Contexts for change: Paving the way to the 1999 Burra Charter

In this paper, I examine the context in which the proposed amendments to the Burra Charter took place and how in fact they reflected trends in heritage practice as it stood when the Burra Charter review started in 1994/95. In doing so, I will outline work within Indigenous heritage to involve community values and its influence on explorations into ‘social value’ for non-Indigenous heritage undertaken by the Australian Heritage Commission (AHC), and parallel initiatives by Australia ICOMOS. I suggest that in fact many threads came together, particularly in the AHC2 over a decade from late 1984.