A participatory approach for digital documentation of Egyptian Bedouins intangible cultural heritage

The Bedouins of Egypt hold a unique intangible cultural heritage (ICH), with distinct cultural values and social practices that are rapidly changing as a consequence of having settled after having been nomadic for centuries. We present our attempt to develop a bottom-up approach to document Bedouin ICH. Grounded in participatory design practices, the project purpose was two-fold: engaging Egyptian Engineering undergraduates with culturally-distant technology users and introducing digital self-documentation of ICH to the Bedouin community. We report the design of a didactic model that deployed the students as research partners to co-design four prototypes of ICH documentation mobile applications with the community. The prototypes reflected an advanced understanding for the values to the Bedouins brought by digital documentation practices. Drawing from our experience, three recommendations were elicited for similar ICH projects. Namely, focusing on the community benefits; promoting motivation ownership, and authenticity; and pursuing a shared identity between designers and community members. These guidelines hold a strong value as they have been tested against local challenges that could have been detrimental to the project

Real and virtual convergences: the LOCUS Project: playful connected rural territories

No abstract available.publishe

A Study on the Influencing Factors of Social Media in the Communication of Cultural Heritage Education: A Systematic Literature Review

This study examined the impact of social media on disseminating cultural heritage education. After reviewing two databases, 29 articles met our inclusion criteria. This study found that social media can expand the educational scope of cultural heritage and increase public awareness and interest in cultural heritage tourism sites and museums. However, social media is only a publicity channel. It is necessary to consider five influencing factors in social media: the subject of information distribution, the motivation of distribution, the purpose of distribution, the content of distribution, and the method of distribution, and to analyze the specific practices of social media in disseminating cultural heritage education. Therefore, more research is needed to explore the influence of social media on cultural heritage education dissemination, to explore the educational nature of social media in cultural heritage education communication, and to provide a theoretical basis for social media to promote cultural heritage education dissemination

Experiencing Cultural Heritage Through Gamification: Mardin orphanage

This paper presents early-stage research about the role of gamification in experiencing cultural heritage strongly within the sociological context, specifically focusing on the transformation of the old orphanage located in the historical city center of Mardin. The study acknowledges the significance of the old orphanage as an architectural heritage exemplar, built of natural Mardin stone, situated within a unique historical and archaeological urban environment. However, it recognizes the challenges of preserving the building's heritage value, which necessitate surpassing the superficial restoration methods applied to adapt it into a hotel. The primary motivation of this research is to develop a method for creating a navigable and interactive virtual replica of the orphanage, centering on the processes and outcomes of transferring its heritage value. To achieve this, the paper initially outlines the documentation and analysis procedures employed, utilizing photogrammetry to capture the past and current states of the orphanage. Subsequently, participants engage with a gamified and realistic digital replica of the orphanage, involving task-based interactions and scenario-based experiences. The paper concludes by presenting preliminary results concerning participant reactions to the initial virtual model, delivered through a VR device. By raising awareness about the significance of restoring and preserving historical heritage, this study aims to positively impact the domains of tourism, education, and conservation. Furthermore, it intends to shed light on future research opportunities in the field of digital cultural heritage.International Technological Universit

Urban heritage conservation and rapid urbanization : insights from Surat, India

Currently, heritage is challenged in the Indian city of Surat due to diverse pressures,  including rapid urbanization, increasing housing demand, and socio‐cultural and climate changes.  Where rapid demographic growth of urban areas is happening, heritage is disappearing at an  alarming rate. Despite some efforts from the local government, urban cultural heritage is being  neglected and historic buildings keep being replaced by ordinary concrete buildings at a worryingly  rapid pace. Discussions of challenges and issues of Surat’s urban area is supported by a qualitative  dataset, including in‐depth semi‐structured interviews and focus groups with local policy makers,  planners, and heritage experts, triangulated by observation and a photo‐survey of two historic  areas. Findings from this study reveal a myriad of challenges such as: inadequacy of urban  conservation management policies and processes focused on heritage, absence of skills, training,  and resources amongst decision makers and persistent conflict and competition between heritage  conservation needs and developers’ interests. Furthermore, the values and significance of Surat’s  tangible and intangible heritage is not fully recognized by its citizens and heritage stakeholders. A  crucial opportunity exists for Surat to maximize the potential of heritage and reinforce urban  identity for its present and future generations. Surat’s context is representative of general trends  and conservation challenges and therefore recommendations developed in this study hold the  potential to offer interesting insights to the wider planners and conservationists’ international  community.  This  paper  recommends  thoughtful  integration  of  sustainable  heritage  urban  conservation into local urban development frameworks and the establishment of approaches that  recognize the plurality of heritage values

Aging in the Social Space

A publication called Aging in the Social Space is a compilation of studies, which deal with theoretical understanding and empirical solutions, learning about problem spheres, specifying content parallels of social, legal, economic, moral and ethical views on senior issues in society, which are closely related to each other and are interconnected. This publication focus on the case study of Poland. It is supposed to provide a multidimensional view of old age issues and issues related to aging and care for old people in society. We believe that it is natural also to name individual spheres, in which society has some eff ect, either direct or indirect, within issues concerning seniors. Learning about these spheres is the primary prerequisite for successful use of social help to seniors in society

Design for sustainable cultural landscapes - A whole-systems framework

This article explores how Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) could be used as a guidance framework for the capacity development of those engaged in the process of identifying, protecting, conserving, presenting and transmitting cultural landscapes. It draws insights from the Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) curriculum intended to serve the purpose of educating for the transition to a comprehensive sustainable culture; and incorporates learning objectives from the Education for Sustainable Development Goals report by UNESCO. The framework follows the pattern of the EDE curriculum organised in four dimensions of sustainability and the three dimensions of learning - cognitive, socio-emotional and behavioural. Each of these four dimensions, in turn, contains five modules- thus twenty subject areas in total, all of which need to be considered by sustainable cultural landscape educational programmes. The paper concludes that in order to create a whole-systems guidance framework addressing cultural landscape complexities, a wide variety of viewpoints needs to be considered including community, nature rights and traditional ways of knowing and other panicipatory epistemologies.</p

Iot for playful intergenerational learning about cultural heritage: the LOCUS approach

LOCUS is a three-year multidisciplinary project with the goal of co-design, develop and evaluate an IoT system and understand its potential to support playful intergenerational engagement in creating and exploring cultural contents and learning about cultural heritage of rural territories from the Centre Region of Portugal, namely Amiais village, in Sever do Vouga. By implementing a playful and immersive cultural heritage tourism approach to foster Amiais' cultural and socioeconomic development, LOCUS will allow visitors to have immersive gamified experiences, by using a wearable device (bracelet) and their smartphones to interact with augmented everyday things around the village and to collaboratively learn about Amiais' culture and produce and share multimedia georeferenced contents.publishe

I NTERNATIONAL CULTURAL TOURISM CHARTER Managing Tourism at Places of Heritage Significance

平成24年(2012)12月21日(金)及び22日(土)に、平城宮跡資料館講堂において開催した