Sara
de Boer
Junior
Research Fellow, Department of Public Administration, Nijmegen School of
Management, Nijmegen University, the Netherlands
Address:
Thomas van Aquinostraat 5.01.62, P.O. Box 9108, 6500 HK Nijmegen, The
Netherlands
Telephone:
+31 (0) 24 361 23 44
E-mail:
s.deboer@nsm.kun.nl
In 1999, the Dutch government published the policy document
‘Belvedere’, which offers a new perspective on the relationship between
cultural heritage and spatial planning. In this paper, it will be argued that
the Belvedere-document is in fact the representation of a new ‘policy
discourse’ in the field of spatial planning and cultural heritage preservation.
During the twentieth century, two remarkable developments have been taking
place in society. On the one hand, as a consequence of new information and
telecommunication technologies, new corporate strategies, and new institutional
frameworks, one universal, ‘USA-oriented’ culture or lifestyle has been
conquering the world. Coca Cola, McDonalds, Microsoft, CNN, and Oprah Winfrey
are the frequently mentioned symbols of this ‘globalization’ process. At the
same time, within the context of national societies, the diversity of cultures
and lifestyles has been increasing – a process that is referred to as
‘fragmentation’ or ‘individualization’. For example, people have been attaching
greater value to their cultural identities and their specific spatial settings
or ‘homes’. For “… the more universal the diffusion of material culture and
lifestyles, the more valuable regional and ethnic identities become …” and “…
the faster the information highway takes people into cyberspace, the more they
feel the need for a subjective setting – a specific place or community – they
can call their own.” (Knox, 1998) And as a consequence, there is a growing
attention for the preservation of the cultural heritage in public space. “There
is a growing consciousness concerning the importance of the cultural historical
factor in order to obtain cultural diversity and a cultural identity for local
areas and regions. The cultural heritage – the entire complex of archaeology,
historical landscapes and historical architecture – has the function of
creating and stimulating the local and regional identity: the feeling of a
typically unique character of an area or an object for its inhabitants.”
(Nelissen and Bogie, 2000)
In the Netherlands, the growing concern for the preservation of the
cultural heritage has had a substantial effect on the governmental policies on
culture and spatial planning. For instance, in the early 1990s, the subsidy
scheme for restoring and maintaining historic buildings was revised radically
and, in addition, the budgets were substantially raised. Furthermore, an
ambitious project of inventorying, selecting, and registering historic
buildings, objects and complexes took place. Finally, in 1999, the Dutch
government – that is, the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Spatial
Planning, and the Ministry of Nature Management – published the policy document
‘Belvedere’. With this policy document, a remarkable new approach towards
cultural heritage in public space has been introduced. In this paper, it will
be argued that the Dutch Belvedere-policy is in fact the representation of a
new dominant policy discourse in the field of spatial planning and cultural
heritage preservation. The social-constructivist concept of ‘policy discourses’
will be set out in the following paragraph.
In everyday speech, discourse is understood as a ‘mode of talking’.
However, from a social constructivist point of view, it makes sense to
reconsider this common-sense understanding of discourse. The meta-theoretical
position of social constructivism is based on the assumption that ideas,
concepts, stories, or ‘truths’ are socially constructed. This means that ‘the
truth’ or the general perception of ‘reality’ is the result of social
interaction between people; it is an ‘inter-subjective’ construction on which
people have reached a general consensus. However, the basic assumption of ‘the
truth’ or ‘reality’ being a social construction does not imply that it could be
just about anything. “The perception of ‘reality’ is not completely fluid nor
completely solid” (Zwanikken, forthcoming). According to Hajer (1995), a
discourse is “… a specific ensemble of ideas, concepts, and categorizations
that are produced, reproduced, and transformed in a particular set of practices
and through which meaning is given to physical and social realities”. Then, the
concept ‘policy discourse’ refers to an ensemble of ideas, concepts, and
categorizations that are produced, reproduced, and transformed within the
context of a particular policy field and through which meaning is given to policy
problems.
In the attempts to develop theories of discourse that can be applied to
policymaking, two different perspectives can be distinguished: a Habermasian
and a Foucauldian perspective. While Habermas’ ‘communicative rationality’ postulates
an idealized consensual discourse of critical rationality, played out by equal
actors, ‘Foucauldians, like Hajer, are concerned with an oppositional “…
struggle against power, a struggle aimed at revealing and undermining power
when it is most invisible …“ (Richardson, 1996). A Foucauldian view of the
relationship between truth and power suggests that questions about the ultimate
truth of arguments are misplaced. We should instead ask how, why, and by whom
truth is attributed to particular arguments and not to others. “Discourse
analysis primarily aims to understand why a particular understanding of … (a
specific policy) … problem at some point gains dominance and is seen as
authoritative, while other understandings are discredited. This is taken on to
analyzing the ways in which certain problems are represented, differences are
played out, and social coalitions on specific meanings somehow emerge.“ (Hajer,
1995) This insight is of particular relevance to the understanding of the
policy process as a political, rather than rational, form of decision-making.
In conclusion, policy is shaped by arguments, or discourses, based on
knowledge claims that may be rational or irrational, reasonable or
unreasonable. The shaping of policy, however, depends ultimately not on these
‘surface’ characteristics of rationality, but on deeper dynamics of power and
knowledge within and between discourses. ”Therefore, the focus should not be on
objective truth – on proving or disproving arguments – but on the way in which
power appropriates knowledge, and weaves it into discourses” (Richardson,
1996). In my research project, the focus and tools that both Foucault and Hajer
have provided are being used to analyze the developments in Dutch cultural
heritage preservation.
In Dutch cultural heritage preservation, since the 1990s, the main
policy goal has been to strengthen the relationship between the cultural
heritage and spatial planning and to use the cultural heritage more efficiently
and conscientiously as a qualitative factor in public space. This means that
cultural-historical aspects should be considered when decisions on spatial
planning are being taken and that the coordination and cooperation between
spatial planners, landscape designers, and heritage preservationists should be
optimized. However, in the Netherlands, the responsibilities with regard to the
cultural heritage in public space are divided over three ministries:
1. the Ministry of Culture (responsible for archaeology, historic buildings, and historic sites),
2. the Ministry of Nature Management (responsible for the ancient cultural landscapes in the rural areas), and
3. the Ministry of Spatial Planning (responsible for the quality of public space and the physical environment in general).
Therefore, for these ministries, it is an important task to formulate a
coherent, consistent, and comprehensive cultural heritage policy.
The way in which policymakers appreciate the cultural heritage has
changed as well during the 1990s. For example, it has been argued that the
preservation of cultural-historical qualities and their integration in spatial
developments is ‘functional’ or ‘useful’:
-
as a source of
identity: cultural heritage is essential for the characteristic identity of
towns, cities, or regions and provides inhabitants with a sense of familiarity
and commitment;
-
as a source of
information: cultural heritage is an important source for scientific inquiry
and history education;
-
as a source of
inspiration: cultural heritage is a source of inspiration for architects, urban
planners and landscape architects;
-
from an aesthetic
point of view: the aesthetic value of cultural heritage is an intrinsic one;
-
from an ecologic
point of view: the conservation of cultural-historical elements and patterns in
both the urban and the rural landscape may also contribute to the conservation
of the biodiversity in those areas;
-
from an economic
point of view: cultural heritage offers great possibilities for recreation and
tourism.
A third development in Dutch cultural heritage preservation since the
1990s has been the decentralisation of tasks and
responsibilities to local authorities and non-profit organizations. For
example, local authorities and non-profit organizations play an important role
nowadays in the selection and registration of historic buildings and sites, and
in the distribution of subsidies for
the restoration and the maintenance of those buildings and sites.
Against the background of these developments, the Ministry of Culture, the
Ministry of Nature Management, and the Ministry of Spatial Planning published
the policy document ‘Belvedere’ in July 1999. The main motto is ‘conservation
through development and development through conservation’. This might appear to
be a paradox, but it is explained as follows. On the one hand, ‘conservation
through development’ refers to the fact that, through the search for and the
application of new functions for historic buildings and sites, those buildings
and sites are actually being preserved. ‘Development through conservation’, on
the other hand, refers to the fact that the conservation of cultural heritage
is an investment in the development and reinforcement of identity, knowledge,
the quality of the living and working environment, and recreation and tourism
(Ministries of OCenW, LNV and VROM, 1999). According to Belvedere’s authors,
this connection between cultural heritage and spatial planning, between
conservation and development, should be given a structural character. In
spatial planning practice, this should lead to, for instance, one of the
following three alternatives:
a.
the careful
adjustment of land uses that are to be developed in a certain area to the
specific cultural-historical qualities of that area;
b.
the embedding of
new land uses in their specific historical surroundings in such a manner that
the new developments are a continuation of the specific cultural-historical
qualities that are already present;
c.
the use
(“recycling”) of cultural heritage for new spatial developments, such as
recreation and tourism.
An important part of the Belvedere-document is the so-called ‘Cultural-Historical
Value Map’, which shows, from a cultural-historical point of view, the most
valuable cities and rural areas in the Netherlands. Remarkable starting point
for the Belvedere Cultural-Historical Value Map was, first of all, the focus on
entire cities, areas, or landscapes instead of single objects, buildings, or
complexes, and, second of all, the assumption that no city, area, or landscape
in the Netherlands is cultural-historically ‘worthless’. In the
Belvedere-method, the specific archaeological or architectural value of cities
and rural areas has been assessed on the basis of criteria such as:
-
exceptionality:
how exceptional is the particular archaeological or architectural quality;
-
authenticity: how
genuine, original and valuable is that archaeological or architectural quality;
-
representation:
how typical is the specific quality for the particular area or region.
As the result of this assessment, 70 so-called Belvedere-areas and 150 Belvedere-cities are indicated with high cultural-historical values. In these areas and cities the main focus will be on the preservation and reinforcement of those values. Here, both local authorities and non-profit organizations have an important responsibility (Ministries of OCenW, LNV, VROM, 1999)
In conclusion,
the Belvedere-document represents three major developments in Dutch cultural
heritage preservation. First of all, several new ideas have been
institutionalised through the publication of the Belvedere-document: the Belvedere motto ‘conservation
through development and development through conservation’, the appreciation of the ‘functionality’ or
‘usefulness’ of cultural heritage preservation, and the need for ‘a comprehensive and cooperative approach’ towards cultural policy and
spatial planning. Furthermore, through the publication of the
Belvedere-document, the Dutch government has introduced a variety of new
concepts into the policy field of cultural heritage preservation. Examples are
the concepts ‘cultural planning’, ‘Belvedere-cities’, ‘Belvedere-areas’, and ‘Cultural-Historical Value Map’.
A third
important development in Dutch cultural heritage preservation that is institutionalised
by the publication of the Belvedere-document is that many old categorizations have become outdated. For
instance, the Belvedere-policy deals not only with individual buildings, objects,
and sites, but also with entire cities, areas, and landscapes. Moreover, the Cultural-Historical
Value Map is based on the assessment of both architectural and archeological values,
in both cities and rural areas. As a consequence, in the implementation of the
Belvedere-policy, no longer a distinction is made between individual buildings and
larger complexes, between urban and rural areas, nor between architecture and archeology.
Considering these new ideas, new concepts, and new categorizations, the
Dutch Belvedere-policy could be seen as the representation of a new policy
discourse in cultural heritage preservation. For, through those new ideas,
concepts, and categorizations, a new meaning is given to the role of the
cultural heritage in public space and a new perspective is offered on the way
in which Dutch spatial planning could deal with the cultural-historical
qualities of the physical environment.
Some important questions remain unanswered, however. What is the
explanation for this shift in policy discourses in Dutch cultural heritage
preservation? Does a similar development take place in other countries? And how
does this new policy discourse affect the everyday-practice of cultural
heritage preservation? In fact, to answer these questions is the main goal of
my research project.
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Zwanikken, T.H.C., Ruimte
als voorraad? Ruimte voor variëteit! De
consequenties van discoursen rondom 'ruimte als voorraad' voor het rijks
ruimtelijk beleid.
forthcoming.