Keywords

12.1 Introduction

As noted in Chapter 1, this volume set out to present a series of case studies of South Asian heritage management interventions and strategies, which have sought to stimulate, develop and enhance community engagement and participation. We have incorporated a breadth of contemporary initiatives to preserve, protect and promote cultural heritage in order to contextualize and evaluate the success of the approaches and strategies adopted. We have also recognized the shared challenges facing archaeologists, heritage practitioners, policy makers and communities within the region. These include sustainability, linkages with existing community programmes and institutions, building administrative and social networks, community motivation and managing expectations of communities, the balance between local economic development (tourism) and benefit for residents, sustainability and impact assessment.

While presenting rarely reported strategies, our case studies are drawn from contributors with longitudinal experience of heritage-focused community engagement and all demonstrate the current pressures which daily threaten heritage sites. We have also drawn from extant scholarship focused on archaeology, community engagement and heritage protection from both tangible and intangible perspectives. Sourcing case studies representing Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic and other traditions from South Asian heritage management interventions and strategies, we have described and analysed the practice of community engagement by presenting contemporary initiatives that contribute to preserving, protecting and promoting cultural and natural heritage. We also acknowledge the generosity of Durham University and Durham’s UNESCO Chair in allowing this chapter to be made Open Access to reach and influence as wide an audience as possible.

12.2 Threads

This book’s experienced contributors represent academics, practitioners, managers and policymakers from universities, NGOs and IGOs who met for the first time in Kathmandu at the Heritage at Risk 2017: Pathways to the Protection and Rehabilitation of Cultural Heritage in South Asia in September 2017. The symposium was sponsored by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Global Challenges Research Fund (AHRC-GCRF-AH/P005993/1), with support from UNESCO Kathmandu, ICOMOS (Nepal) and the Department of Archaeology (Government of Nepal) (DoA) (Fig. 12.1). Collectively, their reflections present micro and macro-heritage sites at new and known locations in post-disaster and post-conflict environments, as well as those threatened by environmental and developmental challenges. The diverse, but complementary, nature of our coverage is summarized in Table 12.1.

Fig. 12.1
figure 1

Delegates at the AHRC-GCRF ‘Heritage at Risk 2017: Pathways to the Protection and Rehabilitation of Cultural Heritage in South Asia’ Workshop in Kathmandu

Full size image
Table 12.1 Geographical and thematic coverage of our 11 case studies
Full size table

A recurrent theme across all case studies has been the importance of the role and engagement of local communities and agencies in heritage protection. As well as the challenges noted in Chapter 1, a number of cross-cutting context specific and generic threads became apparent when compiling the presented case studies:

Generic

  • The connection or disconnection of people to sites;

  • The importance of local understanding and interpretation of culture and history;

  • The links between tangible and intangible culture;

  • Community engagement is important for the preservation and protection of heritage sites;

  • There are limits to successful community engagement or activism because of more powerful and influential actors;

  • The difficulty of commissioning longitudinal studies to measure the impact of heritage protection initiatives and economic development associated with tourism and wider infrastructure changes;

  • Heritage is a knowledge resource of value to people.

Context Specific

  • The influence of context on excavations and heritage protection, including post-disaster, post-conflict, environment and development;

  • Whether there is contested ownership of an archaeological site;

  • In some circumstances, it is dangerous for people to become engaged, for example, due to religious extremism or challenging vested interest.

12.3 Methodologies and Frameworks for Aligning Archaeology, Heritage Protection and Community Engagement

12.3.1 Community Management of Protected Areas Conservation (COMPACT)

As many contributors have noted, the global investigation of the nexus of community engagement, archaeology and heritage protection is not novel and has already been explored through, for example, the COMPACT initiative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Foundation (UNF). As UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre is one of COMPACT’s founding partners, we will briefly examine this approach before we present our own methodology, as co-designed and piloted by Durham’s UNESCO Chair.

COMPACT has number of principles that are echoed throughout our case studies, some of which we identified in Chapter 1. Brown and Hay-Edie give these as the importance of local community ownership, management and responsibility; the crucial role of social capital through investment in local institutions and individuals to build the capacity of communities for stewardship; sharing power, transparent processes and broad public participation along with trust, flexibility and patience; the cost-effectiveness of small grants; making a commitment over time (2014: 21). COMPACT’s methodology has three parts which underpin its framework for planning and implementation (ibid. 2014: 24):

  • Baseline assessment - providing a ‘snapshot’ of the site to analyse emerging trends and serving as a basis for future monitoring and evaluation;

  • Conceptual model - a diagrammatic tool documenting site-level processes, threats and opportunities believed to impact biodiversity conservation in the area;

  • Site strategy - providing an important framework for the allocation of resources; implementation of grants and other activities; and assessment of results.

Experience from COMPACT has been used to involve communities in the nomination of World Heritage Sites, including consideration of Tentative Lists and preparation of nominations. According to Brown and Hay Edie:

Ideally, broad upstream participation will ensure that issues relating to indigenous peoples and local communities are considered at the outset of a nomination and not after the fact of designation. Involvement at this stage can help to bridge the potential separation between Outstanding Universal Value and those values held by local people. (ibid. 2014: 34)

12.3.2 Durham’s UNESCO Chair Cascade Methodology and ProtectNet Framework

Excavation > Engagement

Early phases of Durham UNESCO Chair’s field missions were largely focused on protecting heritage during the delivery of pilgrimage infrastructure at living sites, including Lumbini, Kathmandu and Tilaurakot-Kapilavastu in Nepal; Polonnaruva and Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka; Bagerhat, Paharpur and Mahasthangarh in Bangladesh; and Champaner-Pavagadh in India. This allowed us, and our partners, to co-produce and pilot a cascade methodology to assess, identify and map risks to subsurface archaeology within a living World Heritage context. Our cascade flows from Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) mapping and photogrammetry to field-walking, geophysical survey, auger transects, and research-oriented excavation with geoarchaeological and chronometric sampling in advance of enhanced interpretation, conservation and presentation. The resultant information forms an integral element of site management systems, with the creation of zoned Archaeological Risk Maps for each site in advance of the development of tourist, pilgrim and residential infrastructure. Initially, our cascade included the following stages:

12.3.2.1 New Sites

Phase A1: Site Investigation (Desktop research, satellite images, site visit, GPS and photographic record)

After a desktop review of reports, UAV take aerial photographs to build topographic maps for the digitization of the location of infrastructure, boundaries and monuments.

12.3.2.2 New Sites and Known Sites

Phase A2: Non-intrusive Site Assessment (Mapping, geophysical survey and field-walking)

During initial cascade developments, we offered advance briefings to stakeholders, residents and landowners. Digitized field and land use zones around sites are given individual codes and walked by archaeologists collecting surface cultural material. Spreads of surface artefacts are utilized as proxies for the presence of buried material. If field-walking identifies areas of significance then geophysics is used to map subsurface heritage.

Phase A3: Intrusive Site Assessment (Augering and excavation, and briefing meeting before the start of the field season and debriefing at the end)

Augers can recover ten-metre deep soil cores showing colour, consistency and content. This allows an understanding of underlying deposits and presence/absence of cultural material. Cores can be used to create transects across areas as well as in areas difficult to survey, such wooded areas, or where alluvial overburden may conceal cultural material below. This phase is completed with a community debriefing on results and display of artefacts. During some interactions, local communities might request additional activities, for example at Tilaurakot in Nepal, local residents asked for the conservation of excavated monuments rather than their reburial following recording.

Phase A4: Post-Excavation Work and Conservation (Publications, preparation of an Archaeological Risk Map and/or conservation work, presentation and interpretation and tourism development)

Field activities are followed by publications and interim reports, the latter with Archaeological Risk Maps and recommended management guidelines. These maps translate research and investigation into a coherent, spatial visualization of areas which contain valuable and vulnerable archaeological and heritage assets. They are a guide for designing and planning future developments, land purchase and land controls. They are not a complete map of the presence/absence of archaeological material but as an indication of risk to subsurface material. Developments within the vicinity, whether by site managers, national authorities, local government or private enterprise, should be avoided wherever possible and monitored if deemed essential.

Areas highlighted ‘Very High’, ‘High’ and even ‘Medium’ Risk should have no intrusive development whatsoever, everything should be 100% non-intrusive and fully reversible. ‘Intrusive’ activities include the use of mechanical diggers or JCBs, soil extraction, sand/silt processing, the digging of foundations and use of heavy agricultural machinery. Areas of ‘Low’ and ‘Very Low’ Risk indicate areas where there is little risk to archaeological structures or material, however, development should still be avoided where possible and should be non-intrusive and fully reversible. The five levels of risk are given traffic lights on maps for ease of use (Fig. 12.2).

Fig. 12.2
figure 2

Archaeology Risk Map prepared for the site of Tilaurakot-Kapilavastu

Full size image

The Management Guidelines accompanying the Archaeological Risk Maps are also critical and the ones for the World Heritage Site of Lumbini in Nepal were co-produced by policy makers, heritage managers, planners, conservators, archaeologists, local stakeholders and religious practitioners (Weise 2013: 182–189). Its approach was holistic with eight sections of guidelines to:

  • protect the World Heritage Property and its Outstanding Universal Value;

  • address the Kenzo Tange Master Plan;

  • ensure an appropriate and sustainable environment;

  • conserve the archaeological vestiges;

  • provide facilities and services for visitors/pilgrims;

  • regulate activities within the Sacred Garden;

  • control inappropriate development;

  • promote continued research and discourse.

Significantly, Guideline 48 called for the establishment of consultation processes ‘to ensure the cooperation and collaboration of all stakeholders in partaking in an appropriate development of the region to ensure the safeguarding of the cultural, natural and spiritual heritage in and around Lumbini’ (ibid.: 189).

12.3.3 Engagement > Excavation > Exhibition > Engagement

Since developing our initial cascade, and drawing from experiences of working in Nepal’s Terai and elsewhere at living sites in South Asia, we now recommend embedding community engagement from the start of archaeological interventions. Indeed, as part of the wider multidisciplinary Japanese-Funds-in-Trust-for-UNESCO project, we have undertaken a project with the DoA and Lumbini Development Trust (LDT) to pilot the development of an extensive community consultation methodology to involve local communities more in archaeological investigation and the future development of tourism and pilgrimage at historical sites in Kapilbastu and Rupandehi Districts in Nepal. From this study, we have prepared a framework to develop an integrated research process that enables us to systematically co-ordinate and align community consultation with the progressive stages of archaeological investigation through early site assessment, planning, conservation and implementation phases.

The first stage of community consultation is a short scoping survey to gather information on local communities, including demographic data, map surrounding settlements, local knowledge and/or intangible traditions associated with the site, baseline identification of activities on, at or near the site and preliminary inventories/activities that may be damaging the archaeological remains and other values related to the site, but also other uses of the site enhancing these values. This information, along with the results of archaeological investigations, will inform site managers on additional actions to be taken, potential liaisons to strengthen community engagement in the next stages and early considerations for local expectations and/or concerns. Data from scoping surveys also prepares for a wider community consultation in the case of archaeological investigations pursuing into the next stage of research at the site, for example, intrusive assessments.

Wider community consultation aims to explore ways in which people can be more involved in the protection of archaeological sites as well as the potential development of sites for tourism and pilgrimage. It comprises survey of a representative sample of the local communities focusing on the same general elements listed above but also additional or more specific questions that have emerged during scoping work. At the end of the consultation, a debriefing is organized with feedback from local communities on the survey results. It is also advised that additional information regarding the results of archaeological investigations be shared with local communities and liaison set up for potential collaborative actions and/or community engagement projects.

Based on the consultation, handbooks and guidelines are drafted to determine the next steps of engagement, including the type of actions or programmes that could be developed within the community, their objectives and the groups, organizations, individuals involved. An informal agreement or letter of intent can be signed by representatives of different groups and organizations involved, defining the nature of their collaboration and separating roles and tasks in the implementation of actions and programmes. Ultimately, the outcomes of the guidelines and handbooks are monitored and re-evaluated whenever required. Community consultation was coordinated by Durham’s UNESCO Chair and involved staff from key national and local organizations responsible for heritage site management but also local school teachers and college lecturers and staff from local municipality, village committee, development and administrative offices. Such a survey will comprise a series of informal local workshops, community interviews and background demographic data collection.

This enhanced cascade ensures that local stakeholders, government organizations and archaeologists engage in community briefings prior to archaeological activities to identify the parameters and impacts of those investigations. To deepen understanding and cooperation between archaeologists and the community, consultations prior to the start of excavations are used and Table 12.2 provides an example of the form used at Dohani, as described in Chapter 5.

Table 12.2 Community consultation form deployed at Dohani in 2018 (Interviewer guiding questions in italics)
Full size table

Information from such surveys contributes to archaeologists understanding community needs, local living heritage and culture more clearly and can therefore contemplate pragmatic engagement strategies. Such a process allows a more meaningful engagement in a systematic and planned manner that promotes the involvement of local people in the design of heritage protection measures, tourism approaches, and potential generation of income associated with sites. Drawing from COMPACT, Durham’s Cascade and community consultation methodologies have formulated a guiding framework called ProtectNet to synchronize archaeological investigation with community engagement (Table 12.3).

Table 12.3 ProtectNet pilot framework synchronizing archaeological investigations with community engagement
Full size table

12.4 Good Practice: Some Concluding Reflections

12.4.1 Resistance

This book has supported and argued for the proposition that archaeologists engaged in ethical practice in South Asia should see community engagement as an important and fully integrated part of their activities. This includes interacting and articulating with colleagues working in tourism, relief, community development and environmental sectors, and making links with NGOs, GOs, IGOs, universities and research organizations to help understand further conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of community engagement. Our case studies have identified engagement methodologies and approaches that point to, and illustrate, good practice. This is, of course, a big ask of technical teams who are often working to their limit in terms of human and financial resources and it is important to note that resistance to this approach may be encountered:

We can’t keep going back to the community to clear everything with them. There are too many opinions and interests. We just wouldn’t be able to get our work done. Most people are ignorant, and they don’t know anything about what should be done or what we are doing. Why ask them? (Interview, Kathmandu, 2018)

A concern raised by archaeologists relates to the extent that they become involved with a community, and how the boundaries of their engagement can be clearly defined. For example, is an objective of archaeological-based community engagement also to impact on the social fabric and social capital more widely? Could it help build civic pride, or help reduce prejudice between contesting identity groups for example? Should such objectives be specifically built into community engagement programmes or is this too much to expect? Discussions need to be developed before an intervention so that objectives and expectations are clear for both the archaeology team and the community.

From the community perspective, the key observation is the need for systematic, coordinated and sustained engagement with local people by government agencies, donors, reconstruction and archaeological teams and associated stakeholders. People living close to archaeological and reconstruction sites often have a deep spiritual connection with temples and other heritage monuments that have been built up over long periods. There is a danger that this aspect will be lost if this connection is not respected by restorers and those tasked with reconstruction or conservation. One interviewee told us at the earthquake damaged Jaisidewal Temple in Kathmandu:

We don’t feel part of all this work and nobody tells us anything or asks our advice, and I now have less interest in looking after the place. It doesn’t seem like ours. So, I’m not going to stop people or tell them off for using it to dry their clothes or sell things from it. Just an information board would be a start. Some people did talk with us but nothing happened. (Interview, Kathmandu, 2018)

As a result, people become rather cynical when they are interviewed or questioned again under the guise of engagement, and therefore have little enthusiasm to become involved with projects that, despite the rhetoric of inclusion and participation, are still defined by outsiders and dependent on their money. People can see that they are not usually involved in any ‘high level’ decision-making that affects them, that their voice is not directly heard at the academic, policy and research conferences and meetings where plans are instigated, and that they are being consulted as part of a ‘box ticking’ exercise at the end of a long line of other more ‘important’ or powerful stakeholders.

To help overcome this attitude, we have argued for the deployment multidisciplinary teams that include community mobilizers and development specialists who can interface between communities, archaeologists and other reconstruction experts. Education and preparation is needed for both the community and the archaeologists so that communities are at the heart of reconstruction and heritage protection rather than remaining at the periphery.

12.4.2 Community Good Practice

Despite the feelings expressed by some community interviewees in the preceding section, there are many examples of people stepping-up and engaging in their heritage protection in collaboration with archaeologists and others. This may, for example, be simply agreeing to common sense guidelines such as those given in Table 12.4. These are easy to understand and cost little to disseminate.

Table 12.4 Common sense community guidelines for heritage protection
Full size table

12.5 Prospect

Our case studies have highlighted many examples of interventions in the name of heritage protection, some leading to the dislocation of communities from their tangible and intangible heritage, whether in the form of moving residents from Old Bagan, restricting development at Champaner-Pavagadh or the implementation of Lumbini Master Plan in the 1970s, which witnessed the relocation of seven villages. While some families were relocated nearby, commentators have noted that:

the process of ‘relocation’ was conducted in a heavy-handed and ‘top-down’ manner. People reported that they were first asked to leave and given false promises regarding future provision of jobs and services (such as water and electricity) in new locations. Subsequently, however, they report that they were threatened and forced out from their lands and natal homes. Informants described how electricity supplies were cut, after which families were physically removed and their homes demolished before them. (Molesworth and Müller-Böker 2005: 194)

Other case studies have presented the destruction of heritage sites and their environments; both criminally targeted, as in the case of the Babri Mosque, the Bamiyan Buddhas and Kandy’s Temple of the Tooth, or with judicial permission, as in the case of Nagarjunakonda, Devnimori and the mosques and temples impacted by Lahore’s Orange Line. In the case of the latter intervention, while the legal rights of the tangible entity have been considered, the community’s intangible rights have been afforded less consideration and protection.

We must also recognize that whenever confronted by what Nehru referred to as the “conflict between the claims of today in the sense of practical utility and the claims of the past”, community consultation and engagement with local stakeholders pre and post-disaster or conflict, and in situations of accelerated development, makes good sense to help understand and document traditional models of cyclical renewal, construction methods, maintenance and ownership, and factors in the collapse or survival of monuments as well as informal non-state resilience pathways which structure lives after a disaster or dislocation. Certainly, given the urgency to rehouse people, restore public services and repair, for example, places of worship, after a disaster or conflict there is a temptation to quickly as possible to ‘Build Back Better’ using modern materials and construction methods. As frequently encountered by our recent British Academy Global Challenges Research Fund Cities and Infrastructure project in Kathmandu (CI170241), this can cause irreversible damage to monuments and damage valuable cultural heritage. Emergency teams and communities need practical and pragmatic training in risk reduction strategies for monuments in post-conflict and natural disaster situations keeping and preserving debris post-disaster so that it can be utilized in reconstruction programmes (Coningham et al. 2018).

This links to further ethical and political concerns of epistemic questions of how the significance of sites and destroyed heritage are determined and by whom, and how this influences their treatment in a post-disaster scenario, particularly with reference to practical and theoretical ideals for community-based research, mediation, inclusivity and ideals of joint stewardship and mutual accountability. This is pertinent because heritage can play a unifying role in post-conflict responses while unethical promotion alienates communities and can generate the destruction of that same heritage. Such concerns are valid, as short-term environmental shocks have led to a rise in intercommunal tensions, violence and political negotiation.

Looking forward, we recognize how our initial cascade from excavation to engagement represented a shift from the tradition of arbitrarily fencing the tangible noted in Chapter 3, although we are still far from the community stewardship scenarios discussed in Chapter 9. Our revised cascade strongly advocates the flow from engagement to excavation to exhibition and engagement with deliberate provision of evaluation and feedback loops. For example, we have started to pilot exhibition and education activities following exemplars presented in Chapter 2 with a Heritage Festival at Tilaurakot-Kapilavastu , generously sponsored by Dr. Tokushin Kasai. Co-designed with the DoA, LDT, local teachers and Municipality Education Officer, we launched the inaugural Tilaurakot-Kapilvastu Heritage Festival in February 2018. The one-day festival included a public excavation debriefing and tour, an exhibition of excavated artefacts and a photographic exhibition to highlight threats to local heritage sites. The exhibition also promoted local intangible heritage by showcasing the handicrafts of the Hariyali Hastakala Women’s Group as well as dance displays from the Jalashaya Homestay Group, both of which belong to the indigenous Tharu community. It was also attended by over 100 pupils from 21 local schools, who participated in drawing and speech competitions. The students’ artistic creations were displayed on the historic site and will soon be displayed in the refurbished local museum. Of the 60 visitors who completed a feedback sheet at the photographic exhibition, 97% stated that they were more aware of heritage protection issues after visiting.

We have also drawn on the site-specific and broader landscape based research results and experiences of Lumbini and Kathmandu and translated these into exhibitions and popular print formats. A temporary post-disaster exhibition in Kathmandu in September 2017 attracted 8079 visitors in four days. We translated this to Durham’s Oriental Museum in an exhibition called ‘Resilience in the Rubble’, attracting 12,850 visitors between September 2017 and January 2018. Through these exhibitions, we changed public perception of the need for archaeological intervention in post-disaster scenarios as only 49% in Kathmandu and 26% in Durham had been previously aware of the value and vulnerability of subsurface remains, with attendees noting ‘The narrative of reinforcement after earthquake that really shows the scale of the problems, but offers solutions for this and future disasters in terms of rescue and reconstruction’ and ‘I Liked the info on how training was provided for first responders, safeguarding artifacts from future earthquakes’ as well as recognizing that the underpinning research ‘indicated ancient people knew how to build to withstand earthquakes’. The DoA and ICOMOS (Nepal), with additional funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Global Challenges Research Fund grant (AH/P006256/1), the British Academy’s Global Challenges Research Fund Cities and Infrastructure Programme (CI170241) and Durham’s Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (IMEMS), were central in its redesign and relocation to Kathmandu’s new Earthquake Museum, which opened on the third anniversary of the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake in April 2018 with the intention of enhancing community awareness of the vulnerability of heritage in post-disaster environments.

Finally, demonstrating that ‘community’ can include local residents and stakeholders directly affected as well as non-resident stakeholders who have strong intangible links, we co-designed a temporary exhibition highlighting our heritage research and outcomes from the Greater Lumbini Area with the Taiwanese Fo Guan Shan Buddha Museum between May and September 2018. Targeted at educating potential Buddhist pilgrims in their homeland before they travel, we attracted almost one million visitors. Over 2000 visitors responded to our survey, of whom 70% stated that the exhibition had given them a greater awareness of the heritage at risk at Buddhist pilgrimage sites in the Greater Lumbini Area. We also include practitioners and managers within our definitions of ‘community’ and, with funding from UNESCO, the Governments of Nepal and Sri Lanka, AHRC-GCRF, the Oriental Cultural Heritage Sites Protection Alliance and the British Council (India) and UK-India Education Resource Initiative, have facilitated exchange programmes for 100 archaeological and heritage officers. These participants were trained alongside 453 national staff and students in field techniques and interpretations and introduced to the research tools for managing sub-surface remains. A further 158 officers were introduced and trained in responding to heritage threats in post-disaster or post-conflict scenarios. For the latter, we ran field laboratories on-site at Jaffna Fort, where 91% of the 22 surveyed participants stated that they were better equipped to protect heritage after a disaster as a result of the training. Notwithstanding these clear engagement and impact successes, we conclude by stressing that our cascade is not a product but a process and we are already reviewing feedback and anticipate enhancing it in the future.