Are World Heritage concepts of integrity and authenticity lacking in dynamism? A critical approach to Mediterranean autotopic landscapes

Abstract

This paper examines how contemporary ongoing and lively debate on Critical Heritage Studies merges with previous discourses on World Heritage Cultural Landscapes and rural societies. The scholarly approach to authenticity and integrity, and the critical point of static and dynamic approaches to these terms allow the author to challenge previous World Heritage (WH) discourses with a view to obtaining innovative insight into abandoned vernacular landscapes. Two main arguments are thus developed in this study. The first of these is an overview of the dynamics of abandoned cultural landscapes on an international scale. The second is an inside view aiming to provide an accurate interpretation of how these landscapes should be scrutinised and understood. To do this, autotopias and heterotopias broach the fundamental issue of how the Outstanding Universal Value of attributes in abandoned cultural landscapes needs to be understood, enhanced, experienced, and managed in an innovative WH approach. In conclusion, complex proposals for these heritage landscapes should rely on understanding the dynamics of the material and the social construct of the habitats they contain in order to assess them effectively from the standpoint of a World Heritage Cultural process Assemblage rather than that of Outstanding Material Stratification.

Time, Cognition, and Approach: Sustainable Tourism Strategies for Abandoned Vernacular Landscapes

“…Static authenticity is found in every heritage object that somehow retains or attaches importance to embedded values from the past today, irrespective of cultural background, flows, or transmigrations. Given that static authenticity is fundamentally based on the materiality of the object, it needs to be implemented forcefully using dynamic authenticity so that the heritage object can provide a sincere response to context, time, and place [14].…”

“…The municipalities found near this mountain experience the consequences of a strong migration to large urban nuclei [31,32]. Therefore, current loss of population, together with the relative abandonment of this type of pseudo-indigenous rural life [14], not only poses a relative threat to specific preservation criteria, but also sets interesting challenges for the economic, cultural, and environmental viability of the place ( Figure 2) [33].…”

“…Why is this not true of architectural objects to the same extent? This architecture is only produced when the contemporary socio-economic and cultural integrity of the landscape and its structure co-exist with abandonment, decay or "latent" maintenance, enabling a "dynamic integrity and authenticity" to be found together with the continuity of the materiality of the property in itself [14].…”

“…They defended the dynamism of values through changes in perception. Providing values are conceived as social constructs [13], the concepts of integrity and authenticity are also accepting of new perspectives that affect the cognition of places [14,15], especially abandoned vernacular landscapes.…”

A multi-analysis characterization of medieval and vernacular coating mortars in rural Valencia (Spain): An experimental study for a Heritage Action Plan

“…The characterization of mortars is important since the area -28,799.30 Ha -is in the process of being considered of special relevance because its vernacular values [10]. The place will https://doi.org/10.1016/j.culher.2017.10.013 1296-2074/© 2017 Elsevier Masson SAS.…”