CUMET : Cultural Heritage in the Metropolitan Peripheries

The proposed research aims at analyzing two parallel but concurrent phenomena: I) The increasing recognition of the interest of diverse stakeholders in cultural heritage located in the metropolitan peripheries of European cities; II) The need for new developments (infrastructure, housing) in the periphery of European metropolises resulting to unprecedented densification pressures and extensive renewal of the existing urban fabric. The conjunction of these trends creates both opportunities and risks for cultural heritage in the Metropolitan peripheries.
Using innovative interdisciplinary methodologies, this project asks the following questions: How can we create value on the heritage of the urban peripheries, encouraging new development scenarios while protecting cultural heritage? What are the necessary mechanisms and tools to involve local communities in the policy making of cultural heritage at the urban peripheries? How can this heritage be used as a means to promote spatial justice and balance between the different areas of the metropolises? How can heritage in the peripheries play a role as the "cement" of metropolization?
The project will have very direct local impacts through co-creation workshops held at key sites of peripheral urban heritage, designed to assist institutional and community stakeholders in imagining and interrogating innovative strategies for (re)developing heritage sites, feeding directly into local initiatives.
The empirical and persuasive materials produced through the workshops will be designed with community participation to address broader audiences, inviting and promoting "heritage savvy" citizens, willing and able to participate in the processes of both heritagization and metropolisation. In addition, we anticipate that the online observatory platform created through this project can act as an open resource for stakeholders in the many peripheral urban sites that face similar challenges and opportunities, but which do not have access to the broader view of the issues they face and the discourses surrounding them.