Recognising connection: social significance and heritage practice

Valuing the connections of a community with its environment is an emerging aspect in practices around cultural heritage that, within a values-based management framework, establishes people-centered approaches, capable of sustaining themselves with respect to the environment dominant paradigm of practice centered on specialists and the State.

Social value has developed as an important way in which concepts such as shared identity can be expressed in relation to heritage environments. At a global level, it offers a much-needed perspective, aligned with “people-centered approaches” and with the potential to co-create an understanding between values with those who hold them. Australia’s experience and leadership have been and continue to be key. However, there is now an opportunity to enrich and expand the concepts that have evolved to the present day, while others with different cultural backgrounds begin to form part of the discourse.

This text explores how social value emerged in cultural heritage discourse in Australia by bringing contemporary community connections into the field of heritage practice. Likewise, it examines its international influence by reviewing selected documents and uses selected case studies to illustrate methodologies and reveal learnings around key issues.