Heritage Management in Historical Contexts: A Value Framework using Local People's Experiential Knowledge on Cultural Heritage

Abstract

On a daily routine, one can inevitably obtain experiential knowledge on cultural heritage often through
natural and built-forms of a growing historical context today. The purpose of this study is to examine how people
"express" their experiential knowledge on various qualities of cultural heritage, helpful in suggesting a
typological framework for holistic value-based approaches towards heritage management. Inspired by
Fredheim's model, the study has come up with a framework for interpreting the heritage and significance of a
historic urban centre. Such a structure may help one to understand whether local people "express" their
experiential knowledge on embedded qualities (values of past), namely as "awareness", and "recognisability",
and surface qualities (values of the present), namely as "attractiveness" and "familiarity". This study observes
that people "express" their experiential knowledge of cultural heritage through both the qualities aforesaid.
Earlier studies suggest "authenticity", "rarity" and "condition" as "qualifiers of value", in assessing the heritage.
However, the "experiential knowledge" that expresses local people's "value perceptions" can also qualify cultural
heritage. With the local people's experiential knowledge, it is further possible to spatially 'locate' the cultural
heritage towards addressing heritage management in the historical contexts.