Participatory Mapping of Cultural Heritage in Remote Areas - Potential to Engage the Local Community

Open access and open science concepts have changed the science horizon, besides the positive effect on the scholar community, scientific research is now available to the general public. But does the public genuinely consume the scientific outputs to a greater extent and has the gap between science and the public been bridged? Additionally, Europe still has an underdeveloped digital infrastructure and the existing non-commercial digital platforms with their data and research results are not accessible to the wider audience mainly because of their low visibility. In 2022 Croatian Society of Art Historians as an association of professionals and a non-profit organization started the project Participatory Mapping of the Cultural Heritage in Gorski kotar, Croatia, which involves documenting cultural heritage. This remote mountain region is a vast, still underexplored mountain area of 1300 km2. It provides great potential for a more detailed understanding of the stylistic expression of this region, as well as the preservation of cultural heritage from its decay. Besides art historians, the project‘s stakeholders are local inhabitants that hold accurate knowledge
of their customary (and otherwise usually unrecorded) heritage objects, as well as knowledge of their local environments which
can be expressed in easily understandable digital maps. This participatory method will stimulate connections with the local
community to make it more aware of the values they inherit. The goals of the project are to encourage diversity and inclusion and
eliminate participation barriers to drive better project outcomes.