SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY HERITAGE IN SCOTLAND'S NORTH-EAST: BENNACHIE AND BEYOND

"Sustainable Community Heritage in Scotland's North-East: Bennachie and Beyond

North-east Scotland contains landscapes of world-leading importance for history, archaeology and community heritage. This project will focus on the building of heritage-based partnerships between the University of Aberdeen and a variety of communities in the north-east's hinterland. At its heart is a burgeoning interdisciplinary community-centred research project concentrating on the past, present and future significance of one of north-east Scotland's most celebrated cultural and physical landmarks: the hill of Bennachie and its environs. The project will serve to not only facilitate public engagement with and enjoyment of the region's landscape heritage, but will more importantly provide training and development opportunities, which will facilitate proactive and long-term interest in doing local community heritage.

Bennachie plays a time-honoured role as the dominant landmark in the region, an essential touchstone for the distinctive north-eastern identity and represented in art, craft, song, poetry, folklore and literature. Situated within a deeper historical framework, Bennachie also provides a unique opportunity to address the historic relationships between past communities and the landscape: from its significance amongst prehistoric farmers to Roman invaders to 19th century 'colony' communities, Bennachie provides an essential vantage point from which to assess thousands of years of social change and human impact on the local environment.

Through the Bennachie case study, the university's research expertise and its extensive collections in archaeology, history, and ethnology will be made available to the wider community. The proposed initiative will involve 'capacity building', including stimulating interest, expertise and knowledge of local heritage research methodologies with a view to securing a sustainable model for community-led research. Members of the wider community will be directly involved in a current community-centred project run jointly between the University of Aberdeen and a local community group and conservation society, the Bailies of Bennachie. In 2011 the Bailies and the University of Aberdeen commenced the Bennachie Landscapes Project to answer research questions about the landscape history of this iconic landmark and to contribute to enhancing skills and knowledge competencies in the practice of landscape research within the wider community.

The partnership has begun to be an important focus for engendering community-focused research. As such it provides an ideal context for stimulating and providing guidance for new partnerships in the north-east and as well as extending aspects of the current project in novel directions.

The programme of funding will provide for the organization and management of five key themes with associated 'open days':

- Discovering the archives
- Introduction to archaeological research techniques
- Using community oral history as a research tool
- The Curriculum for Excellence: opportunities for learning outdoors with archaeology
- Exploring heritage through the creative arts

These events will provide opportunities to share skills and develop existing community research, leading to the presentation of ideas to a wider public. Most importantly, however, they will provide an interactive environment in which members of a wider community can become involved in projects and learn about opportunities for creating new research ideas. An important objective of this unique initiative will be to seek to engage members of the local community in developing and conducting a long-term landscape history project, which will aim to create a proactive and sustained interest in the region for future generations."