Heritage community

Heritage community – the traditional definition of people that are entitled to care for a certain heritage was focused on communities formed by blood ties, ethnicity, or place of residence. The term “heritage community” proposed by the Faro Convention of the Council of Europe (2005) introduces a new understanding of such a group – as a community of will. This new enhanced definition emphasizes the principle of shared responsibility assumed by those who are not directly related to particular heritage cultural backgrounds, but are willing to take responsibility. The Council of Europe defines a heritage community as “people who value specific aspects of cultural heritage that they wish, within the framework of public action, to sustain and transmit to future generations’’. The Convention stresses the important aspects of heritage as they relate to human rights and democracy focusing on the relationships between heritage and communities and society.