Scrutinising community-held knowledge transfer into world heritage site management plans: a multidisciplinary method

Purpose: The UNESCO World Heritage Committee requires management plans for world heritage site (WHS) nominations including the evidence of involvement of all stakeholders. Many studies report different engagement methods to ensure the participation of the local communities in these plans. However, this study aims to assess and gauge the community-held knowledge transfer and the quality of their contribution to heritage management plans by proposing an interdisciplinary method. Design/methodology/approach: The method had been developed to scrutinise community-held knowledge transfer in WHS management plans, combining the domains of knowledge representation with qualitative social research. Findings: Local knowledge transferred into WHS management plans is poor. The proposed method gauged three levels of community knowledge transfer to WHS. The method enables results to be quantified and the process to be reproducible. The method can be used to quality control the design of WHS management plans. The method can be used to inform evaluation protocols to be developed by UNESCO. Practical implications: The proposed method can be used to inform evaluation protocols to be developed by ICOMOS and IUCN, which safeguard holistic aspects of heritage in WHS management plans. Originality/value: The method provides reproducible, quantifiable results from clear premises. Despite being applied to a case study in Turkey, it can be adjusted to any context as WHS management plans tend to follow a standard format. It, therefore, provides a tool to quality control the design of these plans.