Conference Program

At a time of democratic erosion and socio-ecological instability, conservation needs to expand beyond formal settings and be reconceptualized as an embodied, relational, and future/anticipatory-oriented democratic practice. This paper proposes cultural heritage conservation as a site of anticipatory citizenship, where conservation expands beyond the preservation of material artefacts, to the negotiation of memory, identity, and collective futures.

Drawing on traditions of democratic education inspired by John Dewey and critical pedagogy as articulated by Paulo Freire, and integrating insights from anticipatory systems theory (notably Schwartz, Poli, Inayatullah), the paper argues that participatory conservation processes function as informal and indirect democracy environments. In contexts marked by dissonant heritage, post-disaster reconstruction, and contested narratives, this research aims to show that conservation can become a democratic laboratory where citizens can experience democracy: deliberate across difference, confront power asymmetries, and imagine, together, possible alternative futures.

Through a conceptual and practice-based workshop, the study examines how Strategic foresight applied to Conservation processes can cultivate anticipatory competencies: the capacity to navigate uncertainty, integrate risk awareness, assume responsibility toward present and future generations, expand imagination ability and critical thinking: the bases for a strong and multi-support democracy. By framing Conservation as an anticipatory governance interface between communities and public institutions, the paper contributes to debates on how adult can bridge civic participation and democratic decision-making.

Rather than treating heritage as a static legacy of the past, this research reimagines conservation as a generative act for the future – an embodied, adult pedagogical process through which plural memories are negotiated and democratic agency is explored. In doing so, it proposes a model of deep democracy grounded in material practice, relational engagement, and shared responsibility in complex and uncertain societies, such as the our own.