The Agricultural, the Defensive and the Anthropological: Cultural Keys to Sustainable Management of Heritage in the Rural Context

Abstract

Heritage protection has evolved to meet the new times spirit in the Andalusian context: from line processes of knowledge to an integral and multidimensional approach to heritage realities. It has developed interactive methodologies, where there are no work phases. In this context, administrations must also respond to the participation of participation as a mechanism that guarantees consensus with citizens. Governance, sustainable guardianship or management of change, are some of the terms that are beginning to acquire prominence to account for the social turn to which heritage is being subjected. It is necessary to review the instruments that have been formulated for the registration and documentation of heritage in the territory. Particularly interesting are the experiences of the Inventario de Cortijos, Haciendas y Lagares, Plan Andaluz de Arquitectura Defensiva y el Atlas de Patrimonio Inmaterial. These show how values associated with the agricultural, defensive and immaterial allow us to characterise a territory at risk. A rural context subject to unbalanced processes, in which new spatial readings capable of activating the protection of heritage resources must be generated. At the same time, mechanisms to enhance their value can be developed. A heritage at risk, in a privileged environment, in which the environment becomes the support on which to propose new cultural readings for its enhancement.