Archaeology and Public Benefit Project update 13: Cultural heritage capital, the challenge and the opportunity for archaeology
What is Cultural Heritage Capital?
When we talk about capital in an economics context we mean the benefits that can flow from an asset or thing. In other words, this is the potential held within something to produce something else, such as a factory producing goods, known as physical capital. There are other types of capital, for example human capital, which refers to people, often specifically the skills held by a workforce. Social capital means the interrelationships of people that enable a society to function well, through factors such as trust, cohesion, identity and cooperation. Natural capital refers to natural environmental assets such as forests. If you cut a forest down you would destroy its capital (which could be clean air or wildlife habitats for example), but its capital could be controlled by replanting trees and maintaining a sustainable forest.
All these types of capital are measured: the Office for National Statistics measure human capital and social capital through surveys and local demographic data, and DEFRA has a system for measuring the natural capital held in the environment. Cultural heritage capital is a developing field, encouraging us to think about what services culture and heritage provide for us. There are existing economics tools used to calculate the other types of capital, but are they suitable for heritage? What services do we receive from culture and heritage?
Why should we measure cultural heritage capital?
Much of the museum, galleries and heritage sector comes under the remit of the UK Government Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Financial support for this sector is drawn from central funding, subject to decisions by policy makers over where to direct funds and how to invest public money in the most useful ways.
In other Government departments such as Transport, these decisions are made using tested methods of economic analysis. The overarching guidance for these decisions is held within The Green Book (2022) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) which details the approach used to assist decisions on public funding, ultimately within the framework of Social Cost-Benefit Analysis. This assesses the costs and benefits of a project or policy against various measurements including social impacts such as wellbeing, health and employment potential. The natural environment has a version of this accounting: Natural Capital.
Now DCMS have launched a project to establish criteria under which spending on culture and heritage could be similarly assessed, with the intention that within a few years there will be metrics available to make these decisions.
How can economic analysis be applied in our sector?
There are challenges within the capital approach for culture and heritage. Not least is the fact that the services provided by cultural heritage assets often provide more than one value, and these can of course be a complex combination of several: economic, social, natural (or environmental), and cultural. Also, these services could be educational, economic, related to health and wellbeing, or communal, in fact many people think that the list of services provided by cultural heritage assets will be very long indeed. In basic economic terms, the services and values are also hard to drill down to numbers on a spreadsheet as the market price of a heritage asset (for example a heavily decayed archaeological artefact) might be very small, but the cultural value of that object might be incredibly high.
Historic England has a team of economists in-house, who have undertaken much research on this. As an Arm's Length Body (i.e. they are funded and overseen by DCMS) they will be one of the first sector organisations to take decisions based on a cultural heritage capital approach. It is also highly likely that other forms of spending will be drawn into the capital’s framework, for example decisions made within the planning system, involving both public and private finance.
How might a cultural heritage capital approach affect development-led archaeology?
There are aspects of archaeology undertaken through the planning system that pose very specific questions to a capital approach. The primary consideration is that until buried remains are excavated, they provide very few services; it is the act of excavation that releases the services from the asset. The act of excavation is of course a primarily destructive act, as it removes archaeology from its original context and transports it elsewhere - usually by way of a record with the associated artefacts and ecofacts removed from the site.
Unlocking the services provided by buried and unseen archaeology is possible through digital capture (LIDAR, aerial photography perhaps) even though some services will be held dormant until they are disturbed. The potential of unexcavated archaeology is often valued by indigenous communities where oral knowledge provides awareness of what is unseen. Often these values are of spiritual/religious importance and are still used by a community for these purposes, and of course may also contain embodied carbon which is counted under the natural capital approach.
How are MOLA contributing to this work?
MOLA colleagues Emma Dwyer and Sadie Watson were on a multi-disciplinary team (Scoping Culture and Heritage Capital | MOLA) contributing to this developing research. The team reported to funders DCMS and AHRC in the summer of 2022, and Sadie spoke at an event launching the report at the UAL.
MOLA is now combining that knowledge gained by Sadie Watson and Emma Dwyer with the expert knowledge of our colleagues, notably Dr Hana Morel, Dr Kate Faccia and Katrina Gargett, to contribute to research and also to provide advice to other organisations navigating this new and complex way of thinking about culture and heritage. As our Sustainability and Advocacy lead Hana is well placed to direct thinking around the crossover that will occur between natural capital and cultural heritage capital, as well as the specific implications for marine and coastal heritage. Kate is working on embedding social value into development-led archaeology, working with clients to craft targeted programmes that explore different variations of cultural capital, best suited to local need. Katrina has worked extensively in the social capital sphere, using archaeology as a way to improve mental and physical health and wellbeing; and is therefore providing advice on approaches and methods to maximise the potential of archaeology to respond to the wide remit of the capital approach.
You can get in touch by emailing value@mola.org.uk if you would like to discuss this with our team, whether you’re seeking to commission work, to scope further ideas or to design and implement new ways of thinking about archaeology within these capital frameworks.
