Whatever floats your boat: public engagement with maritime heritage in England

Abstract

Within England there is an increasing proliferation of public engagement with maritime heritage, spurred by the aims of heritage professionals and policy makers to illustrate the wide value these sites have to the public, challenge misconceptions based on popular culture and make heritage relevant to all. However, to date no research has been done on the impact of this work which includes the perspectives of the people who deliver public engagement programming. These critical front-line voices are missing in the interpretation of how the public has access to maritime heritage and what the aims of this engagement are.
Through interviews with seventeen professionals who are delivering engagement initiatives and a broad literature review, this research examines seven themes: the current offer of engagement, the uniqueness of the maritime context, public perception of maritime heritage, the messages being delivered and the messengers delivering them, and how engagement helps create value.
The results suggest that the major barrier to public access to maritime heritage is the lack of capital knowledge of what maritime heritage is. Participants therefore aim to deliver small messages to change the preconceptions of the audience. The individuals working on engagement initiatives have developed a large toolkit to work with different audiences, reflected in the many ways of engagement on offer. Engagement is primarily based on creating fun targeted activities which will draw participants in using popular culture knowledge before delivering small messages to change their preconceptions. This engagement is both helped and hampered by the current competitive system of funding in England, which provides the needed finances to engage but has created a fragmented group of professionals and target requirements that do not always benefit all public stakeholder groups and heritage

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ORCID for Danielle Newman: orcid.org/0000-0003-3474-1715

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