The notion of cultural significance based on anglo-saxon and brazilian safeguard theorists and institutions

Abstract

This article is dedicated to analyzing the notion of cultural significance, in its theoretical and practical aspects of contemporary times, based on the bibliographic research carried out among the main conservation researchers and institutions that safeguard the heritage that debate about the concept: the Anglo-Saxons and the Brazilians. Cultural significance emerged in the 1980s, and its understanding is related to heritage values and the recognition of cultural assets as heritage. During its first twenty years, Anglo-Saxon researchers focused on questioning the understanding of the significance perceived in the practices of safeguard institutions, which centered research on heritage values in technicians and specialists, whereas theorists advocated the involvement of diverse social actors in the validation of these values. In the last twenty years, Brazilian researchers have identified two distinct approaches adopted in understanding significance: one objective, focused on the recognition of the experts’ values; and another relativist, which assumes patrimonial values as socially attributed. Four decades after the publication of the first edition of the Burra Charter (1979-2019), this research asks: how has the notion of significance been understood and applied by theorists and safeguard institutions? The main purpose of this article is to investigate if a contemporary theory and practice of the countries that most contributed to leveraging the cultural significance was ideologically aligned and what challenges have already been pointed out by the significance to be overcome, so that the notion can be used as a safeguard instrument.