Local Heritage and Sustainability: promote reflection and sharing within and across communities

This research network has been designed to create a solid, long lasting and mutually relevant partnership among five universities (Bournemouth University, University of Leicester, Universidad Federal de Rio de Janeiro, University of Malaysia Sarawak, and Universidade Lurio), one ministry office (Autoridade Reguladora das Comunicações de Moçambique) and nine local organisations in three LMIC countries (Mozambique, Malaysia and Brazil) and in the United Kingdom. This network will explore how rural and urban communities can strengthen their resilience, promote their sustainability, and protect their local heritage through the use of creative and digital tools. The network will be focusing on three emblematic contexts: a rural community (Bario) in Malaysia, an historical town (Ilha de Moçambique) in Mozambique, and three shantytowns (Rio de Janeiro) in Brazil. These are three very diverse settings, but they are all affected by global flows of migration and tourism, and their related challenges and opportunities. This network is scaffolded around local heritage, be it natural, cultural, or historical, as a focal point of shared concern, and how communities can leverage the creative and storytelling potential of digital media to reflect and share on past, present and future sustainable practices. Faced with increasing global mobilities, the challenges of migration and tourism flows, the communities in the network, and specifically women and girls, will benefit from shared reflection on the value of heritage and from practical support in the usage of heritage for sustainable development.

By working with the communities on three areas (sustainability, local heritage and identities) in the light of contemporary global flows, the project has been designed to tackle the following objectives:
1. to promote the reflection on heritage and sustainability, in order to co-create strategies to shape the communities' future;
2. to employ digital media, in particular interactive mapping tools to be used to raise awareness among local as well as global audiences on the complex interplay between heritage and sustainability;
3. to identify similarities and peculiarities of this process in each case study, in order to promote a Global South dialogue among communities affected by similar challenges and opportunities.

The network will produce the following outputs, for the local communities ad development practitioners:
1. A multimedia archive on the process and content of each event, to be hosted on the project website
2. Three curated digital stories in the form of interactive locative maps developed with "Storyplaces" to be accessed via mobile
3. Three web versions of the same stories to be hosted on the project website and developed with a storymapping tool.
4. A methodological toolkit for practitioners to explore how digital and creative technologies can be used to unpack sustainability, local heritage and identities and promote reflection among rural and urban disadvantaged communities.
5. A practitioner report to document similarities and differences, challenges and successful strategies of the three case communities.

In its 12 months of activities the network will organise three events:
- Networking Event #1 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (MONTH 3). Organiser: Dr. Camila Moraes, UNIRIO.
- Networking Event #2 in Bario, Malaysia (MONTH 6). Organiser: Prof. Narayanan Kulathuramaiyer, UNIMAS.
- Networking Event #3 in Ilha de Moçambique, Mozambique (MONTH 9). Organiser: Milton Novela, UNILURIO.

Furthermore, three national dissemination events in the involved LMIC, in which the network outputs will be presented to local stakeholders and communities affected by the same opportunities and challenges and a dissemination event in the UK will be organised. The UK event will be coupled with a virtual connection with the academic partnership in LMIC and, where possible, local organisations a involved communities.

The Local Heritage and Sustainability network has been established with the aim to create a solid, long lasting and mutually relevant partnership among five universities (Bournemouth University, University of Leicester, Universidad Federal de Rio de Janeiro, University of Malaysia Sarawak, and Universidade Lurio), one ministry office (Autoridade Reguladora das Comunicações de Moçambique) and ten local organisations in three LMIC countries (Mozambique, Malaysia and Brazil) and in the United Kingdom. The partnership delivers creative workshops for communities' members in Bario (rural villages in Malaysia), Ilha de Moçambique (historical town in Mozambique), and Rochina, Cantagalo and Babilônia (three shantytowns in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), working in close partnership with ten local organisations/institutions: Favela Verde (BR), Museo da Favela (BR), Cooperative de Reflorestadores da Babilônia (BR), Apetur (MZ), GACIM - Gabinete de Conservação da Ilha de Moçambique (MZ), CEDIM - Centro de Estudos da Ilha de Moçambique (MZ), Museum of Ilha de Moçambique (MZ), ARECOM - Autoridade Reguladora das Comunicações de Moçambique (MZ), eBario Project (MY), Bario guide association (MY), Bario Agro-Biodiversity Tourism hub (MY). The local organisations will work as multipliers of the results and outputs of the network and will therefore contribute to create a long-lasting impact.

The workshops are focused on two sets of learning outcomes: (1) consciousness about the importance of local heritage; (2) skills in producing heritage sustainably, both for the consumption of international audiences as well as for the development of local pride of place. The network will give specific attention to include vulnerable groups and in particular women and girls in the communities, encouraging their unique take on increasing the inclusivity of heritage, as well as to create potential avenues for social, political and economic empowerment through involvement in heritage production.

Impact from the project will thus influence the lives of a number of non-academic users
1) Women and girls from the community who will have their voices heard and represented as part of the co-production heritage exercise;
2) The wider communities who benefit from the social, economic and political empowerment of women and girls, as well as from benefits that occur as part of a better heritage promotion to international audiences;
3) The wider communities who also benefit from the development of a more inclusive heritage, contributing to place pride and countering the experiences of place-based stigma many low-income communities suffer from;
4) Audiences, for example tourists, who get a more substantial understanding of the value of the communities and will be more likely to engage positively with them.