graduate heritage conservation programme at the USC School of Architecture, LA. We were both convinced that inasmuch as the guises of heritage conservation across societies, cultures and cities are complex and different, its pedagogy remains relatively linear and Western-centric. The intent of this class was to expand the conservation discourse, through geographic breadth, multi-disciplinary intersections and practice diversity.

Vinayak Bharne (VB): Routledge Press noticed the course syllabus on the Internet and, convinced that its narrative filled an important gap in heritage conservation pedagogy, approached us to consider expanding the syllabus into a book. By the end of a long conversation, it was clear that a book with a global outlook could only be justified as an edited volume; the sheer complexity and breadth of this subject warranted a multiplicity of voices and visions, precisely to capture numerous overlaps, contrasts and conflicts. We received an overwhelming amount of proposals from academic friends, colleagues and scholars from across the world, who were keen to be part of this project. Several years and 30 chapters later, our book arrived.

What is the overarching goal of this collection?

VB: Heritage conservation today has expanded far beyond its traditional boundaries involving the rehabilitation and reuse of architectural, artistic and archaeological artifacts. 
 

Heritage conservation now also grapples with justice: environmental, economic and social. The act of identifying, protecting, restoring and reusing built ‘heritage’, be it buildings, districts, landscapes or entire towns and regions with historic or cultural significance, is being increasingly recognised as a far more reflective, immersive and strategic endeavour.

While such evolving aspirations might have universal appeal, their trans-national reality is contradictory and complex. In nations facing economic and political turmoil, heritage conservation is superseded by other priorities. Urban growth and decline, residual colonialism, population growth, governance structures, as well as the rise and fall of industrialisation differ globally, and the actual processes and products that bring about bigger and deeper change, are themselves significantly different.

How then are the aspirations surrounding heritage conservation playing out across nations and societies? What are the multiple definitions and guises of heritage conservation emerging across different social, political and cultural geographies? The goal of this volume is to offer a glimpse into this complex landscape through the lens of both theory and practice – not to provide definitive answers, but to engage these questions and showcase a wide array of global approaches.

TS: The 30 chapters of this volume span a broad cultural and geopolitical spectrum. Case studies span more than 25 countries from Australia, Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. They raise critical questions on numerous issues – environmental degradation, social oppression, administrative lethargy, poverty, colonialism, religion, ethnicity, immigration, etc. – broadening perspectives on heritage conservation through topical breadth.

They simultaneously explore a vast range of place-types – indigenous habitats, historic urban cores, agrarian landscapes, vernacular infrastructure, religious edifices, squatting sites, burial grounds, war zones, modern landmarks, ethnic enclaves, housing complexes, industrial complexes, etc. Heritage conservation is explored at various scales from individual objects and villages to entire cities and regions and through various conditions, ancient versus recent, celebrated versus marginalised, natural versus man-made.

Additionally, each chapter gives voice to some of the key players shaping the planning and conservation discourse in different parts of the world.

How does this volume see ‘Heritage’ today?

VB: Here ‘heritage’ specifically refers to the heritage of the built environment, focusing on physical assets and the layers of cultural history that give them meaning. Broader aspects of the term, such as natural heritage (including elements of biodiversity, ecosystems and geological structures) are beyond the scope of this collection.

For some authors, heritage is defined through the lens of culture and philosophy. In Japanese culture, the notion of ‘fudo’ (literally wind and soil) simultaneously considers the objective and subjective dimensions of heritage and, therefore, the maintenance and preservation of cultural ethics and values are considered crucial for heritage sustainability. In the Hindu Indian tradition, in turn, heritage is called dharohara, a combination of two words: dhara (the earth), and ihara (identity through time). The term carries the meaning of ‘preserving’ the surface of the earth, simultaneously connoting tangible, intangible and visual attributes.

Other authors argue that heritage must be understood as a dynamic rather than fossilized entity. That heritage must transcend its historic and monumental values to consider how contemporary places, forms, practices and community interactions can contribute to its formation in a place. Heritage is a catalyst that can and should improve the liveability of historic areas, through a unified policy and practice framework, without approaching conservation and development as separate tasks.

TS: Some of the authors see heritage as an irreplaceable, intergenerational resource whose conservation is integral to a practical and sustainable future. From an environmental and economic perspective, heritage conservation and reuse can serve to reduce waste and energy loss, generate jobs and revenue, reinvigorate land for residential, commercial and cultural uses, generate employment through tourism and urban regeneration and raise real estate values over time. 
 

Heritage can be a catalyst of both private and public good.

Other narratives in this volume note that the growing number of treatises, recommendations, charters and other documents intended to shape the wider framework within which heritage conservation can act, can also serve to complicate the future of heritage. Such charters and texts can overshadow and overlook the heritage of marginalised and non-expert communities to detrimental effect.

In essence, the authors approach the idea of heritage in many concomitant ways, revealing how heritage as a concept is both universal and subjective.

How does the book understand the agency of ‘Heritage Conservation’ from a global perspective?

TS: The spread of the contemporary heritage conservation rubric from its European origins to a global geography is a vast and capacious subject. This spread has today expanded the role of heritage conservation in cross-cultural diplomacy, and many organisations – the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, World Monuments Fund, UNESCO, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the J. Paul Getty Trust etc. – facilitate international dialogue and collaboration between cultural heritage professionals and regional institutions.

The volume’s chapters elaborate on some of the initiatives, intentions and concerns regarding global heritage conservation players and policy. Simultaneously, they offer insightful commentaries on the divides between the policy-driven practices of organisations and the ambiguous realities they struggle to engage with.

VB: Thus, heritage conservation, globally considered, drifts between the geographic extremes of affluent, highly regulated and legally robust societies and what Bangladeshi photographer Shahidul Alam famously called the ‘Majority World’, a term used in preference to describe ‘developing countries’ with comparatively less legal stringency and transparency. There can be vast differences between the modes, processes and products that underlie conservation practice across nations. The role of public participation and the community voice within a larger policy framework for conservation illustrates this point clearly. In the United States, public participation is a legally mandated part of the planning process and the framework where the majority of heritage conservation policy is enacted. India, despite being the world’s most populous democracy, has no such mandate and, in non-democratic societies, in the absence of public deliberation and negotiation, the relationship of government and heritage has far more acute implications.

How is the book structured?

TS: To embrace the complexity and pluralism of heritage conservation globally, we purposefully decided to avoid a place-based or chronological structure. 
 

The volume’s framing instead came down to reconfiguring multiple, intertwined issues, places and approaches into six contingent thematic sections, thereby avoiding privileging either a particular historic tradition or a cultural or praxis bias.

Part I – ‘Globalizing the Conservation Discourse’ opens an introductory dialogue on the pluralism of perceptions, attitudes and approaches to conservation in different parts of the world. How does the praxis of conservation overlap and separate from transparent to ambiguous governance structures? To what degree is heritage conservation truly effective within tense political geographies?

Part II – ‘Re-evaluating an Ageing Past’ examines approaches and attitudes toward the heritage of our distant past beyond solely historic and nostalgia-driven biases. While preserving the perceived historic value of an object or place is crucial to its future, does this often come at the price of its simplistic embalming for passive tourist economies or its convenient commodification into places of pleasure, arguably diminishing its value as a place of deeper significance?

Part III – ‘Embracing an Underestimated Heritage’ focuses on aspects of heritage conservation that remain under the radar. From obsolete military places and industrial complexes to religious buildings, this section argues for deeper reflections on the candidacy for heritage conservation and the attitudes that underlie it.

Part IV – ‘Balancing Native and Foreign’ examines the intersection of heritage conservation and multi-culturalism, cosmopolitanism, tourism and cultural appropriation as a terrain of conflict on the one hand and the search for cultural identity on the other.

Part V – ‘Reconciling Socio-political Tensions’ explores how heritage conservation can help reconcile socio-political conflicts and harsh memories. From war-zones to sites of violence and from slavery sites to remnants of organised religion.

Part VI – ‘Estimating Our Recent Past’ looks at our not-so-distant history and its places of significance. It looks at modern landmarks and cities, reused industrial infrastructure and mid-century housing and provokes discussions on the pluralism of attitudes towards our recent past.

What are the volume’s main takeaways?

VB: The combined narrative of this volume illustrates a number of thematic polarities related to heritage and conservation. These are some of the most significant takeaways of this volume, because they demonstrate how and why heritage conservation is undergoing a radical rethinking globally, because of new contexts – climate change, population shifts, social and economic inequality, the rise of populism – towards new understandings of the ethical implications of existing theory, policy and practice.

TS: For example, World Heritage versus the Indigene: The challenge of finding ways through which indigenous people might engage with the World Heritage convention to ensure that its implementation engenders respect and protection for their rights and folkways.

Objects versus People: Traditional object-centered approaches to cultural heritage conservation are rarely germane and contemporary best practice points to expanding conservation efforts to look beyond the celebration of a singular entity at its centre-point.
 

Tangible versus Intangible Identities: Cultural (re)construction has two intertwined qualities: tangible and intangible. The tangible encompasses material forms including architectural settings, food, art and even the people. The intangible includes local identity, values, meaning and the production of knowledge.

VB: Or Permanent versus Temporal: Another philosophical debate within the conservation discourse is the idea of heritage shaped by impermanence. In Mie, Japan, in 2013, more than 50 buildings of the famous Ise Shrines completed their 20-year cyclical rebuilding for the 62nd time. There was a time when every Shinto shrine in Japan had similar reconstruction cycles, but today, in response to environmental pressures and the lack of timber availability, most shrines have changed their traditional patterns – for example, the Izumo Shrine is now rebuilt only once every 60 years.

Heritage versus Climate: In the wake of climate change and global warming, issues of nature, climate and ecology will increasingly dominate the future of the heritage conservation discourse. Amplified storms, flood surges, saltwater intrusion and permanent inundation caused by the thermal expansion of the oceans and melting glaciers loom on the horizon for the practice of heritage conservation globally.

TS: As for the other lessons to be learned from the book, we encourage you to peruse the chapters and explore the delightful complexity of heritage conservation through your own lens.