https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5388-9091
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ABSTRACT
This paper focuses upon the practice of conservation applied through the planning systems of three European countries, Ireland, the Netherlands and England, here termed conservation-planning. The values and validated practice of conservation-planning are considered in terms of the concept of Authorised Heritage Discourses (AHDs) that are internationally-shaped but nationally articulated in each country, and by a distinct conservation-planning social entity that may be described as an ‘assemblage’. The post-2008 period has seen over-arching economic similarities in economic and political forces affecting conservation-planning practice in each country. In each case public-sector austerity measures have been accompanied by ideological re-positionings over the role of the state and a greater emphasis upon ‘selling the historic city’ has been accompanied by a declining public-sector capacity to manage change within the frame of traditionally established AHDs. The partial withdrawal of the state has in each case resulted in adjustments in the construction of the assemblage and thus in the ‘ownership’ of the AHDs with a greater involvement of the private sector in these processes. Despite similarities in conservation discourse, shaped by an international AHD, differences exist between the countries considered, which we can better understand by reference to the conservation-planning assemblage in each country.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
ORCID
John Pendlebury http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5388-9091
Mark Scott http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8053-5720
Loes Veldpaus http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5756-8137
Declan Redmond http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3004-5018
Notes
1 Whilst a similar picture is evident across the UK all our case studies are in England and subtle but important differences are evident in the conservation-planning systems of the other UK nations.
2 The empirical material in the paper is based upon short case studies involving analysis of documentary material and interviewees with key actors in three historic cores in each of the three countries – Netherlands (Breda, Delft, Utrecht), UK (Newcastle upon Tyne, Norwich and York) and Ireland (Drogheda, Limerick, Waterford) combined with documentary analysis at the national level. See Nadin et al. (Citation2015) for further details.
3 DeLanda in turn was drawing upon the work of Deleuze. At the same time it should be noted that assemblage is a contested term: for example, see the special issue of the Journal of Cultural Economy edited by Bennett and Healy (Citation2009) or Anderson and McFarlane (Citation2011) for a discussion of the different ways the term is used in geographical scholarship. Anderson and McFarlane highlight the manipulability of assemblage as a concept;
it can be used as a broad descriptor of disparate actors coming together, as an alternative to notions of network emerging from actor-network theory, as a way of thinking about phenomena as productivist or practice based, as an ethos that attends to the social in formation, and as a means of problematizing origins, agency, politics and ethics. (p. 126)
4 Although a new Environment and Planning Act to be implemented (Omgevingswet) is due to replace the land use plan with ‘environmental plans’ for all three tiers of governance (expected 2021) which have a wider remit, including heritage.
5 The current name Historic England is used in this paper, but the organization was formerly known as English Heritage.
6 Although we might also note that none have signed the subsequent ‘Faro Convention’ (Council of Europe, Citation2005), with its emphasis upon the role of heritage in human rights.