What is it about?
Heritage professionals now deal with challenges that extend beyond the technicalities of management and conservation that cannot be sufficiently addressed through conventional methods. We show how the UNESCO Competence Framework for Cultural Heritage Management can help address these issues by mapping existing management capacities and gaps to pinpoint specific management challenges in heritage properties. This is an important first step in envisioning locally sustainable management systems and capacity-building strategies for heritage properties in Southeast Asia and beyond.
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Why is it important?
The scope and definition of heritage has expanded dramatically in the past few decades. This has meant that heritage professionals need to be equipped to deal with challenges that go beyond technical issues of heritage management and conservation. The UNESCO Competence Framework provides the iterative tools to assess the capacities and gaps of heritage institutions and professionals employed therein so that heritage properties operate at optimal levels.
Perspectives
As heritage professionals and academics we are constantly bombarded with the introduction of "new" approaches and perspectives to management and conservation of heritage places. However, there is often little direction of the practical ways these approaches can be operationalised in real world settings. This article provides a detailed account of how a tool such as the Competence Framework can be used in a practical sense and also the limitations that might arise when putting it into practice.
Melathi Saldin
Deakin University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Applying the UNESCO Competence Framework for Cultural Heritage Management at Chiang Mai, Thailand, Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development, March 2025, Emerald,
DOI: 10.1108/jchmsd-01-2024-0006.
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