Preserving which past for whose future ? [Ressource électronique] : the dilemma of cultural resource management in case studies from Tunisia, Cyprus and Jordan / Joseph A. Greene

Bibliogr. p. 296

Cultural resource management the world over confronts the perpetual dilemma of deciding which part of the past to preserve for whose future. This dilemma arises from the perpetual tension between the insistent drive to develop for the future and the presumptive need to preserve the past. In the face of constraints imposed by limitations of time, money and personnel, advocates of preservation face difficult choices of which sites to rescue and which to abandon to destruction. There are also other aspects of the dilemma: choosing the criteria on which preservation decisions are to be based; determining who in the end will apply these criteria; and deciding on whose behalf the chosen sites will be preserved and maintained. The dilemma resolves 'itself into three questions: 'Which sites?', 'What public?' and 'Who decides?'. The answers are found, at least provisionally, in an examination of case studies, from Tunisia, Cyprus and Jordan, that typify the dilemma and illustrate the various strategies, successful and otherwise, deployed to confront it