When Local Wishes to Become Global: Heritagization Strategies of Small Towns and Little Places in Remote Regions (20th and 21st centuries)
Abstract
Main session in three panels at the international conference of European Association for Urban History "Urban Renewal and Resilience. Cities in Comparative Perspective" at Roma Tre University in Rome.
Regardless of their quantity, the small places in shadow of big cities and metropolises, remain a distinct feature in the image of European Culture. While large urban sprawls, with their concomitant suburban malls, highways, skyscrapers, and the like, may seem to lack individuality when compared globally, small towns, on the contrary, retain specific spatial organization, forms of social life, including face-to-face contact, and engender variety of regional types (P.
Clark ,European Cities and Towns (400-2000). Oxford 2009.).
If we disregard demographic and economic criteria, small towns are classified as those that maintain their traditions and cultural identity, as opposed to large towns where the focus is on the future with, in consequence, a progressive loss of direct bond to the past. The first are categorized as "societies of memory", the second as "societies of change" (D.
Hervieu-Léger). Such an interpretation, however, suggests a rather gloomy prognosis for the future of small towns, on the other hand we find that in small communities there is rooted the mobilization capacity and social and psychological importance of their tangible and intangible heritage, as well as the ability of creating territorial networks on a creative and innovative basis (P.
L. Knox, H.
Mayer, Small Towns Sustainability: Economic, Social, and Environmental Innovation, Birkhäuser 2009). Small places often aware of the unique value of their tangible heritage, attempt to play with it, with more or less success, in their development strategies.
The same role may attain the intangible heritage linked to the territory or the inherited goods that have not been traditionally assessed but embody their ties to the land, like minor or vernacular architecture, agricultural heritage or transition landscapes. What are the reasons - cultural policies biased to big cities, fragmented heritage practices or absence of research on small towns? Shortage of resources, limited capacities and knowledge in small towns and peripheral regions? The objective of the session is to categorize the variety of representational strategies of multi-level value of small towns' heritage, including intangible heritage and traditional economic practices, to explore links among heritage experts and other relevant stakeholders on national and transnational level with actors in local communities, regional bodies and cross border projects, to highlight the overlooked and identify good and bad practices, and bottlenecks.
The session attracted 15 high quality proposals. It was organized in close colaboration between the two session chairs - B. del Espino Hidalgo and L.
Klusakova. The third co-author functioned as discussant of the session.
The participants decided to continue in collaboration after the conference.