Report on the technologies of evaluation in cultural production and heritage management

This topic explores the spectrum of evaluation technologies deployed in cultural production and heritage management. The concept of technologies of evaluation has been developed by Lamont (2012) on the basis of Knorr-Cetina’s (1999) definition of technologies of knowledge, namely those “social and cultural structures that channel, constrain, define, and enable the production and evaluation of knowledge” and include, relative to evaluation, “method[s] of comparison, criteria, conventions (or customary rules), self-concepts, and other types of nonhuman supports” (Lamont, 2012, p. 211). In cultural production and heritage management, technologies of evaluation are consistently employed by professionals to support their evaluative practices and account for different value regimes that may potentially affect evaluations. In fact, through our research work in WP2, we have learned how the production of culture is an endeavour heavily influenced by multiple and possibly contradictory values: economic, democratic, aesthetic, etc. This inherent plurality of values potentially gives rise to tensive dynamics between actors. Technologies of evaluation are thus needed to structure these potential tensions: evaluative tensions are not just problems to be solved, but can be leveraged to foster creative frictions and push forward learning and production processes (Stark, 2009). The selection of case studies analysed in the present deliverable is not intended as generative of an exhaustive typology of evaluation technologies and associated tensions. In the following we rather focus onto three pairs of cases that allows for a cross-level understanding of the effects of evaluation technologies employed in the areas of heritage and cultural production. In a nutshell, in the first pair of cases (Liverpool and Venice), we explore the complex evaluation dynamics taking place when UNESCO assesses the permanence or exclusion of problematic sites into the World Heritage list. Venice and Liverpool’s World Heritage sites were in ‘hot moments’ (Lamont, 2012: 213) – or those times which value conflicts may be most visible – as the two sites went through a period of uncertainty involving perceived issues with their authenticity and integrity. We observe here technologies of evaluation operating at the interface between professionals, political actors, and the civil society. Thus, the level of analysis is here mostly an inter-organisational one. The rationale to explore the second pair of cases (Mudec and KtD/RRR) is the result of axiological and organisational parallels, both cases operating within existing heritage institutions and facilitating short-term programmes with explicit participation objectives. Crucially, both organisational systems focused on the participation of under-represented groups and sought to diversify access through practices of cultural democracy. A broadly conceived conception of ‘participation’, encompassing both increased engagement by varied publics and a democratisation of institutional governance, is thus shared across both case studies. In this pair of cases, the level of analysis is both inter- and intra-organisational, inasmuch as we explore both the internal intricacies of evaluative practices and the interface between professionals appointed to perform evaluations and the civil society involved in participatory activities. Finally, the third pair of cases (architects and designers) offers an analysis of how evaluation technologies are employed at the intra and inter organizational level, in firms operating in highly professionalized sectors. The cases analysed correspond to architectural and design productions in the framework of public competitions (Christmas luminaire for the city and proposal for the reconversion of a former industrial site into a factory for artistic creation) and for conventional clients (production of lamps). We explore the evaluation technologies implemented in the pre-production, production and post-production phases of the design and architecture proposals studied. In the study, we observe how certain evaluations are enacted, encoded and stabilised through a complex interplay of actors, evaluative practices, evaluative reframing, objectivations and tensions.