Heritage as a driver of development? Some questions of cause and effects.

Despite its rhetorical turn toward goals of sustainability, regional development, public investment, and economic planning, the heart and soul of heritage conservation practice, it will be argued, remains firmly wedded to aesthetics, collective memory, and culture-history. Whether this theoretical orientation enhances the effectiveness or even the qualifications of heritage professionals to assist in the process of contemporary socio-economic development is a central question that must be asked by the participants in the symposium. This paper will argue that the current turn to “development” as a rationale for heritage conservation must be regarded with utmost caution. Its outcomes are uncertain; its benefits are more often asserted than proved. Moreover, the calls to recruit members of the cultural heritage profession as participants in modern social engineering and economic reorganization projects pose a potential conflict with the discipline’s traditional humanistic goals.