Periodic Reporting for period 2 - PERICLES (PrEseRvIng and sustainably governing Cultural heritage and Landscapes in European coastal and maritime regionS)
Période du rapport: 2019-05-01 au 2021-10-31
PERICLES enables sustainable use of coastal and maritime cultural heritage (CMCH)
Looking across Europe, coastal peoples’ cultural heritage (CH) tells a story of hundreds – even a thousand – years of connections with their marine and coastal environments. CH provides a sense of place, unity, and belonging to people; it connects people to each other and to the past and helps guide our future. But CMCH is at risk today from climate change, pollution, urbanization, mass tourism, population decline in rural areas, the loss of traditional fishing fleets, neglect, and inconsistent policies of sea and shore conservation across European regions.
Thus, PERICLES works to show the opportunities of Europe’s diverse CH, while protecting and preserving it for future generations. With calls for Blue Growth (coastal, marine, and maritime related sectors) ringing throughout Europe, it is important to make an explicit connection between the multiple values of CMCH, the risks it faces and the benefits of safeguarding it for future generations.
The ultimate objective of PERICLES is to promote good governance and the sustainable utilization of cultural heritage in European coastal and maritime regions through the development of a multi-actor, participatory framework. To meet this objective, the project has:
- Developed an in-depth, situated understanding of CMCH focusing on communities of meaning and communities of practice
- Developed and tested practical tools, based on stakeholder involvement for mapping, assessing and mitigating risks to CH and for enhancing sustainable growth via CH assets
- Established a participatory risk assessment framework for sustainable management, conservation and exploitation of CMCH
- Provided policy advice to improve integration of CH in key marine and environmental policies and
- Cultivated effective knowledge exchange networks among stakeholders, policymakers, and scholars alike
PERICLES reached key conclusions in fulfilment of these objectives. First, community perspectives are vital for identifying CMCH and its risks, especially in connection to intangible CH where deep engagement helps to uncover lesser promoted heritage. Secondly, digital participatory tools and platforms are important, but facilitation is often vital for initial and sustained citizen engagement. Through our work across European case regions, we recognized differences in digital cultures. Thirdly, our work underscored that CMCH serves multiple and diverse purposes, including tourism development, culinary traditions, local ecological knowledge and observations of change, recreational opportunities, but can also be divisive and used to valorize some while marginalizing others.
Our work has uncovered the significant gap in policy in terms of the top-down regime that remains dismissive of local-level work on CMCH. Communities are working to maximize their use of CH and we would recommend that governance be done differently to allow heritage to be used more productively at the local level. At the EU level, policies and directives including the Common Fisheries Policy, Marine Strategy Framework, Habitats, and Maritime Spatial Planning Directives do not explicitly include CH aspects and thus we recommend mainstreaming CH, just like it is done with biodiversity. At the local/national level, cases gave insights into the balance of local community and tourism development(s) and moved beyond tourism to that of portrayal.
Looking across Europe, coastal peoples’ cultural heritage (CH) tells a story of hundreds – even a thousand – years of connections with their marine and coastal environments. CH provides a sense of place, unity, and belonging to people; it connects people to each other and to the past and helps guide our future. But CMCH is at risk today from climate change, pollution, urbanization, mass tourism, population decline in rural areas, the loss of traditional fishing fleets, neglect, and inconsistent policies of sea and shore conservation across European regions.
Thus, PERICLES works to show the opportunities of Europe’s diverse CH, while protecting and preserving it for future generations. With calls for Blue Growth (coastal, marine, and maritime related sectors) ringing throughout Europe, it is important to make an explicit connection between the multiple values of CMCH, the risks it faces and the benefits of safeguarding it for future generations.
The ultimate objective of PERICLES is to promote good governance and the sustainable utilization of cultural heritage in European coastal and maritime regions through the development of a multi-actor, participatory framework. To meet this objective, the project has:
- Developed an in-depth, situated understanding of CMCH focusing on communities of meaning and communities of practice
- Developed and tested practical tools, based on stakeholder involvement for mapping, assessing and mitigating risks to CH and for enhancing sustainable growth via CH assets
- Established a participatory risk assessment framework for sustainable management, conservation and exploitation of CMCH
- Provided policy advice to improve integration of CH in key marine and environmental policies and
- Cultivated effective knowledge exchange networks among stakeholders, policymakers, and scholars alike
PERICLES reached key conclusions in fulfilment of these objectives. First, community perspectives are vital for identifying CMCH and its risks, especially in connection to intangible CH where deep engagement helps to uncover lesser promoted heritage. Secondly, digital participatory tools and platforms are important, but facilitation is often vital for initial and sustained citizen engagement. Through our work across European case regions, we recognized differences in digital cultures. Thirdly, our work underscored that CMCH serves multiple and diverse purposes, including tourism development, culinary traditions, local ecological knowledge and observations of change, recreational opportunities, but can also be divisive and used to valorize some while marginalizing others.
Our work has uncovered the significant gap in policy in terms of the top-down regime that remains dismissive of local-level work on CMCH. Communities are working to maximize their use of CH and we would recommend that governance be done differently to allow heritage to be used more productively at the local level. At the EU level, policies and directives including the Common Fisheries Policy, Marine Strategy Framework, Habitats, and Maritime Spatial Planning Directives do not explicitly include CH aspects and thus we recommend mainstreaming CH, just like it is done with biodiversity. At the local/national level, cases gave insights into the balance of local community and tourism development(s) and moved beyond tourism to that of portrayal.
PERICLES contributed knowledge and enhanced interdisciplinary understanding of CMCH. Project partners took the theories first outlined in the proposal and synthesized them into novel concepts such as communities of meaning and communities of participation (Ounanian et al. 2021) and have further used the pillars to develop a framework on steering resilience and identifying different states of CMCH based on theoretical and empirical work done in the project (Flannery et al. under review). PERICLES consortium members continue to draft academic papers with plans to publish in a special issue of the journal, Maritime Studies (MAST).
We realized the links to the impact on methodologies and tools used by practitioners, planners, policymakers, local communities, and researchers. Grounded in case regions work, various tools were used and explored and have shown communities new methods and tools on how to sustain and use CMCH. The mapping portal and citizen engagement have been a central part of this, but other tools such as izi.Travel have helped communities reclaim their heritage narratives and emboldened them to command tourists’ attention. The public-facing report, Sustainable Governance of Marine and Coastal Heritage: Methods, Tools, and Approaches shows the innovative practices and identifies ‘what works’ in this milieu.
Education materials for diverse audiences (such as, school children to tourist operators) have been developed, shared, and made accessible to communities. This supports the intended impact on youth engagement outlined at the start of the project. The engagement and activities in the case regions dovetail with these materials and build capacity to use CMCH in local development, planning, tourism, place making, and identity building. In Malta and Portugal, the project impacted tourism activities and business growth through tools and stakeholder engagement.
One of the significant contributions of PERICLES is its participatory risk assessment framework, which puts reflection and reflexivity at the core of the process. These are grounded in the deliberative governance approach of the project and create impact on the governance and management of CMCH, bringing the field toward greater participation and rectifying previously held beliefs on what CMCH is and what risks it faces. Although the testing and use of this framework was greatly constrained due to COVID-19, project partners took lessons from their case regions. CMCH stakeholders can employ, experiment with, and expand the PERICLES participatory risk framework.
The project’s policy briefs and its MARE Policy Day event have raised the issue of CMCH among planners and decision makers and other policy actors. The 3rd policy brief outlined the integration issues needed, especially at EU level, in connection to sectoral policies (e.g. CFP) and environmental planning (e.g. MSP Directive). Case work in Denmark has had a direct impact, where one of the involved municipalities will now incorporate CMCH into local planning practices.
Finally, network-building and knowledge-sharing were at the core of project activities. The project reached beyond its geographical area through online activities, including the webinar series that pulled participants from 48 countries worldwide. Collaborations with other researchers and co-production with stakeholders and local communities represent the ‘strong and weak ties’ established through project work.
We realized the links to the impact on methodologies and tools used by practitioners, planners, policymakers, local communities, and researchers. Grounded in case regions work, various tools were used and explored and have shown communities new methods and tools on how to sustain and use CMCH. The mapping portal and citizen engagement have been a central part of this, but other tools such as izi.Travel have helped communities reclaim their heritage narratives and emboldened them to command tourists’ attention. The public-facing report, Sustainable Governance of Marine and Coastal Heritage: Methods, Tools, and Approaches shows the innovative practices and identifies ‘what works’ in this milieu.
Education materials for diverse audiences (such as, school children to tourist operators) have been developed, shared, and made accessible to communities. This supports the intended impact on youth engagement outlined at the start of the project. The engagement and activities in the case regions dovetail with these materials and build capacity to use CMCH in local development, planning, tourism, place making, and identity building. In Malta and Portugal, the project impacted tourism activities and business growth through tools and stakeholder engagement.
One of the significant contributions of PERICLES is its participatory risk assessment framework, which puts reflection and reflexivity at the core of the process. These are grounded in the deliberative governance approach of the project and create impact on the governance and management of CMCH, bringing the field toward greater participation and rectifying previously held beliefs on what CMCH is and what risks it faces. Although the testing and use of this framework was greatly constrained due to COVID-19, project partners took lessons from their case regions. CMCH stakeholders can employ, experiment with, and expand the PERICLES participatory risk framework.
The project’s policy briefs and its MARE Policy Day event have raised the issue of CMCH among planners and decision makers and other policy actors. The 3rd policy brief outlined the integration issues needed, especially at EU level, in connection to sectoral policies (e.g. CFP) and environmental planning (e.g. MSP Directive). Case work in Denmark has had a direct impact, where one of the involved municipalities will now incorporate CMCH into local planning practices.
Finally, network-building and knowledge-sharing were at the core of project activities. The project reached beyond its geographical area through online activities, including the webinar series that pulled participants from 48 countries worldwide. Collaborations with other researchers and co-production with stakeholders and local communities represent the ‘strong and weak ties’ established through project work.
PERICLES worked to alter the trajectory of CH scholarship in its social scientific approach and its emphasis on communities and a situated understanding of CMCH. We defined CMCH from a social science perspective, drawing upon the consortium’s expertise; this definition departs somewhat from others ‘inside the heritage community’. We in PERICLES proudly point to our work and what we created with communities and what we now leave in their hands to use for a variety of planning, development, education, policy, and governance imperatives.