Re-thinking the Resilience Paradigm in Cultural Heritage

Abstract

Resilience has become an enduring and widespread concept in cultural heritage policy and practice. The term has even been ascribed as a defining attribute of persistent tangible and intangible heritage. Despite its diffused adoption and use, there has been limited reflection or investigation into the concept at a theoretical level. This missing research becomes even more apparent upon examining other disciplines that have evaluated and critiqued the concept more thoroughly – especially the social sciences. This paper takes a first step in examining some of these shortcomings within the cultural heritage field by presenting a trans-disciplinary literature review. The first section covers the handling of resilience within research and practice in cultural heritage. The second section covers some of the key critiques emerging within other disciplines. The third section examines emerging paradigms in cultural heritage and how these can support new reflections on resilience. The paper concludes by identifying and discussing three future research avenues that could further explore new conceptualizations beyond resilience within the cultural heritage sector.