From engagement to empowerment: how heritage professionals can incorporate participatory methods in disaster recovery to better serve socially vulnerable groups

ABSTRACT

This article examines how the values, doctrines, and methodologies of orthodox heritage practice are incorporated into legal regulatory systems and thereby concentrate power in the hands of heritage professionals. The values, doctrines, and methodologies of orthodox heritage practice do not consider marginalization, segregation, and exploitation of traditionally disenfranchised groups. Socially vulnerable groups are at a particular disadvantage in post-disaster scenarios and are excluded from the planning and decision-making process for the recovery and preservation of their heritage. Using Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) in the United States of America as an example, this article argues that orthodox heritage practice’s neglect of crucial social trends limit citizen empowerment and decision-making abilities for traditionally disenfranchised groups in heritage recovery, management, and planning after disaster. It goes on to propose a sequential mixed-method approach wherein heritage professionals can expand their roles from regulators to facilitators by adopting participatory methods. Though this article examines the issues of vulnerability and exclusion through a U.S. example, the authors hope that this article can open a deeper discussion of these themes in an international context.

KEYWORDS:

• Heritage
• section 106
• disaster
• social vulnerability
• participatory methods
• participatory rural appraisal
• advocacy planning

Acknowledgments

Ms. Gibson would like to thank both Dr. Jeremy Wells and Dr. Marccus Hendricks for their guidance and patience throughout the research and writing of her final project, on which this article is based. She would also like to acknowledge Dr. Donald Linebaugh at the University of Maryland for his support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The PRA leg can be used to meet many of the research goals of the various team members and the local community at any point. It would advance academic research and provide a path to create appropriate resources that would address issues, as defined by the local community members, in the community.

2. The goal is not solely to preserve resources that may be adversely affected, but to give local community members opportunity to negotiate and collaborate with the agency on how to treat these resources, particularly as it pertains to how the use of these resources in the agency’s project would improve local community members’ quality of life. Heritage experts, and other PRA team members, act as facilitators to this process.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jamesha Gibson

Jamesha Gibson is an alumna of the Historic Preservation and Community Planning graduate programs at the University of Maryland in College Park. Ms. Gibson is the recipient of the Mildred Colodny Diversity Scholarship for Graduate Study in Historic Preservation, sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation (USA). She has also completed the ARCUS Professional Fellowship in Cultural Heritage and Historic Preservation Leadership.

Marccus D. Hendricks

Marccus D. Hendricks is an Assistant Professor of Urban Studies and Planning in the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and a Faculty Research Affiliate with the Center for Disaster Resilience at the University of Maryland, College Park. His primary research interests include infrastructure resilience, social vulnerability to disaster, environmental justice, sustainable development and participatory action.

Jeremy C. Wells

Jeremy C. Wells is an Assistant Professor in the Historic Preservation program at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a Fulbright scholar. Dr. Wells’ interdisciplinary research explores an improved relationship between conservation practice and human flourishing through a better understanding of how people value, perceive, and use old (e.g. ‘historic’) places. Multicultural and social justice perspectives have a central role in his research and teaching.