Dr. Ayşegül Yılmaz is an independent researcher and practitioner in the area of heritage management holding a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning and Design from the University of Maryland at College Park.
Her research interests include heritage theory and management, conservation governance and policy, the World Heritage Convention, World Heritage Sites and their inclusive management, heritage interpretation, and cultural tourism, particularly cultural routes. As a heritage practitioner, Dr. Yılmaz is also interested in strategies that combine natural and cultural heritage conservation with socioeconomic development. Her research as a senior BIAA-ANAMED joint fellow will be based on ethnographic fieldwork she conducted earlier in a Turkish village (Kapıkırı) situated in the midst of the ruins of the ancient Greek/Roman settlement of Herakleia, on the northeastern shores of Lake Bafa, at the foot of Mount Latmos (Beşparmak) in southwestern Anatolia.
With the goal of turning her findings into publications, she will reassess the relationships between heritage management, tourism, and community development a decade later, providing first-hand “official” and “unofficial” accounts and insights concerning heritage management and community development in a rural context, based on interviews with relevant local officials and community members living in direct contact with archaeological heritage.