The Usefulness of the Johari Window for the Cultural Heritage Planning Process

Abstract

The standard heritage planning process follows the trajectory of identification, nomination, evaluation, listing and protection. The epistemology of the nominations and valuations is only rarely, if ever, examined. The Johari window was developed by the psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham as a tool to examine group dynamics, in particular an individual’s position in, and their relationship and interactions with others in a group. This paper examines the usefulness of the Johari window for the Cultural Heritage Planning Process. Based on the interrelationship of what oneself and others know about each other and are prepared to divulge, the Johari window allows to conceptualize overlapping levels of knowledge and ownership within five newly defined epistemological domains. It also serves as an analytical tool to systematically query the heritage universe of a community and thereby examine the composition and comprehensiveness of heritage registers as well as nominations that have been put forward.

1. Introduction

A community’s heritage is comprised of the tangible and intangible expressions of people’s social, cultural, economic and spiritual lives, as well as the interactions they have with their natural environment. People’s interaction with the physical environment results in tangible heritage, which manifests itself as the built environment, refuse sites and cultural landscapes, but also in the form of artefacts and other moveable objects [1]. The result of peoples’ interactions with each other forms a community’s intangible cultural heritage, which finds its expression in language, music, customs, skills and the like [1,2,3]. Both tangible and intangible expressions contribute to the social and cultural fabric of contemporary society and its wellbeing [4,5]. Consequently, these expressions are being safeguarded through interpretive, educative and protective conservation management actions.

Fundamentally, the management of heritage assets, be it through physical preservation or protection via legislative means, is founded on the dictum that the individuals making up a community have a personal and communal connection to these assets and therefore do not wish to see them decay, removed or destroyed. Once nominated and evaluated as culturally significant to a community, these places are then included in heritage lists, registers or inventories with their associated legislated administrative controls.

The management of cultural heritage places and assets is highly regulated through formal processes governing nomination and heritage listing subject to state heritage laws [6,7,8,9]. While national approaches vary, all jurisdictions that maintain heritage registers, inventories or lists follow a process of nomination, evaluation, and inscription (or rejection). Using the situation of the state of New South Wales (Australia) as an example, the state’s Heritage Office has published a number of guidelines pursuant to the NSW Heritage Act of 1977 [10] that govern the research, assessment, nomination, evaluation and listing of heritage places [11,12,13,14,15,16,17]. The nomination and listing process (Figure 1) is commonly carried out at decadal or duo-decadal intervals through local, government-wide scale, community-based heritage studies [18]. The resultant list of sites is then formally anchored to local government area specific development controls and the Local Environmental Plan is compiled subject to the provisions of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act (1979) [19].

While the above relates to NSW, broadly similar processes exist in all jurisdictions that maintain heritage registers or heritage lists. Of critical significance in this process is the fact that all decisions, while informed by heritage professionals in their advisory or project management capacity [20], are based on committees which, while in theory can draw on a broader range of experience, may in fact suffer from general amnesia [21]. At least in theory, however, this dilutes the decision-making power of individuals and ensures that a greater range of views is heard and informs the decisions.

2. Community Heritage Studies

However, any heritage register can only be as good the nature and comprehensiveness of the nominations that are put forward for evaluation, while at least in theory, nominations for inclusion in heritage listings can occur at any time and can be put forward by any interested person to be assessed in due course, the reality is that the overwhelming majority of items will be nominated in the course of heritage reviews and planning studies. These tend to occur every 10 to 20 years, depending on funding availability and interest by the respective local government authority. The flow of nominations in a community-based planning framework is uneven (Figure 2). All heritage studies receive nominations from the general public (usually via calls published on council websites and social media), from the heritage study steering group and from the heritage professional coordinating the study. Additional nominations may emerge from professional and semi-professional interest groups, such as the historic society, the National Trust, or architectural groups (e.g., Royal Australian Institute of Architects). Only rarely do local councils commission formal, community-wide surveys of their constituents that address both community attitudes and nominations.

Calls for community-based nominations not only ensure community engagement and “buy’in”, but also, and more significantly, allow for the nomination of hitherto unrecognized places of heritage value, be they unusual sporting facilities [22], amenity landscapes [23], or places of the LGBTQIA+ community [24].

The inherent bias in community-based nominations has been noted before, both in terms of overrepresentation of specific classes of heritage sites, esp. residential and commercial properties, and in terms of a community preference for properties of specific time periods (esp. Victorian, Interwar and Art Deco) [20,23,25]. In addition, intergenerational differences influence nominations and, in particular, the subsequent evaluations [21].

In addition to these common biases, covert or overt cultural or ideological opposition to assets being identified and potentially nominated as “heritage” also needs to be considered. For example, items of dissonant or “dark heritage” are often identified as worthy of conservation and protection by academics and some professionals, but not necessarily by the wider community [26,27,28]. These biases can play out as congruent with or even opposite to the ideology and interests of the dominant voices in the community [29], or can be highly nuanced depending on where in space and time a participant was during the event that gave rise to the dissonant heritage item [30].

Common approaches in local heritage plans are to distil a narrative of local historic trajectories into a series of locally relevant historic themes that are linked with, and ideally reflective of, the overarching state and national themes [31,32,33]. In an ideal planning framework, each of the themes should be reflected in the form of assets listed on the local heritage register, and each of the assets on the local register should be matched to one of the themes. Mismatches in either direction require the further investigation and adjustment of themes or surveys for missing assets, followed by subsequent nomination. It falls to the personal agency of the heritage professional coordinating the study to determine to what extent these nominations are reflective of the historic trajectories of the community and to what extent they are illustrative of the historic themes. Consequently, there is room for subconscious, as well as conscious, bias to occur and shape the outcome.

While the evaluation process is governed by local government committee rules with respect to personal or commercial conflicts of interest and professional misconduct, the nomination process occurs, in the vast majority of cases, without any critical enquiry. Anybody is invited to nominate an asset for listing (as well as delisting), but the ideological, economic or even egocentric motivations for these nominations are only extremely rarely queried (except, possibly, in cases where de-listings are being requested). Additionally, in some instances, anonymous nominations are possible, for example if offered in anonymous community surveys.

Moreover, there is no epistemological enquiry into the nature of the nominations. All nominations are assumed to be equal in their nature, but equal they are not by virtue of the fact they are put forward by human beings. The shifting baseline syndrome and generational amnesia are one influence, as are levels and types of education (e.g., public vs. independent schools), and socioeconomic and ethnocultural backgrounds [21]. Perceptions as to what constitutes heritage, as seen through both conceptual and chronological lenses, vary widely, as do expectations as to what is worth protecting or visiting [34,35]. When considering the forces at work during the heritage nomination process as it plays out in the Australian setting (Figure 2), we can identify and define five epistemological domains (Figure 3). It should be noted that domain classifications are not mutually exclusive as in some instances an individual can belong to more than one domain. An example for this would be heritage working groups where individuals may be present in officio (such as Councillors and Council staff).

Domain A encompasses the heritage professional coordinating the heritage study in their capacity as a professional individual, their coordinating and advisory role in the community heritage steering group, and as the professional, reviewing and evaluating the assets nominated in the past and already included in the heritage register. In addition, the heritage professional may also act as a private individual if they reside in the LGA where the heritage study is taking place. This domain also includes representatives (or nominations from) other professional groups, such as architects, historians or museum professionals, as well as professional heritage organizations, such as the National Trust or Engineering Heritage Australia (or their equivalents in other countries). Common to all individuals in Domain A is professional experience in cultural heritage or allied fields, often combined with tertiary education and a grounding in research.

Members of semi-professional groups and societies form Domain B, comprising those participating both through nominations put forward individually or collectively (organizationally) as well as by being representatives on a/the community heritage steering group. These can be community organizations, such as the local historical society, heritage railway enthusiasts or similar. While their sociocultural and educational background will differ, they are bound and motivated by a common interest in local history.

Other non-heritage-related individuals and organizations who may choose to nominate assets make up Domain C. These can be members of the community heritage steering group (as individuals), members or representatives of ethnic community organizations, as well as interested individuals. The latter may be invested enough to make nominations out of their own conviction and volution, or they may be prompted by formal calls for nominations (on social media of council websites) or may respond to questions asked in community surveys.

Domain D encompasses the members of the community heritage steering group. These are a mix of heritage professionals, local council officers (commonly planners), local councillors, representatives of the historical society, the chamber of commerce and multicultural groups, architects and general citizens who may apply. The level of their understanding of and interest in heritage varies from professional and amateur to non-existent, as some are there purely to represent their organization’s interests.

Domain E comprises council staff who oversee the completion of the heritage study and comment on each draft, and thereby they influence the final version and prepare the formal submission, with recommendations for consideration by the local councillors or a premilitary subcommittee, depending on the procedural preferences of the council. While these council staff at the lower and middle levels tend to be professionals with exposure to planning theory, and possibly even heritage theory, higher-level council staff may well have been appointed to managerial positions while coming from specialist background from areas that are peripheral to planning and may be lacking knowledge in heritage matters. That domain is also populated by the elected councillors who are drawn from the local population, who are often prominent in the business community and often have little exposure to, let alone experience in, policy or strategic planning [36,37].

As the nature of the public nomination and consultation process does not provide an opportunity or the ethical foundation to interrogate the epistemological foundation of each nomination and its nominator, individual assessments are not possible. Thus, the universe of nominations needs to be assessed as a collective entity.

The underlying assumption of community consultation and community working groups in the heritage nominations process is to provide a range of voices that, ideally, reflect the breadth of constituents and stakeholders in the local government area in which the heritage study is being completed. At present, there are no models or methodologies that examine the epistemological foundation of the nominations and their nominators. Unless such an enquiry is engaged upon, conscious and subconscious biases may creep in, and influence or even shape the outcome. Clearly, there is a need for a methodology.

The aim of this paper is to advance a conceptual framework that allows heritage practitioners to understand the forces that may influence the nomination process prior to the evaluation of the cultural significance of the nominated items and the forces that shape the composition of the resulting heritage listings. As the paper is conceptual and prototypical in nature, it does not follow the traditional IMRAD patters, nor will it present or discuss a case study. Doing so, while easy to achieve, would unfairly single out and critique one local government area chosen from the plethora of others. Rather, the paper will show how the Johari window, a model developed to understand group dynamics, can be harnessed to provide such a framework.

3. The Johari Window

Working on group dynamics, the University of California psychologists Joseph Luft (1916–2014) and Harrington Ingham (1916–1995) developed a model to conceptualize an individual’s position in and their relationship and interactions with others in a group. Using the variables of what is known/unknown to oneself and to others, Luft and Ingham developed a four-quadrant matrix (Figure 4). Likening the matrix to a window to self-awareness, Luft and Ingham coined the term Johari window using a combination of their first names [38]. The model was further developed by Luft in subsequent publications [39,40].

In this model, one quadrant (Figure 4 top left) is the open space (also called the arena of free activity) where an individual’s behaviour, motivations and ideologies are shared with and known to others. The second quadrant is the blind space (also includes ideologies, or the blind spot), which contains knowledge about an individual that others know, can see or experience, but the individual themselves are oblivious to. The third quadrant covers the hidden or avoided space, aspects that an individual wishes to keep hidden from others behind a façade, be they hidden agendas, highly personal or otherwise sensitive matters. The final quadrant is the unknown, where in a group situation neither the individual nor the other group members have knowledge of these behaviours or motives. Yet, as Luft stressed, these unknowns can be assumed to exist, as experience has shown that such unknowns will eventually emerge and become known as forces that influence group dynamics [39].

While the Johari window has been primarily employed as a heuristic tool in psychology with applications by self-help groups [41], it has also found application in corporate [42,43], organizational [44,45] and educational settings [46,47], as well as in the management of risk [48] and information [49]. Oliver and Duncan extended the four domain Johari window model into the conceptualization of the knowledge space (Figure 5) [50].

While initially derided by much of the press, Rumsfeld [51] articulated a principal tenet of good knowledge research: in addition to what is known to us and the questions that we know that can or need to be asked, there will be the ontological domain of the total unknown. Essentially, we as a people suffer from a lack of capacity to know what really exists.

Research tends to be primarily incremental, continuously expanding the known knowns. Breakthroughs in innovation, often facilitated by a conducive research culture, are mainly answering the known unknowns, situations where we can frame questions in the search for an answer. A history of accidental or serendipitous, yet fundamental, discoveries (e.g., Penicillin [52]) shows, however, that the domain of unknown unknowns does exist, and comprises concepts and/or realities that we are not only unaware of at present, but that we also cannot even conceptualize.

While possibly splitting hairs, “unknown unknowns” (sensu strictu) are not made knowable through serendipitous discovery. Rather, in serendipitous discoveries, researchers who are exposed to triggers can make connections either because they are “outsiders”, i.e., from different disciplines or research traditions and thus not constrained by epistemological frameworks, or because they become exposed to data sources in unexpected settings [53,54]. These connections can only work, however, where researchers are aware of the relevance of that observation during the serendipitous encounter.

4. The Use of the Johari Window in Cultural Heritage Planning

We can extend the conceptual model of the Johari window into the planning sphere, which is an application and extension of Oliver and Duncan’s approach to mapping knowledge space [50]. Given the complexities of community heritage, and given that cultural heritage is closely connected with personal and community identity [4,55], the perception and valuation of heritage is very much conditional on an individual’s perceptions and knowledge, derived from that person’s enculturation and role in the sociocultural matrix of the local and wider community. Before we consider the nature of knowledge, both its generation and use, we need to briefly digress and consider the nature of ownership of heritage assets, as that plays a fundamental role in the nomination and assessment process.

4.1. Ownership of Heritage Assets

For the purposes of this paper, the term “heritage asset” will be used, which encompasses both tangible (e.g., objects, structures, sites, places) and intangible (e.g., traditions, customs, language, dance) components of heritage. In this paper, “asset” is construed as an element that has value to an individual or community. It is not used in the property and financial management sense where an “asset” is a commodity that can be exploited or traded for gain.

With the exception of exploded as well as unexploded ammunition on historic battlefields, where the concept of abandoned property may apply [56], all heritage assets are owned by some legally and/or morally definable entity. It is the varied nature and extent of that ownership which adds multiple levels of complexity

Heritage assets can be owned at a personal, family, clan and community level. In the majority of instances, the ownership is vested in a defined entity, which has the right to use or enjoy the asset, the right to exclude others from use or enjoyment, and the right to sell or otherwise dispose of that asset. This entity can be individuals, for-profit companies and not-for-profit entities, as well as local, state or national governments—the latter owning the heritage assets on behalf of the community governed by them. The right to disposal of these heritage assets is governed by the intent of the disposal (gifting, selling, destruction) as well as the relevant asset-disposal procedures and protocols that the owning entity may have formulated and is bound to adhere to. In addition, there is the concept of ownership in common, for example in a family situation, as well as among numerous First Nations communities, where the common nature of ownership is known and socially enforced, but not specified within contractual documents. In this case, individuals cannot make decisions on the use or disposal of an asset without the actual, tacit or implied agreement of the other co-owners.

On a different level, right to ownership can be absolute, where the owner has possession and unfettered control over an asset and its fate, or ownership can be restricted, where the owner has possession, but where others can claim rights that restrict the possessor’s actions. For example, privately owned objects of historic and heritage value can be freely traded, unless they have been identified to be of national interest. In that case, they can be freely traded with the country, but cannot be exported without formal permission of the relevant government authorities [57,58]. Likewise, structures that have no heritage value can be modified ad lib, as long as structural considerations and other community-wide planning controls are being adhered to [19]. Heritage-listed properties, on the other hand, are subject to additional controls that often limit the range of options available to the owner of the property [59,60]. The nature and extent of these controls changes concomitantly with the heritage value and level of significance that is attributed to them. For example, places that form part of a heritage conservation area at the local level can be modified without heritage obligations as long at their contribution to the streetscape is not impaired or impacted. Developments proposed for places that are heritage-listed as individual inventory items need to consider the impact on the entire external form, whereas some places may also have their interiors protected, which further limits the asset owner’s ability to alter the asset. The nature and level of controls increase for properties that have been assessed to be of state or even national significance [59].

The fact that a community holds the ownership of heritage assets in common does not imply that all community members have knowledge or usage rights to that asset. For example, many First Nations communities take a gendered approach to aspects of their intangible and tangible heritage. There are women’s stories, women’s cultural practices and women’s sites, from which male members of the community are excluded merely by virtue of their gender (and vice versa). Similarly, many First Nations communities take a structured, stages-of-life approach to intangible and tangible heritage, where only those community members may participate who have been found worthy and who have passed the social requirements (e.g., are initiated). Such restrictive ownership of community heritage assets held in common can also play out along lineage, clan and kinship lines. In most Pacific Island communities, for example, the skills of navigation or canoe building were passed through lineage only [61,62].

4.2. The Use of the Johari Window to Conceptualize Overlapping Levels of Knowledge and Ownership

Because ownership of heritage assets, as well as cultural knowledge, is caught up in the tension between the individual and the community, the extended Johari window is uniquely suited to provide a tool to (i) conceptualize the overlapping levels of knowledge and ownership and then (ii) to use that understanding to assess extant (or proposed) heritage lists by querying their completeness and identifying any potential gaps in representation. In keeping with the window analogy, each of the cells in the 3 × 3 matrix will be referred to as a “pane” (Figure 6 and Figure 7).

All registered heritage falls into the (top left) pane of assets which are both known to self (i.e., the heritage manager/professional) and known to others, and which both self and others are prepared to disclose (Figure 6, top left). That also includes heritage assets that are not yet listed but are assessable and includes community-based knowledge and cultural practices as well as language. Exceptions notwithstanding, this is the extent of most community-based or expert-driven heritage studies.

Conversely all heritage assets are both known to self and known to others, but which neither self nor others are prepared to disclose, fall into the central pane (Figure 6, centre). This space is not represented in any of the heritage registers and by virtue of its exclusion, does not enjoy any legal or other protection. In case of inadvertent impact or destruction, the community will experience an irreversible loss that may lead to conflict. Even where reconstruction of lost heritage assets is being carried out at a later date, for example in many places in post-World-War-II Europe, these are not originals imbued with authenticity but, as faithful as they may be, are copies, with different community values [63,64].

This pane can also include assets that are included on registers, but where access is highly restricted. Examples for this would include the First Nations site registers in Australia [65] or on Tribal lands in the U.S.A. [66,67], the oral recordings held by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies [68] or the Taboo room of traditional knowledge maintained by the National Museum of Vanuatu [69]. A special situation occurs where the heritage professional as a member of a community is aware of heritage assets that are not known to others (or beyond a small core group) and which self cannot disclose (Figure 6, bottom centre).

Obviously, a further variation is the situation where heritage assets are known to others and where they are not prepared to disclose their nature, meaning and/or location, but which are not known to self (Figure 6, centre right). In this scenario, self may be aware that such sites are bound to exist but cannot move into a state of knowing unless accepted into and permitted by the community.

There are heritage assets that are both known to self and known to others, but where self is not prepared to disclose them while others may be prepared to (Figure 6, centre top). This would rationally encompass heritage places that are deemed fragile from a conservation management perspective and where uncontrolled or unsupervised visitation would be discouraged. That fragility may exist in the physical realm (treadage, wear and tear, artifact theft) or in the intangible realm, where special places may become less special due to over visitation. The latter is a common theme in tourism studies and has relevance here [70,71,72]. In some cases, such sites are managed simply by omission or mention in the wider public domain. There are no real correlates in the domain of intangible heritage.

A similar scenario occurs where heritage assets that are both known to self and known to others, but where others are not or no longer prepared to disclose them while the self may (still) be prepared to (Figure 6, centre left). This can occur where heritage assets were formerly publicly known and accessible, but where the owners decided to restrict access for cultural reasons, or because they had not been adequately consulted in the past and were, at the time, powerless to prevent the place being made known.

An example is “A Guide to Indigenous Australia sites”, published in 1990 (and republished in 1999) to make Indigenous Australian heritage more accessible in order to educate the public [73,74]. With the guide and its wayfinding directions published, it is difficult for Indigenous Australian communities to prevent determined individuals from visiting sites they would prefer to be off-limits. A sample scenario in the intangible heritage sphere is represented in the publication of confidential genealogical information by nineteenth and early twentieth anthropologists, as in the case of Samoa. When at the turn of the twentieth century the German anthropologist Augustin Krämer drew on the power differential between the German colonial authority, of which he was an instrumental part, to extract confidential genealogical relationship data, he disregarded the wishes of the knowledge holders and published his findings. As this occurred in a German language academic publication [75], the knowledge did not filter back to Samoa until the New Zealand League of Nations Mandate administration commissioned a translation into English (in the late 1920s). The ready accessibility of the genealogical information to unauthorised individuals had devastating consequences [76,77].

The next two panes to be discussed are related, as both contain aspects of emergent heritage and places for which the heritage values have not yet been recognized. This can play out in the sense that the value of these assets is known to others who are prepared to disclose that information, but self, the heritage professional does not, or cannot, recognize the value, either due to ideological, conceptual or even administrative constraints (Figure 6, top right). An example is the difficulty of U.S. historic preservation protocols to deal with the heritage related Hugo Chavez and the labour movement [78] or San Francisco’s LGBTQ community [79]—none of this would be a problem in the Australian setting, which recognizes social value as one the four key values for heritage assessment [80].

In the inverse situation, the value of these assets is known to self, who is prepared to disclose that information, but not known to others (Figure 6, bottom left). Examples for this are where heritage professionals perceive emerging cultural trends or advance a conceptual framing that is well outside current thinking (e.g., cultural heritage of robots as opposed to cultural heritage of robotics [81]).

The final pane is comprised of the “unknown unknowns”, that is, those heritage assets that are (as yet) neither known to self nor to others (Figure 6, bottom left). In the heritage field, turning “unknown unknowns” into knowable entities creates inflection points that advance the discipline. A good example of this is postholes. These are archaeological traces of foundation pits for wooden posts that once supported structures such as houses, towers or cranes (Figure 8). While detectable and long observed as permanent discolourations in the ground, they were not “discovered” until 1899, when the German archaeologist Karl Schuchhardt realized during an excavation of a Roman camp at Haltern that these discolourations were traces of former posts [82,83]. Being able to reconstruct the outline, and often the internal structure of houses, the alignment of fence lines, fortifications and the like, which were all originally made of perishable materials, revolutionized the profession on a worldwide basis, as it provided the ability for the spatial reconstruction of sites and people’s activities [84].

Issues of Ethics and Conflict

As noted elsewhere, individuals may have considerable influence over the maintenance of heritage and heritage practices, both as professionals [20] and as practitioners [85]. The extended Johari window also allows us to flag those domains where the potential for conflicts of professional ethics or actual conflict may arise (Figure 9).

The differential between knowledge and intended use of that knowledge can result in ethical concerns or even potential conflict between parties. For example, whether information that is known to the heritage professional is disclosed (in scenarios where that information is not known to others or whether others do not wish to make it known) is purely based on the personal and professional ethics of the heritage professional. As noted earlier, once in the public domain, that knowledge can no longer be recalled and re-compartmentalized. Similarly, potential for conflict exists where others may be prepared to disclose information that the heritage professional themself wishes to be kept confidential.

The personal and professional ethics are grounded in a person’s enculturation into society and intercultural positioning [86] and coloured by ideology and political expediency. After all, in many respects, cultural heritage is the manifestation of a person’s and community’s identity and mental wellbeing [4]. History is replete with examples where heritage sites without any strategic value were targeted and destroyed purely to undermine community spirit and to attack [87,88,89].

4.3. The Use of the Johari Window to Examine the Comprehensiveness of Heritage Registers

In addition to understanding and conceptualizing overlapping levels of knowledge and ownership, the extended Johari window can be used to examine the composition of heritage registers as well as nominations that have been put forward. It can serve as a tool to systematically query the heritage universe of a community. In essence, each of the panes in Figure 6 can be converted into a question, the answers of which must be derived from ethical and reflexive practice. For example:

• “Are there heritage assets that I am aware of but that others are not or do not seem to be prepared to disclose?” If there are, what are the processes and protocols that can, or should be engaged in to manage these assets? Would it be appropriate for me to raise my awareness of these heritage assets to their custodians, or would the very fact of signalling my knowledge be in itself a breach of protocol threatening the integrity of values that underlie and define that asset in the eyes of the custodians? Should I engage in an action that has a protective effect for the setting of the asset (and by implication and extension to the asset itself) without drawing attention to the nature of the asset or the real rationale for the protective action? Or does such intervention reflect a paternalistic attitude that negates the decision-making powers of the asset’s custodians?
• “Are there heritage assets that I am aware of, but which I would prefer not to disclose, whereas others are prepared to disclose them?” If there are, how can these assets be managed in a way that addresses the aims of the wider community while at the same time respects my concerns? In addition to understanding and assessing my own motivations why I would prefer not to disclose these assets, solutions may entail, inter alia, protective/management processes that mitigate or obviate my concerns about disclosure, educative processes in relation to those who are prepared to disclose, or, failing that, contractual solutions.
• “What is the likelihood that there are potential heritage assets that are not known to myself (as a heritage professional) but that are known to the others?” What are the processes and protocols that should be followed to identify and assess these potential heritage assets? For any self-reflexive heritage professional, the assumption should a priori be that there will be heritage assets that are not known to self but that are known to others. Common processes are widely cast community consultation, using common community-participation methodologies and age-cohort-appropriate technologies (print media, audio media, social media), augmented by snowballing methodology to widen involvement by informants.

Answers should be sought for each of these panes, answers that take into account the epistemological foundations (what do we know, how do we know, what can we know), that consider the potentially multiple levels of physical and moral ownership and that also canvas any ethical considerations.

The pane that will pose the greatest conceptual problems is that of the “unknown unknowns”. While strategic foresight can extrapolate current social, cultural and economic trajectories and develop scenarios, and aid in the assessment of “known unknowns” (i.e., places of emergent heritage) [90], and while methodologies, such as “Futurist Hindsight”, can be fruitfully employed to examine the heritage implications of futurist scenarios [90], we do not have a means to characterize the genuine “unknown unknowns” beyond the fact that we need to be cognizant that they will exist. Heritage professionals, of course, can develop and employ a mechanism that addresses these “unknown unknowns” the moment they appear on the horizon as “known unknown” and to turn them “known knowns” [90]. The heritage response to the COVID 19 pandemic is a good example [91].

5. Conclusions

In the standard heritage planning trajectory of identification, nomination, evaluation, listing and protection, the epistemological foundations of the nominations and valuations are only rarely, if ever, examined. However, understanding these, combined with an exploration of the motivations behind the nominations and listings, allows us to assess whether the heritage listed properties are reflective of the cultural, social and economic realities of a community as seen through their historic trajectories,

The management and recognition of cultural heritage Is subject to both moral and physical ownership, which can be individual or communal. That ownership not only extends to the tangible manifestation of a heritage asset, but also its intangible aspects (which in the case of intangible heritage makes up the totality of the asset). Knowledge of and about an asset is owned, and the owners of that knowledge have the right to exercise that ownership as they deem fit. This has direct implications on the nature and extent of heritage assets that are known and potentially heritage-listed.

The Johari window initially was developed as a tool to examine group dynamics, in particular an individual’s position in and their relationship and interactions with others in a group, and it provides a tool to conceptualize and examine these overlapping levels of knowledge and ownership.