Assessing level of community participation in managing heritage sites in Bangladesh

Summary of the proposal content: There is a tendency in academia and in the practice to view the management of built heritage as the synonym of an act of continual conservation of the built heritage. In the developing countries, this tendency mostly guides the policy frameworks and the actions relating to the management of built heritage where Bangladesh is not many exceptions in this regard. The idea of managing built heritage expands beyond the act of conservation and adds up the acts like developing and maintaining the built heritage as a cultural property with economic and political yields. In Bangladesh management of built heritage sites is fairly limited to the state-managed conservation-related activities in the first place, though the effectiveness and sustainability of the conservation efforts often come under the expert and public scrutiny and ends of up with criticism. The most critical aspect of built heritage sites in Bangladesh is that they are located in densely populated community habitat areas. This happened mainly due to poor conservation and protection of the sites. Improper utilization, intentional destruction, and encroachment have significantly reduced the construction and cultural aspects of the heritage sites in Bangladesh which are not much exception to see in many other developing countries in different parts of the world. The development of the holistic management of built heritage sites in such conditions needs to be an inclusive initiative with a bottom-up approach. Public participation-based management approach development and implementation can turn perception and utility of the built heritage in Bangladesh as from ‘old debris with no utility’ to ‘past glories with immense present and future values’. The proposed research is based on the theoretical ideation of value co-creation through the participation of the stakeholders, more emphatically through the participation of communities adhered to the world built heritage sites in Bangladesh. The proposed research will investigate the current state of the management built heritage site, and will explore the opportunities for engaging the communities in the management.

• Research Project