Good practice:

Comprehensive rural heritage management workshops

Since the 2013/14 academic year, the Master’s degree in Cultural Heritage Management at the University of Zaragoza has organised comprehensive heritage management workshops in rural areas that reflect the need for more targeted work on some of the soft skills covered in the degree, such as collaboration and group work. Guided learning is accompanied by activities to develop students’ autonomy. One of these involves designing a real management project in the classroom following field experience in a rural environment in Aragon. To complete this activity, students experience the problems faced by cultural managers in rural settings first-hand during a visit to a rural area in the province. They learn about good practices and are given a challenge to complete in the classroom: to design a project and present it to the public.
The workshops have been held in:
2013/14: Maestrazgo region
2014/15: Daroca
2015/16: Ribera Alta del Ebro region
2016/17: Cinco Villas region
2017/18: Somontano de Barbastro region
2019/20: Territorio Mudéjar
Many different topics have been adressed during the workshops depending on the Heritage of the region: industrial heritage, romanesque heritage, jewish quarters, contemporary art in the banks of the river Ebro, universal access to heritage, etc. with an specific approach to the rural areas needs.

The cost of teaching staff for the workshops is included in the fees paid by students for the master’s degree. Each year, the municipal council is asked to help find accommodation for the students, which may be fully or partially subsidised depending on the rural organisation’s resources.

The workshops have raised awareness among students of the option of a career as a heritage manager in rural settings. They also bring the work taking place at the university closer to local communities and establish synergies that may give rise to future internships and heritage management projects in rural areas.

The logistics of accommodating groups of students and teachers (25-30 people) are sometimes difficult depending on the resources available, but a solution has always been found. It has also been challenging to identify suitable areas to work in.

The practice of developing a specific rural heritage management project and working in situ with local stakeholders allows students to become more aware of the unique considerations involved in managing rural settings. Getting out of the classroom and into the field requires greater effort on the part of teachers and students, but it also provides far deeper understanding of the situation in heritage sites and greater local awareness of the importance of managing them.