“Cultural heritage management: insights and challenges” Victoria Ateca-Amestoy Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea Asociación Española de Gestores de Patrimonio Cultural (AEGPC) e-mail: victoriamaria.ateca@ehu.es
“The management of the Spanish cultural heritage is a profession that requires special skills and a wide formation, as it affects elements of a relevant historic, artistic or cultural value. This activity puts in the hands of the professional cultural heritage manager highly valuable resources that embody important social, historic and cultural value.” (from the Preamble of the Code of Ethics of the Spanish Association of Cultural Heritage Managers)
Introduction In this chapter, we would like to present the experience of the Spanish Association of Cultural Heritage Managers (Asociación Española de Gestores de Patrimonio Cultural, AEGPC), a professional association that was created in 1997: During the last two decades, we have seen a number of changes that have created new challenges, required new skills and training and, at the same time, have opened new professional avenues and business opportunities. During this period, the concept itself of cultural heritage has evolved to a more integrated approach between material and intangible resources, becoming more related to the identity and development of communities.
This will allow us to discuss some of the characteristics of the job profiles related to the management of cultural heritage resources and institutions, as well as to reflect on how traditional debates and dilemmas around heritage are to be dealt with under a different framework, characterized by a tougher competition to access public funds, an increasing popularity of cultural tourism and international flows, and a constantly changing world due to digitization and to other possibilities opened by the information and communication technologies. In what follows, we will present the changing reflections and activities that have been promoted by the AEGPC. To do so, we will describe our aims and how the institution defined a plan of action to fulfil them. We will highlight the reflection, research and training activities. After that overview, we will discuss on the stakeholders involved in the preservation, use and enjoyment of cultural heritage resources. This will introduce a presentation of some topics related to cultural heritage management. At the light of those issues, we will conclude with a proposal of some of the skills needed nowadays for the professional and responsible management of cultural resources.
Creating meeting points for discussion and lifelonglearning since 1997 The AEGPC was created in 1997, promoted by a group of professionals that had just finished specific postgraduate programmes on Cultural Heritage Management at several universities in Spain. A number of Spanish universities started offering postgraduate specific training on this area in the second half of the nineties. The context in which this took place was that of a Southern European country that benefited extensively from having joined the European Community (EC) in 1985 (becoming a net recipient of structural and cohesion funds), though it had gone through painful processes of deindustrialization and that was creating a future grounded in the service sector, specially, tourism. 1992 was a particular golden year for this model, with Barcelona hosting the Olympic Games, Madrid being the European City of Culture, and Sevilla celebrating the Universal Exhibition.
In a highly decentralized country, every regional government included culture in their regeneration strategies, with flagship projects for cities as Valencia, Bilbao...At a smaller scale, the same happened in medium-sized cities and rural areas. Endowed with a rich historical heritage and with diminishing and ageing populations, many Spanish regions benefited from the funds allocated to “Objective One regions” (those with per capital GDP below 75% of the EC average), that resulted on “low hanging fruit” to finance projects through the Leader (rural development) or Interreg (trans-frontier cooperation) programmes. Many of those resources were invested in the improvement of traditional rural architecture to install rural hostels or in the building of cultural infrastructure as heritage interpretation centres, ecomuseums or support for cultural routes in rural areas. Training of human resources also benefited from European Funds, for instance, via the European Social Funds, that were allocated to improve skills of workers and unemployed. Summarizing, the 90s appeared as an age that opened many opportunities to the management of cultural resources, as public policies started considering it a valuable resource for local development, a catalytic for urban regeneration and rural development, and field with potential for the creation of employment. The Association soon realized that the professional skills and field of action of the cultural heritage manager had to be defined and clarified. The cultural heritage manager is not an artist, nor a museum curator, nor an archaeologist, nor an art historian, nor an art restorer, nor an architect, though he/she can come from any of those professions. It was agreed that the cultural heritage manager is a resource administrator and his/her multidisciplinar training requires, mostly, a broad and exhaustive knowledge of the elements of the cultural heritage to be managed, as well as manifold skills (project and business management techniques, human resources direction and cultural marketing and communication). The essential aim of the cultural heritage manager is to make compatible the conservation of the integrity of the cultural resource with the achievement of social, cultural and economic returns derived from that same resource. To do so, the cultural, human and financial available resources have to be managed in an efficient way. The admissions conditions were set in this way: the professional ability was to be proved either with a postgraduate degree on cultural management or an experience on
management of cultural projects and cultural heritage of, at least, 2 years. The candidates submitted their CV together with a motivation letter, and the admission was decided by the executive board. The Association worked on the design, approval and dissemination of a Code of Ethics to define the professional responsibility of cultural heritage managers towards the resources they have to manage, towards the communities that heritage is related to, towards their clients and towards other colleagues. This was a pioneer initiative that has been followed by other associations of cultural professionals in Spain. Quality management was identified as another important aspect of the professional practice. Together with the Spanish Association for Quality (Asociación Espaùola para la Calidad –AEC) a joint committee was organized to undertake research and to define how a quality management system and implementation could be designed for heritage management. With the support of the Spanish Ministry of Culture, the AEGPC organized a 204 hours pilot course on Training for Quality Technician and Manager of Quality Systems for Cultural Heritage Managers. The course was further offered together with the Andalusian Institute of Cultural Heritage in several editions of their lifelong learning programme. Last, some skills that were not properly addressed in the postgraduate studies on cultural heritage management were identified. The Association started working in the design of short courses and workshops on cultural entrepreneurship, communication and public relations, project design and management and other basic areas. Though the format of those course has changed (as early as 2002 the AEGPC started online courses), as well as the titles and the target audience, we must recognize that the big areas were our associated have identified the need for a continuous process of update of skills have remained pretty constant in these two decades. Another relevant activity was the design and management for several editions of special training modules for heritage professionals from Latin America that were awarded a Foundation Carolina Excellence Grant. Together with the Foundation, the Association created a mentoring programme together with the coordination of the training plan and internships and visits to Spanish heritage institutions.
At the beginning of the activities, there was a need to clarify and define the professional profile, and this had to be presented to relevant public institutions and to other professional collectives. Meeting with those institutions and professionals were crucial to focus the debate and to build bridges with relevant stakeholders. We are specially grateful and proud of the collaboration established with the Andalusian Institute of Historic Heritage. The AEGPC started very early collaborating with other professional associations, such as with the Spanish Association of Museologists, and promoted the creation of the Spanish Federation of Associations of Cultural Management (Federación Estatal de Asociaciones de Gestores Culturales, FEAGC). It was clear that there are areas for the collaboration between other professionals managing cultural resources in an attempt to achieve a higher degree of professionalization in the public and private sectors. For instance, as a result of joint efforts, and after long presentations and negotiations with the Spanish Ministry of Labour and with the National Institute of Statistics, in 2012, the occupation “Cultural Manager” was included in the National Classification of Occupations. This implies that a cultural manager can get inscribed in the Register of the Employment Service under that heading, and not under a motley crew that includes bullfighters, wizards, and other occupations related to the art. The next step is to get a homologous recognition for economic activities, so that firms whose main activity is the management of cultural projects and/or resources can be classified according to this. The Association has also been concerned about the relations with other professionals and institutions in Latin America and in Europe. The Latin American Network of Cultural Heritage (in Spanish, Red Iberoamericana del Patrimonio Cultural, REDIPAC) was initially launched with the economic support of the Spanish Ministry of Culture. REDIPAC is a network of public and private bodies, associations, foundations, professional entities and companies in any of the fields related to Cultural Heritage. Adscription to the network is free and grants access to services provided by REDIPAC’s "Reference Institutions" (this is mostly technical support and expertise). This is a very successful project with nearly four thousand Latin American institutions were admitted into the Network. Coinciding with the 1st Latin American Congress of Cultural Heritage, on the 1st of December 2001, the 1st General Conference of the Latin American Network of Cultural Heritage was held in Madrid.
AEGPC has also promoted the existence of peer-organizations in Latin America. It was invited to the consultation and creation process of the Mexican Association for the Cultural Heritage Management. Founding principles (statutes, code of ethics, definitions and operating principles were adapted and shared). Other associations are in course of been implemented in other Latin American countries. Last, the association tries to bring its voice to Europe through the participation in projects and consultations. The AEGPC is registered in the Transparency Register of Interest Groups of the EU, and participates in open consultations. In the last years, it has contributed to the consultations on the Green Book of CCI, on the survey on financial needs of CCI, and was required by the Spanish Ministry of Culture to comment on the proposals of Creative Europe. It also participates in “The Learning Museum (LEM)� workgroup of NEMO, the Network of European Museums Organisations, and is associated partner in some research projects.
The cultural heritage puzzle. Cultural Heritage is a multidimensional social construction that provides different types of services to many stakeholders. It is a resource for education, for the enjoyment and recreation, and for the development of communities, of cities and regions (Greffe, 1990; Peacock, 1994; Klamer and Zuidhof, 1998; Mazzanti, 2003; Bedate et al., 2004; Barillet et al., 2006; Ateca-Amestoy, 2013). Nowadays, the whole society is acknowledged to have access to cultural heritage and, at the same time, should recognize its responsibility in terms of suitable protection and transmission to future generations. Several social trends explain the centrality of cultural heritage and why it has left the exclusive realm of specialists to become a popular concept. First, there has been an extension of formal education, so societies are more instructed and aware of their history (Vecco, 2010). Second, there has been a reduction of working hours in Western societies that has contributed to enjoy more leisure time. Third, different leisure patterns have emerged with technological changes in transportation and, more importantly, with information and communication technologies.
The importance of the role of experts has just diminished and society has become the central stakeholder, as cultural heritage is inextricably linked to the community that coexists with it and recreates it. Still, they play an important role in the processes of recognition, designation and, in the last instance, provision of the supply of heritage goods. Experts establish the criteria to choose the elements of heritage, and their choice determines what is preserved (as in archaeological interventions linked to public works), and the optimal condition that balance preservation and access to those goods (as in the case of a museum curator that decides if some element is fragile enough as to prevent its exhibition). The rationale for this prominent role is that they are still to have better information about the quality and about the inherent values of the elements of cultural heritage. Thus, they are necessary to assure a reasonable balance in the present and future provision of cultural heritage (Rizzo and Towse, 2002). Access is obviously needed so that present generations can enjoy and appreciate the values of cultural heritage, both individual and collectively- However, not only direct users (owners or visitors) will derive utility and enjoyment from a cultural good, but also non user will determine the valuation of that object. The group of users derives benefits of the use value attached to that good; the non-users will consider the non-use value because of the existence, because of the option of having access to it and because of the bequest value that is attached to its transfer to future generations (Klamer and Zuidhof, 1998). Given that, with the exception of the case of some artefacts (such as some paintings, sculptures, archaeological objects and buildings), there are many instances in which there is not a market for cultural heritage elements. For such cases, suitable valuation techniques have to be considered when trying to assign an economic value to a non-market heritage good. Notice, however, that even in the case in which an element of the cultural heritage is privately owned, so it provides enjoyment to its owner that uses it, that element can also provide a positive utility because of its existence to all the members of the community. For instance, even if a historic building is privately owned, its well preserved faรงade will provide enjoyment to the non-owners. This societal value is on the basis of many of the regulations attached to public designation that basically impose to private owners duties in terms of making the good somehow accessible to the public, of the limitation of the alteration of those elements, or of restrictions to the international trade of it.
The extension of cultural heritage: more to preserve and more to manage More and more tangible and intangible elements become part of cultural heritage in contemporary societies. This increase is due to two main factors. The fist one is related to the administrative process of protection, related to the inclusion in lists and inventories, such that additional elements are included in the list and it is quite infrequent to get elements excluded (Benhamou, 1996 and 2011). The second one is the extension of the concept of heritage with new typologies (Vecco, 2010), as the social demand for cultural goods determine the interrelationship of cultural elements with their context and society, so new typologies such as cultural landscape, industrial heritage and non tangible heritage are recently considered worth preserving. Those new categories present new challenges in terms of management and imply that objective selection criteria (as age of the artefact or traditional values) are nowadays as important as broader new selection criteria (as iconic values and values of representation of the communities. The new configuration of cultural heritage poses new challenges to public and private cultural managers in their task to preserve communicate to current generations and transmit it to future generations. We would like now to turn to the implications of a responsible and professional management of cultural resources if we want to achieve the aims of any heritage conservation programme, in terms of guaranteeing at the same time a good condition of the resource (its tangible integrity, as well as the integrity of its intangible values), and the enjoyment of its use by visitors, owners and communities.
Relevant issues on the management of cultural heritage This section is not at all close, in that it intends to arise new questions about what happens with cultural resources once that physical interventions (as in the way of a restoration or renovation) has been completed. Nowadays, concepts as preventive conservation are incorporated in the reflections on cultural heritage. Planning and management of resources were also introduced in the everyday practice of architects, people working on research and restorations, and urban and regional planners. However, in terms of the assessment of how effective and efficient those interventions have been,
there are still people that do not consider this important. Moreover, there is a need to develop methods to evaluate physical interventions and management of projects, as well as a need to propose alternative indicators to the traditional ones (number of visitors or the average expenditure per visitor) that can be relatively easy to implement by managers and planners. The use of professional management techniques or the research of cultural heritage resources with the tools of the economist does not imply at all a reduced and mercantilist vision of heritage. They are just analytical tools that allow us to balance the interest of different stakeholders or to reflect on the diverse dimensions in which heritage is relevant for the life of the communities. Actually, the professional management is the guarantee for a good conservation of cultural resources and for the sustainability, in the sense that current choices will not limit the choices to be done by future generations. Heritage has to be useful for the communities that created / recreate them, that finance their preservation and that enjoy them. Otherwise, those communities (or their governments) will take the explicit decision of not preserving them or will just forget them, condemning them to disappearance. Cultural heritage plans should involve the joint work of professionals from many disciplines, objectives that recognize the intrinsic values of the elements of heritage, and also objectives that recognize their instrumental values and that make use of the impact of heritage, and of the services derived from that resources, for the local communities that shall benefit from heritageled regeneration and job creation. Why are we interested in cultural Heritage? Certain changes started in the last decades of the past century that enhanced the popularity of cultural heritage, so it left the status of “elitist” and “for the illustration and research of the few”. Because of changes in social life, leisure, tourism, and information
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decontextualized and in boxes in the museum came to the centre of everyday life practices, such as visiting blockbuster exhibitions during our vacations. The same concept of cultural heritage expended (the so-called “historic-artistic” heritage turned into “cultural” heritage) and it became a popular topic (far from the only interest of researchers, curators and erudite people). We are interested in the values of cultural
heritage (Avrami et al., 2000; Snowball, 2008). It was also considered a resource for economic and social development for the communities related to it (in terms of rural tourism or integral territory development plans) with a great potential to generate economic activity. The capacity of cultural heritage was also considered a great area for the development of the new employment niches. European societies, each time more educated, with more leisure time, and with leisure habits linked to cultural tourism demanded more and more varied services linked to cultural heritage resources. Further, the concept of cultural heritage has experienced an extension process in the last decades. As it is a social construction, it is subject to differences in its appreciation based on historic, social and institutional factors (Hutter and Rizzo, 1997; Peacock, 1994). Current generations are not making our decisions on what we appreciate from the past, what we preserve, how we interpret the past and what we want to transit to future generations. We have received that particular set of cultural assets, based on a social consent of which elements are worth preserving. Accounting for this choice, there has been institutional agreements (conventions, legal categories, law and administrative procedures) to ensure the transmission of that legacy from the past to future generations, including sometimes the more recent past. Many diverse elements of the cultural Heritage: what to choose and how. Every time that the administration is about starting a public work and an archeological site appears, apart from starting the perceptive emergency intervention, has to set up a mechanism for “cost-benefit� analysis that would enable to evaluate if the initial working plan is compatible with the values of the cultural asset. The decision can harm irreversibly the values of the asset and even its existence. When a curator decides what pieces of a museum collection are going to be displayed for public exhibition in a museographic programme, he/she is also taking a management decision. When the person in charge of the public relations and communications of a historic site considers the possibility of developing an app to provide visitors with further services, he/she is also involved in a resource allocation problem. In the first two examples, there are specific characteristics of the cultural good that require the action of highly specialized professionals and, in many cases, of interdisciplinary teams that integrate technical, planning, management and communication skills.
In all those choices there is a common element: to choose is to necessarily forgo all the non-chosen alternatives. The allocation of scarce resources must be driven by optimal choices, and we should render cultural managers accountable for their decisions. That allocation has to be efficient; this is implies that the aim has to be achieved with the most suitable combination of resources. Cultural managers should in turn watch carefully the ethical implications of their professional practice.
Cultural Heritage resources The general economic downturn of the last years has brought a dramatic cut of public funding to sustain cultural heritage. At the same time, professionals and public bodies have tried to unlock the potential of cultural heritage to promote economic activity, generating new jobs and promoting development. Cultural heritage should indeed contribute to the progress of the current generations that coexist with it but managers should be aware of our current responsibility of preserving and enriching it to be transmitted to future generations. Is cultural Heritage related to the past or to the present? Each time we receive elements from the more recent past, as un the case of industrial heritage, where many generations see how the productive elements that created economic activity and jobs in the past are transformed into elements of the common past. The choices about what to preserve and what not to preserve are to be taken by each generation considering their current values and available resources. Those choices, taken many times in the last instance by politicians influenced by political cycles and not by informed professional advice. Thus, they should be kept accountable for their decisions, so social and economic criteria are taken into consideration. Preserve and transmit to future generations Heritage is a cultural asset that is quite similar to natural resources in that current decisions affect future generations. In Economics this is modelled in terms of “intertemporal externalities�, and problems arise when the welfare of future generations is not correctly taken into account in the contemporary decision making progress.
Future generations should get those cultural resources in a condition that allows them enjoy at least as many choices as we currently do, foreclosing their development options. This is the principle of sustainability that can be perfectly applied to the cultural heritage realm (Throsby, 2003). This has several implications in terms of management. First, the sustainability of cultural heritage resources has to be guaranteed by the professional management, subject to good practices and codes of ethics. Second, this has to do with intergeneracional equity, a sort of social contract between generations by which the welfare of our offsprings should be taken into account. Third, though cultural heritage is related to a given community, it is often a “global public good”, a category of economic goods that is strongly universal n terms of countries, people and generations (Kaul et al., 1999). The heritage elements declared to be “World Heritage” by UNESCO get inscribed in the list on the basis of the compliance of several criteria that ensure their “global public good” condition. At the international level, the inscription is associated to the global acknowledgement and awareness of the qualities of that good and increases the possibilities of suitable preservation investment. However, as we sadly see nowadays, this brings also some negative side effects. The global visibility of the resource can make it become a war target or suffer terrorist attacks. The congestion in the excess access and use can deteriorate the resource and can make it nearly impossible to enjoy any meaningful experience to visitors. Last, but not least, the reduction of the protection of “minor” elements that are not covered by the declaration is negative, as those elements are absolutely needed to preserve the integral value of the resource.
Conclusions The multiple values of cultural heritage, the variety of stakeholders and agents involved in it management (often with a conflict of interests), the changes in its management due to technology and, currently, the effects of the economic crisis and the diminishing public finance create new challenges for the management of cultural heritage and, subsequently, for the cultural heritage professional manager. Planning, managing and evaluating
When we consider “managing” a cultural institution, this should not only account for the scientific or administrative management of that institution. Curators’ team is expected to carry on their study and exhibition plan of the collection. The artistic team of a theatre is expected to make the programme become reality. But there are previous steps that are not so frequently taken into account. At least in Spain, there is a lack of tradition of strategic planning in cultural institutions. This is quite the same for big public institutions, such as the Spanish State Secretariat of Culture. Though the writing of strategic planning has started, there is a surprising short planning period, no information on expected values for key performance indicators is provided, and there are no efforts to let the progress be visible at all. In the specific area of Cultural Heritage this is better, as there are now some National Plans being implemented in areas such as conservation or education. Probably, the next step will involve the recognition of the need to evaluate seriously the outcomes and impact any cultural programme or plan. This is the only way to bring evidence-based policies to cultural heritage. Modern societies, with citizens concerned by the good governance of their institutions and the good administration of common resources for the common good, will require transparent administrative process and accountable public institutions. The change in the “preservation – access” dilemma due to the innovation and ICTs Innovation developed in the area of Information and Communication Technologies has also created new opportunities (and even new categories) for cultural heritage, dramatically altering the possibilities for preservation, dissemination and access to cultural assets and for enjoying their values (Bakhsi and Throsby, 2010; Navarrete, 2013). Digitization opens very interesting insights for the development of digital humanities and for the preservation and rapid communication of the contents of traditional archives. It has further opened collaborative opportunities among countries, among institutions, and among citizens and institutions, as in the case of EUROPEANA (Purday, 2009). The technical possibility for preservation and for granting massive access with the minimal intrusion to delicate heritage elements is also good news. The practice of cultural heritage management should certainly accommodate and lead that change. This implies that the multidisciplinary toolbox of managers has to be increased to accommodate technological skills in several dimensions: some are related
to communication, some others to the development of collaborative skills (many times there is the challenge of internalization of professionals working on cultural heritage), last, analytical tools for planning and evaluation of heritage programmes should be developed in the close future. Of course, this does not imply that the manager of cultural heritage resources will have to become a hyperskilled professional. This rather opens the opportunity to develop new specializations for the management of cultural heritage and the need to define and constantly update them. More than ever, this is a longlife learning professional adventure.
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