Recognising connection: social significance and heritage practice

Appreciation of community connections to place is an emerging domain in heritage practice, establishing inclusive, people-centered approaches that are able to 'hold their own' within the dominant paradigm of expert and State-centered practice. It sits within the framework of values-based management. Social value has developed as an important way that concepts such as shared identity can be expressed in relation to heritage places. Globally it offers a much needed perspective, aligned with “people-centered approaches”, and with the potential to co-create understandings of values with those who hold those values. Australia's experience and leadership have been and are still key, but equally there is now the chance for an enrichment and expansion of the concepts advanced to date as others from different cultural backgrounds start to engage in this discourse. This paper explores how social value emerged in Australian heritage discourse, bringing contemporary community connections into heritage practice, examines its influence internationally by looking at selected documents, and using selected case studies to illustrate methodologies and reveal learnings draws out some key issues.