HERITAGE SHALL BE OUR LEITMOTIF!
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 16/12/2020

The interpretation and communication of our shared heritage is a major challenge for many UNESCO World Heritage sites. There is a fundamental contradiction between the wish of an increased „meaningfulness of heritage” on a personal level and a global perspective and intergovernmental policies. Both approaches comply with the agenda of organizations like the UNESCO or also the European Union for sustainable development of civil society. But still personalization and localization on one side and the valuing and linking of a shared heritage beyond boundaries of language, borders and regions on the other side are difficult to match. The aim of this paper is to evaluate how a bottom-up empowerment of individual people and a top-down narrative and communication can resolve this contradiction. Is this a promising strategy or do we need more refined concepts and a more multidimensional approach involving different methodologies and a new thinking about cross-cutting themes beyond heritage? To establish a comparability and foster mutual learning from already existing approaches for the conveyance of the common cultural heritage we will look on various sources of information. For this reason we designed an online survey and questionnaire to assess the concepts and management structures of heritage sites around the globe. The results of this survey with a first focus of transnational UNESCO World Heritage sites and also based our own experience in a network of various organizations and stakeholders within the management of the World Heritage of Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps will be analyzed and presented. We will specifically focus on well proven concepts and the available tools in the communication of our shared heritage and assess the transferability in other heritage contexts.


Author(s): Dworsky, Cyril - Loew, Carmen (Kuratorium Pfahlbauten)