"INTANGIBLE VALUES AS HERITAGE IN AUSTRALIA "

Marilyn Truscott

This paper briefly outlines the nature of intangible values for the diverse communities within Australia. It argues that while these values have not been central in much past heritage conservation, they are now emerging in heritage practice, potentially as a unifying force.

Australia’s Diverse Values

Australia has both a very old and a very young story, and intangible values are associated with both narratives. The indigenous population of Australia first settled this island continent some 60,000 years ago. At the time of European settlement in 1788, there was a population of some half million hunter-gatherers with over 300 languages and different cultural traditions. British colonisation resulted in a massive disruption to indigenous lives; today, indigenous Australians represent some two per cent of the population, increasing yearly, and there is a cultural revival and great pride in the survival of traditional links to place.

The Dreaming - the spiritual explanation of the creation of the land - is timeless with the ongoing renewal of landscape maintained by elders with traditional obligations to its care. A central feature is the indivisible connection between story, song, dance and land in ceremonial acts of recreation. Indigenous culture, which survived the long period of dispossession, has maintained links between story and place. These indigenous cultural traditions were not static in the past and nor are they today, and there is a vital continuity and creative energy expressing the Dreaming in modern dance, drama and film.

In the case of more recent settlers however, relating meanings and memory to place has had a shorter time to develop. The majority of Australians, coming from the United Kingdom and Ireland, were disconnected from their traditional cultural associations with place when they arrived in a new environment, a vastly different and alien land. The songs and stories from ‘home’ were gradually overlaid with new associations and meanings redolent with notions of Australian identity. Stereotypical images of the "Outback" explorer and the hardy pioneer formed the basis of the "myth" of the Bush, when in fact Australians have always been one of the most highly urban societies. An egalitarian, anti-authoritarian and independent streak emerges as a key national characteristic, alongside ‘larrikinism’ (roguishness) and ‘mateship’, a largely male notion of loyalty and interdependence throughout mutual trials, including war.

Ethnic groups other than Anglo-Celt have come to Australia since the British First Fleet and Australia has become one of the most multicultural societies in the world. German vernacular rural architecture, Chinese mining sites and temples, Lebanese merchants’ emporia, Afghan trading routes in the central deserts, Italian orchards and Greek shops, all form part of the nineteenth century heritage landscape.

Increasing numbers of migrants have come from different parts of the world since WW II, including many from Asia, so that people with a non-English speaking background form some 30 per cent of today’s 18 million Australians. They bring and strongly maintain their own traditional intangible values, adding layers of attachment to place. Since 1989, a policy of ‘multiculturalism’ has reflected and celebrated the emergence of Australia as a truly inclusive, diverse society. Food and folklorica are the most visible aspects of the ethnic culture of immigrant groups at key festivities, but the arts are also permeated with this diversity, and heritage conservation is now also paying attention to this aspect of Australia’s culture.

As a new, highly Westernised and mobile society, disconnection from place is a constant problem. As an immigrant and increasingly globalised country, Australia regularly debates its national identity. Its various different cultural strands are increasingly acknowledged as vital to its character, with intangible values important traces and links to our past and to place.

Convergence of Heritage Values

Australian heritage conservation is nonetheless marked by its compartmentalisation into separate government structures for heritage places and movable heritage, reinforced by administrative divisions between natural and cultural heritage and between indigenous and non-indigenous cultural heritage. The federal heritage body, the Australian Heritage Commission, is an exception, including both natural and cultural heritage, but its work is restricted to place heritage. This is further complicated by Australia’s federal system of government with different levels of responsibility for heritage. Overall there is little reference to intangible values associated with those places and objects - or at least until recently.

Non-indigenous intangible values also tend to be categorised separately into the arts or folklore. In the arts, writers and poets have long focussed on Australian themes; now there is an increasing use of the Australian story for dance, music, drama and film, including national legends of cultural identity, some specific to place. In the case of folklore/folklife, government focus has been limited to a Committee of Inquiry into folklife in Australia (Folklife 1987), for the Bicentenary of European settlement in 1998. Although that report’s recommendations have not been pursued, there is increasing interest in this aspect of culture, and folklore/folklife is now studied in Australian universities.

Recent national heritage policies on heritage collections and heritage places invoke intangible values in their action plans (DCA 1998; EA 1999). These policies were jointly developed by all levels of government, yet only limited funds are allocated to this aspect of heritage.

This increasing convergence by the different streams of heritage conservation in Australia to accept intangible values represents an increasing confidence with the insubstantial and the unmeasurable by Australia’s diverse cultures.

Heritage places and intangible values

During the past decade, notions of what heritage is have broadened, with the development of less deterministic criteria for heritage significance. ICOMOS members have been centrally involved in these shifts, as has Australia ICOMOS as an entity.

Social value and aesthetic value, both intangible values, have long been included as cultural heritage significance, for example, the Australian Heritage Commission Act 1975, and in the Australia ICOMOS Burra Charter, 1979. However, although recognised by most heritage practitioners as values expressing community feelings about place, heritage agencies did not use these criteria in heritage identification. Most heritage practitioners were unfamiliar with methods used in perception studies in disciplines such as sociology and geography, and many were unaware of work taking place in indigenous heritage conservation to include spiritual values in their heritage management. Instead heritage significance was expressed in terms of architectural style or historic significance, until a discussion paper within the Australian Heritage Commission (Blair and Truscott 1987) triggered the exploration of social value.

Several innovative approaches have since been developed in Australia, adding to an understanding of these intangible values for heritage conservation:

social value : Johnston (1992) outlines the nature of social value, explaining it as attachment to:

* places that are essential reference points or symbols for a community’s identity, including for new communities

* accessible and used places, places where major events took place

* meeting and gathering places, and

* places of tradition, ritual and ceremony.

Discussions at that time included the different heritage values the same place may have for various communities, potentially in conflict, (Domicelj and Marshall 1994), and methodologies for assessing social value (AHC 1994a).

aesthetic value: discussions on this intangible value, provided a definition that:

• Aesthetic value is the response derived from the experience of the environment or particular natural and cultural attributes within it. This response can be to either visual or non-visual elements and can embrace emotional response, sense of place, sound, smell and any other factors having a strong impact on human thought, feelings and attitudes. (AHC 1994b)

Heritage guidelines that include intangible values have since been produced for community cultural development (DCA 1995), for migrant heritage places (Armstrong 1995), on natural places (AHC 1997), for local communities (AHC 1998a), and others discussed below.

Acceptance of intangible values spread, as in the State of the Environment report, that recommends that oral histories record relationships between people and place, as crucial to identifying intangible, especially spiritual, values, and their relationship to heritage places (McCarthy et al 1997). Recognition of the sentiment for place is clear in Places in the Heart, a national competition held in 1996, and now a travelling exhibition and book, showing the winning entries from Australians writing about their favourite heritage places (AHC 1998b).

Appreciation of the importance of intangible values in Australia’s heritage has also used the experience of indigenous heritage as a model. Key examples are:

* The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. Early records of song, dance, and story associated with heritage places, are held under strict confidentiality rules, with access dependent on elders’ permission, and now introduced to community descendants in a cultural revival program. (www.aiatsis.gov.au)

* The Return of Indigenous Cultural Property Program. This national strategy to return sacred objects from Australian museums, was agreed to by the Cultural Ministers Council in 1998, relinks objects to associations and place (www.dcita.gov.au ).

* The Indigenous Cultural Heritage Protection Program produced guidelines, based on the Burra Charter, that are a national heritage conservation standard for decision-making about indigenous heritage (DCA 1997).

Heritage places with intangible values

* Spiritual Landscapes

Uluru Kata-Tjuta is a prime example of how intangible values have been recognised later than other values in heritage identification. Of iconic significance to all Australians as a key element of the Red Heart of Australia, this monolith is also of great sacred significance to the Anangu people of Central Australia. Despite this, it was initially only included for its natural heritage values on the World Heritage List, as associative values were not originally recognised as a world heritage criterion. A spiritual landscape, with many separate Dreaming Tracks formed by ancestral creation figures that pass through this area, Uluru Kata-Tjuta was finally listed for its indigenous core significance in 1994, only the second spiritual cultural landscape to be so listed (the first being Mount Tongariro, New Zealand). The Management Plan of 1991 (www.erin.gov.au/portfolio/anca/manplans/uluru/contents.html) explains the centrality of the traditional belief system for this place (picture p.12)

* Heroes

Local and national heroes have considerable meaning to the community, with local pride evident where a community can claim location of events associated with these figures. Sometimes the allocation of that association to a particular place is dubious, although heartfelt. For example, Corryong in Victoria, considers itself to be the ‘home’ of the Man from Snowy River story, with the attribution of the Man to Jack Riley who is buried there. First expressed as a poem by "Banjo" Patterson, there is little factual evidence for the story in the poem. Nonetheless, the story of heroism has been adopted in the region. Adding to the myth are films made in the area, a museum, and an annual festival all devoted to the story.

Such uses of local folklore are now rife in Australia, particularly in small struggling country towns, which regard identification with a national legend as one way to draw the tourist dollar. For example, the site of Australia’s national song, Waltzing Matilda, is fiercely contested in ‘Outback’ Queensland. The creation or appropriation of such legends must now be regarded as part of the heritage significance of that place, wether strictly true or not.

* The ANZAC Legend

On 25 April 1915, many Australian and New Zealand soldiers were slaughtered as they sought to gain control over part of the Dardanelles in Turkey. Their courageous story lives on in the Australian psyche, with war memorials the centre of moving dawn services in homage on that day throughout the land and beyond. Although only two who landed that day are still alive, there is a growing community attachment to the symbol of ANZAC Day amongst the young and increasing numbers making the pilgrimage each April to Gallipoli Cove.

* Pioneers

In the Bush Lives, Bush Futures, an exhibition curated by Sheridan Burke of the Historic Houses Trust, NSW, and ICOMOS Vice President, the triumphant stories are shown of eight country families who have found innovative and sustainable solutions for their land and heritage properties in the face of natural and financial disasters. This powerful and moving exhibition keeps alive the Australian legend of the power of endurance of people in the Bush, and highlights the importance of both tradition and innovation in maintaining heritage.

* Forest places

Community attachment to place has been identified in the several Regional Forest Agreements throughout Australia. Over a hundred participatory community heritage workshops have identified thousands of places of local attachment, including many reflected in the stories and verse of early settler heroes, or in artistic responses to place. Their management is assured in a balance with nature conservation (www.rfa.gov.au) .

* New lives

A major heritage identification project has recently started on the Snowy Mountains Scheme, one of the largest hydro-electricity constructions in the world. Intangible values are central to the work proposed to explore the heritage significance of this scheme, which employed thousands of New Australians, mostly recent migrants from WW II-ravaged Europe. It will include their later dispersal to many different parts of Australia, as well as their stories of the Snowy and its ongoing meaning in their lives.

Most new migrants go to the city, and there Australia’s multicultural society is expressed architecturally in many forms. These range from the vernacular from the homeland, including religious buildings, to layers of architectural styles as new dwellers express their economic success in their adopted land. Some consider these as inappropriate intrusions to earlier architectural heritage, such as adding Roman columns to Federation houses.

* Urban amenity

Community groups in Australia’s large cities have engaged energetically in the "saving" of their heritage from development decisions. There are many examples of such action, with the range of places triggering such responses varying from the iconic to local. Widespread attachment can make a change of functions impossible at some places, for example, at the City Baths or the Young and Jackson Hotel, at either end of Swanston Street in Melbourne, as both have long been landmarks and centres of social activity.

Australia ICOMOS and intangible values

Australia ICOMOS has held several forums on intangible values and heritage. A series of conferences between 1992 and 1994 developed a better understanding of issues surrounding intangible values. Topics canvassed included:

* conflicts between groups holding different social value for the same place (AI 1992)

* the issue of experts dealing with the heritage of other cultural groups (AI 1993)

* heritage issues for those with mixed Asian and indigenous parentage (AI 1995a), and

* associative spiritual landscapes (AI 1995b).

A workshop on social value in December 1994, built on these discussions. It recommended that Australia ICOMOS develop policy, principles and practices for the identification of social value, recognised the need for procedures to accommodate social value in planning and management, and urged the re-examination of the Burra Charter in relation to social value (AI 1996).

Since then, key statements present Australia ICOMOS’ commitment to intangible values:

* Code of Ethics of Co-Existence in Conserving Significant Places. Adopted in 1998, this code, states that the co-existence of diverse cultures requires acknowledgment of the values of each group, and outlines principles that extend this ethic to heritage conservation practice. (www.icomos.org/australia)

* Australia ICOMOS Cultural Heritage Places Policy, articulates in its Vision for Australia’s Cultural Heritage Places, that heritage is manifest as place, object, stories (written or oral) and in values, uses, traditions and customs (AI 1998).

Burra Charter and intangible values

The Australia ICOMOS Charter for the Conservation of Places of Cultural Significance (The Burra Charter), 1979, amended 1981 and 1988, has been the key heritage conservation doctrine in Australia, widely adopted by heritage agencies and governments. Regularly reviewed, members’ workshops in 1994 and 1996 identified topics that needed to be addressed to bring the Charter up-to-date with current practice:

* the fabric bias of the current charter

* advances made in understanding and assessing the social value of heritage places

* the need to involve the community in heritage processes

* the need to more clearly explain the conservation planning process

After three further years of intensive consultation with members and other users of the Charter, a final revision was endorsed by the Australia ICOMOS membership in late November 1999. Renamed The Burra Charter (The Australia ICOMOS Charter for Places of Cultural Significance), the Charter now includes intangible values throughout its conservation principles and conservation guidelines (www.icomos.org/australia ).

In the preamble the fundamental connection between place and intangible values is expressed: Places of cultural significance enrich people’s lives, often providing a deep and inspirational sense of connection to community and landscape, to the past and to lived experiences.

and the revised Charter’s definitions recognise that intangible values are an integral aspect of heritage significance: 1.2 Cultural significance means aesthetic, historic, scientific, social or spiritual value for past, present or future generations.

Cultural significance is embodied in the place itself, its fabric, setting, use, associations, meanings, records, related places and related objects.

Places may have a range of value for different individuals or groups

1.15 Associations mean the special connections that exist between people and a place. (Explanatory note: Associations may include social or spiritual values and cultural responsibilities for a place.)

1.16 Meanings denote what a place signifies, indicates, evokes or expresses. (Explanatory note: Meanings generally relate to intangible aspects such as symbolic qualities and memories.) The revised Charter ensures that intangible values are considered throughout the heritage conservation process. The participation of people for whom a place has special associations and meanings is required throughout the process of conservation and management (Article 12). Significant associations with a place and meanings of a place should be respected, retained and not obscured, and fully documented in the process (Articles 24, 27.2).

These changes are supported by explicit statements about the co-existence of cultural values which may conflict (Article 13), and the requirement to involve those who hold associations and meanings with place in applying the Burra Charter process (Article 26.3). These revisions recognise that a strong community involvement is essential to good heritage conservation and ensure that heritage conservation in Australia is not restricted to experts.

Future directions and issues

The revised Burra Charter also recognises that heritage values change through time. Intangible values, in particular, are not static; they are part of a culture’s living connection between the past and the future, and change over time. Recording oral histories, songs or dance fixes them to that moment, and removes their vitality.

Such issues have vexed Australia’s indigenous peoples in their revitalisation of traditional culture. Early recordings of sacred ceremonies allows communities to reconnect with past customs, but tension can occur within communities, regarding who has rights in such regeneration of ceremony, or which version is "correct".

This is potentially also an issue for mainstream heritage conservation as associations and meanings with place are included in decision-making. Australia ICOMOS will hold a series of workshops later in 2000 to discuss community involvement in heritage, as part of Heritage and the Community: theory and practice, a project that is also producing a resource book with examples of heritage involvement by community groups. These forums will provide an opportunity to look at the issue of maintaining vital intangible values at heritage places.

Marilyn Truscott
Ex-President of Australia ICOMOS, with heritage experience in both indigenous and non-indigenous heritage, including social value, cultural landscapes and community consultation.

Input from Bill Logan, Former President of Australia ICOMOS, Nicholas Hall, Duncan Marshall, and Juliet Ramsay