Focus Area 1: Tangible Heritage in the Context of Global Change
This focus area examines the multifaceted issues related to tangible or built heritage that arise in the context of various aspects of globalization. There are various global developments that pose a threat to the built fabric. Examples include global tourism, climate change and other environmental conditions. Built heritage is of great value for humanity as a material expression. It also must be understood as an expression of a cultural practice, which, if it has not become historically obsolete, needs to be protected as a living tradition. The focus area shall also explore the opportunities the World Heritage Convention offers for development, as well as the limits and obstacles it poses in this regard, and it shall investigate perspectives for the development of sites in the overall context of conservation. Cultural changes that occur as a result of migration processes, and in the post industrial era, shall be analyzed with a view to their effects on concepts such as Outstanding Universal Value or the authenticity of tangible heritage. Interesting research fields for PhD students are also emerging due to the growing number of nominations of industrial heritage sites, many of which still lack long-term utilization concepts.
Thematic Focus Areas
- Impulses of the World Heritage Program for the conceptual development of traditional conservation approaches.
- World Heritage as an impulse for increased interdisciplinarity in the social sciences and humanities.
- Conflicts between the necessity to protect historic sites and usage demands of local communities and mass tourism.
- Urban Sociology: the historic and present development of city and space.
- Influences of modern urban development (in particular mobility and migration) on the use of historic sites.
- Research on the participation of local communities in the protection and use of tangible cultural heritage.