What is value?: impact assessment of cultural heritage

Abstract

Actualmente se uitilizan diversas metodologías para hacer valoraciones de impacto que tiene el patrimonio cultural. Este artículo explorará de manera crítica las razones para dicha diversidad, y determinará la coherencia de cada una de ellas. Este artículo realiza un análisis comparado de las metodologías utilizadas, y cómo se radican en la estrategia de Servicios del Ecosistema (Ecosystem Services), y el modelo de valores culturales (Cultural Values Model), que son consideradas las estrategias más completas para valorar el impacto del patrimonio cultural. El estudio revela que solo existen unas pocas metodologías, y que son muy inconsistentes en su uso y respuesta a las perspectivas teóricas mencionadas. Además, desde la perspectiva de políticas públicas, es sorprendente los pocos estudios de impacto que se han realizado en zonas con patrimonio cultural. Al prestar atención a la ausencia de ciertos indicadores claves en las metodologías, se pone el foco sobre aquellos beneficios del patrimonio cultural que han sido obviados u olvidados.

Purpose – There are currently various methodologies used for carrying out impact assessments of cultural heritage. This paper aims to critically explore the reasons for this diversity and ascertain their varying consistency. Design/methodology/approach – The paper does a comparative analysis of the methodologies used, exploring how they measure up to the theoretical underpinnings of the Ecosystem Services approach, and the Cultural Values Model, considered to be the most comprehensive strategies for assessing the impact of cultural heritage. Findings – The study reveals that there are few methodologies and they only inconsistently work upon the theoretical perspectives mentioned above. In addition, from the public policy perspective, surprisingly few areas endowed with cultural landscapes heritage have been, in one way or another, assessed for impact, perhaps in part due to the lack of adequate methodologies. Research limitations/implications – The methods analysed are those that have been made public, and which can be found in English. Also, they may be exploratory themselves, so some of the conclusions reached here may have also been found by the analysts themselves. This research serves to provide some scientific groundings for developing a more comprehensive impact assessment method. Practical implications – The results of this paper highlight certain glaring absences from current methodologies which invite the development of more definitive cultural impact assessment models. This is possible given current state-of-the-art, and further research and practice is necessary to develop a more comprehensive Cultural Values Model-based research assessment. Social implications – By focusing on the absence of certain indicators on behalf of impact assessment methodologies, this paper sheds light on the overlooked (or under-measured) benefits derived from cultural heritage. Many of the benefits derived from this type of resource find an opportunity to come out in the open, greatly affecting researchers, cultural heritage planners and local communities. Originality/value – This paper also serves to substantiate a glaring absence within the Ecosystem Services framework, which is the lack of practical methodologies for measuring some of these service values.