Identity-Based Sustainable Conservation Strategies in Rural Heritage Sites

ABSTRACT Rural heritage sites are shaped by traditional life routines, local production systems, and craft activities. Due to their local characteristics, the rural heritage sites have unique cultural, social, architectural, and economic values that shape the heritage site's identity. Identity and sustaining identity are essential topics of conservation discipline through the concepts of uniqueness and authenticity. In this context, sustainable and identity-oriented conservation strategies focusing on rural heritage areas come to the forefront. This study investigates the conservation strategies for rural heritage sites in terms of sustainability and identity. In order to produce a conservation strategy for a rural heritage site, it is necessary to analyze the place. Analyzes are the facts that guide the strategies. In this respect, it is crucial to decipher the analysis-strategy relationship in rural heritage preservation. This study produces a model on how to read the unique dynamics of a rural heritage area with an identity focus and decipher the analysis-strategy relationship. From this point, it identifies the analyses needed to understand the rural heritage site with an identity focus, examines the selected dissertations and projects through the analyses, and defines conservation strategies. Based on the data obtained, it interprets analyzes and strategies in relation.