Defining “Official” Built Heritage Discourses within the Irish Planning Framework: Insights from Conservation Planning as Social Practice

Conservation of built heritage is a key planning process and goal which shapes urban development outcomes across European cities. In Ireland, conservation of the built heritage is a key part of the planning framework, albeit one that is, in comparative terms, only recently established. While it is widely recognized that the underlying rationale for conservation of built heritage varies considerably (from cultural priorities to place marketing), the literature suggests that heritage and conservation professionals perform a key role in controlling decision-making through an official or “authorized” heritage discourse (AHD), emphasizing expert values and knowledge and based around selective heritage storylines often reflecting elite tastes. Drawing on policy and practice in Ireland, in this paper, we contribute to these debates by further unpacking the AHD, exploring tensions within the heritage policy elite through examination of competing views and representations relating to the purpose of built heritage protection. Based on a discourse analysis following interviews with key national actors, we identify two key narratives—a “museum-curatorial” discourse and an “inclusive heritage” discourse—which in turn frame conservation practices. We argue that subtle variations of heritage meanings have the potential to either reproduce (museum-curatorial discourse) or challenge (inclusive heritage discourse) conventional modes of practice, particularly relating to the relationship between built heritage and identity and the role of public engagement.     

Restorative justice: deliberative democracy in action?

This paper examines the emergence of restorative justice meetings—in which victims come face to face with offenders—and asks whether they provide an example of deliberative democracy in action. The article analyses some restorative justice initiatives from the United States and Australasia and finds that they exhibit inclusiveness, and create more scope for democratic control, but are less strong on the equality criterion. Accountability has also been identified as a weakness of restorative meetings but, drawing on deliberative democratic theory, the authors suggest a possible solution. In their ability to transform preferences of both victims and offenders, restorative meetings offer both a vivid example to deliberative democrats and a powerful challenge to justice systems that rely heavily on incarceration.     

Impersonating a Voter: Constructions of Race,and Conceptions of Subjecthood in the Franchise of Colonial New South Wales,c. 1850–1865

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the treatment of Aboriginal Australians as politically entitled subjects within New South Wales during that colony's first elections under ‘universal’ male suffrage. Using the case of Yellow Jimmy, a ‘half-caste’ resident prosecuted for impersonating a white settler at an election in 1859, it examines the uncertainties that surrounded Aboriginal Australians’ position as British subjects within the colony's first constitutions. By contrast to the early colonial franchises of New Zealand and the Cape – where questions of indigenous residents’ access to enfranchisement dominated discussions of the colonies’ early constitutions – in the rare instances in which indigenous men claimed their right to vote in New South Wales, local officials used their own discretion in determining whether they held the political entitlements of British subjects. This formed a continuity with the earlier treatment of Aboriginal Australians under settler law, where British authority and imperial jurisdiction was often advanced ‘on-the-ground’ via jurists and administrators rather than via the statutes or orders of Parliament or the Colonial Office.     

Competing discourses of built heritage: lay values in Irish conservation planning

Built heritage conservation has traditionally been shaped by professionals through an ‘authorised heritage discourse’, emphasising expert knowledge and skills, universal value, a hierarchy of significance, and protecting the authenticity of tangible assets. However, while the purpose of built heritage conservation is widely recognised to be broad, encompassing cultural, social and economic benefits, it takes place in the presence, and on behalf, of a wider public whose values and priorities may differ starkly from those of heritage power-players. Drawing on the perspectives of a range of built heritage actors in three small towns in Ireland, this paper contributes to these debates, exploring the competing values and priorities embedded within lay discourses of heritage. Based on critical discourse analysis of interviews with local actors, the paper identifies that collected memory and local place distinctiveness, contributing to a sense of local identity, are of central importance in how non-experts construct their understanding of built heritage. In the Irish context, this is particularly important in understanding social and cultural statutory categories of heritage interest. The paper concludes on the implications for policy and practice and, in particular, the need to more effectively take account of non-expert values and priorities in heritage and conservation decision-making.     

The Evolution of a Neolithic Tell on the Great Hungarian Plain: Site Formation and Use at Szeghalom-Kovácshalom

This article explores the development and evolution of a Neolithic tell on the Great Hungarian Plain, with a particular focus on the depositional and functional changes over time. Recent, multi-disciplinary research in conjunction with the reassessment of old excavation records allows us to identify three major phases in the morphological and functional development of the Szeghalom-Kovácshalom tell. The original primary use of the tell was residential in nature. After several generations, as the settlement expanded into the surrounding landscape, the tell was used for more communal behaviors until, during the latest phase, it was used primarily for burials. This evolution of the tell—from a residential space to a cemetery—underscores the complexity of social processes that unfolded at prehistoric tell sites in southeastern Europe. The method we employ demonstrates how information from old and new research projects can be integrated successfully to model the development of complex, multi-period settlements.