Communities: Keeping Heritage Living, Maintained, and Relevant

Communities ensure that heritage remains living, maintained, and relevant. There is a need to better understand and address the interests of communities. The protection of the heritage is dependent on the involvement of the communities, closely linked to their daily routines and rituals, as well as to achieve the goals of Sustainable Development Goals. Furthermore, the various communities related to a given heritage site are required to negotiate their position and collaborate. This chapter examines the relationship between communities and cultural heritage, the contribution of communities to living heritage, and the relationship between cultural heritage and the identity of communities. The displacement of communities and the re-creation of relationships to historic sites are also discussed. These issues are illustrated through examples from the Kathmandu Valley World Heritage property, with comparisons to cultural heritage sites in the broader Asian context such as Galle in Sri Lanka, Samarkand in Uzbekistan, Bagan and Mrauk U in Myanmar, Angkor in Cambodia, as well as Lumbini and Tilaurakot-Kapilavastu in Nepal. The complexity and diversity of communities need to be considered for the conservation and management of heritage sites.