Hill, Carolyn. (2024). “Decolonisation as a priority and not an afterthought”: Traversing the authorised heritage discourse in urban Aotearoa New Zealand. Urban Policy and Research. 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1080/08111146.2024.2362300
The role of the state in constructing heritage has been widely critiqued for a number of decades. However, ongoing separations exist between academic discourse and heritage practice. What is the current thinking of those shaping statutory heritage in the face of cities in change?
This paper explores these issues in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand, through analysis of qualitative interviews with heritage policy leaders across its major cities. It finds that authorised heritage-making must go beyond addition of new heritages into existing power structures. Rather, a “stories first” lens requires heritage’s settler colonial legacy to be challenged and transformed.
Introduction
The state’s role as definer and guardian of heritage has long been ingrained in settler colonial cities. Identifying heritage, establishing policy for its protection, and sustaining its presence via regulatory implementation remains a core business of territorial authorities in the management of city space.
The inherently political nature of these processes and the uneven power dynamics in the state’s role as heritage “gatekeeper” (Stephenson 2010, p. 19) is well-established in scholarship. Urban heritage-making has been critiqued across a wide spectrum of issues including its invention, commodification and practice (e.g. Hall 1999; Hewison 1987; Lowenthal 1985; 1998; Tunbridge and Ashworth 1996). In recent years, the field of critical heritage studies has been particularly influential in challenging the “authorised heritage discourse” (AHD) (Smith 2006) – the naturalisation of Western-derived assumptions about what constitutes heritage and its valorisation within immutable statutory frameworks.
Critical heritage scholarship has increasingly explored social justice-led opportunities for heritage-making beyond these authorised systems (Wells 2018). This includes heritage’s intersectionality with popular culture (Robinson and Silverman 2015b), public activism (Jameson and Musteaţă 2019), futures studies (Harrison et al. 2020; Holtorf and Högberg 2020), decolonising and emancipatory practices (Knudsen et al. 2021; Wells and Stiefel 2018) and democratic politics (Lafrenz Samuels and Daehnke 2023). In doing so, the critical heritage field seeks to extend beyond the “apparatuses of state agencies” (Robinson and Silverman 2015a, p. 2) who construct authorised heritage as part of cities’ self-validation of their place and history.
But what is happening at the coalface of those “apparatuses” as they seek to maintain, manage, extend and perhaps alter heritages already authorised? What is the current thinking of those shaping statutory heritage identification, policy and implementation in the face of cities in change? As Jeremy Wells (2018) and others identify, ongoing separations exist between academia and practice. Isolation between these groups diminishes the ability for research to influence positive change in the planning sphere (Hurley et al. 2016) and to create space for knowledge co-creation (Owen and Larson 2017; Stead 2016). Wells (2018) suggests that separations are due in part to research approaches that focus on practitioners as “objects of study rather than as rational actors with equal standing” (p. 37; see also Rowe 2016). He challenges researchers to recognise heritage professionals “as the primary agents of change” (p. 40) in systems of heritage making and management.
This research seeks to respond to Well’s challenge by directly engaging with people within the AHD apparatus. This scope of investigation is important due to the particular power of state-sanctioned heritage in the urban environment. Heritage, once authorised, plays a significant role in how cities are perceived, what and whose pasts are publicly remembered, where resources are allocated and what future change can be accommodated (Avrami 2021; Porter 2018). Examining how heritage is identified and managed by state agencies is currently relevant due to unprecedented social and physical changes faced by cities (Fry 2011). Settler colonial cities in particular are grappling with redressment of colonial legacies as well as increasing challenges of urban intensification and climate change impacts (Allam et al. 2020; Coombes 2006; Legacy and Leshinsky 2013). In this contested environment, state-led heritage-making can be an exclusionary and politically conservative practice (Smith 2022). This paper explores current perspectives of those who lead this practice and reflects on opportunities for change in light of wider urban transformations.
The location of the study is Aotearoa New Zealand, where a series of exploratory interviews were held with urban heritage policy leaders across the country. Employed within a range of national organisations, government ministries and city councils, these professionals shared their views and lived experiences relating to heritage identification, policy and implementation in urban environments. Aotearoa is widely regarded as an innovator in public policy, environmental management and planning (Berman and Karacaoglu 2020), and has led new ways of recognising heritage such as that of legal personhood (Bataille et al. 2020). Contemporary public debates regarding the aspirations of mana whenua,[1] environmental management and urban intensification are exposing the AHD to contestation in unprecedented ways. It is therefore timely to explore how policy leaders are considering these challenges from within the AHD.
In doing so, this work speaks to international debates regarding ongoing processes of authorised heritage construction and sustainment within urban environments, and offers perspectives from people who lead and shape those processes. It also provides insight into the problematic nature of authorised heritage-making in settler colonial states as they variously address entrenched legacies of Indigenous erasure. The purpose of the research is twofold: first, to understand and reflect on the issues heritage policy leaders are collectively raising; and second, to provide insights from Aotearoa into wider discourses on the nature and futurities of authorised heritage-making in settler colonial cities.
Aotearoa New Zealand context
“Heritage” is a prominent and contentious topic in Aotearoa. As its cities grapple with acute housing shortages, climate change impacts and issues of cultural recognition, heritage has emerged as a key contention between those invested in the status quo and those seeking urban change. These tensions resonate with other settler colonial societies, particularly the so-called CANZUS states (Canada, Australia and the United States of America), where language, culture and political constructs from a shared British colonial legacy shape similar planning and heritage norms and where cultural contestations are also occurring (Bell 2014; Nikolakis et al. 2019; Porter 2010).
In each of these jurisdictions, heritage is officially recognised and managed through a combination of national legislation and local statutory planning frameworks. Through these processes an AHD is naturalised and sustained, wherein heritage is understood as a non-renewable resource, stewarded by experts (architects, historians, archaeologists etc.), and fundamentally material-focused in its orientation (Smith 2006). This construction posits heritage-making as an immutable public good, an inalienable inheritance from past to future generations (May 2021).
As cities attempt to tackle housing unaffordability and climate resilience through policy reform, this authorised discourse is increasingly deployed to inhibit urban change. Its powerful collective identity claims leave little room to question whose identities are recognised and what alternative futures are foreclosed by its protection (Smith 2017). This is being challenged as urban pressures bring questions of who has a right to the city to the fore, and emerging generations are drawing attention to the often unseen lines of cultural power that are upheld by normative policy settings (Nairn et al. 2022). However, the statutory weight of AHD makes systemic change difficult as heritage is constructed not only through heritage agencies and experts, but through planning and legislative frameworks that give it legitimacy (Cheong 2020).
In Aotearoa, heritage is mandated as a matter of “national importance” under Section 6(f) of the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) and devolved to local government to recognise and provide for its protection in their jurisdictions. City councils give effect to this statutory requirement via district plans, which identify heritage items (usually as a scheduled list of places, archaeological sites, buildings, objects etc.) and include objectives, policies and rules for their protection and management. While a city’s heritage resources are not limited to those scheduled in the plan, the city council’s primary heritage focus (and budget allocation) is usually on that list (McEwan, 2022). District plans are reviewed every decade, creating a long lead time for any substantive change to heritage inclusions and approaches in terms of policies and rules. The formal scheduling of a property as a heritage place means that any modifications require approval from the relevant territorial authority (via a process known as a resource consent application), with the rules of the district plan applied.
Aotearoa is currently in a period of substantial environmental and planning reform, with a key focus on an “Urban Growth Agenda” (Barker 2019). This has been led by the 2020 National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UD) which directs councils to remove overly restrictive planning rules and enable urban intensification. An additional short-lived change to the legislative landscape was the Natural and Built Environments Act 2023 (NBA) and its partner, the Spatial Planning Act 2023 (SPA). These acts were planned to progressively supersede the RMA and placed new emphasis on regional strategies and greater national direction in a bid to improve biophysical outcomes, development efficiency and commitment to te Tiriti o Waitangi.[2] A change of government in October 2023 led to the NBA and SPA being immediately repealed; however resource management reform continues to be championed, now with a greater emphasis on private property rights (Bishop 2023). While the RMA remains the main legislative framing for heritage in the medium term, these changes may create moments of alternative possibility for the shaping of AHD.
Methodology
The study was conducted using a qualitative methodology based on constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz 2013; Flick 2018), with semi-structured interviews used as the method of engagement. This approach enabled participants’ “real world” experiences to form the analytical context, allowing expression of a complex range of perspectives and values. It provided a reflexive frame within which to critically explore commonly-held assumptions that underpin the AHD, with urban heritage professionals themselves speaking into this analysis and considering future potentials. In choosing this approach I am aware of my own positionality as a Pākehā New Zealander, a descendent of British settlers to Aotearoa. I am an “insider” to heritage as a professional field and am a beneficiary of its purposes in settler identity and home-making (Bell 2014). In-depth interviews made room for critical (self)reflection on preconceptions and biases, and on heritage’s role in de/colonising agendas.
Purposive sampling (Denscombe 2014) was used to identify individuals across a range of national organisations involved in urban heritage policy and management, as well as from councils of the six largest cities (Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington, Hamilton, Tauranga, Dunedin and Lower Hutt), with 23 resultant interviews. The heritage-related departments of identified councils include both Māori and non-Māori specialists, and a third of participants were employed in specifically Māori heritage-orientated roles. Participants’ views were sought on (1) how “heritage” is currently identified and managed in their city; (2) how heritage concerns are managed alongside other urban issues; and (3) what “heritage” means in their city context and what they perceive as unseen, unknown or under-represented.
Data analysis was undertaken using an applied thematic analysis method (Guest et al. 2012), first following the interview questions and later applying an iterative thematic approach. Three key categories of discussion included: “identification” – how authorised heritage-making occurs through formal processes of assessment and valorisation; “policy” – existing processes of policymaking that structure and solidify the AHD; and “implementation” – of heritage policy, regulation and projects. These thematic categories form the basis of the findings analysis and discussion that follows.
Findings
Identification – creation of an authorised discourse
The most prevalent topic regarding heritage identification was its perceived entrenchment of Eurocentrism. Over three-quarters of participants raised this as an issue, discussing a predominantly colonial focus for heritage in Aotearoa cities and a lack of recognition of Māori heritage. This related not only to Aotearoa’s settler colonial legacy but the complicity of heritage-making in ongoing structures of settler colonial control. One participant shared:
I think of heritage as being (determined by) those who have had the most control and power to outline what heritage will be. And by that virtue, those who might not have had the same power or strength of voice or opinion may not have had the same opportunity to express their heritage. … Heritage is as the most powerful people have been able to articulate it, in my experience. And the system in a resource management sense, in my view, enables that (P22.19).[3]
Another suggested that
When councils come to protect things… they essentially “other” Māori heritage and just think about its archaeological values. I think that a lot of concern is around colonisation not being addressed (P22.03).
Many participants described heritage identification as colonial layers of history and urban fabric erasing or burying Māori cultural layers. It was recognised that this obscuration is not an accident of history but a reflection of the inherent power of colonial built legacies to determine the urban narrative. As encapsulated by a participant:
It's not so much around the building of a city, it's more about what the city has been built on that's been forgotten. … We build new heritages on top of old heritage, without acknowledging or recognizing what was already there… we'll start the story from the Treaty of Waitangi; “1840 seems like a good date, let's go from there,” and we'll move forward from that point – and then that becomes history and heritage (P22.14).
This issue was commonly related to the perceived limitations of district plans. These regulatory frameworks are the primary tool used by local government to identify and protect heritage as statutorily required by the RMA. Maintaining a legacy that can be traced back to New Zealand’s earliest town planning acts (Hill 2023), district plans use scheduled lists to itemise and rank particular places that are seen to meet a threshold of significance that warrants statutory protection. Beginning with, and designed for, monuments that embodied settler permanence and pride of place, these lists have become longer and more diverse over the decades. However, structural change is constrained by their legislative context, decade-plus tenure and majority public expectations once something is on the schedule.
This statutory context was critiqued by a number of participants, both in terms of its rigidity and its incommensurability with Māori values. Participants commented on district plans being “a pretty narrow view” (P22.01), “dominated by buildings and lists and statements of significance” (P22.09). Another noted the lack of room for iterative review, leaving heritage schedules “frozen at a point in time, versus being able to adapt with changing environments” (P22.16). More fundamentally, several participants described an inherent mismatch of the district plan model itself with heritages beyond Eurocentric norms, as one explained:
The RMA, our (district) plan, it's a European worldview; it's hard to jam a value into there that is intrinsically not provided for. And we need to recognize mana whenua as experts, and we do. But that can be difficult in processes that don't have a te ao Māori world view.[4] Because we still trying to pigeonhole things into a process or category or criteria that just isn't relevant, it's much bigger than that (P22.11).
Relatedly, many participants saw the legislative structure as perpetuating a dependency on heritage “experts” to determine what is, and isn’t, heritage. Participants pointed out that tight statutory deadlines and limited budgets for district plan preparation necessarily means that heritage places continue to be primarily identified by hired (usually architectural) specialists only, a cohort that continues to have poor demographic diversity. In particular, the lack of Māori practicing in heritage specialist roles was noted as a significant limiter to the perspectives that are drawn on as part of decision-making. This issue was seen as exacerbated by the small number of experts involved in any given heritage identification process due to resource and time constraints. One participant suggested that this tendency
… is really at odds with the way we should be thinking about heritage. … Of course we need experts to be part of the picture, they offer a lot, but there's also something that they don't offer, which is a kind of collective understanding of what counts, you know, what matters (P22.17).
While the majority of participants were keenly aware of these issues, they also expressed clear challenges to expanding and redefining heritage in urban contexts. These particularly related to the legislative and regulatory frameworks within which heritage identification processes operate and their associated policy settings that ossify established practice.
Policy – new ideas, old challenges
Over three-quarters of participants discussed the importance of mana whenua leadership in urban heritage policy. However, opinions varied regarding how much this is enabled by existing AHD structures. Some participants were optimistic about Māori-led change beginning to occur, suggesting that the role of mana whenua “has now been absolutely accepted” (P22.01), that “Māori cultural heritage values are being appraised a lot more” (P22.05), and that there has been “a change of pace for us really in terms of how we look at these things” (P22.20). Others were less positive, particularly with regard to the capacity of New Zealand’s existing legislative framework and heritage sector to empower change. As expressed by one participant,
Western institutions (remain) the dominating lens of which we try to then co-opt some Māori thoughts. But you're still succumbing to that dominating mono-lens (P22.23).
These dilemmas were summarised by one participant who identified “decolonisation as a priority and not an afterthought” (P22.16) as the central challenge for heritage policy. Others built on this theme, describing the issues for mana whenua in engaging with a system structurally unsuited to their needs and aspirations. In particular, they foregrounded the risks of co-optive approaches when councils and other heritage organisations attempt to broaden the field, with statutory “protection” of Māori heritage potentially becoming another method of exerting settler-state control over the places, knowledge and action of mana whenua. This was clear in an example given by one participant,
Like with Te Mana o Kupe, Mana Island, it’s a DoC reserve,[5] it’s been set aside, preserved if you like for its ecological heritage, so it’s listed in the district plan, it’s wāhi tapu.[6] But for Ngāti Toa the main thing is to reconnect with that island. And eventually probably build a whare (house) there, a marae (community meeting place) on the island, so we can welcome groups to come over, have a boat, have active kaitiaki (custodianship) of that island. … Which again is contrary to the colonial heritage, where something should be set aside, like an outside museum. … You get this kind of talking past each other (P22.09).
Another similarly suggested a disconnect between statutory heritage policy approaches and other non-Pākehā heritages:
Where’s the Indian community in this? Where’s the Chinese community? Where are their sites of significance and does the model of protection enable those things to be protected? And I don’t think it does at the moment. … I think there's going to have to be quite a shift in how we think about heritage… I think this idea of heritage being around stasis and holding things exactly as they were is becoming less and less relevant to people today (P22.06).
Cultural landscape-based approaches were seen by some participants as having potential to unpick this Eurocentric underpinning of urban heritage policy. The topic of cultural landscapes was a key theme in interview responses, with many participants discussing wider landscape-based approaches as an emerging concept in heritage policy and management. A common conversation point was the interrelationship of people and environment, with heritage protections seen as playing an important role in maintaining these connections from both Western and te ao Māori perspectives. Others recognised that layered values – including dark histories and conflicting narratives – are poorly understood through current heritage policy. Rather, participants suggested that a cultural landscapes-based lens may enable these values to not only be better known but also to contribute to processes of social and cultural redress.
When considering cities as cultural landscapes, participants noted that physical markers of histories were no longer confined to existing historic built form. Rather, they highlighted the emerging role of new forms of heritage in (re)establishing identity links for people beyond a Pākehā and heteronormative gaze. This included modern or seemingly insignificant built form, contemporary artwork, interpretation, landscaping and performative use. As suggested by one participant, “there's a whole lot of people who history is not talking about. And I think bringing those things through is going to be a lot more interesting” (P22.06).
However, participants were ambivalent about the opportunities for cultural landscape approaches to be incorporated into statutory urban heritage policy. Several participants noted that the concept remains undefined in legislation and questioned how it will actually “come to life” (P22.19). Other perceived challenges included the RMA requirements for site-specific (rather than area-wide) assessments and identification, effectively reducing heritage to “dots on a map” (P22.03); an entrenched hierarchy of built form over environment and culture, with context treated as “setting” only (P22.08, 16); and a lack of policy responsiveness to changing values over time (P22.01). Also discussed were the constraints of artificial jurisdictional boundaries that misalign with cultural landscape manifestations (P22.20), and the inherent problems in attempting to “protect” cultural landscapes in a litigious planning regime structured on private property rights and certainty (P22.10, 11).
While acknowledging these barriers, interview conversations generally indicated an emerging turn in heritage policy in Aotearoa cities, from identifying and managing (built) heritage to a natural-cultural landscapes approach partnering with mana whenua. Several participants, particularly from larger, more well-resourced councils indicated that this shift was beginning to move from ideation into action, with city-scale heritage strategies being developed through this lens. A strong emphasis was the role of this work in partnering with mana whenua and in seeking out and highlighting heritage diversity through communities engagement.
However, participants acknowledged the resource-intensive nature of these projects, not only in their creation but in continuing processes of engagement to maintain their currency. An additional concern was their weakness as a planning mechanism, with no statutory requirements or weight (and therefore little on-the-ground effect) unless/until they are embedded in a district plan. Various participants indicated their councils’ intention to do this, but also highlighted the limitations of conservation-orientated heritage policy to often-intangible heritages of “belonging and connections and creating cohesive societies” (P22.01), with one participant stating, “that's a really big sell in terms of the RMA tests at the moment” (P22.20).
The challenges of developing an AHD beyond itemised built form relates to another key theme raised by participants: urban intensification and its relationship with heritage policy. This was a distinct and prevalent theme through many interviews, with over three-quarters of participants raising this topic. Its frequency of discussion reflects the interviews’ temporal context in this period of significant legislative change, with its particular focus on an urban growth agenda.
This theme generated a range of opinions. Some participants took the view that heritage and intensification can be appropriately balanced; others saw them as fundamentally competing objectives. Several participants expressed both perspectives, indicating the complexity and potentially conflicted role of urban heritage in cities as it is simultaneously held as a public good and a contributing factor to social inequality (Hill 2023). Some participants pointed out that statutorily-recognised heritage continues to be safeguarded under the various policy instruments promulgated as part of the urban growth agenda. However, others noted that much “everyday heritage” (P22.11) is only recognised under what is variously known as “character” provisions. This area-based (rather than site-specific) planning tool is only implicitly provided for in legislation and is managed as an urban amenity rather than being afforded statutory protection (Hill 2023). Various participants confirmed that character areas have been reduced in size in response to NPS-UD requirements for site-by-site reassessment. Some participants described this change as “regressive” (P22.03) and “reactive” (P22.20) due to losses of architecture, local distinctiveness and historic urban form. Others emphasised the need for heritage to be able to be robustly defended (via research, multiple and distinctive values etc.) in light of human rights and intergenerational equity supported by affordable inner urban housing.
Several participants raised a lack of national leadership on heritage policy as a related issue. As one explained:
(New Zealand is) quite unusual in that we don’t have an established advocacy body… and in addition we don’t have a national heritage body that has regulatory power either. So we’re really quite lacking. … Pretty much all the decisions-making has been devolved to councils, and central government has really provided them with little to no direction or support in using those powers (P22.03).
Participants discussed the consequences of this lack of central support. This included a lack of consensus on heritage definition (P22.04, 05), its low significance relative to other urban agendas (P22.20), different objectives, policies and rules for heritage in every urban jurisdiction (P22.03, 04, 09), and a heavy reliance on private consultants who take heterogenous approaches (P22.03, 05). These factors were seen in turn to exacerbate inefficiencies and competition for scarce resources, to hinder effective advocacy across different regulatory environments, and to create confusion among the public as to what and how heritage is protected and by whom.
Implementation – frustrations and hope
Participants’ discussion of the translation of heritage policy into urban action ranged from problem identification and critique to new initiatives and projects that indicated positive future directions. Implementational variability across city councils was a central theme of discussion: several participants noted that large cities have greater resources to adequately regulate and enforce heritage rules while smaller jurisdictions may take a permissive or uninvolved approach due to limited resources to follow through on protections. The importance of political will and community advocacy was another key topic; cities popularly celebrated for their perceived “heritage” qualities (both in terms of residential amenity and visitor dollar) were recognised as more successful in their implementation of heritage policy for this reason. In other cities, as noted by one participant:
We tend to either struggle with getting our message across, or we make do with whatever we can get across… whether its water, infrastructure, building, it sometimes feels like heritage is just hooked on like a trailer to other things (P22.14).
A larger issue identified was perceived structural flaws in the consenting process itself. Participants highlighted that Aotearoa’s planning system makes obtaining a resource consent to modify a scheduled property an expensive and uncertain process. This means that councils avoid changing or adding to existing schedules and also limit public notification of applications wherever possible, such that development barriers (and possible legal action) are minimised and resources for consenting and monitoring are kept within capacity. It was also noted that the rules on which resource consents are based are statutorily set at the creation of a district plan, curtailing any ability to adapt rules to changing urban environments or community needs. Participants indicated that these consenting realities mean that communities disengage from heritage management as their voices are either not sought or are unable to influence a rigid system.
A related opportunity cost discussed was the specialist time (and associated salaries) required to uphold scheduled heritage – defending its protection in legal challenges, assessing and monitoring consents, undertaking assessments etc. The resource consumption of existing identified heritage was seen as an impediment to broader considerations of heritage and meaningful engagement with mana whenua and communities. Several participants expressed the need for prioritisation in light of inadequate funds and Aotearoa’s collective cultural identity under te Tiriti o Waitangi:
When you are talking about struggle over limited resources, I think you do have to, you do have to consider, you know, the active protection of Māori interests under the principles of te Tiriti. That's in our legislation and it will be in our new legislation. And I think that that sets a priority in place (P22.07).
Like for say marae as a category of heritage which is found nowhere else in the world, (we need to be clear on) what really should have public money. Like marae restoration projects, and even money for fire safety for our marae heritage, the money, there’s nothing there. It’s outrageous! (P22.09).
As with heritage policy, various participants suggested that reprioritisation is beginning to occur in heritage implementation through the growing leadership role of Māori in approaches to urban heritage and design. The city of Christchurch was mentioned as an emerging example of Indigenous leadership in urban heritage. Formerly described as “the most English of New Zealand’s cities” (Wilson 2015), participants described how widespread loss of mid-nineteenth – early twentieth century architecture due to earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 precipitated a profound reshaping of heritage and identity through the literal creation of space for other voices. As explained by two participants,
The earthquakes caused Christchurch to have a deeper think about its heritage. And when those buildings unfortunately had to come down, it uncovered the whenua, and it allowed the story of the earth to be better told (P22.04).
With the recovery projects that have happened, the design of elements in the city… that’s brought Ngāi Tahu[7] places up in the mix. So it's changed how heritage is kind of experienced, especially in the central city (P22.10).
This was echoed by others in descriptions of co-design projects in other urban centres, including small-scale redevelopments or restorations and large-scale infrastructure or housing works. As shared by one participant when discussing a local redesign of playground and railway infrastructure,
We didn’t get to participate in the past, but we want to right that wrong and embrace our cultural learnings, our cultural stories, not just for Māori but from all countries, we’re really a diversified city now and all those stories matter. … And I think we’re telling our stories differently, it’s really cool. … We’re looking for a lot more of those opportunities that, while they’re not built forms of heritage, they carry a heritage story (P22.15).
However, difficulties in attempts to reconsider heritage through non-Western lenses continued to be acknowledged by participants. Inhibiting factors included lack of time, budgets, and cross-disciplinary partnerships within councils, as well as political will and majority public buy-in. One participant explained the role of community advocacy in accommodating – or stymying – diverse perspectives in urban heritage expression:
We still, even today, retain a very strong focus on our settler heritage. We're working to try and rectify that (but) we're finding some challenges. In that when people are saying, “well, are you doing an urban realm upgrade that’s sensitive to our heritage?” what they're saying is, sensitive to our European colonial heritage buildings (P22.06).
Heritage implementation was frequently discussed in terms of its perceived symbiotic relationship with wider processes of urban place-making, with over two-thirds of participants raising ideas and examples of this in action. Heritage (tangible and intangible, statutorily protected or not) was seen as an important contributor to creating a sense of place and local identity, and, in turn, place-making projects were recognised as opportunities to highlight under-acknowledged heritages. Examples shared included new urban design interventions (e.g. public artwork or interpretation), recovering buried aspects of nature and culture (e.g. daylighting urban streams, recovering urban pā (defensive settlement)), and adaptive and creative reuse of old buildings. However, participants acknowledged that tangible values, rather than social values, continue to drive heritage implementation, supporting Siân Jones’ finding (2017) that resource constraints inhibit engagement with community aspirations beyond routine protection of built form. In summary, participants saw opportunities to implement heritage processes differently but felt locked in by statutory rigidities, majority public opinion and resource deficiencies to tackle constraints in creative ways.
Discussion
The findings of this research show how an authorised heritage discourse – constructed via state-led identification, policy and implementation – continues to both shape and reflect majority public perceptions of heritage in Aotearoa’s urban environments. The study affirms Laurajane Smith’s position (2006) that the heritage industry remains bound to a method of valorisation that is underpinned by architecture and aesthetic and justified with some history, even as it endeavours to accommodate difference through continual accumulation and place type diversification (Avrami 2021; Cornu 2014). A notable aspect to emerge from this study is how cognisant participants were of these issues, with the majority open about and concerned to change the continuing Eurocentricity and seeming immutability of heritage’s statutory and regulatory framing. This differs somewhat from Anders Högberg and Cornelius Holtorf’s (2020) finding that heritage professionals are “future illiterate” – this study revealed awareness of authorised heritage’s role in urban futuring, particularly in terms of addressing Aotearoa’s settler colonial legacy. But participants’ various descriptions of system constraints correspond with what Högberg and colleagues (2017) elsewhere describe as heritage practice operating in a “continuous, rolling present” (p. 644) and unable to move beyond its well-worn confines.
The dilemmas faced by these policy leaders as they acknowledge the issues but struggle to deconstruct their foundations speaks to the continued power of the AHD in determining heritage value within settler colonial cities. Participants were aware that change requires more than simply adding more places onto heritage schedules; rather, it requires a paradigm shift that sets “decolonisation as a priority and not an afterthought” in reconsidering heritage beyond current systems of identification, policy and implementation. Participant views in this regard have alignment with what Avril Bell (2019, p. 21) describes as the “resurfacing” of Indigenous space and Alex Kitson, Janice Barry and Michelle Thompson-Fawcett’s (2022, p. 422) “reinscribing the city” – an unsettling of the settler colonial status quo that goes beyond tokenistic recognition to Indigenous self-determination and authority. These ideas are helpful not only in considering new urban form (as is the focus of Bell and Kitson et al.) but in critiquing the AHD and considering its purpose in changing urban environments.
The intensifying challenges of housing provision, environmental hazards and social inequity faced by CANZUS cities are catalysing significant policy reform across planning and legislation. They are also amplifying cultural contestations as Indigenous leadership in urban decision-making gains prominence but simultaneously faces populist opposition (Avrami 2020; Cornell 2019, p. 16; Kitson et al. 2022). What impact will these changes have on the nature and futurities of authorised heritage-making? Given the entrenched power of the AHD in settler colonial urban planning, and political desires to keep contestation in check, it seems probable that any systemic modifications to existing planning and legislative frameworks will uphold normative approaches to authorised heritage-making. Maintaining existing identifications, policies and implementation approaches will certainly be tempting in wider contexts of complex urban planning issues and previous hard-fought litigation.
However, this outcome is not inevitable. This research indicates that heritage policy leaders widely recognise myriad shortcomings in current heritage processes and the need for transformative policy reform. Many also acknowledge the continued hegemony of authorised heritage-making in determining what is worthy of collective remembrance and what can be lost in urban change. It is notable that an overarching theme across interview responses was the importance of place storying; the need to preserve “touchstones” that enable stories to be told, to make room for multiple and potentially difficult or dark histories, and to maintain whakapapa (genealogy, identity lineages) and intergenerational connections for the “waves of people” (P22.12) that have made Aotearoa cities home. Almost all participants raised this topic, commonly mentioning the need for urban heritage-making to move beyond itemised schedules to greater recognition of city space as interconnected layers of stories and cultures. As expressed by one participant,
“It's kind of coming at it from the other side. Let’s start with the story, rather than let's use the story to justify the protection” (P22.06).
Story-led approaches can facilitate greater inclusivity in heritage schedules (Pocock et al. 2015) but without deeper transformation of the AHD they can also lead to growing accumulations of protected “things” in urban environments (Avrami 2021), valorised for their stories but conserved according to Eurocentric architectural, archaeological or place management norms (Porter 2018). Policy reform at both planning and legislative levels will be required to deconstruct AHD hegemony and to re-centre the purpose of heritage towards culturally just urban futures.
Conclusion
Situated at the interface of critical heritage studies and authorised heritage practice, this research directly engaged with heritage policy leaders as they navigate and shape statutory heritage-making. It finds that status quo practice is being actively critiqued by policymakers, with perceived issues ranging from its Eurocentricity and expert dominance to lack of national direction, resource deficiencies, and ambivalent relationship with social equity issues. It is also clear that implementing difference remains a multi-dimensional challenge. What might a paradigm shift look like in the authorised heritage discourses of settler colonial cities, and how may it happen? Genuine moves to decolonise urban heritage-making and make room for wider identities will need to move beyond embracement of “others” into the existing canon, as such processes largely work to undergird settler futurity and indigenisation (Bell 2019; Kitson et al. 2022). As participants in this study make clear, what carries statutory weight gets resource attention. Taking a “stories first” approach to heritage identifications and policy mechanisms creates potential to shift this statutory weight.
However, this will require more than adding previously unrecognised heritages into existing settler colonial structures. Rather, it will require rethinking how scheduled lists are produced – what stories are being told, what pasts and futures are obscured by the accumulated forms of existing protections, and who speaks into this. It will also require reconceptualising protection mechanisms to reflexively respond to values themselves rather than the forms that hold them. More fundamentally, it will require creativity and cross-disciplinary partnerships in considering where and how heritage is cared for in a statutory structure, with opportunities for it to sit solely with Indigenous peoples, to be embedded within placemaking and landscape provisions, and to be established through a cultural landscape lens. These moves would necessitate open hands on the part of heritage professionals – to see change beyond our aesthetic comfort zones, to allow others to determine “authenticity” as intergenerational connection, to get out of the way of heritages that we hardly knew were there. Genuine transformation will require letting go (Harrison et al. 2020) – both of decision-making authority and, on occasion, of valorised place itself – to literally make room for others.
These alternative possibilities are difficult in a context where heritage diversification (and economic and political resources/power redistribution) is only acceptable to the majority public to a point. Most statutorily-protected heritage in Aotearoa remains colonial, and conceptual change is not yet visible in practice. As Jeremy Wells and Barry Stiefel (2018) identify, “acceptable practice is defined by the practice that came before it, and as such, meanings and values become increasingly ossified through a never-ending positive feedback loop” (p. 1). Attempts to change this remain politically challenging. However, the substantial urban planning changes needed to respond to population growth, climate vulnerabilities and cultural contestation create space to reshape the statutory landscape and majority public perceptions of heritage. In doing so, there are opportunities to explore a radically altered AHD that recognises settler colonial cities as Indigenous places, multi-storied and in continual change. This research indicates that heritage policy leaders are up for the challenge.
References
Allam, Z., Jones, D. and Thondoo, M., 2020. Cities and climate change: climate policy, economic resilience and urban sustainability. Cham: Springer International.
Avrami, E., ed., 2020. Preservation and social inclusion. New York, NY: Columbia Books on Architecture and the City.
Avrami, E., 2021. Sustainability, intergenerational equity, and pluralism: can heritage conservation create alternative futures? In: C. Holtorf and A. Högberg, eds. Cultural heritage and the future. Milton: Taylor & Francis, 198–216.
Barker, A., 2019. Improving well-being through better housing policy in New Zealand. OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1565, 1–39.
Bataille, C.Y., Luke, K., Kruger, T., Malinen, S., Allen, R.B., Whitehead, A.L. and Lyver, P.O.B., 2020. Stakeholder values inform Indigenous peoples’ governance and management of a former national park in New Zealand. Human Ecology, 48 (4), 439–453.
Bell, A., 2014. Relating Indigenous and settler identities: beyond domination. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Bell, A., 2019. More than just symbols: resurfacing Indigenous place in the far north of Aotearoa New Zealand. In: Y. Huang and R. Weaver-Hightower, eds. Archiving settler colonialism: culture, space and race. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 19–35.
Berman, E. and Karacaoglu, G., 2020. Public policy and governance frontiers in New Zealand. Bingley, England: Emerald.
Bishop, C., 2023. NBA and SPA successfully repealed [online]. Available from: https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/nba-and-spa-successfully-repealed [Accessed 21 December 2023].
Charmaz, K., 2013. Constructing grounded theory. 2nd ed. London: Sage.
Cheong, C.S. 2020: Connecting historic preservation and affordable housing. In E. Avrami, ed., Preservation and social inclusion. New York, NY: Columbia Books on Architecture and the City.
Coombes, A.E., 2006. Rethinking settler colonialism: history and memory in Australia, Canada, Aotearoa New Zealand and South Africa. Manchester University Press.
Cornu, M., 2014. Safeguarding heritage: from legal rights over objects to legal rights for individuals and communities? In: C. Sandis, ed. Cultural heritage ethics: between theory and practice. Cambridge, UK: Open Book, 197–204.
Denscombe, M., 2014. The good research guide for small-scale social research projects. 5th ed. Maidenhead, UK: McGraw-Hill/Open University Press.
Flick, U., 2018. Doing grounded theory. London: Sage.
Forster, M., 2022. Working at the interface of Te Ao Maori and social science. New Zealand sociology, 37 (1), 211–232.
Fry, T., 2011. Urban futures in the age of unsettlement. Futures, 43 (4), 432–439.
Guest, G., MacQueen, K.M. and Namey, E.E., 2012. Applied thematic analysis. Los Angeles: Sage.
Hall, S., 1999. Whose heritage? Un‐settling ‘the heritage’, re‐imagining the post‐nation. In: J. Littler and R. Naidoo, eds. The politics of heritage: the legacies of 'race'. London: Routledge, 21–31.
Harrison, R., DeSilvey, C., Holtorf, C., Macdonald, S., Bartolini, N., Breithoff, E., Fredheim, H., Lyons, A., May, S., Morgan, J. and Penrose, S., 2020. Heritage futures: comparative approaches to natural and cultural heritage practices. London: University College.
Hewison, R., 1987. The heritage industry: Britain in a climate of decline. London: Methuen.
Hill, C., 2023. The “soft edge”: heritage, special character, and new planning directives in Aotearoa cities. Interstices: journal of architecture and related arts, 22 (22), 57–71.
Högberg, A. and Holtorf, C., 2020. Final reflections: the future of heritage. In: C. Holtorf and A. Högberg, eds. Cultural heritage and the future. Milton: Taylor & Francis, 264–269.
Högberg, A., Holtorf, C., May, S. and Wollentz, G., 2017. No future in archaeological heritage management? World archaeology, 49 (5), 639–647.
Holtorf, C. and Högberg, A., 2020. Cultural heritage and the future. London: Routledge.
Hurley, J., Lamker, C.W. and Taylor, E.J., 2016. Exchange between researchers and practitioners in urban planning: achievable objective or a bridge too far? Planning theory & practice, 17 (3), 447–453.
Jameson, J.H. and Musteaţă, S., 2019. Transforming heritage practice in the 21st century: contributions from community archaeology. Cham: Springer International.
Jones, S., 2017. Wrestling with the social value of heritage: problems, dilemmas and opportunities. Journal of community archaeology & heritage, 4 (1), 21–37.
Kitson, A., Barry, J. and Thompson-Fawcett, M., 2022. Indigenous urban futurities: identity, place, and property development by Indigenous communities in the city. In: K. Ruckstuhl, I.A. Velásquez Nimatuj, J-A. McNeish and N.G. Postero, eds. The Routledge handbook of Indigenous development. London: Routledge, 414–423.
Knudsen, B.T., Oldfield, J., Buettner, E. and Zabunyan, E., 2021. Decolonizing colonial heritage: new agendas, actors and practices in and beyond Europe. London: Routledge.
Lafrenz Samuels, K. and Daehnke, J.D., 2023. Heritage and democracy: crisis, critique, and collaboration. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
Legacy, C. and Leshinsky, R., 2013. Tools for equitable urban intensification. Built environment, 39 (4), 409–421.
Lowenthal, D., 1985. The past is a foreign country. Cambridge University Press.
Lowenthal, D., 1998. The heritage crusade and the spoils of history. Cambridge University Press.
May, S. 2021: Heritage, thrift, and our children's children. In C. Holtorf and A. Högberg, eds. Cultural heritage and the future. London: Routledge, 46-58.
Nairn, K.M., Sligo, J., Showden, C.R., Matthews, K.R. and Kidman, J. 2022. Fierce hope: youth activism in Aotearoa. Wellington, New Zealand: Bridget Williams Books.
Owen, J.W. and Larson, A.M., 2017. Researcher–policymaker partnerships: strategies for launching and sustaining successful collaborations. New York: Routledge.
Pocock, C., Collett, D. and Baulch, L. 2015. Assessing stories before sites: identifying the tangible from the intangible. International journal of heritage studies, 21 (10), 962-982.
Porter, L., 2010. Unlearning the colonial cultures of planning. London: Routledge.
Porter, L., 2018. Heritage management. In: S. Jackson, L. Porter and L.C. Johnson, eds. Planning in Indigenous Australia: from imperial foundations to postcolonial futures. London: Routledge, 195–213.
Robinson, M. and Silverman, H., 2015a. Mass, modern, and mine: heritage and popular culture. In: M. Robinson and H. Silverman, eds. Encounters with popular pasts: cultural heritage and popular culture. Cham: Springer International, 1–30.
Robinson, M. and Silverman, H., ed., 2015b. Encounters with popular pasts: cultural heritage and popular culture. Cham: Springer International.
Rowe, H., 2016. Getting the relationship between researchers and practitioners working. Planning theory & practice, 17 (3), 459–462.
Smith, L., 2006. Uses of heritage. London: Routledge.
Smith, L. 2017. Heritage, identity and power. In H.-H.M. Hsiao, Y.-F. Hui, and P. Peycam,, eds. Citizens, civil society and heritage-making in Asia. Singapore: ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute.
Smith, L., 2022. Heritage, the power of the past, and the politics of (mis)recognition. Journal for the theory of social behaviour, 52 (4), 623–642.
Stead, D., 2016. The use of academic research in planning practice: who, what, where, when and how? Planning theory & practice, 17 (3), 453–457.
Stephenson, J., 2010. People and place. Planning theory & practice, 11 (1), 9–21.
Tunbridge, J.E. and Ashworth, G.J., 1996. Dissonant heritage: the management of the past as a resource in conflict. Chichester: J. Wiley.
Wells, J.C., 2018. Bridging the gap between built heritage conservation practice and critical heritage studies. In: J.C. Wells and B. Stiefel, eds. Human-centered built environment heritage preservation: theory and evidence-based practice. New York: Routledge, 33–44.
Wells, J.C. and Stiefel, B., 2018. Introduction. In: J.C. Wells and B. Stiefel, eds. Human-centered built environment heritage preservation: theory and evidence-based practice. New York: Routledge, 1–30.
Wilson, J., 2015. Canterbury region – Christchurch [online]. Available from: http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/canterbury-region/page-13 [Accessed 16 June 2023].
[1] Mana whenua refers to Māori who hold customary authority over ancestral land. This authority is exercised by a hapū (kinship group sharing descent from a common ancestor) or iwi (extended kinship group, tribe, a grouping of hapū).
[2] Te Tiriti o Waitangi (with the Treaty of Waitangi being the English version) is a constitutional document that forms the foundation for relationships between the Crown (the New Zealand government) and Māori.
[3] Participants are anonymised through a coding system indicating interview year and chronological order.
[4] Te ao Māori refers to the Māori world, one that is centred on whanaungatanga (relationships), tikanga (customary values) and mātauranga (knowledge) (Forster, M. 2022).
[5] Te Mana o Kupe is an island off the west coast of Wellington. It is managed as a scientific reserve by the Department of Conservation (DoC).
[6] A sacred place; in this context, meaning one that has been statutorily recognised as such and protected for its cultural values.
[7] Ngāi Tahu (or Kāi Tahu), is the principal iwi of Waipounamu, the South Island of Aotearoa.
Kommentare