The social value of built heritage: an interdisciplinary discourse

In recent decades, the debate concerning the conservation of built heritage has begun to acknowledge the benefits of involving local communities in this process. Despite this recognition, however, the role played by local communities in heritage affairs in practice remains marginal, and the idea of ‘heritage communities’ proposed by the Faro Convention has not yet become a reality. An effective change in this paradigm that focuses on identifying local communities as focal entities in the process of the conservation of built heritage must involve a recognition of their heritage resources and, thus, the availability of appropriate value bases that can help local communities recognise the social value of built heritage assets. Indeed, this value dimension continues to be viewed as less notable than other values that have been recognised as ‘essential’ with respect to conservation. In light of these premises, this paper aims to overcome existing differences and conflicts in the discourse concerning heritage social value by providing a comprehensive framework of value types that can guide efforts to assess the social value of built heritage. In this sense, a multidisciplinary review and investigation of different theoretical domains that have addressed the topic of social value are proposed. Such an investigation can provide a basic reference for efforts to overcome this gap and explore the influences, connections, and contradictions that occur among different disciplines, thus providing a comprehensive theoretical framework in this context. Finally, the paper discusses various opportunities, limitations, and future challenges pertaining to efforts to identify the social value of built heritage as the core of decision processes concerning conservation.