Scope and limitations of heritage-based resilience: some reflections from Nepal

Recent risk preparedness and recovery frameworks have focused in particular on the themes of heritage and resilience. It is generally agreed among heritage professionals that heritage can play an important role in postdisaster recovery and resilience. However, heritage (monuments or sites or even intangible heritage) in general is perceived as a fragile resource that needs to be saved instead of as a source of resilience. This raises a question on what resilience means for the conceptualisation of heritage – is it about ‘building back’ the same heritage there was before, or is it also about making heritage relevant to the changed situation (due to disaster etc.)? Is resilience an inherent quality of heritage, or can it also be a process for reconsidering heritage in the postdisaster period? Instead of pursuing heritage as a passive recipient of any response and resilience building process, we can ask (i) how heritage provides refuge in times of crisis, (ii) how heritage can be an agent of distress in some situations, and (iii) what heritage and resilience mean together. Scholars have begun to raise questions about the meaning of heritage for building resilience and the meaning of resilience in relation to heritage. Taking built heritage as an example, while many aspects of built heritage, such as construction techniques, open spaces or resilient materials, may contribute to resilience and recovery, there are also situations where narrow streets and dense built fabric add to disaster risks. Similar dilemmas may be observed in the case of intangible heritage associated with urban areas and everyday life. Thus, this paper challenges the romanticisation of heritage values and explores rationales and critical perspectives that will enable us to conceptualise heritage as a potential source of resilience and recovery. By examining these critical issues, the paper hopes to help enhance the notion of heritage-based urban resilience and recovery rather than loosely promoting it. In doing so, references are made to global frameworks as well as local realities related to the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal.