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PLANNING & HERITAGE

Special issue for JCHMSD - Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development

Expected date of publication: 2013, second semester

 Guest Editors: Luca Zan and Maria Lusiani, University of Bologna
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The issue of planning has become increasingly important in the heritage field as professional entities and international agencies foster the adoption of Master Plans across the globe. According to the UNESCO Convention of 1972 and its operational guidelines, inclusion of a site in the World Heritage List requires measures of conservation and management. To that end, the adoption of managerial and planning tools is a fundamental requirement for all world heritage sites (e.g. Ringbeck, 2008; for a comprehensive bibliography on management plans applied to World Heritage sites see ICOMOS, 2010). Other disciplinary traditions are moving in a similar direction: the diffusion of management discourse to arts and heritage institutions brings with it a specific type of planning within the discourse of management, that is to say the logics and tools of business plans. Similarly, city planners and architects involved in the heritage field tend to use another, different meaning when they talk about plans.

Despite the increasing reference to plans and planning, it is hard to find a clear presentation of the state-of-the-art in this set of similar (yet not the same) tools and approaches in the multidisciplinary context of heritage and the various disciplines involved – urban planning, regional planning, conservation, archaeology, museology, business and organizational theory. Despite some similarities to that of management, the discourse of planning has a parallel and to some extent independent genealogy, probably linked to its adaptation to different objects and topics (the urban fabric, regional issues, archaeological discourse, internal organizational aspects) and their complex natures.

Scholarly literatures are also divided, and rarely acknowledge reciprocal influences or share epistemological and operational issues. For instance, although tools developed in the “golden age” of strategic planning in the 1960s – such as the SWOT analysis – are still in use (Learned et al., 1969; for an overview see Friesner, 2011), a more skeptical approach to research on organizational decision-making emerged, along with the increasing relevance of the notion of bounded rationality (Simon, 1991; March, 1993). From the 1970s a huge debate on the meaning and usefulness of planning has been carried out in the management field, even in respect to profit-seeking entities (Normann, 1977; Mintzberg, 1978; Pettigrew, 1987; for a summary see Zan, 1990). What is curious to notice is that in the heritage field, there has been no such critical discussion on “the rise and fall of strategic planning”, to use Mintzberg’s (1994) words.

Within this context, understanding how plans are developed and implemented in specific important cases would help to develop further consensus on the whole topic. The special issue of the Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development wishes to put together experts and experiences from a variety of contexts. More specifically, we would like to associate:
a) a variety of discipline viewpoints: management scholars, archaeologists, city planners, policy makers, geographers, etc.;
b) a variety of experiences and objects of plans: heritage sites, museums, historical cities, cultural projects;
c) a variety of countries, to avoid ethnocentrism.
 

To the various experts, a threefold question would be addressed:
- First, to reconstruct a short but incisive literature review of the planning approach in their specific discipline, aiming to reconstruct commonalities, the genealogy of knowledge and similar issues.
- Second, to focus on a specific case study, highlighting issues and results (not necessarily focusing only on “best” practices).
- Third, to bridge to other disciplines involved in the field/case study.

 

Deadlines & timing

Prof. Luca Zan
Dipartimento di Scienze Aziendali
Via Capo di Lucca 34
40126  Bologna, Italy

tel: +39 051 2098077
fax: +39 051 2098074
email: [log in to unmask]

http://ssrn.com/author=338561