IN-PERSON Barcelona. Section A

Abstract

Opening up the built heritage conservation field to the »people-centred approaches«, and this way attempting to overcome the hierarchical, top-down »authorised heritage discourse« framework, represents a major challenge in terms of methodologies, but especially in terms of integrating the results of participatory research into the conservation procedures. This challenge is even more salient in territories marked by contested history, and thus heritage. In the paper, I would like to present the results of a recent research that aimed at analysing and proposing methods for participatory and engaged conservation in contested places, in case-studies in south-western Slovenia. The core question of the project aimed at developing inclusive and participatory approaches through the use of established and newer ethnographic methods, namely a method called “group memory talk”. However, the policy aspect turned out to be crucial in terms of moving from theory to practice. So, through two case-studies of historic spaces (a square in Koper/Capodistria, and a neighbourhood in Nove Gorica), the views on such paradigm-shift by the key stakeholders in the decision-making process (heritage conservation institute, municipality, architect, users) will be presented and compared, while options for actually integrating participatory research in conservation procedures will be pinpointed.