Cultural Heritage Management
Main language of instruction: Spanish
Head instructor
The course focuses on the heritage sector within the cultural sphere, understanding heritage not only as the tangible manifestations of the past that enjoy official recognition, but everything that refers to the identity of people: the environment, landscape, language, traditions, customs...
Heritage is a dynamic concept that evolves and transforms. Today we conceive it as the result of a dialogue between human beings and the environment, between the community and the land. This leads us to consider heritage as a unit, in which the different elements that comprise it are interrelated; and that is why we have to talk about the union between cultural and environmental heritage.
Thanks to this integrating concept, which has been strengthened by UNESCO, we consider that human works and nature are a unique heritage for humanity and that natural wealth is inseparable from history and our future.
Heritage has a value in itself that distinguishes it from other goods, a social and cultural value that is different from the market value. Within the field of culture, the heritage sector is unique in being conditioned by specific priority goals such as preservation and transmission to future generations, which has caused a necessary prominence of public institutions, forced to intervene and assume obligations that cannot be avoided, or yield to the free market competition.
At the same time, the sector always lives in a constant confrontation between the need to preserve, on the one hand, and on the other, to spread and, consequently, to facilitate the maximum social use of heritage assets. In this sense, it is necessary to meet the demands of public use that can include personal interests (pleasure, leisure, individual training ...) and collective needs (education, identification and cultural perpetuation...).
It is necessary to bear in mind the fundamental challenges that we must face and respond to, in terms of the management and use of heritage. These are conditioned by the circumstances that are affecting the socio-economic and cultural context of heritage in recent years:
• There is currently an increase in the interest of society and a greater awareness of patrimonial issues, and this implies an increase in their social use.
• The categories of goods susceptible to enjoy protection and cultural diffusion increase as a consequence of the qualitative and quantitative increase of the concept of heritage.
• The structures, equipment and cultural services that are responsible for the preservation, documentation, study and dissemination of heritage grow and multiply, while we can prove a polyvalence of these structures, which host a wide range of activities.
• In this environment, new needs arise regarding the management, organisation and financing of heritage, and the demand for adequate responses to new requirements for social, educational, cultural and tourist use of heritage.
More and more users are motivated to know cultures and territories and pose new demands to which we must give adequate and imaginative answers (not only for these users but for society in general). We must not forget the special role that cultural tourism is having in the development of heritage and how it is favouring the emergence of new management models and new financing channels.
Presently, heritage is being integrated into territorial planning and, based on cultural and natural resources, global employment and development programmes are promoted. One of the fundamental challenges is the fusion between heritage and territory. The institutions responsible for the administration and management of heritage have to give imminent and effective responses to the demands made by a society in constant evolution: the relations with territorial planning and the economy, the need to implement new management and organisation systems, the diversification of forms of financing, the development of cultural tourism, etc. And all these aspects have more and more meaning within the territorial context.
It is on the basis of territorial development projects that the new strategic proposals for organisation and functioning are aimed at achieving good quality heritage services, indirect benefits induced by the municipalities, and a correct fulfilment of the conservation works, documentation, research and dissemination of the cultural legacy.
We must recognise, then, that the organisational environment of heritage is in the process of evolving and changing, and professionals in the sector must be able to play an active role in this whole process.
• To introduce students to the challenges and fundamental aspects that currently affect heritage management through a training process that combines theoretical aspects related to new trends in heritage conception, planning and management, with the presentation of real cases and the specific application of a planning methodology for territorial heritage and cultural tourism projects.
• To adapt training to changes and new demands that are being made in relation to social use and heritage management.
Topic 1. Introduction to heritage as an activity sector.
1.1 Conception of heritage. The social use of heritage.
1.2 Analysis of heritage as a system.
1.3 Heritage, tourism and sustainable development.
1.4 The philosophy and context of creative heritage management.
1.5 Strategic planning and project culture in the development of heritage projects.
Topic 2. Interpretation of heritage.
Websites of interest
Association for the Interpretation of Heritage http://interpretaciondelpatrimonio.com/
Association for Heritage Interpretation (UK) http://www.ahi.org.uk/
European Network for Heritage Interpretation http://www.interpret-europe.net/
John Ververka - Heritage Interpretation http://www.heritageinterp.com/
2.1 The concept of interpretation. Evolution and trends.
2.2 Instruments, techniques and supports for the interpretation of heritage.
2.3 The animation of heritage.
Websites of interest
TARRACO VIVA http://www.tarracoviva.com/
Topic 3. Methodology and design of heritage promotion and development projects
3.1 Heritage programming: from the idea to the project, from the object to the product.
3.2 Preparation and implementation of heritage projects.
3.3 Case analysis.
Topic 4. Organisation and management of heritage projects.
4.1 Models of heritage management.
4.2 The role of public and private agents in the development of cultural heritage.
4.3 The institutional, legal and organisational framework of projects.
4.4 Human resources. New professional profiles.
4.5 The financing of projects. Sources and forms of financing.
It combines learning theories and abstract knowledge with techniques and instrumental knowledge. It focuses on the presentation of cases and examples and the application by students of a methodology for heritage planning in a specific case, with a territorial dimension.
• 50% COURSE WORK
• 50% INDIVIDUAL WORK
• PARTICIPATION: +/- 1
Course work: the practical work for the course will be done as a team and it will be a territorial heritage planning project.
Individual work: analysis of a specific product of heritage interpretation or cultural tourism.