Sen's capability approach applied to the identification of new heritage value: empirical study on the effects of flood control project

• Published in: Environmental economics and policy studies Vol. 8; no. 4; pp. 295 - 314
• Main Author: Kitabatake, Y
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.01.2007
• Subjects: Conservation; Cultural heritage; Environmental management; Environmental policy; Floods; Japan; National memory; Shintoism
• ISSN: 1432-847X
• DOI: 10.1007/s10018-007-0134-x

The effects of the flood control project of the Kakehashi River on the heritage value of Komatsu Tenmangu (a Shinto shrine) in Japan are analyzed in terms of Amartya Sen's capability approach. The shrine was founded in 1657, and its main buildings are nationally designated 'important cultural properties' such that its historical location is to be conserved by an embankment encircling the shrine. Qualitative and reflective exercises of the shrine's functionings revealed a new heritage value in which intangible cultural heritage of traditional ritual and currently forgotten memories of political thought were embodied in newly found tangible heritage such as the consistent positional patterns of the shrine buildings in relation to the winter solstice sunrise and to the 15-story stone tower. The article also clarifies the rationale for an adequate buffer zone around a historic place by explaining how the risk of external diseconomy inflicted on the shrine entity's capability was dealt with in a precautionary way. Reprinted by permission of Springer