CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2022
| Author | Satbayeva, Dinara |
|---|---|
| Title | Adaptive Heritage Reuse in Kazakhstan as a Resource for Community Development and Urban Regeneration |
| Summary | Built heritage is uniquely situated to be a point of connection between social, economic, environmental, and cultural sustainability. Urban heritage in Kazakhstan can consolidate communities for discussion, action, and participation. Yet, urban architecture is still poorly preserved, despite the growing recognition of its value among grassroots, organized groups and communities in Kazakhstan. Adaptive heritage reuse is a growing alternative to demolition in many countries; hence, heritage activists and bottom-up initiatives can benefit from developing and applying the adaptive heritage reuse approach in their work and advocacy. It is a tool for instrumentalizing redundant heritage buildings for education, culture, innovation, development, and social empowerment. As a nexus issue of urban environments, it is most effective when approached with transdisciplinary and holistic thinking. The author conducted several in-depth interviews with urban and heritage activists in Kazakhstan to outline the challenges associated with bottom-up work in heritage preservation and reuse. The author also used analysis of secondary literature, case studies, and discourse analysis to evaluate the existing conditions based on several success factors, under three categories: (i) heritage environment, as expressed via policy, urban development, scholarly discourse, and heritagization process; (ii) inclusion through participation, stakeholder integration, cooperation and engagement in urban governance (iii) financial sustainability through access to funding. These factors are used to understand the short-term and long-term opportunities, strategies, and tools to introduce and develop adaptive heritage reuse in Kazakhstan. The research shows that while policy and market forces are some of the factors that is not easily influenced, bottom-up initiatives can optimize other success factors to benefit their projects. This research shows, that Kazakhstani urban bottom-up actors already show creativity and perseverance in advocating for more comprehensive urban practices, including heritage protection and redevelopment. Recommendations developed in this thesis are based on both creating unique, innovative, and inclusive solutions and adapting diverse experiences of other adaptive heritage reuse projects to the local context. Adaptive heritage reuse is a promising tool for heritage interpretation and the creation of sustainable, resilient, and inclusive heritage initiatives in Kazakhstan. With such an approach, I expand the discussion on adaptive heritage reuse into non-Western contexts, show its limits, and provide a reader with a holistic view of the urban heritage field of Kazakhstan today. Finally, in this thesis, I would like to underline the importance of urban and heritage activism that has made such research possible with documentation, analysis, policy review, and participatory initiatives. |
| Supervisor | Volodymyr Kulikov, Dora Merai |
| Department | Medieval Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2022/satbayeva_dinara.pdf |
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