ABSTRACT
Heritage, as a social process, has been likened to a ‘conversation’ (Fairclough 2012, xv). Seen in this way, heritage work is no longer limited to a concern for the conservation of objects or landscapes associated with grand (often simplified) nationalist histories. Instead, heritage is people-centred creative action in which everyone can be involved, a principle engrained in English Heritage’s (2008) Conservation Principles (that heritage is a ‘shared resource’ in which ‘everyone’ should have the opportunity to get involved), and in the Council of Europe’s (2005) Faro Convention on the Value of Heritage for Society (Council of Europe 2009). The Faro Convention connects everyone’s ‘right’ to a heritage with which they can identify with the right to actively participate in the broader heritage process, and claims both as part of basic human rights. This was the theoretical foundation of the Homeless Heritage project 2008–2013. In this chapter, we critically appraise the Homeless Heritage project in terms of its social sustainability. We review collaborative methodologies and argue that heritage work can play an important role in developing social sustainability through increasing equity and enhancing social cohesion within communities. We identify ways in which heritage as a social process can involve working with communities on perspectives that at once challenge dominant narratives about the built environment and function therapeutically for the people involved, promoting redemption and enabling people to move on from traumatic experiences.
