The changes in societies and their environments call for approaches that increase civil society engagement and appropriation of the World Heritage Sites, as a tool for preservation and conservation and for making them meaningful in people’s lives. In this context, finding ways to unite and integrate tangible and intangible aspects of heritage can be a response to that challenge.

This session proposes a debate about strategies, methods and guidelines needed to overcome the distinction between tangible and intangible assets. It aims to enhance our ability to build a knowledge ecology system to overcome the threats that the sites and the populations in and around them have suffered in the past years.

MODERATOR: Flavia Brito Nascimento (Brazil)

SPEAKERS

Maria Gravari-Barbas (France), Director of the Institute for Research and High Studies on Tourism (Institut de Recherches et d’Etudes Supérieures du TourismeTourisme, IREST) of Paris 1, Sorbonne University
Topic: The difficult task of safeguarding the intangible aspects of historical cities. Challenges and perspectives

Soul Shava (Zimbabwe), Professor of Environmental Education (Education for Sustainable Development), Department of Science and Technology Education, University of South Africa
Topic: Living heritage: linking intangible and tangible cultural heritage from an African perspective

Theresa Williamson (Brazil), Executive Director, Catalytic Communities
Topic: Rio de Janeiro’s favelas as living heritage: intangible to whom?

Fekri Hassan (Egypt), Professor of Cultural Heritage Management and Archaeology, Director, Cultural Heritage Management Program, French University in Egypt, Emeritus Petrie Professor, University College, London
Topic: Heritage for life – Egypt’s living heritage community engagement in re-creating the past project