Seventeenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

Heritage is becoming more embedded in sustainable development agendas across Europe. Together with the concept of landscape, heritage can offer a way to manage change in a precarious world. From a critical heritage perspective this poster explores the connections between landscape, heritage, and sustainability by juxtaposing current conceptualisation of cultural landscapes and sustainability to on-the-ground trials of heritage organisations in the North of England. These organisations approach their rapidly changing post-industrial environments in different landscape-oriented ways, but each address different values related to their environment and come across several challenges in ‘making’ the future landscape. Through participant observation, interviews and using literature analysis as complementary approach I strive to understand how sustainability values and narratives are being used in these current heritage developments and practices working with and through landscape. In addition to exploring the connection between the concept of cultural landscapes and sustainability, challenges and decisions arising during the management and transformation process of the historical environment are analysed. How the organisations interact with the different pillars of sustainability (economic, environmental, social, and cultural) is then considered. How is sustainability ‘used’ to change the landscape’s use and meaning and how is it used in context of managing the historic post-productive landscape? Can landscape-oriented heritage practices aid in a more sustainable relationship with our environment in a Western post-industrial context?