Developing the conceptual framework of value-based management in cultural and historical places ؛ (Looking at the Islamic Culture)

In recent decades, following the changes in attitudes to cultural heritage and its values, approaches of the cultural places management also been changed. A values-based approach as a current most preferred approach to heritage conservation that often called “value-led”planning or “value led conservation management”. Since to distinguish it from more traditional conservation management approaches we must know some features of value based management. This approach adopted and advocated by major conservation authorities,both at the national and international level and by major research and educational institutions such as Getty conservation institute, and some other organization and institutes like English heritage, Unesco, Heritage Lottery Fund and etc.

Reviewing international documents and related theories indicates that the value-based approach is, in many ways, a response to the recognition of the increasing complexity of heritage. It evolved in various parts of the world, for instance in Canada and the USA, and became better known through the Burra Charter, first developed by ICOMOS Australia in 1979 and subsequently updated in 1999 and 2013.The Charter promoted the assessment of the significance of a place–based on the values attributed by all stakeholders (not only by the experts) and the use of a Statement of “Significance” – that has been used to mean the overall importance of a site, determined through an analysis o f the totality of the values attributed to it. Significance also reflects

The importance a place has with respect to one or several of its values, and in relation to other comparable sites and as a basis for developing conservation and management strategies. Also best practice for heritage conservation planning in Canada and British Columbia follows a value-based approach to the stewardship and management of historic places. This approach allows the community to clearly articulate why historic places matter, and ensures confidence that identified heritage values remain for present and future generations.

After a short time this concept was developed by the work on Conservation Plans by James Kerr (1982). He brought a systematic approach to developing conservation and management plans based on values and more importantly, on the cultural significance of a heritage place to society. In the context of a value-based approach, through the concepts of stakeholder groups and values, community is considered to be placed at the core of management, so sometimes the values of different groups become incompatible and can make serious conflicts, but heritage professionals have been looking for ways to bring forth the views of all stakeholders and to resolve the conflicts that inevitably arise. In this changed environment, decisions about heritage need to be negotiated and the search is for an approach that assures equity, avoiding those in which the values that prevail belong to the group with the most political power. In value based management heritage is not self evident,with intrinsic/inherent values, as in a material-based or traditional approach; it is people / stakeholder groups that ascribe (subjective) values to it and define heritage, and thus heritage is seen as an extrinsic and social process.Therefore, the main purpose of this approach is to maintain significance and promote the values which attributed to the place by all community groups. This management process uses heritage values to guide decision making about historic places. Heritage values are defined as the historic, aesthetic, spiritual, social, cultural, and scientific significance or importance of a place for past, present, or future generations. When beginning a value-based management system, it is best to have an understanding of the heritage values of the community as a whole before trying to understand the significance of individual places. The context study develops this big-picture understanding of why citizens care about the character and identity of the community, and how that has been shaped over time.



After presenting theoretical basics of value-based management in international levels, a section of essay is about Islamic culture and its perspective on cultural heritage management to clarify the common points of national and interinternational theoretical basis and extracting cultural heritage value priorities. The Holy Qur'an as the main reference of the Muslims and the pursuit of all values in the Islamic society can be a reliable source for examining the past position, cultural heritage and its values, the way of management and policy making in Islamic culture. In Islamic society, all personal and social relations and the rules governing it directly or indirectly originate from the concepts of the Qur'an and are in fact the best reference for obtaining social values; Since there is a strong relationship between the policies of heritage conservation management and social values in each society, the important rule of the Holy Qur'an cannot be denied in violation of social values in Islamic societies. That’s the truth that there are no direct and explicit references to cultural heritage, priority of values and their role in policy making and management in the holy Quran, but it can be deduced from some analyzes that Mahdi Hojjat (one of the great experts of Iranian cultural heritage has) given to Quranic verses in this regard that they can be used to provide a conceptual framework for research.

However the holy Qur'an as the encyclopedia and the origins of the Islamic community values has repeatedly emphasized on the cultural heritage and its values indirectly as with the perception of some of its verses we can prioritize the values attributed to cultural heritage into three main categories : 1- sociocultural values 2- historical-documentary values and 3- Instrumental values. After After classifying values they can applied in setting the policy framework based on Islamic social values system. The reality is that, management in the Islamic society should be based on the requirements of the local community and respect for them and this is exactly in line with the same international principles that nowadays emphasized by the formulation of management and conservation programs based on the partnership and needs of all stakeholders and the local community.

This paper seeks to develop a conceptual framework for value-based management through providing the whole process of management plan as a tool for value-based management. It can be achieved by reviewing international documents, operational guidelines of Institutions on the one hand, and the related theories and Islamic culture on the other, So based on research goals, the qualitative research methodology is chosen and with applying logical reasoning strategy as well as ‘content analysis’ and ‘logical inference. According to value-based management conceptual framework in this paper, significance that includes tangible and intangible values of the heritage, introduced as the core of proposed framework;to maintain the significance of place,three Steps should be considered: 1- Understanding the place 2- Developing policies and 3- Management. This process realized by participation of all conservationists, local communities and stakeholders. Finally, according to research studies and conceptual model, this article provides a general process for the management of cultural and historical places based on values-led approach.