Mid-term results – Matrix and methodology assessment

• This report is the final deliverable of WP2 whose work has sought to: 1. Track and analyse contemporary trends in heritage thinking impacting heritage practice. 2. Design a methodology to identify the range of current and emerging professions operating in the sector. 3. Signal gaps, needs and challenges facing sector professional practice. Three governing principles emerge from WP2 investigations. These inform the remainder of these analyses, and guide the work of CHARTER going forward: 1. Heritage per se is cultural praxis – heritage is a cultural function of social groups and a common good for people and diverse societies. 2. A healthily functioning societal relationship with heritage manifests as a circular dynamic in which heritage values are generated and regenerated through participatory engagement with heritage assets, mechanisms and processes. These, in turn, are drivers of social and economic wellbeing. The circular dynamic, which is analogous to an ecosystem, provides the tool with which to identify gaps and needs in response to changes and challenges facing societies. 3. Professional activities and processes emerge in response to this view of heritage. These can be clustered across a range of core functions which come to describe the heritage sector, and can be mapped according to individual competences. Accordingly, this report is arranged into two parts. The first part offers a panoptic on heritage theory and the heritage sector, with particular emphasis on the role of heritage in contemporary society, emerging trends, and the interfaces between the multiplicity of stakeholders, professional practitioners, avocational actors and an increasingly diversified public. An important consideration, therefore, is the transversal nature of heritage values, and how they are, or ought to be, generated, shared, stewarded and conserved, sustainably. Here too WP2 focuses on the new agenda for heritage as expressed in various international declarations and conventions, and its implications for professional practitioners. This is the prism through which the sector is interrogated and analysed in the second part of this report. The pace at which the sector is evolving is quite remarkable, due in no small measure to the willingness of heritage professionals to adapt to, drive and take ownership of emerging circumstances and the new agenda. The challenges are considerable, and while the range of skills and knowledge in the professional toolkit is growing, so too are new fields of practice. A methodology for self-mapping onto a template of relevant skills and competences has been developed and tested. This makes visible the various combinations of competences amongst the different cohorts of contemporary practitioners, and the gaps that should be addressed in training and education.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Annan humaniora -- Övrig annan humaniora (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Other Humanities -- Other Humanities not elsewhere specified (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Övrig annan samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Other Social Sciences not elsewhere specified (hsv//eng)

HUMANIORA  -- Annan humaniora -- Kulturstudier (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Other Humanities -- Cultural Studies (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Heritage theory

Heritage sector

Heritage ecosystem

Heritage occupations

Blueprint project

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

rap (ämneskategori)