The Role of Trust in Sustainable Heritage Management Networks. Case Study of Selected Cultural Routes in Poland

Abstract

Currently, the most common way of managing cultural heritage in a sustainable manner takes the form of cultural routes. The phenomenon of cultural routes mainly results from their innovative organisation, different from the previously adopted institutionalised and formalised heritage management structure that did not align with the contemporary discourse around cultural heritage, which currently constitutes one of the bases of sustainable development. The novel idea focuses on the active involvement of many diverse entities in heritage management: not only public sector organisations with their statutory appointment for this purpose, but, first and foremost, entrepreneurs who create heritage products, tourists visiting sites on the route, or people who create this heritage. Thus, the cultural route acquires the characteristics of a network-points (nodes) that are shaped depending on the needs of the region and its inhabitants, their knowledge, experience, current ideas about a given place, and the way in which specific communities would like to be perceived. The undertaken research problem explores what features cultural route networks have and how they are managed, as well as what values, including trust, are manifested in the mutual relations of route-related entities. An original concept of shaping trust within the network of cultural routes has also been proposed based on the research results.