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The integrity of heritage and landscape hinges on protection and restoration policies. Such policies are implemented through the determination of buffer zones that most of them are mainly based on the self-absorbed view, which isolates cultural sites from the community, instead of the more inclusive perception-based view. This study used perceptions as a base in identifying buffer zones in Anahita Temple, in comparison with previous study.

Accordingly, two parallel and qualitative methods were implemented. First, the site inventory approach was used to determine physical buffer zone, and then historical and temporal perceptions were used to determine a perception-based one. In addition, integrated buffer zone was defined based on two approaches. Finally, the participatory importance and performance analysis were proposed in order to conservation strategies formulation.

The results indicated that a physical buffer zone isolates the historical site from its landscape, thereby presenting challenges. By contrast, constructing a perception-based one not only maintains the integrity of the landscape but also creates correspondence between the landscape and people's mental map of the site.

Maintaining the site's integrity is expected to encourage participation from the local community and fuel more effective conservation efforts but it also introduces challenges given the need to impose new regulations.

Despite various studies on role of perception in Historical Landscape, less attention has been paid to the role of perception in definition of heritage buffer zone. Therefore, the main goal is to develop a framework to determine the buffer zone of heritage sites by providing a sample.

Cultural landscapes are no more considered only as territories of cultural interest but also as integrated systems of cultural, social, and economic values. The adjustment of this consideration with the modern paradigms of collective governance and management necessitates investigations on challenges of management of cultural landscapes for valorizing their resources toward sustainable development. In this framework, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the state of participatory governance and management in cultural landscapes, focusing on the case of Takht-e Soleyman World Heritage Site (WHS) in Iran.

The paper presents the results of a study based on a theoretical analysis, accompanied by in-depth interviews with the key actors in the cultural heritage governance and management sectors, and large-scale surveys of the local population through the circulation of questionnaires.

This paper debates the reasons behind and the way forward to make governance and management approaches consistent with international theories and national policies. The analysis focuses on rural cultural landscapes and accordingly the Takht-e Soleyman WHS is deeply investigated.

The policies for participatory governance and management of rural cultural landscapes have been raised in the literature. However, more attention has to be paid to the strategies and mechanisms based on local features for their implementation. The study detailed in this paper makes a contribution to the debate on the design and implementation of participatory governance and management systems in this field by examining the actual extent of successful implementation of theoretical values and national policies in the case of Takht-e Soleyman WHS.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a clear image of the information architecture used in the Encyclopedia of Iranian Architectural History (EIAH) and to show how it was crafted to meet the need for accessibility, expressiveness and interoperability.

In order to assess the level of interoperability in the system, two essential concepts of the system are identified and traced in every level of the three‐layer information architecture. Federated repositories are studied for the level of accessibility that they can offer. Knowledge representation level, mediator level and the semantic portal are studied for expressiveness capabilities.

EIAH information architecture is capable of establishing links among resources available in the information pools connected to the system by using EIAH metadata application profile (EMAP). Different modules in this architecture, which are localized for the Persian language, can work on similar environments for other languages, for example Arabic.

EIAH is the first example of a digital encyclopedia for the history of Iranian architecture, which is basically different from other digital encyclopedias in the way that it offers information to users. EIAH is aimed at domain experts and provides them not with pre‐written and quality articles but with a wide range of resources and documents relative to what they are seeking.

This chapter studies the social reproduction of the traditional heterosexual engagement ritual in which men propose marriage to women, even as many women now occupy positions of power, surpass men in educational attainment, and provide their own incomes. We draw from 37 semi-structured interviews with middle-class, heterosexual women in which they discussed their marriage proposals. We argue that three related types of socioeconomic incentives encourage women to participate in traditional proposals: (1) the social status of being chosen to marry, (2) the value of gifts, especially an engagement ring, which also reflects the fiancé’s implied taste, and (3) the proposal story itself as scrip for inclusion in heterosexual women’s social groups. By considering social factors that mediate relationships among women, we show that economic and status incentives are important explanations for the perpetuation of the traditional engagement ritual. Specifically, the middle-class, heterosexual women in our study exchange socioeconomic status in their female-centered reference groups for their participation in gender-normative relations with their male partners.