Last June 2, 2017 Lara Delgado successfully defended her doctoral thesis on Management, communication and social participation in the cultural landscapes of Andalusia. The case of the project MEMOLA and receives the grade of cum laude.
With the author's words:
In this PhD thesis we exposed the evolution of different fundamental aspects, from the concept of heritage to the development of Archaeology and Museology, through communication and participation strategies and finally the normative framework, in term of cultural and environmental facets. All this has served to frame the case study of the MEMOLA project in relation to the archaeological analysis of cultural landscapes and in regards to the participation of local communities and general public.
This study has focuses on the study areas of Cáñar, Lugros and Lanteira, rural villages located in the south and north faces of Sierra Nevada. The work with local stakeholders has been arranged from two different perspectives. The first, and most important, has been the recovery of historical irrigation systems. The second, that came next, focused around an archaeological site. From these approaches we have generated a wide range of different activities and resources of communication and participation.
The goal was to replicate the methodology in different municipalities, with the local communities involved in the recovery of an asset, such as irrigation ditches, to diagnose possible repeating patterns. From this perspective, we applied, as far as possible, this methodological approach to an archaeological site as well. We have had three years of field work that allowed us to compare different effects and relationships between community-heritage-territory, academy-institutions, academy-community, academia-administration-community or administration-community-territory. These accomplishments in the territory generated a wide range of activities that transcend the boundaries of the study areas, thus including adjacent municipalities and ranging from dissemination, education, socialization to public involvement and engagement with the MEMOLA project.
