FarNor aims to foster the role of cultural heritage as a resource for equity and socially just practices as crucial elements for social sustainability. The research takes the Faro Convention (2005) as background, emphasizing cultural heritage to develop democratic values and practices in Europe. The Convention attributes the ability to undertake heritage initiatives to the public, leaving the administration and expert bodies as mediators in this process. Thus, transforming heritage from an object of conservation to the means for social and economic change, defined at society’s grassroots.

In 2008 Norway ratified the Faro Convention justifying participatory practices and community engagement through the well-established Norwegian traditions of voluntarism (dugnad) and public participation in the planning process based on the 2008 Planning and Building Act (PBA). FarNor will reflect upon the compatibility between Norway’s policy terminologies of nærdemokratisk and lokaldemokrati with those promoted by the Faro Convention. Particular attention will be given to processes for integration and cultural diversity as analytical lenses.

This research project is relevant in three policy contexts:

1) the national scale in which the 2020 Regional Reform aims at strengthening the legitimacy of Norway’s welfare state by promoting more active citizenship from a democratic perspective;

2) the state of practice in Norway’s heritage governance concerning recent European measures for democratic practices;

3) the role of cultural heritage in the Sustainable Development Goals is increasingly linked to its potential to enhance social sustainability and resilience by establishing participative approaches driven by shared socio-cultural values.

Project researchers: Laia Colomer & Paloma Guzman.