VIRTUAL: Prague Heritages
Abstract
Aiming to reflect the progression of improving the level of community engagement, particularly for heritage education, a model for Classifying the Level of Engagement from performance was proposed by TW Lao in 2022. Being part of the research project of Community Engagement with Heritage in Macau, the model was developed to testify the effectiveness of community engagement strategies, as well as to act as an appraisal of their performance. With the intention to examine its level of community engagement and give suggestions, this analysis is an application of the proposed model. Using the Historic Centre of Macau as a case study to review Macau’s performance in cultural management and the satisfactoriness of its participants. Unfortunately, due to the breakout of COVID-19, this research project has been postponed for presentation. Although the data collections and interviews were completed in 2019, this analysis should not be regarded as meaningless. Rather, it will be useful for upcoming trend comparison with new round of data collection which aims to evaluate the social and cultural impacts resulted from COVID-19, particularly in the interests in visiting heritage sites and museums, as well as in cultural education. This paper will first introduce the Historic Centre of Macau and its management strategies, then evaluate the data collected, classify the levels of engagement by referring to the model and lastly suggest a possible approach for better enhancing community engagement.
Teng Wai is a PhD student in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Macau. She began her studies at Durham University in the United Kingdom: BA in Ancient History and Archaeology (2015-2018) and MA in International Cultural Heritage Management (2018-2019), in which she developed interdisciplinary and conceptual skills in the fields of Classics, Archaeology, and Philosophy. She presented and published her papers in international journals and conferences. She recently presented her poster at the International Council of Museums (ICOM) Prague 2022.