INTANGIBLE HERITAGE IN CONSERVATIONMANAGEMENT PLANNING:THE CASE OF ROBBEN ISLAND1Harriet DeaconInternational Journal of Heritage Studies, 2004Note on the authorHarriet Deacon (PhD Cantab. 1994) has published in medical history (nineteenth-centuryCape Colony doctors, nurses, midwives, institutions and medico-geographical andenvironmental discourses), using multimedia computer programs in history teaching, and onRobben Island’s history as a place of exclusion (with particular reference to mapping). Shehas worked as a research fellow at The Queen’s College, Oxford, and as a lecturer-developerat the University of Cape Town’s Multimedia Education Group. Between 1999 and 2002 sheworked at Robben Island Museum as Research Coordinator. She currently works as aconsultant, mainly on heritage-related policy, and has recently written a paper on internationallegal and financial instruments for managing intangible heritage.Email: harrietdeacon@iafrica.comKeywords: intangible heritage, conservation management, RobbenIslandAbstractRobben Island Museum (RIM) officially commemorates 'the triumph of the human spirit overadversity', relating especially to the period of political imprisonment between 1961 and 1991,when Robben Island was most notorious as a political prison for the leaders of the antiapartheidstruggle. Robben Island became a world heritage site in December 1999 because ofits universal symbolic significance - its intangible heritage. This paper explores theimplications for conservation management planning of interpreting and managing the
intangible heritage associated with such sites. Examples will be drawn from the conservation
planning exercise undertaken by the Robben Island Museum between 2000 and 2002. The
paper will look specifically at how Robben Island’s symbolic significance has been defined
and how competing interpretations should be included in the management plan. It then
discusses the challenges around managing historic fabric whose significance is defined as
primarily symbolic, and ways of safeguarding the intangible heritage associated with it.
Introduction
Conservation management planning is a relatively new field in South Africa, but the South
African National Heritage Resources Act of 1999 requires that designated heritage places be
managed according to a conservation management plan.2 All management authorities for
World Heritage Sites in South Africa are also required to develop and implement such a plan.
Conservation management planning, a method born out of environmental management
planning, systematises the management of heritage resources. This planning method focuses
attention on the identification and protection of the heritage significance of the resource.
Conservation planning methods pioneered by Australians like James Kerr have been
elucidated and elaborated in the United Kingdom by Kate Clarke of English Heritage.3 Most
of these conservation models focus on the management of historic fabric.
đang được dịch, vui lòng đợi..
