Defying Convention: Devising new approaches to heritage values in Valletta, Malta.

This thesis is concerned with heritage values and significance in the context of the World Heritage listed city of Valletta, the capital of the Maltese Islands, and the author’s home. Though the city’s fortunes have ebbed and flowed over the years, it has recently experienced a period of accelerated regeneration. Now a popular destination for cultural tourists, Valletta is a city in transition, where renewal has led to the conservation and restoration of its urban fabric yet change wrought by these processes has had a demonstrable, detrimental effect on its lesser recognized heritage. An intentional focus on these ‘unofficial’ heritage values is the principal subject of this research, in order to produce an alternative reading of a heritage landscape most often associated with more traditional criteria.
This research is framed and informed by more contemporary approaches to heritage values, and the intellectual foundation for this approach is drawn from recent scholarship and related heritage conventions. Of particular note are the Burra Charter (Australia ICOMOS 2013 [1979]) and the Faro Convention (Council of Europe 2005) which reconceptualize the ideas of significance and emphasize public contribution in the process of defining what it is about a heritage place that is significant.
This thesis adopts an innovative, in-situ data collection method, where the participants lead the researcher on walks around the city. Interviews were conducted with 19 participants in three phases between 2021 and 2022. The interviews themselves are participant-defined and captured on video as well as audio. The resultant data are analysed, organized and presented thematically. This analysis demonstrates the pivotal role of social values in understanding significance from a grassroots perspective, an approach that has never previously been applied in the context of Valletta.