Social Responsible Heritage Management - Empowering Citizens to Act as Heritage Managers

Heritage management, realised foremost by varied heritage interpretation(s), is foremost multidisciplinary task. Contemporary understanding of the heritage management takes into account all relevant (i.e. site/county/country/region specific factors) be it social or economic beside essential preservation. It tends toward ensuring tangible (and intangible, or more precise indirect) benefits for local communities and by this toward development of the society in general. Critical heritage studies over the last few years significantly influenced perception of heritage, thus consequently the essence of heritage management and heritage interpretation. Stress on participative approach became crucial, where multi/poli-vocality is self-understandable. Surprisingly this practice could be easily tracked to early 1970s and the eco-museums movement which is quite revealing experience. Paper tends to demonstrate how practices of eco-museums could be interlinked with the very contemporary requests - needs for participative heritage interpretation and management approaches. Finally it will point out toward social responsible heritage management which could be recognised as sort of the request for very new heritage literacy.