Participatory governance for the sustainable management of cultural heritage : pathways to social, cultural, and civic value creation.

Over recent decades, participation has become a central principle in debates on the governance and management of cultural heritage, both in academic scholarship and in international and European public policies. Despite the growing recognition of its importance, however, conceptual ambiguities and theoretical limitations persist in understanding how participatory governance models operate in practice and how they contribute to value creation for communities. This doctoral thesis engages with this debate by analysing participatory governance models for the sustainable management of cultural heritage, with the aim of examining how collaboration among public institutions, cultural organisations, and local communities can generate social, cultural, and civic value. The research adopts an interdisciplinary perspective that integrates cultural heritage studies, management and governance research. The study is structured around three overarching interrelated research questions: (RQ1) Who are the actors involved in the governance of cultural heritage within an historic urban district?; (RQ2) What dynamics emerge from their interactions, and how do these influence processes of value creation?; and (RQ3) How is cultural, social, and economic value produced and sustained through participatory governance arrangements? The research unfolds in two phases. First, a scoping review of academic and institutional literature is conducted to systematise key concepts and theoretical approaches related to participatory governance, cultural commons, and community involvement. Second, by adopting a qualitative and exploratory single-case study design, focuses on the Celio district in Rome, allowing an in-depth exploration of complex and context-specific phenomena empirical investigation. It is a historic neighbourhood of high cultural significance located near the Colosseum, characterised by a dense concentration of heritage assets alongside limited coordination among local cultural actors. 12 An essential aspect of the Celio case study concerns its “spatial context”, understood as the set of material, relational, and symbolic conditions that shape how cultural governance unfolds in the district. In this study, space is not conceived as a static or neutral backdrop but as a relational construct—a social and cultural fabric produced through the interactions among institutions, communities, and organisations. In this sense, the concept of territorial embeddedness helps to explain how governance and cultural initiatives are grounded in their specific socio-spatial environments. In fact, recent research underlines the importance of contextualised perspectives that account for neighbourhood networks, local embeddedness, and the social fabric of urban environments as key arenas for innovation and collective action. Celio exemplifies these dynamics: its dense network of associations, cultural organisations, and residents transforms spatial proximity into relational proximity, creating the conditions for participatory and place-based governance. In cultural heritage settings, where actors often operate under different logics—administrative, cultural, economic, and civic—relational proximity plays a crucial role in mediating these differences and enabling cooperation across heterogeneous worlds. Empirical data were collected through semi-structured interviews with institutional representatives, cultural operators, educators, entrepreneurs, and civic associations, complemented by the analysis of public and internal documents. The conceptual framework combines three theoretical perspectives: the Cultural Ecosystem lens is employed to map the constellation of actors, initiatives, and arrangements developed within the heritage context; Art Worlds theory is subsequently mobilised to examine the relational, symbolic, and organisational dynamics through which these actors interact, and co-produce meaning, thereby shaping patterns of collaboration, fragmentation, and innovation. Finally, the Civic Wealth Creation framework provides an interpretative lens to understand how participatory mechanisms may spur into pathways through which cultural heritage contributes to social, cultural, and civic value at the territorial level. The research develops three complementary empirical contributions. In more detail, the thesis (i) maps the local fragmented cultural ecosystem and the roles of main cultural actors, (ii) analyses collaborative and conflictual dynamics among cultural actors, and (iii) identifies the mechanisms through which participatory mechanisms enable civic wealth creation, namely engaged participation, collaborative innovation, and resource mobilization, supported by forms of public orchestration. Overall, the thesis conceptualises cultural heritage as a living cultural common whose functioning depends on governance arrangements capable of transforming fragmented institutional settings into relational and networked forms of coordination. In doing so, it advances a theoretical understanding of how participatory governance may enable the translation of social interaction into collective cultural and civic value within historic urban contexts. In conclusion, this thesis demonstrates that participatory governance of cultural heritage is not a technical solution, but a social process that requires time, care, and mediation capacity. The Celio case shows how heritage can become a lever for civic regeneration only when it is recognized as a common good and when institutions are willing to share vision, responsibility, and power with communities. In this sense, the main contribution of the research lies in demonstrating that the sustainability of cultural heritage inevitably depends on the quality of the relationships surrounding it, and that the creation of civic value is, first and foremost, a matter of governing relationships.