Cultural Heritage Management decentralization: a view from local councils

Abstract

The asset management in Chile is passing through one of its most meaningful landmarks thanks to the creation of Cultural Heritage Law, a landmark that comes to put together the approach and working styles that still thrive. In this context, this investigation comes up to make a review of the national and international regulations that support the management of Cultural Heritage, the current declaration processes in Chile, and the difficulties that emerge locally are analyzed. Through extensive interviews with national and Latin American key actors, their vision about the role that the local councils must accomplish in this area, the difficulties and the challenges they face are shown. The article states the territorial task of different Latin American cities on asset management and the experience of Unidad de Patrimonio, Chillán Municipality.