Emerging knowledge in the management of culture, heritage, World Heritage, and tourism: North-South dialogues
Critical schools of thought have influenced all areas of knowledge within the social sciences, creating new opportunities for analyzing and reflecting on alternative ways of understanding and narrating both the present and the past. These perspectives challenge power hierarchies, value systems, and the dominant frameworks used to interpret social realities. Critical approaches such as Postcolonialism, Decolonization, and Post-Westernism, among others, encourage diverse forms of dialogue between the Global North and South.
Event information
November 23 – 26, 2026
Bogotá, Colombia Universidad Externado de Colombia, Bogotá
This context encourages reflection on the similarities and differences in how concepts such as authenticity, identity, interculturality, equity, social justice, power struggles, discrimination, and heritage representation are being rethought. It also explores how heritage is used to present and share specific worldviews, with tourism acting as both a means of perpetuating these narratives and as a tool for managing heritage.
These perspectives generate narratives and imaginaries that directly and indirectly influence culture and heritage, affecting how they are understood, represented, utilized, and commercialized. Consequently, this leads to socio-spatial dynamics around heritage sites, which can have either positive or negative impacts on the living environments of local communities.
Furthermore, locally based heritage in urban-rural frontiers and in rural areas becomes more important, because heritage can serve as a bridge between different cultural identities, fostering community engagement and social cohesion. Besides, in these territories, the preservation of traditional practices and local histories, is vital as a component of their identity and continuity.
This event aims to reinterpret the histories and narratives associated with culture and heritage. It seeks to develop new approaches for thinking about managing and utilizing heritage in tourism through a variety of scientific and academic approached. These contributions will support the creation of emerging knowledge within ongoing North-South dialogues.
Call of papers
The call for papers opens on September 1, 2025, and closes on March 1, 2026.
Postcolonialism, decolonization, and post-westernism in heritage and tourism
New frameworks, theories, debates, and perspectives from the social sciences have influenced the understanding and knowledge of culture, heritage, and tourism, as well as the relationships linking them. These emerging approaches have redefined the connections between belief systems, the valuation, use, and appropriation of culture and heritage. They have sparked questions and reflections about how these concepts have been conceived, reinterpreted, and managed, recognizing them as elements charged with power, identity representations, and symbolism. The main focus of this thematic axis is to analyze the critical perspectives on the relationship between culture, heritage, world heritage and tourism.
Decolonization is evident in the way contested heritages are perceived and the multiple conflicting values that heritage can embody, namely in relation to colonial heritage. These perspectives have emerged and strengthen as different interpretations of the past are recognized and reconstructed. Today communities increasingly assert their authority over their own cultural narratives and forms of heritage appropriation.
Understanding heritage as a social process allows us to embrace its ongoing transformation and the values associated with it. This perspective supports the democratization of heritage, besides it is essential to include local voices that articulate the multiple, often conflicting values associated. By embracing this multiplicity, we acknowledge that heritage is not static; rather, it is a dynamic construct that evolves with societal changes and diverse interpretations.
Furthermore, the way in which tourism benefits from and in many cases commodifies and manipulates heritage values have been widely questioned and critiqued. This reflection should be grounded in new theoretical debates that have prompted an epistemological shift in knowledge, opening a wide range of ways to view and interpret social realities and to re-signify the past.
For this reason, it is important to raise important questions as:
How are the relationships (value, use, appropriation) between [World] heritage and locals structured through the lenses of critical knowledge perspectives?
How are value hierarchies established in local, national, and world heritage under critical knowledge perspectives?
How to understand heritage from critical knowledge perspectives?
How to create dialogue around opposed or conflicting heritage?
Topic 2
Emerging perspectives in heritage and tourism management
Historically, there has been a strong connection between cultural heritage and tourism. Heritage sites attract visitors to tourist destinations due to their recognition and the values they hold for both local communities and tourists. This relationship creates complex dynamics in managing both tourism and heritage, given the intricacies of their interplay. The way tourism and heritage interact is constantly evolving, leading to transformations, advantages, risks, and new interpretations. These aspects must be carefully considered in management strategies to protect and preserve cultural values while promoting the sustainable development of tourism.
This context raises several important questions:
How are communities creating collaborative processes for managing their heritage and tourism?
What are the emerging local perspectives on managing tourism and heritage based on lived realities?
What role does tourism play in shaping the way local residents value their heritage?
What are the acceptable boundaries and changes in management and interaction between tourism and cultural heritage?
The perspective of local communities has become increasingly important in the management of heritage and tourism. These communities play a crucial role in giving cultural heritage meaning and value through their ongoing interactions with it. Local residents are the ones who directly perceive the impact of tourism on their areas and its connection to heritage. Their insights and interpretations of these dynamics contribute to the development of new management approaches that address their needs and ensure the protection and preservation of their heritage.
Topic 3
Socio-spatial processes, narratives, imaginaries and their impact on the management of tourism places
Tourism has shown a remarkable ability to transform the social and spatial structures of the areas where it takes place. It generates new dynamics and impacts on local residents, leading to significant social, spatial, cultural, and economic changes. Once considered a marginal activity or merely an instrument to support cultural management in destinations, tourism has increasingly become a powerful tool for operationalizing the discourse of global competitiveness and economic growth.
The dynamics described have resulted in several issues, including conflicting uses of public space, increasing living costs, and the replacement of long-term residents with visitors, particularly in historic centers and areas traditionally occupied by deeply rooted social groups. This has also led to processes of gentrification, forced displacement, abandonment, and the replacement of traditional economic activities, among other challenges.
On the other hand, recent trends in contemporary tourism have significantly shaped how destinations are marketed and experienced. Tourists are increasingly motivated to visit places based on imagined experiences and social representations that resonate with the characteristics of the postmodern or hypermodern. Motivations for travel now extend beyond merely appreciating beauty; they also encompass themes such as war, death, the abject, and fear.
In response, tourism destination managers often aim to create new attractions and experiences that enhance these imaginaries by integrating traditional aspects with contemporary features. This leads to tension between residents who want to protect their local identity and their gradual acceptance of global architectural, commercial, and artistic influences being embedded and imposed on their territories.
This topic encourages reflection on these dynamics, which raise significant ethical questions about the effects and implications of these narratives and imaginaries in the management of tourist sites, as well as the profound socio-spatial transformations they bring about.
How do new tourism imaginaries influence the processes of socio-spatial transformation in historic centers and traditional neighborhoods?
In what ways do contemporary tourism narratives negotiate, reinforce, or blur local identities in the management of heritage destinations?
What ethical challenges emerge in the production and promotion of tourism imaginaries that incorporate logics of competitiveness, marketing, social media, and other elements as part of the tourist experience?
What responsible cultural and tourism management strategies can help mitigate the negative impacts of overtourism on residents’ daily lives and other associated effects?
Tema 4
New heritage and locally based heritage in urban and rural areas
The recognition and preservation of local heritage must extend beyond traditionally valued historical and aesthetic elements to include the creation of new heritage. This perspective acknowledges that everyday objects and practices, often overlooked, can embody significant cultural meaning and contribute to the community’s identity. Such inclusivity challenges narrow definitions of heritage and promotes a broader understanding. The main focus of this thematic axis is to analyze the constant creation of new heritage, the revalorization and new meanings and senses through locally based heritage in urban and rural areas.
Heritage in the urban-rural frontier and rural areas encompasses diverse perspectives, uses, and values that reflect the unique contexts of these environments. In urban-rural frontiers, heritage can serve as a bridge between different cultural identities, fostering community engagement and social cohesion. In contrast, rural areas often prioritize the preservation of traditional practices and local histories, viewing heritage as a vital component of their identity and continuity. In both context the locally based development seeks to align with the needs and expectations of local populations.
In the Latin American context, destinations frequently contend with significant challenges and issues (conflicts, wars, and terrorism) which undermine the social and cultural fabric of local communities. These issues are exacerbated by top-down patrimonialization efforts that often prioritize external authoritative narratives over authentic local identities. This collision between power and community-driven heritage marginalizes residents and threatens the preservation of cultural distinctiveness.
In the context of tourism, these narratives are crucial, as they not only attract visitors but also shape their understanding of local, national, and world heritage.
In this context, several key questions arise:
¿Cómo se crea el nuevo patrimonio?
¿Cómo puede promoverse una patrimonialización de base local?
¿Cuál es el papel del patrimonio en las fronteras urbano-rurales y en las zonas rurales?
¿Cómo evitar procesos de patrimonialización impuestos desde arriba y empoderar a las comunidades locales con respecto a su patrimonio?
Tema 4
Other topics related to the management of culture, heritage, World Heritage and tourism
It is also considered vital to expand this focus on the management of culture, heritage, world heritage and its relationship with tourism.
