Claiming a role for controversies in the framing of local heritage values

Abstract

This study focuses on the role of controversies in heritage management, considering more specifically cities characterized by tensions between community groups. In such cities, the regulatory and institutional systems are challenged by highly structured community-based initiatives and organizations. Using an analytical framework that assesses the regulatory system, urban conservation, and development practices, we compared two heritage management projects in Tripoli (Lebanon). Our results highlight the dichotomy between decision makers' and communities' approaches to the definition and management of heritage and to the struggle over the use of public spaces to reclaim heritage values. The discussion highlights how controversies emerge from the physical assets that are claimed as heritage, the range of values associated with tangible assets, and how local communities may coproduce heritage knowledge and actively contribute to the democratization of heritage values.

Cultural heritage through the lens of COVID-19

“…Conflicting interpretations of heritage, resulting from attaching different weights to cultural values and different significances to the same heritage asset by stakeholder groups, raise alternative narratives, and push the boundaries of the official heritage discourse ( Beeksma & Cesari, 2019 ; Ginzarly et al, 2019 ). The online heritage discourse could facilitate inclusive decision-making processes as it allows to identify “aspects of value” that explain why a specific asset is of conservation interest and “qualifiers of value” that justify why some features should be prioritized in conservation efforts over others ( Fredheim & Khalaf, 2016 , p. 476).…”

Contested Meanings of Urban Heritage in Hong Kong

“…Heritage studies scholars similarly claim that articulating the variegated meanings of heritage generates insight toward the subjectivities and motivations of different heritage stakeholders, and by extension why movements occur (Mozaffari and Jones 2019). For example, Manal Ginzarly, Jihad Farah, and Jacques Teller observe that the heritage controversies of Tripoli, Lebanon, are indicative of an underlying struggle between the “value paradigms” of urban planners and community groups, and that outlining said perspectives enables constructive dialogue between actors (2019, 8–9).…”

Online communities and their contribution to local heritage knowledge

“…In parallel, critical heritage studies have developed well-established methodologies for analyzing heritage discourses with a focus on contestation over the experts' and locals' interpretation of heritage values, conflict between authorized history and local historical knowledge, and differences between official conceptions of national identity (heritage by designation) and local identities related to everyday sociocultural constructs and experiences (heritage by appropriation) (De Cesari & Herzfeld, 2015;Herzfeld, 2015;Beeksma & De Cesari, 2019). Controversy over heritage is nevertheless a constructive common ground that provides a space for raising alternative narratives about heritage, building a deeper knowledge and further appropriation of local heritage values, and formulating sustainable heritage management practices (Ginzarly, Farah, & Teller, 2019). Pendlebury (2008) differentiated between heritage sites that are visited and experienced for the exceptional qualities as heritage and the other.…”

“…Controversy over heritage is nevertheless a constructive common ground that provides a space for raising alternative narratives about heritage, building a deeper knowledge and further appropriation of local heritage values, and formulating sustainable heritage management practices (Ginzarly et al, 2019a). Pendlebury (2008) differentiated between heritage sites that are visited and experienced for the exceptional qualities as heritage and the other.…”