Sum-up of Week 2

Hi, welcome to the sum up of the second week of this MOOC. This week we have introduced the notion of heritage governance. By using this notion we wanted to emphasise that heritage is not only regulated by formal norms or specialised administrations. It relies on a wide variety of actors from the public and private sectors, from the international level, to the local level. First, we have used this notion of heritage governance in order to characterise the organisational framework of cultural heritage in different countries. For example, Peter Inkei in the case of Hungary explained that the existence of a long tradition for the protection of monuments in Hungary and explained that this tradition has survived despite the changes in political regimes.

Afterwards, Nick Dines explained the evolutions of the heritage governance of Italy. He explained the change of decentralisation from the states to the local authorities, but also the rise of a more business oriented approach to cultural heritage. Then we moved on to analyse heritage governance at the city level. And we took especially the case of the archaeological site of Carthage, which has undergone numerous difficulties and dilemmas regarding to the management of the site. But looking at heritage from a local perspective enabled us to go beyond just the heritage sector, and look at issues such as transport, which is essential to go from the different points of interest within the site.

Or also tourism, which aims at generating local development thanks to the site. Looking at heritage governance is not only about how heritage is organised, but also how it can contribute more generally to the life of the city. And regarding this idea, the interview we made with Chiana de Cesari was quite illustrative. She explained in her case study on Hebron that a cultural heritage organisation in the context of local authorities that have limited capacities because of the Israeli occupation. This cultural heritage organisation can take care of very essential needs of the local population, such as street lighting for instance. Finally, we talked about the relation between cultural heritage and urban development.

We talked about how local actors could organise in order to generate economic impacts on their city. Then we also talked about some industrial cities like Genoa that organised in order to create a new urban narrative in order to challenge their industrial crisis.