Good practices of social participation in cultural heritage

Abstract

The REACH repository of good practices related to social participation in cultural heritage is a fundamental component of the Social Platform established by the REACH project. Carried out with the contribution of several project partners, this collection currently comprises 110 records of European and extra European participatory activities in the field of cultural heritage, with an emphasis on small-scale, localised interventions, but also including examples of larger collaborative projects and global or distributed online initiatives.

This document provides a critical reflection on the results obtained in this mapping exercise carried out during the first year of the project’s life. Its aim is threefold: 1) to explain in detail the methodology adopted for the collection of good practices; 2) to offer a quantitative reading of the data gathered in the repository so far; 3) to analyse the most recurrent participatory approaches and public engagement strategies that emerge from the records included in the REACH dataset.

The REACH repository has a global geographic scope and a multifocal thematic orientation. Due to this expansive reach, a variety of initiatives are recorded which capture the nuances of participation in action. Both quantitative and qualitative assessments of these records are included in this deliverable. While Chapter 2 is devoted to a detailed presentation of the overall approach, accounting for methodological choices, Chapter 3 contains the core of the analysis. It highlights five emerging patterns of participatory approaches, identifying areas of commonality that characterise a sizable proportion of the collected records. These areas are de fined in relation to specific groups of beneficiaries (minorities, indigenous communities and women) or in relation to modalities of participation (the role of the arts, digital platforms and archaeology).

The results of the activities charted in this document can be summarised as follows:

The REACH repository is vast but uneven: some countries are very well represented, others are underrepresented or absent. To address this imbalance more records will have to be created, while others are streamlined. However, even in its present shape, the REACH dataset provides illustrative examples of social participation that can be a source of inspiration to many. Through an attentive scrutiny of the participatory activities mapped in the repository, it was possible to identify some common tendencies that reveal how participation is implemented in a fairly broad selection of cases. The dataset of good practices has been published as an Open Data collection at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3415123, under the Free Culture Creative Commons License “AttributionShareAlike 4.0 International”, as a catalogue of resources that can support and stimulate other people’s work.