Heritage protection for the 21st century

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Cultural Trends Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccut20

“Heritage protection for the 21st century” a

Emma Waterton & Laurajane Smith

b

a

Research Institute for the Humanities, Keele University, Keele, UK b

Department of Archaeology, University of York, York, UK Published online: 26 Sep 2008.

To cite this article: Emma Waterton & Laurajane Smith (2008) “Heritage protection for the 21st century”, Cultural Trends, 17:3, 197-203, DOI: 10.1080/09548960802362157 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09548960802362157

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Cultural Trends Vol. 17, No. 3, September 2008, 197– 203

POLICY REVIEW “Heritage protection for the 21st century” Emma Watertona and Laurajane Smithb

Downloaded by [Australian National University] at 19:29 07 August 2013

a Research Institute for the Humanities, Keele University, Keele, UK; bDepartment of Archaeology, University of York, York, UK

This paper assesses the recent Heritage Protection Review (HPR) process, which culminated in the publication of the Heritage White Paper “Heritage protection for the 21st century” (DCMS, 2007). It argues that although the White Paper makes laudable and useful attempts at streamlining and clarifying the management and protection process, many of its proposed changes operate at the rhetorical level only. Indeed, it does little to challenge the dominant and elitist understandings of “heritage” and attendant cultural values and meanings, and thus fails to adequately address social inclusion/exclusion issues in the cultural sector. Keywords: Heritage White Paper; Department for Culture, Media and Sport; Heritage Protection Review (HPR); legislation and policy; England; social inclusion; public value

Introduction On 8 March 2007, the UK government’s Heritage White Paper was published (Department for Culture, Media and Sport [DCMS], 2007). Anticipated as a key outcome of the most comprehensive reform of the heritage protection system in England and Wales, this document was designed to overhaul the frameworks used to define, manage and conserve “heritage” (English Heritage, 2007; Reeves & Beacham, 2005). Indeed, since its inception in 2001, the White Paper – and the Heritage Protection Review (HPR) that precedes it – has been characterized as something of a “radical” in the heritage policy sphere (Beacham, 2006; Lammy, 2006a, 2006b; McIntosh, 2003). Yet, to say that this review process was also fundamentally provoked by a sense of anxiety and crisis (Hansard, 2007) is an important observation for this reflective paper. Indeed, both the HPR and White Paper are explicitly underpinned by the challenge of incorporating wider governmental commitments for tackling social exclusion and recognizing cultural diversity and public value into their remit. Ultimately, they are also driven by the imposition of competition, sponsored by a need to respond to what Gordon Brown (cited in Fairclough, 2000, p. 121) has called “money for modernisation”, which has resulted in attempts to make the heritage sector appear modern, relevant and “fit for purpose” (DCMS, 2003; English Heritage, 2006; McIntosh, 2003; Porter, 2004). For us, this new language of political debate and resultant reinvention of “heritage” operates at the level of rhetoric only, and it is the rhetorical uptake of this new language that makes the White Paper intrinsically problematic. This is because the White Paper promotes an image of “. . .a system which takes full account of the things ordinary people value” (Purnell, 2007) on one hand, while simultaneously – and unconsciously – clinging to traditional core values that privilege a social “elite” and the requisite responsibilities of “the expert” on the other. The aim of this short review paper is to critically evaluate the HPR, which was – and

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continues to be – inevitably predicated upon an evidence base geared towards supporting the status quo, rather than actively challenging the core values that underpin heritage policy. Two factors are significant in this failure. Firstly, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and English Heritage adopt a managerialist approach to public policy, which constructs limited, technocratic frameworks for defining and addressing social problems. This framework not only privileges expert values and knowledge, but also ensures that all dissonant, conflicted or noncore accounts of heritage are rendered understandable only through expert pronouncements and mediations. Secondly, the core values of heritage are firmly naturalized in institutional practices through the Authorized Heritage Discourse (AHD) (see Smith, 2006 and Waterton, Smith, & Campbell, 2006 for full discussion). This discourse works to reinforce pre-HPR ideas of heritage based on elite/consensus history, nationalism, materialism and aesthetics. The AHD is constitutive of both elite and public perceptions of what heritage is, but also polices the boundaries of what it could become. The HPR was thus always restricted by the authority exercised by those with a commitment to the AHD. This can be seen by the extent of its naturalization in heritage institutions and practice as mapped by both Smith (2006) and Waterton (2007), but is also reinforced by the ethos of managerialism. Preparing for review While officially announced by Tessa Jowell in 2002, and launched by Andrew McIntosh in 2003 (Secretary of State and Minister within DCMS respectively), the review process itself was initiated in 2001with the publication of The Historic Environment: A Force for our Future (DCMS, 2001). Since that time, a number of policy documents have emerged, each attempting to synthesize and evaluate the evidence base generated by the review period. Prior to the Heritage Protection Review, the government review of policies relating to the historic environment, undertaken in 1999 –2001, attempted to provide a cumulative overview of what is meant by the terms “heritage” and the “historic environment”. This initial review was overseen by a steering group, which directed a number of initiatives, including working group discussions, the consultation “Invitation to participate”, which was returned by 200 key organizations, a wider consultation entitled “Viewpoint”, of which 630 responses were returned, and a MORI poll designed to reveal “what ‘heritage’ means to all sectors of society” (English Heritage, 2000; Ipsos MORI, 2000). The data gathered during this 1999 –2001 review formed an instrumental underpinning for the HPR, which professed to have absorbed wholesale the more altruistic aims of sponsoring public involvement and social inclusion highlighted by both Power of Place and The Historic Environment: A Force for Our Future. The first step for the HPR came with the publication of the consultation document Protecting our Historic Environment: Making the System Work Better (DCMS, 2003). This consultation yielded some 500 responses from key heritage organizations and individuals. In response, the government published a decision document in June 2004 (DCMS, 2004a), with English Heritage simultaneously launching 15 pilot projects to test the recommendations emerging at that juncture. Additionally, the DCMS commenced with two consultation processes concerned with marine heritage and ecclesiastical exemption. The fervour surrounding the review process prompted a Parliamentary Select Committee enquiry into heritage policy, which was announced on 15 November 2005, and culminated in the publication of Protecting and Preserving our Heritage (Culture, Media and Sport, 2006). The government response to that was CM 6947 – Government Response to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee Report on Protecting and Preserving our Heritage (DCMS, 2006). Finally, the review process has seen the eventual publication of the

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Heritage White Paper, Heritage Protection for the 21st Century (DCMS, 2007), which incorporates the responses, written evidence and results from all of the above. The overwhelming majority of this evidence, however, revolved around developing a sense of “good practice”, and was thus aimed at consultation with professionals. Importantly, this renders earlier pronouncements made in relation to encouraging a more complex understanding of “heritage” to permeate the management process spurious in terms of actual policy. Indeed, the review process itself occurred in isolation to the concurrent debates regarding social inclusion, public value and community cohesion. Work by Waterton (2007) reveals that this division between research regarding the nature of heritage, and data collected to inform the HPR, reflects a conscious decision to include particular departments and separate others (i.e. Outreach) from the review process. The Heritage Protection Review The HPR was conducted by the DCMS, but also involved the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM),1 the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and English Heritage. At its driest, the review ostensibly revolved around a desire to create a new system for protecting heritage [in England]; one that is transparent, open and flexible, and grouped around the priorities of designation, management and regulation (Culture, Media and Sport, 2006, p. 2). Fleshed out a little further, the review also intended to generate a better understanding of heritage, as well as engender involvement, ownership and participation at community levels (Culture, Media and Sport, 2006, pp. 2 –8). Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it also aimed to reinvigorate both the word itself and the meaning of “heritage” on a conceptual level (Hewison & Holden, 2004). However, with a heavy focus on statutory and non-statutory schemes, the review process instead accepted a naturalized understanding of “heritage” and the “historic environment”, revolving around materiality and the fabric of the past, and focussed upon processes of designating, listing and registering various “parts” of the historic environment selected by experts as worthy of protection (cf. DCMS, 2003, pp. 10, 11). This limited understanding of what constitutes those things we value from the past and in the present has also been absorbed within the “Taking part” survey undertaken concurrently with the HPR, and underpins the DCMS Evidence Toolkit – DET (DCMS, 2004b), which, for example, incorporates datasets for examining visitor numbers, consumer trends and expenditure by visitors to traditional heritage sites, attractions and monuments. The following statements are indicative, and typical, of this limited focus: The Review covers the designation of ancient monuments, listed buildings, registered parks and gardens, registered battlefields, World Heritage Sites and conservation areas and how the land-use planning system protects the historic environment. (DCMS, 2003, p. 6) This will be a major contribution to the development of a comprehensive inventory of the historic environment of England, bringing together the disparate range of legislation currently dealing with archaeology, historic buildings, parks and gardens and battlefields and covering a wide range of major historic assets. (DCMS, 2004a, p. 10) One of the key strengths of the historic environment is its depth and diversity – it encompasses everything from an iron-age hill fort to the Severn and Wye bridges. (DCMS, 2007, p. 6)

One of the most interesting elements of this review process is the movement between the terms “heritage” and “the historic environment”. The process itself, and the published White Paper, carries the term “heritage” in its title, yet the contents of each policy document invariably refers to “the historic environment”. The two terms are currently distinguished on the DCMS website and were further clarified in the government review of policies relating to the historic environment in terms of subjectivity (heritage) and objectivity (historic environment)

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(see Waterton, 2007, for a fuller discussion). In the above extracts, the latter term is used, signalling a move away from the more subjectively complex concept of “heritage”, taking up instead the assumed neutrality of the historic environment, a concept whose meaning appears to be presupposed and unquestioned. Yet a central purpose of the extensive consultation period undertaken was to arrive at a wider-reaching understanding of “heritage”, based on the recognition of broader constructions of significance and value (Porter, 2004). The following statement, however, suggests that very little has changed in terms of the criteria and values used to select and define what constitutes “heritage”: The List2 would include the most important sites and items from the past, according to certain broad statutory criteria, including sites valued for their archaeological importance [evidential], their architectural significance [evidential and aesthetic], their association with major historical events [historical] or because they represent a type of building or social use from a particular period. (DCMS, 2003, p. 12, bolded inclusions added; see also DCMS, 2007, p. 13)

What this focus indicates, particularly with its emphasis on the types of value privileged (evidential, aesthetic and historical), is the continued assumption that debates regarding the “public” value of heritage should stand apart from debates underpinning the review process. There is a continued, yet unspoken, distinction implied between the juncture at which “expertise” is accepted within the management process and the point at which non-expertise is taken into account. This is reinforced by the following statements: English Heritage believes this first part – the designation stage – should be strictly confined to assessing significance against tightly drawn archaeological, architectural and historic criteria. (English Heritage, 2003, p. 2) English Heritage believes it is essential that statutory criteria of architectural, archaeological and historic importance should continue to be the sole basis of what parts of the historic environment should be added to the new list. (English Heritage, 2003, p. 5)

The “fact-finding” exercises underpinning both the consultation and pre-consultation periods only superficially crossed into the non-expert realm, remaining substantially focussed upon the views and opinions of historic environment and legal experts (DCMS, 2004a). While the emphasis on existing or traditional understandings of “heritage” was encouraged by many of the 500þ responses received in response to the 2003 publication (cf. Diocese of Southwark, 2003; Landmark Trust, 2003, p. 1; Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology, 2003, p. 2), it was also strongly questioned by others: The “powers that be” should be reassessing their attitude towards the whole question of conservation. The electorate’s concern for protecting the historic environment is certainly not limited to the so called “backward looking precious middle classes”. My experience shows that it runs throughout all levels of society, in particular the forward looking majority, who are becoming increasingly exasperated at the pernicious erosion of our local heritage. (Moyra McGhire, personal response to the DCMS consultation document, Letter, 3 November 2003)

This questioning, however, did not materialize in the 2004 document, Review of Heritage Protection: The Way Forward (DCMS, 2004a). Instead, a focus on archaeological remains, buildings, underwater heritage assets, landscapes, battlefields and historic areas was perpetuated, as was a belief in the appropriateness of evidential, historic and aesthetic criteria (see DCMS, 2004a, pp. 7– 14). The explanatory power of traditional core values, and the “best practice” they promote, was thus adopted wholesale within both consultation documents produced by DCMS. Neither is suggestive of a variation of, or deviation away from, those traditional core values, despite simultaneously being under the influence of wider calls for social inclusion. Our argument here is that alternative values and understandings of heritage have been separated

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out from the evidence base gathered, and are considered only in terms of outcomes and benefits. This notion is reinforced by the Foreword to the first consultation document (DCMS, 2003), in which Tessa Jowell outlines the aspirations and motivations behind the review. Within this discussion, Jowell chooses a number of revelatory pronouns to explain subject positionings within the review, particularly for “experts”:


This consultation paper marks a further step in engaging wide public interest in the systems we use for deciding what we value most in our historic environment. The statutes which protect ancient monuments and historic buildings have stood the test of time but they need refreshing. (Jowell, 2003, p. 2, our emphasis)

With this statement, a distinction is implied between the “wider public” and “we”, with the former mentioned as a noun and the latter realized with pronouns. The use of “we” is revelatory of what Fairclough (2003, p. 149) labels “identificational meaning”, and represents the construction of exclusionary groupings. These pronouns (“us” and “our”) are activated within the statement, while the interests of the public are made passive. As such, the main social actors flagged up by Jowell are those included in the review consultations, which are marked out as distinct from wide public interest. This is also achieved through the use of the word “interest”, which evokes distance and passivity, and something less personal than familiarity, at the expense of more active words such as “deciding” and “valuing”. Subsequently, what “we” want and believe is translated and communicated in a manner that suggests it is what the “public” want and believe, itself an assimilatory discursive technique (Fairclough, 1989). It is directive and signals the parameters of inclusion, which are drawn entirely around what “we” think is valuable in “our” historic environment. The final use of “our” is possessive and is used to demark a sense of ownership and duty, on behalf of those included within the “we”. It is thus in utterances such as this that Jowell makes clear that certain heritage professionals and departments carry responsibility and ownership of decisions taken relating to “heritage”. At this point, social inclusion becomes a paradox: how is the wider public ever going to be able to join “us” and “our” heritage for the purposes of inclusion, if they are – by default of a reliance of traditional core values – perpetually constructed as existing on the outside? The White Paper In continuation of the general review process, the White Paper is based around three principles: (1) “developing a unified approach to the historic environment”; (2) “maximising opportunities for inclusion and involvement”; and (3) “supporting sustainable communities by putting the historic environment at the heart of an effective planning system” (DCMS, 2007, p. 6). It is difficult to imagine at this point precisely how the second principle in particular, and to some degree the third principle, can be achieved, based on the nature of the limited datasets used to underpin the review. Indeed, the language used in the White Paper, and the evidence draw upon to illustrate the new system, appears to be suggestive of procedural change only. The new principles of selection, for example, have been altered in terms of transparency and clarification, rendering the assumptions of the old system simply easier to understand rather than conceptually altered in any significant way. Our argument here, therefore, is that the White Paper becomes more a tool for social and cultural assimilation than for inclusion. Indeed, it becomes a mechanism for ensuring that “the right historic assets are protected in the right way” (DCMS, 2007, p. 18, emphasis added), and it is clear that those decisions will be left to the heritage professionals. While the White Paper offers a simplified and unified system of heritage management practice, which is a laudable public policy objective, the accumulated effort of the HPR and White Paper

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has only recreated and reinforced the legitimacy of the AHD, along with “expert” and elite ideas of what “heritage” is. There is nothing radical here. The HPR has been undertaken in a climate of increasing uncertainly about what it means to be “English” and “British”, fuelled by devolution, debates about Britain’s role and place in the EU, multiculturalism and, more recently, the meanings and significance of the 1807 bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade. That the HPR, in this context, never really challenges the core values and meanings of heritage is significant. A unified, simplified, transparent set of practices simply makes it easier for the certainties of England’s heritage to be maintained and disseminated, and thus discourses of “heritage” become more effective in the governance and regulation of the social problem of what it means to be “English” in the twenty-first century. Notes 1. 2.

The ODPM is now subsumed within the new government Department of Communities and Local Government. The List mentioned here is the proposed replacement for Scheduling and Listing and will see a simplification of the current systems. In the White Paper, this list is labelled the “Register of historic buildings and sites of England” (DCMS, 2003a, p. 10).

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Ipsos MORI. (2000). What does “heritage” mean to you? MORI poll reveals overwhelming support for the historic environment. Retrieved February 14, 2008, from http://www.ipsos-mori.com/polls/2000/ heritage.shtml Jowell, T. (2003). Foreword. In Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Protecting our historic environment: Making the system work better. London: DCMS. Lammy, D. (2006a, July 12). Keynote Address to the National Historic Environment Champions Conference, Royal Aeronautical Society, London. Retrieved November 8, 2006, from http://www.culture. gov.uk/Reference_library/Press_notices/archive_2006/david_lammy_12july06.htm Lammy, D. (2006b). Community, identity and heritage. In K. Clark (Ed.), Capturing the public value of heritage: The proceedings of the London conference 25 – 26 January 2006 (pp. 65 – 69). Swindon: English Heritage. Landmark Trust. (2003). DCMS consultation paper: Protecting the historic environment – making the system work better. (The Landmark Trust Response). Unpublished paper. McIntosh, A. (2003). “Review heralds improvements for heritage protection” says Heritage Minister Andrew McIntosh. Retrieved November 1, 2008, from http://www.culture.gov.uk/Reference_ library/Press_notices/archive_2003/dcms82_2003.htm Porter, D. (2004). Heritage protection. Paper presented at the IFA Annual Conference, The Historic Environment: Future Perfect?, Liverpool. Purnell, J. (2007). James Purnell’s speech on “heritage counts”. Retrieved November 5, 2007, from http:// www.culture.gov.uk/Reference_library/Minister_Speeches/James_Purnell/heritage_counts.htm Reeves, H., & Beacham, P. (2005). Letter – Heritage Protection Review: Changes to the listing system in April 2005. London: DCMS and English Heritage. Smith, L. (2006). Uses of heritage. London: Routledge. Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology. (2003). DCMS consultation paper: Protecting the historic environment – making the system work better. (The Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology Response). Unpublished document. Waterton, E. (2007). Rhetoric and ‘reality’: Politics, policy and the discourses of heritage in England. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of York. Waterton, E., Smith, L., & Campbell, G. (2006). The utility of discourse analysis to heritage studies: The Burra Charter and social inclusion. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 12(4), 339–355.