SHARE Preventive Actions for Improving Cultural Heritage and Communities’ Resilience

The following paper presents the results of the work carried out during the second edition of the International Summer School After the Damages (2021). The analysis mainly focuses on improving the community and territorial resilience through a multi-stakeholder collaboration that enables incremental changes in practice. To do so, the authors firstly framed the topic by explaining why and how the communication between stakeholders and their networks is vital for heritage preservation. They argue that resilience is a fundamental part of people's lives, which could also be crucial for their development and well-being, both in after-the-damages scenarios or the day-to-day context. To find ways and strategies to improve the resilience of heritage and society, the authors compared their experiences, especially considering public participation processes for co-designing tools (recovery plans, built-back better strategies, safe buildings, etc.) that enable communication between stakeholders and their networks. Through the cases selected, the authors finally draw a roadmap for an integrated approach to knowledge creation and dissemination that offers an authentic way to value and combine scientific and local knowledge, the latter being the one gained from experience and built from the ground up. In conclusion, they explain how the proposed approach not only leads the involved actors to consider the historical heritage as a resource to be protected from risks but also configures it as a critical role in coping with global changes. They especially stress the need and benefits of a continuous circular process that, based on people's presence and knowledge (know-how and memory), the different typologies of heritage and the collaboration of experts, may increase their awareness and capacity to take care of heritage. Through the described approach, communities can develop skills/projects (reconstruction, preservation, valorisation) that enhance society's and heritage's resilience.