NANA Zheng

Project title:

The Constraints of Community Heritage Discourse

Abstract:

There is an increasing quest for the diversity of heritage discourses among scholars and heritage practitioners. Although community participation in heritage management is widely promoted, the voices of communities are still underrepresented. Despite that many scholars (e.g. the volume edited by Waterton and Watson 2011) have discussed over a range of issues around community engagement from different perspectives, there is little attention for the constraints within communities on heritage discourse. The first hypothesis of this research is that one of the major constraints concerning communities is: the internal contradictions within a community. The contradiction can arise from the different ways of perceiving one’s community and identity, the conflicting personal or organisational interest, or simply different opinions from individual to individual. Another hypothesis is that the manifestation of constraints may differ in rural and urban settings. Therefore, the two case study areas selected in this research are: Testaccio, Rome, an urban community in the national capital city; Latiano and Mesagne, Apulia, two inland towns in Southern Italy.  

While this research is not to find out the panacea for all kinds of dilemmas in community heritage management, it is worthwhile to observe how such dilemmas are coped with in bottom-up heritage projects initiated by the two local communities.

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