Global cultural governance. Decision-making concerning world heritage between politics and science

Erdkunde ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas M. Schmitt
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
World Heritage ◽  
Politics And Science ◽  
Cultural Governance

scholarly journals DECISION-MAKING METHODOLOGY BETWEEN REVITALISATION AND REHABILITATION OF WORLD HERITAGE CITY CENTERS. CASE STUDY: THE ANCIENT CITY OF ALEPPO (SYRIA)

2020 ◽  
Vol XLIV-M-1-2020 ◽  
pp. 255-262
Author(s):  
S. Ibrahim
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Pilot Project ◽  
World Heritage ◽  
Conservation Action ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Ancient City ◽  
Directorate General ◽  
Syrian Conflict

Abstract. The ancient city of Aleppo is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It may have been inhabited in the sixth millennium BC and it is a World Heritage City since 1986. Aleppo was severely damaged during the Syrian conflict. Therefore, the paper explores the adequate frameworks that are needed to tackle the emerging challenges of conservation in complicated situation after conflicts. As any conservation action starts with a decision, conservation standers adopted since the early twentieth century acknowledge the need for decisions to be informed through the best available scientific evidence. This paper proposes an analysis of the methodology used for the evaluation of damages caused by war in Aleppo and suggests decision-making tools DMT validated through a pilot project to guide post-conflict revitalization efforts. Within this framework, this paper analyzed the DMT in the rehabilitation of a Souk in the historic commercial center as the pilot project implementation. The project was done by 'Aga Khan Foundation' in partnership with 'Directorate General of antiquities and museums' in Syria and different national stakeholders. The success of the pilot project within the expected timeframe, materials, cost, and the souk regaining its function and vitality was recognized as a validation of the credibility and validity of the methodology adopted. The resulted data (plans, 3d scanning, etc.) are tools for decision-makers in the field of rehabilitation. The methodology can be replicated by all actors in the fields of conservation, whether in Aleppo or any other historical site.

Decision making criteria for adaptive reuse strategy in UNESCO world heritage city

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Noorzalifah Mohamed ◽  
Kartina Alauddin
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Adaptive Reuse ◽  
World Heritage ◽  
Structural Condition ◽  
The Body ◽  
Existing Buildings ◽  
Unesco World Heritage ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
Decision Making Criteria

Purpose Within the next 20–30 years, adaptive reuse will have the greatest potential to reduce the built environment's environmental impact. Despite this, stakeholders still do not have sufficient points of reference in justifying and evaluating their adaptation practice decisions. The decision to reuse a building involves a complex set of considerations, including economic, social, environmental, legislative and architectural issues. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the unique decision-making criteria among stakeholders when considering adaptive reuse of an existing building asset in Malaysian heritage cities. Design/Methodology/Approach Thirty (30) unique criteria of decision-making were identified through a detailed literature review. The quantitative method of a self-completion questionnaire survey was conducted among stakeholders, including architects, valuers, planners, government department, developers and building owners. There were asked about their opinion and view on the criteria that could have influenced the decision-making in considering the adaptive reuse of the existing buildings in two heritage cities in the states of Penang and Malacca, Malaysia. Thus, it is the aim of this paper to evaluate and reveal the key criteria pertaining to this. Findings The analysis shows that there are seven key criteria that influence the decision-making of adaptive reuse of existing building: building value; building suitability; structural condition; official plan and zoning; building code; client requirement and heritage designated. In this regard, while “building value” factors were the key determinants in deciding whether to reuse or demolish, the asset’s suitability and structural condition, as well as rules, were also taken into account. Additionally, the environmental, economic and social tenets of sustainability were also identified as important, but were given less weight in matters concerning reuse. And due to the fact that many of the existing buildings are rapidly becoming obsolete, they are now increasingly being prioritized during the adaptive reuse decision-making process to ensure long-term outcomes. Research Limitations/Implications The research is limited owing to the difficulty in obtaining accurate information concerning the number of decision agents who have been involved in the adaptive reuse of existing buildings. Thus, the respondents in this research were randomly selected. Due to this limitation, the result does not encompass the whole Malaysia, only the stakeholders in Penang and Malacca have been selected the respondents in this study as these states are listed in the UNESCO World Heritage. Social Implications When deciding whether to reuse or demolish an existing building, the proposed criteria will outline the crucial areas that must be examined by owners, developers and key project stakeholders. It can also be used to assess the financial, physical and social aspects of a cultural project. Originality/Value This paper adds to the body of knowledge concerning decision-making criteria for adaptive reuse strategies in achieving heritage city sustainability.

scholarly journals Providing expert scientific advice on the Antarctic environment

1994 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-1 ◽  
Author(s):  
D.W.H. Walton
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Scientific Advice ◽  
Politics And Science ◽  
The World ◽  
Antarctic Treaty ◽  
The Antarctic ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Antarctic Environment

It is hard to divorce most human activities, including science, completely from politics. Politics is about perceived certainty whilst science is about doubt – they make strange bedfellows. Politicians detest probabilities whilst scientists abhor the absolute. Nowhere is the relationship between politics and science more publicly developed than in the Antarctic Treaty System. In the only continent devoted to peace and science it might be supposed that, after more than thirty years, the role of science would be both more robust and more pivotal in decision-making than elsewhere in the world. So it appears at present but will it remain so?

Approaching Human Rights at the World Heritage Committee: Capturing Situated Conversations, Complexity, and Dynamism in Global Heritage Processes

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-110
Author(s):  
Peter Bille Larsen ◽  
Kristal Buckley
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
World Heritage ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Unesco World Heritage ◽  
Heritage Studies ◽  
The World ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
Point Of Departure

Abstract:Social scientists are increasingly approaching the World Heritage Committee itself as an entry-point to understanding global heritage processes and phenomena. This article explores the subject of human rights in the operations of the World Heritage Committee—the decision-making body established by the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention. It seeks to address the epistemological and methodological implications of approaching the World Heritage Committee as a point of departure for understanding global heritage and rights dynamics. It builds on an “event ethnography” undertaken by the authors to understand how rights discourse appeared in multiple contexts during the Thirty-Ninth World Heritage Committee session held in Bonn, Germany, in June 2015.In this article, we discuss the methodological and ontological implications of studying rights discourses in the context of World Heritage events and processes. We have a particular interest in the interplay of formal and informal dynamics, revealing the entangled and multi-sited processes that shape and are shaped by the annual event. While much of the debate and analysis in heritage studies is understandably concerned with formal decision-making processes and position-taking, this work demonstrates the significance of a range of informal dynamics in appreciating future possibilities.

scholarly journals At the Edge of the Internet: Teaching Coding and Sustainability to Himalayan Girls

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Frances Garrett ◽  
Matt Price ◽  
Laila Strazds ◽  
Dawn Walker
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
World Heritage ◽  
World Heritage Site ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Unesco World Heritage ◽  
Northeastern India ◽  
Heritage Site ◽  
Unesco World Heritage Site ◽  
Full Force

This report introduces a two-week workshop on web coding and environmental sustainability at a school for girls in northeastern India. Our discussion of this teaching project reviews issues that shaped the project’s development, outlines resources required for implementation, and summarizes the workshop’s curriculum. Highspeed internet will soon arrive in the region of this recently-recognized UNESCO World Heritage Site. We believe that the training of girls in particular could help redistribute power and resources in regions where women are often poorer, less educated, and excluded from decision-making in institutional and public contexts. Relatively few code teaching projects have grappled with the difficulty of working in offline environments at the “edge of the internet,” and yet moving skills and knowledge into these regions before the internet arrives in full force might help mitigate some of the web’s worst impacts on equity and justice.

Cultural landscapes: exploring local people's understanding of cultural practices as “heritage”

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Settimini
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Cultural Landscapes ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
World Heritage ◽  
World Heritage Site ◽  
Wine Production ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Decision Making Processes

PurposeA vital testimony of human presence landscape is recognised and protected by international, national and local documents as an identity resource and one of the factors that contribute to the identity building processes (UNESCO, 1994; European Landscape Convention, 2000). The validation of landscape as cultural heritage presents not only new challenges but also opportunities for the heritage sector. In fact, a landscape plays a dual role: as part of the cultural heritage, which has to be preserved for its values, and as a “living” site, where individuals and groups live and work. This implies that the acknowledgement of its cultural significance should not be exclusively determined on the basis of discipline-driven frameworks and benchmarks but should rather be the result of a shared awareness within local communities.Design/methodology/approachThrough the analysis of the vineyard landscape of Langhe-Roero and Monferrato (Italy), the author discusses how the selection of a World Heritage site driven by “outstanding universal values” risks presenting a top-down approach to heritage processes.FindingsIn this article, the author explores how people living in this cultural landscape articulate their understandings of heritage values, and she addresses issues concerning their participation in decision-making processes, questioning whose values and meanings do the “outstanding universal value” legitimise or not.Originality/valueWhat the author argues is that the World Heritage listing's focus on extraordinary values risks constructing heritage around a consensus that privileges only some actors, whose voices and stories enliven the prestige of the wine production of this cultural landscape, omitting other values, memories and practices from the identity and meaning making processes. Does the identification and representation processes validated through World Heritage status capture how a landscape is understood by individuals and groups living within it? If not, how do these differences affect people's engagement? A further point of discussion is whether individuals and groups want to be engaged in decision-making processes and on which terms.

scholarly journals Managing Interpretation at a UNESCO World Heritage Site: A Supply-Side Perspective of Angkor Wat Temple, Cambodia

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Chanvirak Sarm
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
World Heritage ◽  
Influential Factors ◽  
World Heritage Site ◽  
Supply Side ◽  
Multiple Stakeholders ◽  
Unesco World Heritage ◽  
Tour Guides ◽  
Heritage Site ◽  
Unesco World Heritage Site

<p>Interpretation and its relevance for visitor experiences have been discussed extensively but little attention has been paid to the management of interpretation by multiple stakeholders. UNESCO World Heritage Sites involve a number of different organisations but their interpretation management is not well understood. A lack of good interpretation management may lead to negative effects on heritage properties and people understanding about the heritage. This study aims to examine the structure of interpretation management and to identify the objectives in interpretation from various stakeholder organisations’ perspectives. Other influential factors, for example decision making, are studied. Angkor Wat temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Cambodia, is used as a case study. Adopting the social constructivist approach for the current study strengthens the research method and data interpretation. The research takes a supply-side perspective; in-depth interviews were conducted with 22 representatives from UNESCO, the Ministry of Tourism, site management teams, tour guides and tour companies. The findings suggest that interpretation is not yet managed successfully by organisations and tour guides. Tour guides are concerned about their lack of knowledge and language proficiency which impacts on their presentation. In addition, managing a different demand of group tour was found important for interpretation management. Tour guides had less involvement in making a decision about the development of interpretation-related projects. Some conflicts between the tour guides and site managers about decision making were identified. On the other hand, managing interpretation by organisations still requires interpretive facilities and visitor centres to enhance visitors’ experiences at Angkor Wat temple. This research contributes to the literature on interpretation and heritage tourism by identifying different interpretation management by multiple stakeholders. In addition to the academic study, the findings imply that relevant organisations need further improvement of interpretation management and visitor centres at Angkor Wat temple.</p>

scholarly journals Politics and science: an impossible relationship?

2005 ◽  
Vol 27 (6) ◽  
pp. 49-50
Author(s):  
Ian Gibson MP
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
The Political ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Executive Editor ◽  
Politics And Science

For those outside the Westminster circle, the political machinery behind national politics remains an impenetrable mystery. There is much chicanery surrounding the decision-making process, which often has an impact on policy. You can ask, for example, how evidence is used and whether it is really taken into account. One more minor mystery for many has been the decision to remove me as Chair of the Science and Technology committee. And so, at the request of the Executive Editor of this publication and at the risk of sounding egotistical or, as one reader of the journal Science and Public Affairs indirectly put it, a ‘whinger’, I will attempt to unravel the mysteries that were at work when the chairmanships of the committees were decided, and by so doing, examine the tenuous relationship between politics and science.

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