Heritage, Conservation and Communities

"This volume brings together a wide range of theoretical issues and practical examples. It offers us real insights into the shift between established professional conservation value-centred methodologies to more people-centred approaches. No one said it was going to be easy."
Bridget Turnbull is director at Gillinggate Heritage and recent past education secretary of the The Institute of Historic Building Conservation Journal

"Heritage, Conservation and Communities provides a valuable and interesting insight into the world of heritage conservation practitioners, giving a rich overview of the methods, tools and approaches applied in this field. The ethical platform shared by all authors, i.e. prioritization of authentic and meaningful local community involvement, is of high relevance to any society striving for the inclusion of principles of democracy and social justice into all of its processes. A highly valuable message here is that heritage conservation benefits, above everything else, the community itself. As stated by Gill Chitty ‘[c]onservation in practice here is about developing skills in groups and people management, generating honesty and trust in working together to create equity in new partnerships’ (p.9). This book will be, first and foremost, interesting to heritage practitioners and students of heritage studies, who will benefit from multiple conservation approaches and lessons learned, with open discussions about challenges and failures on the way. The book will also be of value to tourism scholars interested in heritage conservation, as well as practitioners of nature conservation, who can benefit from expanding disciplinary horizons and unexpected synergistic interdisciplinary insights."

Lusine Margaryan Department of Tourism Studies and Geography, European Tourism Research Institute (ETOUR), Mid Sweden University, O€stersund, Sweden