Heritage, Democracy and the Public

Nordic Approaches

Torgrim Sneve Guttormsen, Grete Swensen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781472449405
• eBook ISBN: 9781317122319
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Library & Information Science
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

What is the significance of heritage for how welfare is defined? What function does heritage have in the public realm and how is heritage becoming a resource for citizens to gain influence in society? Who and what defines the public debates and the politics about heritage? Is there a knowledge gap between research communities, management, and the public understanding and use of heritage? These are some of the questions that the authors of this book reflect upon. They provide Nordic perspectives on how the management of the past takes place, and how it is carried out in the service of the society, offering new interpretations of the role of heritage in present society, where institutional heritage management has become just one of the many and multiple ways in which different publics engage with cultural heritage. This book addresses the main challenges faced by heritage managers today in light of the changing understanding of heritage in society.

Chapter 1
Introduction: Heritage, Democracy and the Public — Nordic Approaches

Torgrim Sneve Guttormsen and Grete Swensen

Introduction

No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

(Winston Churchill in James 1974: 7566, from a House of Commons speech on 11 November 1947)

This quote refers to the election of a new prime minister and government in the UK after the Second World War, when Sir Winston Churchill, despite his efforts and all the tributes to him as prime minister during the war, was not re-elected. Churchill’s now famous quote is known as the grand example of what democracy is all about. It means: No matter how justified you think your opinions are, you must yield (preferable with a dose of humour stripped of self-importance) to the opinion of the public. This lesson about power and public opinion applies equally to how a state-driven heritage management is organised and performed in democratic societies. No matter how well made the arguments by the experts within the research and management sector are about the business they conduct, their opinions seem poor if they do not include or lead to dialogues with public opinion about the past and the uses of heritage. This is why institutional heritage managements in democratic societies are concerned with what people value and with how trends and deeper questions that occupy our time affect heritage practices and these are also significant matters for heritage researchers to uncover and analyse. In this context, the overall aim of this book is to examine how heritage benefits the citizens of democratic societies. A main objective of the book is to elaborate and discuss the challenges of how to manage cultural heritage viewed in relation to societal processes in contemporary societies. The focus, examples and topics in the book are Nordic (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden). By this geographical approach we aim to examine to what extent ‘Nordic heritage’ relates to discourses on democracy and the public.

Heritage, Democracy and the Public

Understanding the relationship between heritage, democracy and the public is a complex and ambiguous task. The concepts deserve attention, however, despite the ambiguity, because core issues have evolved in examining various aspects of why and how societies value the past and choose to use heritage for their own means. Societies in this context mean a diverse public that participates in the development of a socially defined community, state or nation, which includes institutional bodies, such as museums, heritage preservationists, universities and other governmental sectors, as well as social groups in the non-authorised domain associated with the general public, for instance heritage associations and local or ethnic groups.

Understanding public values is significant for understanding how heritage is related to democracy. As explained by Ricardo Blaug, Louise Horner and Rohit Lekhi in the paper ‘Heritage, democracy and public value’:

‘Public value’ is a tricky concept. There are many meanings of ‘public’, and still more of ‘value’. The former can refer to public goods, to social capital, civil society or the public sphere. ‘Value’ is a term that is equally fraught. To some it means economic value – how much a product or service is worth relative to other things as indicated by its price. Value can also relate to preferences and satisfaction with a particular service at a specific point in time. Finally, values such as security and integrity derive from moral and ethical debate and will always be hotly contested. When it comes to thinking about the value of a historical site, all of these approaches to value have a bearing on decisions about what to conserve or to leave obsolete.

(Blaug, Horner and Lekhi 2006: 23)

The authors stress that the function of public services is to create, communicate and disseminate values which are authorised by a multiple and diverse public. Democracy is in this context defined as institutional services that benefit the public and which demonstrate the mosaic of public preferences and interests in the making of heritage.

The idea of how heritage represents democracy, where all eligible citizens participate equally, have access to the past and have equal authorisation in heritage discourses, has become influential in current debates about heritage (e.g., Sørmoen 2009; Harrison 2013: 223–226). In these discourses, criticism of institutional heritage management has been to a large extent about institutional conservatism which is afflicted by normative and reactionary practices and valuation systems. The institutional heritage management sector has, however, met these criticisms by investing in applied research that generates new ideas, concepts and methods which can be implemented in heritage practices. Yet, less attention is paid to how the stakeholders in heritage managements contribute, both in institutional and non-institutional practices, to the maintenance and development of democratic societies.

Using heritage for the benefit of democracy and the public is pivotal in national and international heritage management policies, thus illustrating that heritage is all about politics (see Harrison 2010; Peckham 2003; Smith 2006). The tangible and intangible aspects of nature and culture that define public heritage values will, in this context, include how relict traces and concepts of the past are resources that become societal values – for instance economic, educational, social/cultural values – which are used in ongoing debates and in the shaping of present societies (see Smith, Messenger and Soderland 2010). Issues concerning democracy and the public will further direct attention to heritage as a tool for societies to promote community development, shared identities, and public engagement. How heritage contributes to building democracies is a core issue in current environmental and cultural policies, where it is believed to be a positive force for achieving, among other things, social cohesion, sustainable development and multiculturalism, as well as fulfilling the desires and needs of the citizens, for instance when heritage becomes popular and has consumer value (see for example Rodéhn 2010: 17−19).

Using heritage to promote and protect democratic processes and values will have in addition painful resonance in areas of war and social stress. This is demonstrable in Syria and Iraq, for instance, where heritage becomes part of violent conflicts and fierce cultural battles which put issues of human rights, ideas of shared values, and democratic decision making to the fore (Parcak 2010: 170). In this context using heritage for democracy building will resonate with ethical understanding, creating respect and tolerance by promoting dialogue across social, cultural and ethnical boundaries as well as between majorities and minorities (Atkinson 2013). In a European context, the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society (the Faro Convention) is innovative in linking the concept of a common heritage of Europe to, among other things, ‘the purpose of safeguarding and fostering the ideals and principles, founded upon respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law, which are their common heritage’ (Council of Europe 2005).

Promoting heritage for ‘democracy’ and ‘the public’ may, however, despite good political intentions, easily look like using political buzz words. This book intends to go beyond current political fashion by inviting heritage researchers to examine the relationship between broad political intentions in using heritage, new knowledge within heritage research and challenges within present heritage management practices. These three nodal points – between societal goals, heritage research and management tasks – have been the underlying theme for the structure of the book. How the topics of ‘democracy’ and ‘the public’ are related to cultural heritage will, however, be discussed differently by the contributors in the book. In conclusion, the editors will summarise the discussions raised in the chapters by asking what kind of challenges and pivotal tasks are faced by present and future heritage managements based on the topics raised by the heritage researchers contributing to this book.

What Distinguishes the Nordic Societies?

The political intentions set out by international charters, as described in the previous section, also resonate with legitimating rhetoric about how heritage could promote and maintain democratic values in the Nordic societies (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden). The oldest working parliament in the world is reputed to be the Icelandic Althing, founded in 930 AD. The long history of the shaping of legislation and the development of heritage management practices is testimony to the influence heritage has gained in the Nordic countries. Like other areas of civic life, the idea of heritage is closely related to the historical development of democratic systems and their need to forge ties of trust between governmental bodies and the citizens. Projects that encourage the importance of cultural heritage in increasing national (thereby local and regional) identity and belonging have been significant within this democracy discourse (McDowell 2008: 47−49). In the Nordic countries the idea of heritage as a common identity project evolved during the nineteenth century when the influence of the National Romantic Movement made it a cultural political tool for promoting heritage values associated with national independence, liberalism and democracy.

It is symptomatic of the formation of Scandinavian democracy that, by the beginning of the twentieth century, the Nordic countries had gained legislation for protecting their natural and cultural heritage. Although the reason for protecting the past has changed over time in accordance with cultural and societal changes, the idea that heritage disseminates common good and a shared past has been maintained as a baseline through time in the Heritage Acts of the Nordic countries.

Today, the democratic government’s legislature of a parliamentary political system which gives power to the people as well as a balanced power between political parties, the administrative chambers within the state organisation and the public and the private sectors forms the backbone of the stable societies associated with the Nordic countries. A well-functioning heritage management, concerned with caring for the past for present and future generations, is well established within this political system in the Nordic countries.

However, present heritage management practices raise a series of questions about how cultural heritage may serve as part of public values and contribute to the understanding of what democracy is all about. What, for instance, is the significance of heritage in how welfare is defined? What function does heritage have in the public realm and how is heritage becoming a resource helping citizens to gain influence in society? Who and what define the public debates and the politics about heritage? Is there a knowledge gap between research communities, management communities and public understanding and uses of heritage? These are some, but not all, of the questions the authors of this book will reflect upon. Through various case studies and themes we explore the characteristics of Nordic heritage discourses and ask how distinct they are. A framework for discussing this is the so-called Nordic democratic model. The Nordic democratic model is best described as both capitalistic and socialistic, a middle ground model, or expressed more profoundly:

Among the unique features of the Nordic model, is a balance between seemingly contradictory polarities. The model represents a soft, but productive mode of capitalism, which is highly dynamic and flexible, but it also has an extensive welfare provision and efficient market regulation. It strikes a balance between individualism and collectivism not only in the economic, but also in the civic sphere, where it unites a strong sense of domestic community in welfare provision with promotion of universal human rights abroad.

(Midttun and Witoszek 2011: 4)

The Nordic democratic model is characterised by some as egalitarian whereas economic prosperity benefits the population as a whole and is combined with wider welfare concerns; they are defined by responsible and relatively non-corrupt economies and are generally seen as efficient bureaucracies within a political ideal state (Fukuyama 2014: 25). In 2013, The Economist declared that the Nordic countries ‘are probably the best-governed in the world’ (The Economist 2013). The United Nations World Happiness Reports from 2012 to 2015 showed that the countries with the highest levels of happiness were concentrated in Northern Europe (e.g., Helliwell, Layard and Sachs eds 2015; United Nations 2015). The Nordic countries are ranked highest on the metrics of real GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, having someone to count on, perceived freedom to make life choices, freedom from corruption and generosity. However, ‘[t]he stress test of the Nordic Model for the 21st century will be how it handles new combinations of issues like climate, globalizing markets, migration, and ethnic identity’ (Midttun and Witoszek 2011: 6). Following that statement the rationale of this book can be summarised by the following research questions: What stands out as the new role for heritage managers and researchers alike in this new context? What are the challenges of the future management of heritage in democratic societies? Can we draw some lessons from how heritage is defined and discussed in the Nordic countries compared to countries where tensions and open conflicts are more pronounced? We have invited researchers to explore the extent to which the societal and so-called ‘well-governed’ conditions within Nordic democracies are reflected in cultural heritage, both the front- and backdrops that can be experienced by analysing various heritage discourses.

A primary subject related to the challenges of managing heritage is how a welfare system for our age should be developed as a satisfactorily public service. The idea of the welfare state is commonly grounded in the principles of ‘stateness’ (public services ensuring equal access to common goods), ‘universality’ (ensuring social rights to the whole population) and ‘equality’ (fairly small class, income and gender differences, solidarity) (Alestalo, Hort and Kuhnle 2009: 1–4). The Nordic welfare system is funded through considerable taxation. However, the system is more than just public-sector service provision. It defines a mode to include the variation of public opinion in societal decision making and to engage all citizens in a democracy. Although the practical administration of the welfare state takes different approaches between the Nordic nations, the Nordic societies are based on a common set of core values. These core values can be summarised as follows:

The Nordic welfare states are based on a shared political goal of encouraging strong social cohesion. The Nordic social model is renowned for the universal nature of its welfare provision, which is based on the core values of equal opportunities, social solidarity and security for all. The model promotes social rights and the principle that everyone is entitled to equal access to social and health services, education and culture.

This also applies to care for social outcasts and vulnerable groups in society. A central goal is to create opportunities for all to take part in the social life and in the decision-making process in society.

(The Nordic Council 2014)

On the basis of these core values within the grand democracy discourse it would be relevant to ask in which ways heritage is to be defined as a significant aspect of the Nordic welfare societies. The need to protect and develop heritage as a sustainable resource and public good for the people and by the people is, as previously described, richly illustrated by international and national policies and strategies. The heritage literature on public opinion and the uses of heritage and, similarly, the dissonances...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• 1 Introduction: Heritage, Democracy and the Public - Nordic Approaches
• PART I DEBATING NATIONAL HERITAGE - BETWEEN OLD AND NEW PARADIGMS
• PART II CONTESTING HERITAGE - PREVAILING POLICY AND PLANNING REGIMES
• PART III EXPERIENCING HERITAGE: EMBODIMENT, PERFORMANCE AND THE PUBLIC
• PART IV CONCEPTUALISING AND MANAGING HERITAGE - THEORIES AND FUTURE CHALLENGES
• Index