20 years after the Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society has been signed in Faro by EU Member States, strategies for enhancing participation of heritage communities in the definition of their own Cultural Heritage (CH) are still sporadic. The need of more bottom-up processes to drive CH valorisation is particularly urgent in the case of controversial heritage. Starting from the very reasons of conflict and contentions, controversial CH cannot be understood and adequately tackled without listening and engaging affected communities themselves. A twofold approach based on co-design methods and arts-based strategies with the direct involvement of artists will be discussed in relation to some examples of cultural heritage in Sarajevo and Bosnia Herzegovina, which are highly controversial as they represent harmful and contested memories of the 1990-1995 war. In a difficult country as Bosnia Herzegovina, which is still today a place where many different ethnic groups live and have their own truth about the war causes and their own heroes, the main question related to heritage management is: what is the ‘right’ memory to transmit to future generations? Community participation and arts-based research have been proven effective in bringing valuable, creative and unexpected insights in this respect, providing in some cases innovative conceptualizations of memory and monuments themselves.

This contribution will focus on the cultural heritage of the Republic of Genoa (an independent state till 1815) as a significant case study. In the exhibition dedicated to the representation of Ottomans and Moors in Genoese art (October 2024-Juanuary 2025, at Palazzo Lomellini in Genoa, curated by L. Stagno and D. Sanguineti), the wide range of approaches to the representation of Islamic ‘others’ was a central theme, and part of the exhibited pictures - produced between the 16thand the 18th centuries - were controversial, in the sense of being rooted in conflict and potentially disturbing for contemporary sensitivities. This sparked a shared reflection on the strategies needed to tackle this aspect (based on the awareness of the dissonance of such cultural heritage with today’s values) as a means of addressing the topic by involving diverse communities. The contribution therefore aims to illustrate the problems, challenges and possible coping strategies that emerged from this experience, with a particular focus on the need of interdisciplinary research and participatory approaches.

Since 1863, Ngao Village, a coastal town of the Pokomo People that live along the banks of the Tana River in Kenya, witnessed establishments of European Missionary Societies, among them the United Methodist Missionary Society (UMMS) and the German Neukirchen Mission (GNM). The UMMS built the Methodist Church in the year 1900 and the GNM built the Ngao Missionary House in 1902 besides other important monumental buildings and graves. The conflicting interests of the British and German colonizers left the buildings dilapidated and abandoned. The community agitation efforts to reclaim its Christian heritage and Pokomo identity have led to a recent conversion of the Missionary House into a community museum, opened by the National Museum of Kenya (NMK) in 2024. The community efforts to return the Ngadji, a sacred drum stolen by the British in 1902, have not materialized. However, the search for restitution has become a deeply divisive affair both locally and abroad with the British Museum offering promises for the return. In addition, the community is host to Mau Mau massacre tombs for the six freedom fighters killed by the British colonial forces in 1959. These heritage objects, monuments and graveyards are poignant with meaning, usages, and memory that define the Pokomo people yet they have become centers of controversies between missionary societies, colonial powers and various representation groups of the Pokomo. Nevertheless, these setbacks have not quenched the community search for meaning and identity through the valorization of their heritage.

Grass root urban revival initiatives by social entrepreneurs, environment activists and community youth in the Medina of Tunis, are creating slow, but sustainable positive urban transformation, without compensating tangible and intangible heritage. The Medina of Tunis, founded end of the 7th century, remains vibrant with life, despite its abandoned collapsed buildings, struggling artisan souks and notorious labyrinth narrow alleys. Today, grassroot initiatives, such as Mdinti (an economic interest group, uniting Medina’s MSE’s) and Blue Fish (a social enterprise for heritage revival through economic dynamic); are building local ecosystems, focused on social cohesion, shared economy and urban biodiversity. A series of Medina maps, have been developed, that show the socio-economic impact on Medina’s urban structure; a mapping of collapsed historical buildings demonstrates the urban impact and urban solutions, and a mapping of the Medina, as viewed by women who live and work in the Medina, demonstrate the gender challenges and opportunities. Medina’s economic groups, are taking over the responsibility to keep the historical urban structure vibrant, open, safe, with respect to heritage wealth of its community.