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ABSTRACT
Many rural areas have reinvented their territorial development through tourism, turning to vernacular heritage to ensure their future. Various models of heritage preservation and valorization are adopted where small-scale agriculture is no longer viable. Among them, ecomuseums and place-based labelization schemes transform rural heritage into an economic resource while remaining grounded in cultural and architectural preservation and identity transmission to future generations. Both face criticisms, including being decried as fostering the museumification and mythification of the rural, effectively holding back rural areas in an imagined and romanticized past rather than providing a vision for a sustainable future. The Association of the Most Beautiful Villages of France and the Ecomusée d'Alsace illustrate the debate. This investigation analyzes how these two initiatives challenge critics. It unveils their respective understandings of the future of rurality and their approach to promoting sustainable communities through tourism. By highlighting responses to tensions between valorizing the past and forward development in the countryside, findings reveal paradigm shifts from traditional habitat preservation to future-oriented architectural pedagogy in one case, while operational exigencies and normative quality principles mitigate opportunities in the other.
在两个乡村遗产物价稳定措施模型里面对可持续性发展
许多农村地区已经通过彻底改造其旅游业的区域发展，转向乡土建筑遗产，以确保他们的未来。遗产保护和物价稳定的各种模型都采用这样小规模的农业已不再可行。在他们之中，生态博物馆和地区为基准的标签化计划转化了乡村遗产为经济资源，同时保持文化和建筑保护和身份传于后代。都面对了批判，包括被描述为促进乡村的博物馆化和神话化，有效地阻止乡村地区停留在一个想象化的和浪漫化的过去而不去提供一个可持续性将来的视觉。法国最美村庄协会和阿尔萨斯博物馆解释了该争论。这项调查分析了这两项举措是如何挑战批判的。研究推出了他们对未来各田园风光的理解和他们通过旅游促进可持续社区的互动方式。通过突出乡村稳定物价过去和未来的发展之间的冲突，结论揭示了在一个案例中从传统的栖息地保护转变为未来建筑教学的模式，而运营紧急和规范质量方针缓解其他的机会。
Acknowledgments
I thank the many participants in this study, the Association des plus beaux villages de France and the Ecomusée d'Alsace for their assistance, as well as the anonymous reviewers who provided useful comments and suggestions on the first version of this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. “Patrimonialization” stems from “patrimony” (i.e. heritage). Habitually used in heritage studies in Europe, it is preferred here over the Anglo neologism “heritagization.” Both describe the processes by which tangible or intangible elements of the past are instilled with cultural value that transcends individuals and generations.
2. Rather than “brand”, “label” is used by the actors; thus, “labelization” is preferred to “branding”.
3. Rural communes in France are administrative and territorial structures of up to 2000 inhabitants.
4. Québec, Wallonia, Italy, Romania, Spain, Japan, South Korea, Palestine, Saxony and Russia.
5. All translations by author.
6. 2007–2009 – Awareness Raising on Culture and Development in Europe.
7. To dwell.
8. Departmental level elected authority renamed Conseil Départemental in March 2015.
9. Borrelli and Davis (Citation2012) propose a summary count by country, albeit surely an underestimation since many ecomuseums are privately owned and unregistered with any supra-organization likely to tally numbers.
10. Items commonly prized by tourists.
11. An expression difficult to translate and that refers to the transformation or staging of place into tourism site. Literally “placing into tourism”.
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Hélène B. Ducros
Hélène Ducros earned a JD and a PhD degree in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She taught International Studies at Wake Forest University, North Carolina State University and Elon University. She is interested in heritage landscapes and the role of identity, culture and place in development in both rural and urban environments. During 2015–2016, she was a research associate at the University of Leicester, England.
