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Systematic Review

Stakeholder Roles in the Participatory Management of Diasporic Built Heritage: A Systematic Literature Review

by
Yan Zhou
*,
Lidwine Spoormans
and
Ana Pereira Roders
Department of Architectural Engineering and Technology, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology, Julianalaan 134, 2628 BL Delft, The Netherlands
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Heritage 2026, 9(2), 74; https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage9020074
Submission received: 5 December 2025 / Revised: 20 January 2026 / Accepted: 28 January 2026 / Published: 13 February 2026
(This article belongs to the Special Issue A 360° View of Heritage Management)
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Abstract

Community participation is widely recognised as essential for sustainable heritage management. While international doctrines increasingly advocate participatory approaches, heritage management practices remain largely place-based and continue to prioritise territorially defined local communities. In the context of international migration and diaspora, such approaches inadequately address diasporic built heritage, whose cultural significance is conveyed by transnational diasporic communities across countries of origin and destination. Limited research has examined how diasporic communities negotiate their roles with other stakeholders in the participatory management of diasporic built heritage. This study presents a systematic literature review of 106 English-language publications, following the PRISMA guidelines, to examine how diasporic communities and other stakeholders participate in the management of diasporic built heritage. The analysis focuses on (1) mapping the geographic, institutional, and thematic patterns of current research, and (2) analysing stakeholder categories and cross-sector roles across origins and destinations. The results reveal a diverse, but uneven, geographic distribution of the case studies and institutions retrieved from English-language publications. A stakeholder framework is developed to bridge minority and mainstream (cross-sector) roles across origins and destinations, offering insights into the comprehensive understanding and identification of stakeholder roles for fostering further novel research on diasporic built heritage.

1. Introduction

Community participation is essential for sustainable heritage management. Participatory management encourages a wide range of stakeholders to be involved in the identification of heritage values, the development of conservation strategies, the execution of management actions, monitoring, evaluation, and feedback [1,2,3]. Various international doctrinal documents have advocated broad community participation in heritage management to reach consensus in heritage planning and policy-making [4,5,6,7,8]. Beyond a procedural element, participation is also a cultural process in which multiple stakeholders negotiate identities, and, under certain conditions, as a transformative practice that challenges the Authorised Heritage Discourse (AHD) [9,10].
Despite the continuing presence of international migration and diaspora [11,12], participatory heritage management in practice remains largely place-based and prioritises territorially defined local communities [13,14]. Transnational participatory management and governance engaging diasporic communities is less discussed. “Diasporic communities”, characterised by cross-border dispersion, homeland orientation, and community boundary maintenance, refer to the communities that share the same stance and struggles as “diaspora” [15]. They are frequently marginalised as “ex-territorial minorities”, a status that renders them more invisible than local minority groups within the mainstream AHD [9,16,17].
Theories of minority rights and transnational governance have provided a conceptual foundation for understanding participatory management of diasporic heritage. International multicultural frameworks have emphasised diasporic communities’ rights to maintain their cultural expressions [7,8]. Diasporic heritage can be included in a country’s “multicultural” narratives and become part of the “multicultural heritage” [16,18]. Transnational governance suggests engaging stakeholders and agencies across borders, since diasporic heritage is created by diasporic communities in their diasporic poles, i.e., countries of origin and destination [19]. This perspective further distinguishes “diasporic heritage” from “migrant heritage” and “multicultural heritage”. The latter are more unidirectional and destination-focused [16,18,20]. However, these theories do not systematically distinguish and compare the different stakeholders and their roles behind the concept of “diasporic heritage”, nor on how diasporic communities negotiate their roles with other stakeholders across diasporic poles in real practices [20,21].
Unlike intangible heritage or movable heritage, which can be readily performed or transported, the management of diasporic built heritage faces extra challenges, such as geographic distances in origins and assimilation in destinations [16]. Traditionally, built heritage refers to the tangible aspects of the man-made environment that convey cultural significance, such as archaeological heritage, historic buildings and monuments, architectural decorations and artefacts, historic towns and villages, cultural landscapes, building materials and techniques [22,23]. Recent heritage professionals have argued that the intangible community knowledge and value systems related to the man-made environment should also be included [24,25]. This study adopts this broad definition to conceptualise the built heritage practised by and belonging to diasporic communities as “diasporic built heritage”.
To bridge the gap in understanding the stakeholder and the dynamics of their roles in the participatory management of diasporic built heritage, this study is an English-language-literature-based systematic literature review, aiming to address the following research questions: (1) What are the geographic, institutional, and thematic focuses of current research? (2) What kinds of stakeholder roles, benefits, and challenges are discussed across diasporic poles and geographic contexts? This study reveals the current research trends and provides insights for future research directions and tools for analysing stakeholder roles in participatory management of diasporic built heritage.

2. Methodology

2.1. Publication Selection

This study follows the steps of a systematic literature review, according to the PRISMA guideline [26,27] (search date 15 November 2023, Figure 1). Two databases, Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus, were used as sources of publications. The literature search was based on three concept groups: diasporic communities, heritage, and participatory management, using the searchstring “(diaspor* OR oversea* OR migra*) AND heritage AND (conserv* OR manag* OR planning OR participat* OR engag* OR involv* OR project* OR practi*)”. The identified publications (WoS = 1392 and Scopus = 1853), mainly journal articles and book chapters, were filtered through an inclusion/exclusion process. While 280 screened publications focused on diasporic communities, heritage, and participatory management, only 106 publications were finally kept because they mentioned built heritage.

2.2. Process of Analysis

The selected publications were pre-coded and post-coded from several criteria to examine global research trends.
Pre-coding: (1) Diasporic poles: these codes refer to the mentioned locations of origins, destinations, or both in the cases, inspired by [19] (Supplementary File S1, Table S1). (2) Locations of diasporic built heritage: these codes refer to the locations of sites at both regional (Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania) and country levels, following the classification of the United Nations (UN) [28]. (3) Stakeholder roles involved were categorised into different sectors, respectively for origin and destinations. Current studies in heritage management [3,29,30], participatory planning [31], decision-making [32], collaborative governance [33], transition management [34], and tourism management [35] share common categories such as “public/governmental” and “private/nongovernmental”, and further subdivide private stakeholders into different categories based on research subjects, such as professional and NGOs. This study adapted the framework developed and tested by [3] (Supplementary File S1, Table S2), and listed diasporic communities as an independent stakeholder category to facilitate observation of their relationships with other stakeholders. (4) Individual and collective forms of agency were also distinguished based on the theory of community psychology [36]. (5) This study also defined two perspectives of stakeholder roles: “minority” and “mainstream”. From the “minority” perspective, diasporic communities are minorities within the society. Other external stakeholders from broader society were discussed with their own roles regarding diasporic built heritage management. From the “mainstream” perspective, diasporic communities’ roles can be extended through their cross-sector roles, which allow diasporic individuals to perform the roles as mainstream stakeholders (Table 1).
Post-coding: (6) Research institutions were identified based on the first authors’ affiliations, as the first author typically represents the primary institutional context and research leadership. (7) Top-occurring keywords were extracted, respectively, from publications of different diasporic poles using Atlas.ti. Stop words like linking verbs, pronouns, and prepositions were removed. Within the resulting keywords, those that appeared in more than 50% of the publications were excluded, thereby retaining research themes with greater distinctiveness. (8) Benefits/challenges of stakeholder roles were summarised from all stakeholder roles’ actions or conditions that had positive or negative impacts on participatory management of diasporic built heritage.
The analysis was conducted in two dimensions. (1) Diasporic poles and lines connecting origins and destinations were mapped to show diasporic flows. The locations of diasporic built heritage, the research institutions, and the top-occurring keywords were mapped to visualise global research patterns. (2) Stakeholders involved were analysed according to diasporic poles, “minority” and “mainstream” perspectives, and forms of agency. Frequencies of roles mentioned in the cases and the proportions of different roles’ occurrences among all cases were discussed. Geographic patterns of stakeholder roles were also investigated to further reveal regional context differences.

3. Results

3.1. Global Case Patterns

3.1.1. Diasporic Poles and Flows

The number of relevant publications rapidly increased in recent years. The highest number of publications occurred in 2021 and 2023. The retrieved publications reveal a diverse sample of diasporic poles and flows being researched in the English language. Participatory management is found on all five continents. Most of the referenced cases have origins in Asia (40.7%), followed by Africa (24.7%), Europe (22.2%), and the Americas (9.3%). Europe (34%) has the most destination countries mentioned, with diasporic communities from all five continents, followed by Asia (24.7%), the Americas (24.7), Oceania (10.5%), and Africa (5.6%) (Figure 2). Detailed mapping shows that Europe, Southeast and West Asia, and the Americas have relatively even numbers of origin and destination cases. Countries in Middle Asia and Oceania have more cases as destinations, while countries in Western and Central Africa have mainly origin cases. Notably, despite many diasporic poles being mentioned worldwide, only a few of them were actually researched as locations of diasporic built heritage, especially lacking research on sites in Middle America, Africa, and South Asia (Figure 3).
Most research focuses on single-pole case studies, with far more on destinations (n = 69) than origins (n = 29) and few publications covering both (n = 8) (Figure 2). Over half of the destinations (40/69) involve two or more diasporic communities originating from different countries. For example, the case of Hawaii’s Plantation Village involved 17 diasporic communities, although the scale of the site is comparably small [37]. Instead of conflicts, most studies of destination emphasised the narratives of collective memories or shared interests among different diasporic communities [37,38].
Although the single-pole attention was most common in past research, more recent research was found comparing the two poles, especially after 2022. Dilemmas in managing both origin and destination diasporic built heritage were discussed. Examples of these studies are those focused on the Chinese Deng clan community’s conservation of memorial sites crossing China mainland, Hong Kong, and Canada [39], and the heritage practice of the Guangze Zunwang cult in China and Southeast Asia [40].
The definition of diasporic poles is also influenced by the narratives of different diasporic communities, where diasporic built heritage practice becomes a way of cultivating and expressing community identities and belonging: (1) An ancestral homeland can become a destination. For example, Chinese Indonesians in China identify China as their destination where they desire to portray Indonesian culture in village tourism development [131]. (2) A transit country can be identified as an origin. This can be seen in the case that Brazil is a transit place of African-derived religions, and is regarded as a homeland by some African Americans, so they joined townscape festivals [132]. (3) Over generations, some diasporic communities might lose attachment to their homeland, instead taking the places of transit as their origins, exemplified by the Chinese in Indonesia [129].
Typical in origin cases, these bi-directional or multi-layered spatial narratives are often embedded within larger social stratification and power structures, and the building of these narratives could be at expenses of other groups, resulting in conflicts. For example, Ethiopian Jews who “returned” to Israel still faced social marginalisation by recreating “Little Ethiopia” within their neighbourhoods [110]. Another example is that the American tourists’ narrative of “black homeland heritage” creates discursive tensions with both local Candomblé women and antagonistic evangelicals [132].

3.1.2. Institutional Research Interests

Within the global research of participatory management of diasporic built heritage, knowledge production is unevenly distributed across research institutions, with many regions lacking locally based research outputs. Compared to the locations of diasporic built heritage, the research institutions focusing on this topic cover a narrower range, mainly from Europe (n = 44), the Americas (n = 21, mostly North America), Asia (n = 20, particularly in West and East Asia), and Oceania (n = 13) (Figure 4). While local research is the mainstream for European institutions, they also have the widest reach in the world. North American institutions have more attention in African locations, and there are bi-directional research interests between institutions in China and Southeast Asia. These distinctions may stem from not only the historical geographic connections of diasporic contexts, but also reflect contemporary academic migration and clustering of research teams.
Compared to the average geographic distribution of heritage participation cases reported by [2], the locations of diasporic built heritage examined in this review show a stronger concentration in Europe and North America. There is a notable lack of research in Africa, South America, and South Asia, which have been widely identified as the origins of many diasporic communities. There is also a lack of research by local institutions. The same lack applies to Central and West Asia as destinations, as well as South America as both origins and destinations (Figure 3 and Figure 4). These knowledge gaps may shape our understanding in potential quantity and quality of diasporic built heritage worldwide, while also reflecting the potential underrepresentation of case studies and research institutions in such regions compared to real-world practices.

3.1.3. Geographic Differences of Research Keywords

Geographic analysis of top-occurring keywords illustrates the influence of local contexts on research foci (Figure 5). Regional attentions are highlighted across diaspora types and participatory strategies.
For diaspora types, religious diaspora, represented by keywords “pilgrimage”, “Buddhism”, “synagogue”, are found commonly in Africa and Europe [96,108,110,134]. Slavery diaspora researched in African origins [108] also links to the “archaeological” heritage of the “black” and “labour” diaspora broadly studied in the Americas (e.g., [38,80,101,111,115]). In West Asia and North Africa, forced migration due to conflicts and wars is one of the major research themes, with more keywords related to “displacement” and “refugee” [41,72,92,95,98,137]. In the Oceanian context, more keywords are about migrant “mother” and “worker” [105,117].
Regarding participatory strategies, keywords such as “citizenship”, “stakeholders”, and “cohesion” are more commonly seen in European research contexts, which pay attention to democratic governance and social rights [75,107,118]. South America shows complexity in managing conflicts with keywords like “struggle”, “resistance”, “representative”, and “activist” [76,101,132]. African cases triggered discussions on “crisis” and “trip” related to black Americans’ ancestral tourism [108], while in the Americas, more attention is paid to the engagement of “neighbourhood”, “descendant(s)” in black “memorial” practices (e.g., [38,80,101,111,115]). Heritage keywords like “restoration” and “reconstruction” stand out in West Asian and North African cases, which often mention the intervention from “UNESCO” [41,72,92,95,98,137]. A greater focus on participatory management of intangible attributes in the built environment is mentioned by East Asian cases, such as “food”, “custom”, “deity”, and “cult” [40,59,127,129].
Moreover, practices of some diasporic groups are more popular in research, such as the Chinese emigrants to Asian countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam [58,84,113,125,127,133], the African Americans from Ghana [96,100,108,134], and the European refugees migrating to Australia [70,93,105,106]. These communities are associated with the origin sites, such as Kaiping Diaolou and villages in China [39,83] and slavery trade sites in Africa [96,134]. Destination sites are also mentioned, such as Chinatowns worldwide [143], and migrant camps and hostels in Australia [70,93,105,106].

3.2. Stakeholder Agency and Cross-Sector Roles

This section further analyses different categories of stakeholder roles, as well as the benefits and challenges. Starting from the “minority” perspective, stakeholders from diasporic communities to other public and private sectors are analysed individually to reveal each sector’s participation within the existing management structures. Then, diasporic communities’ “mainstream” (cross-sector) roles are found being commonly adopted in practice while often overlooked in research. These roles have enhanced diasporic communities’ agencies by undertaking responsibilities beyond their own sectors.

3.2.1. Diasporic Community as “Minority”

Stakeholders around diasporic built heritage are broken down into 13 sub-categories (Table 1). They come from supranational (international organisations), state/public (politicians, policy makers, officers), and private (professional/experts, diasporic community, broader society) backgrounds. Three types of diasporic communities include (1) diasporic individuals in destinations (e.g., [56,68,106]), (2) returned diasporic individuals in origins (e.g., [116,137,139]), and diasporic associations. The sub-categories of broader society include home society/previous settlers, host society, NGOs/CSOs, museums, businesses, and tourists.
The retrieved publications show that professional/experts’ participation in diasporic built heritage management is lower than the average of general cases [2] (Figure 6a,c). However, participation from professional/experts and diasporic communities has gradually received greater attention in the past ten years, while the role of the state/public sector is diminishing. Meanwhile, the growing prevalence of bottom-up practices has also expanded from mainly physical conservation of built heritage to include diverse aspects such as spatial uses and heritage interpretation engaging diasporic communities, which reflects a diachronic trend integrating heritage conservation with sustainable development, putting diasporic communities at the centre.
  • Participation in Origins
International organisations like UNESCO [47,83,95] and state/public stakeholders (e.g., [48,84,126]) are involved more frequently in origins than in destinations. Home society, who have similar cultural backgrounds as diasporic communities (e.g., [54,64,116]), contribute to the local conservation and usage of diasporic built heritage through collaboration with diasporic communities (e.g., [116,124,126]). Host society (mainly in collective form) is found participating transnationally to construct heritage narratives of origin sites, particularly in sites with slavery or religious backgrounds [52,108,126,134]. NGOs/CSOs and museums are collective local stakeholders, which also include transnational participation, such as international religious institutions [52,126]. Businesses (e.g., [87,124,136]) and tourists (e.g., [47,48,110]) are economic contributors to the origin’s heritage management.
Origin cases often involve remote participation from off-site diasporic individuals [48], as well as on-site participation from returned diasporic individuals [116,137]. Diasporic associations are the collective agency of diasporic communities, functioning as collaborative and representative structures to strengthen communication between the on-site and off-site diasporic individuals [139]. Diasporic associations also serve as community development organisers who hold conservation initiatives and join local planning initiatives (e.g., [52,116,124]). These associations can also be off-site, but the main duty is to manage homeland affairs like fundraising and ancestral tour organisation [40,87].
ii.
Participation in Destinations
Participation from the professional/experts and NGOs/CSOs and museums in destinations is slightly higher than that in origins, showing interests from broader societies (e.g., [60,89,97]).
Diasporic associations are comparatively more active in the destination (e.g., [49,70,107]). They build connections with public and private sectors (e.g., [55,99,123]). They collaborate with government, official heritage committees, and professionals (e.g., [38,68,97]), while negotiating conflicts as coordinators between official and private sectors in conservation and development planning [74,76]. They interpret heritage based on interests and provide platforms for participation, promotion, and education (e.g., [60,118,120]). For example, the naming, commemoration, and renovation of the Salvador Allende square in Barcelona, Spain, initiated by the Chilean Centro Cultural Salvador Allende, transformed the heritage into a national commemoration site with several layers of societal values [46].
However, the other stakeholder categories participate in fewer cases. Meanwhile, there are stronger regional variations shown in destinations, indicating that participatory management of diasporic built heritage in destinations can be easily influenced by geographic contexts, governance models, and social systems. For example, Oceania and Asia are characterised by higher proportions of state/public participation, while Europe and the Americas involve more professional/experts stakeholders. Asia has less participation from diasporic associations.

3.2.2. Cross-Sector Roles Enable Diasporic Individuals to Participate as “Mainstream”

Diasporic individuals are found undertaking 8 cross-sector roles out of the 13 stakeholder sub-categories (Table 1). Overall, more private individual cross-sector roles are found, instead of state/public collective channels (Figure 6b,c).
  • Cross-Sector Roles in Origins
A small number of cases show positive impacts when there are regulations supporting diasporic individuals’ political participation, becoming politicians and policy makers (e.g., [58,96,129]). Such roles help diasporic individuals maintain coalitions and cooperation with other public and professional stakeholders [137].
Diasporic individuals are more frequently undertaking roles as expert individuals, namely independent local historians or heritage experts [112,126]. With good command of heritage knowledge and community connections, they can promote heritage conservation by implementing new methods [64,137] and facilitating heritage education and cooperation [64,138]. For example, diasporic youth professionals were invited to conserve hometown villages in Albania, where they transferred their knowledge and strengthened the transnational social networks [64].
Diasporic businesses create collective finance networks contributing to investments through associations [39,129] or enterprises [86,87], where diasporic remittance or donation is a form of off-site participation.
Diasporic tourists rank significantly high in origin’s cross-sector roles (e.g., [110,129]). This belongs to an important research field, “roots/genealogy/ancestral tourism”. The reviewed cases of this study particularly focus on diasporic tourists’ contribution to built heritage conservation, thus they are not only consumers or donors [73,108], but also potential site managers (e.g., [40,47,85]). Tourism strengthens the sense of identity and social connections with the local people, so that it raises the willingness to participate (e.g., [45,112,136]). For example, the German Romanians’ nostalgia drew them back for temporary stays, and the community helped protect the built heritage. The repeated tours gradually led them to re-migrate and settle back in their origins. The old buildings, therefore, were better taken care of in the long term [139].
ii.
Cross-Sector Roles in Destinations
Diasporic individuals are sometimes elected as politicians, such as municipal party members, mayors, councillors, and official migrant committees (e.g., [46,93,114]). Through their cultural awareness and political positions, the listing and promotion of diasporic heritage gain higher efficiency [114]. Heritage initiatives can be regulated and institutionalised [46]. Take the Enterprise Migrant Hostel in Melbourne, Australia, as an example: the roles of those who have or have had governmental responsibilities were not limited to raising bottom-up heritage initiatives, but also communicating between local government and the civil society [93].
Diasporic individuals can serve as policy makers, such as policy advisers and commissioners, who are empowered to research and give recommendations to policy making. For example, black campaigners in London, UK’s African and Asian heritage preservation seminars strived for racial equality and cultural diversity through high empowerment [68].
Diasporic individuals can also serve as officers, such as governmental organisation workers, consultants, administration, or implementation officers [68,89,101]. These roles provide them opportunities to advocate heritage listing, fundraising, public awareness building, and close dialogue with governments [101,114]. For example, the Historic Jamestowne project committee in Virginia, US, involved diasporic individuals in developing local guidelines [89]. The conservation and listing of diasporic heritage can even be used as a political tool to challenge the existing racial inequalities, exemplified by the heritage promotions from black activists in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil [101].
Diasporic individuals who become professional/experts draw convenience in heritage management. Sometimes, the participants only accept researchers who have the same cultural background. Diasporic professionals, therefore, offer psychologically safer research [89].
Similarly, diasporic individuals in many cases serve as NGOs/CSOs and museum consultants or researchers, contributing to collective cultural or social goals (e.g., [46,76,93]). These organisational platforms involve diasporic individuals in institutional knowledge groups. They bridge communication and cooperation between public and private sectors (e.g., [89,107,125]). Conservation and education initiatives can be held with creativity (e.g., [107,109,125]). With the privileges and constraints from both scholarly and ethnic aspects, the access to different resources can be expanded [79] while maintaining neutral perspectives [55].
Importantly, a collective form of diasporic-initiated cultural organisations includes organisations such as diasporic museums or language schools. The co-founders of these organisations are mainly members of diasporic communities. They serve as active cultural networks for education, project initiatives, and participant recruitment, being able to decide and exhibit community-centred narratives and, at the same time, negotiate with the frameworks of AHD [41,70,111]. Diasporic museums continue to play important roles in reusing and telling stories of diasporic built heritage. For example, through bottom-up museumisation, the Colored Girls Museum in the US successfully made an everyday diasporic building into the heritage of the Black community. The museum solicited household artefacts and curated family stories, ensuring the diasporic individuals’ right both to conserve and to reinterpret their heritage [111].
As diasporic individuals can be assimilated into the host society over time, with recognition and constant collaboration with the authorities, diasporic newcomers can adapt more easily and be invited to current heritage initiatives through the introduction by the oldcomers. For example, Polish-born Ukrainian communities assisted the integration of new immigrants while encouraging them to participate in activities for heritage management [140].
Diasporic businesses are keepers and maintainers of heritage properties and festivities, both individually and collectively. Diaspora-owned businesses can enhance the social safety and sense of belonging of ethnic districts [115]. If the properties are well operated, the commercial gains and the economic values of heritage could also be maintained [59,71].
Diasporic individuals as tourists in destinations can be those who have expanded their living circles beyond the original ethnic enclaves. As tourists, they keep their routine needs and interests within the enclave centres [71]. Their consistent visiting puts pressure on local conservation and planning [62,71].

3.2.3. Challenges of Cross-Sector Participation

While not all cross-sector roles guarantee high empowerment in participation, cross-sector participation can be easily affected by conflicting agendas and weak capacities, which are discussed below.
  • Challenges in Origins
Cross-sector participation can lead to conflicts among stakeholders, preventing long-term engagement of all stakeholders. Some state/public cross-sector roles, such as diasporic political elites, might take control even over the home society, thus conservation fails to engage the opinions of the indigenous people [129,137]. For example, in the renovation of a mosque with Byzantine cathedral elements in Nablus, Palestine, the returned Palestinian elites argued to preserve the historical Christian elements for authenticity. However, this approach stirred up strong opposition from the local home community [137]. The same challenge applies to diasporic businesses and tourists who exclude local communities and gentrify the area. For example, Singkawang’s Chinese Indonesian businesses turned festivals into political shows and money-making events, causing issues like spatial occupation and high prices, which restricted the participation of local people [129].
Lack of community benefit affects the effectiveness of cross-sector participation. Diasporic businesses can be unsustainable if made use of by governments, but they gain nothing in return [37,126]. This becomes particularly typical since overseas investment is not mandatory [39].
ii.
Challenges in Destinations
Lack of capacity building for cross-sector roles is one of the main challenges in destinations [68,101,114]. For example, in the management of London’s heritage properties, diasporic individuals who are officers still undertook lower-grade jobs and had limited influence in decision-making processes, even though legislation had already required public bodies and authorities to fulfil the principle of racial equality [68].
Conflicting interest is the same challenge as origins to be solved. Diasporic individuals who have become part of the host society sometimes face conflicts with the newcomers. For example, early Ukrainian immigrants in Poland keep their traditional lifestyles and social identity, while the new Ukrainians prefer integration rather than claiming themselves as diaspora [140]. Profit-oriented diasporic businesses may overlook the conservation of the built environment advocated by planners and heritage professionals [59]. Competitions over individual diasporic enterprises raise the threat of branding monopoly, causing a loss of diversity and gentrification of the neighbourhoods (e.g., [39,71,115]). There are also conflicts between diasporic tourists and the host society about the use of heritage resources [71].
The recruitment of cross-sector diasporic members also depends on resources and mutual benefit for long-term management. If diasporic individuals cannot benefit while taking public roles, they may lower their willingness to participate [68].

4. Discussion and Conclusions

This study reviews existing English-language publications of participatory diasporic built heritage management and provides an overview of current research interests and the relevant stakeholder roles noticed by scholars. This study has three points of reflection.

4.1. Diverse and Uneven Research Focuses

The systematic collecting and screening of publications, and the mapping of geographic, institutional, and thematic patterns of current research, reveal a diverse but uneven distribution of knowledge production in current research about participatory management of diasporic built heritage. Heritage narratives formulated by cases and institutions in the Global North and destinations may fail to fully represent the diverse experiences of diasporic communities. Future research should incorporate more cases from underrepresented regions, cases of origins, and comparisons between diasporic poles.
The potential biases within the mainstream international scholarly publishing should also be acknowledged, which can be shaped by methodological choices of this study, including the selection of academic databases, search terms, and the exclusion of non-English publications. Future research would benefit from incorporating discussions across different languages and publication categories, as well as from experimenting with new data sources and tools to capture more “unseen” participation in diasporic built heritage management, such as social media and other informal data sources.
In addition to spatial patterns, participatory management is inevitably influenced by the paradigm shifts of heritage concepts in different historical periods. Therefore, the temporal patterns of diasporic built heritage management are also worth further investigation.

4.2. The Stakeholder Roles and Challenges in Participatory Diasporic Built Heritage Management

This study uses a dynamic stakeholder framework to analyse stakeholder roles. This framework aims to innovatively integrate transnational stakeholder networks that are relevant to diasporic built heritage in both origins and destinations, and challenge the place-based participation theories. The framework also allows identifying the minority and the mainstream (cross-sector) roles centring diasporic communities. The cross-sector roles serve as an essential political and institutional bridge for diasporic individuals to obtain rights through cross-sector networks, facilitating greater agency. This finding pushes stakeholder identification beyond simple ethnic or dichotomised definitions of diaspora as the “others” [7,55,114,119] and allows for the recognition of the “in-between” identities and responsibilities [141]. Additionally, this study discusses common challenges such as conflicts, capacity limitations, and resource dependence regarding cross-sector roles.
Since this systematic literature review only presents a small number of cases using the PRISMA guidelines compared to the overall global practices, the provided framework requires further testing and reflection by applying on other case studies related to diasporic heritage management. Meanwhile, the cultural and political differences among diasporic groups give rise to diverse governance models. Recognising these differences and comparing across cultural and political settings are therefore crucial to avoiding normative assumptions about participation and to understanding different diasporic contexts.
This study adapted existing stakeholder frameworks mainly for analytical purposes rather than theoretical synthesis. Future research requires greater engagement with multidisciplinary perspectives towards stakeholder role analysis.

4.3. Reflections on Stakeholder Agencies

By adopting the stakeholder framework, this study finds that collective agencies, such as diasporic associations, state/public sectors, NGOs/CSOs, and museums, allow more transnational actions, but they place greater emphasis on political and religious institutions, and frequently operate in one-directional rather than reciprocal ways [52,134]. Yet the collective cross-sector roles, such as diasporic museums, have been more successful in sustaining participatory management of diasporic built heritage [70,111]. It is necessary to explore more comprehensive multi-level governance models that collaborate and benefit across diasporic poles.
Diasporic individuals’ agencies embedded in the cross-sector roles are common and helpful, but these agencies are often limited to local and single-pole participation rather than transnational. Therefore, the level of transnational governance of each stakeholder sector highly influences an individual’s transnational impact. It is necessary to explore more open and proactive conditions to enhance diasporic individuals’ agency within the community as well as in the institutional roles for transnational governance.
The findings also point to a broader paradox of participatory heritage management. Although participation is often promoted as an inclusive and empowering approach, participatory heritage management can remain inherently selective, exclusionary, and difficult to have equal dialogue [144]. For example, diasporic associations, as collective agencies, might constitute a form of representative instead of inclusive [120,137]. Elite diasporic clan leaders might resist voices from individuals in the communities; thus, a diasporic community could suffer from a biased heritage discourse from the association, or excessively follow the discourse of its leaders (e.g., [69,104,140]). This study also finds that regardless of origins or destinations, and whether diasporic communities are marginalised or formally recognised, diasporic communities participating in transnational management often face tensions with the place-based local communities, which can be further intensified by the cross-sector roles, as well as legalisation [113,118,132,137]. In addition to limited successful cases [124], many cases tend to either legitimise or ignore diasporic built heritage in order to align with objectives such as city branding and tourism development. In doing so, cross-sector advantages and resource allocation may deepen power imbalances between diasporic and local communities, while simultaneously solidifying heritage narratives that are, by nature, plural and dynamic. Future research can continue to critically reflect on issues such as power relations, legitimacy, and the negotiation of heritage values within and between diasporic communities and other stakeholders.
In conclusion, this study approaches the participatory management of diasporic built heritage from the perspective of stakeholder roles, providing a knowledge basis of existing studies and an analytical framework for future research and practice. More broadly, this study also invites reflection on the politicisation of what is considered “local” or “national”, and the resulting forms of exclusion, reminding us that heritage management must be understood against longer histories of migration, cultural mixture, and politics.

Supplementary Materials

The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/heritage9020074/s1, Frameworks used/adapted by this study—Supplementary File S1. Articles used for this systematic literature review—Supplementary File S2.

Author Contributions

Y.Z.: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Visualization, Writing—original draft. L.S.: Supervision, Writing—review and editing. A.P.R.: Supervision, Writing—review and editing. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This work was supported by the China Scholarship Council [grant number 202306210072].

Data Availability Statement

The data is available in the Supplementary Materials.

Acknowledgments

The authors sincerely thank the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on this manuscript.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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Figure 1. PRISMA diagram detailing the number of eligible records in each step and exclusion criteria.
Figure 1. PRISMA diagram detailing the number of eligible records in each step and exclusion criteria.
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Figure 2. Sanky diagram of diasporic flow, and on which pole the diasporic built heritage is located among all reviewed cases [37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,101,102,103,104,105,106,107,108,109,110,111,112,113,114,115,116,117,118,119,120,121,122,123,124,125,126,127,128,129,130,131,132,133,134,135,136,137,138,139,140,141,142].
Figure 2. Sanky diagram of diasporic flow, and on which pole the diasporic built heritage is located among all reviewed cases [37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,101,102,103,104,105,106,107,108,109,110,111,112,113,114,115,116,117,118,119,120,121,122,123,124,125,126,127,128,129,130,131,132,133,134,135,136,137,138,139,140,141,142].
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Figure 3. The mapping of countries of origin, destination, diasporic flow, and the locations of diasporic built heritage.
Figure 3. The mapping of countries of origin, destination, diasporic flow, and the locations of diasporic built heritage.
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Figure 4. The mapping of locations of research institutions of the first author of each retrieved article and the locations of diasporic built heritage.
Figure 4. The mapping of locations of research institutions of the first author of each retrieved article and the locations of diasporic built heritage.
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Figure 5. The polarity-based word cloud mapping of distilled highest-frequency terms in their corresponding regions, with precision to geographic regions [28].
Figure 5. The polarity-based word cloud mapping of distilled highest-frequency terms in their corresponding regions, with precision to geographic regions [28].
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Figure 6. Frequencies of stakeholder sectors mentioned in the cases, along with the proportions of different stakeholders’ occurrences among all cases, comparing origins and destinations. (a) diasporic community as a minority; (b) diasporic individual’s mainstream (cross-sector) roles; (c) participation from each sector in origin and destination cases.
Figure 6. Frequencies of stakeholder sectors mentioned in the cases, along with the proportions of different stakeholders’ occurrences among all cases, comparing origins and destinations. (a) diasporic community as a minority; (b) diasporic individual’s mainstream (cross-sector) roles; (c) participation from each sector in origin and destination cases.
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Table 1. Stakeholder roles in diasporic heritage management, adapted from [3].
Table 1. Stakeholder roles in diasporic heritage management, adapted from [3].
Stakeholder Roles in Diasporic HeritageForm of AgencyOriginDestination
As MinorityAs Mainstream (Cross-Sector)As MinorityAs Mainstream (Cross-Sector)
■ SupranationalInternational organisations (e.g., UNESCO)Collective ○ ○
■ State/PublicPoliticians (e.g., elected political authorities)Collective ● ●
Policy makers (e.g., ministries, policy-making bodies)Collective ● ●
Officers (e.g., administrative, consultancy, or implementing agencies)Collective ● ●
■ Private—
Professional		Professional/experts (e.g., academia/practice)Individual/
collective		 ● ●
■ Private—
Diasporic Community		Diasporic individuals (in destination)Individual●-●-
Returned diasporic individuals (in origin)Individual●- -
Diasporic associations (e.g., clan/diasporic neighbourhood associations)Collective●-●-
■ Private—
Broader Society		Home society/previous settlers (rare)Individual/
collective		 ○ -
Host societyIndividual/
collective		 - ●
NGOs/CSOs and museums (e.g., social/religious/cultural organisations)Collective ● ●
BusinessesIndividual/
collective		 ● ●
Tourists (occasional users)Individual ● ●
● roles diasporic individuals can play; ○ roles not overlapping with diasporic individuals; ■ Supranational (International organisations); ■ State/Public (Politicians, Policy makers, Officers); ■ Private—Professional/experts; ■ Private—Diasporic Community (Diasporic individuals, Returned diasporic individuals, Diasporic associations); ■ Private—Broader Society (Home society/previous settlers, Host society, NGOs/CSOs and museums, Businesses, Tourists).
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Zhou, Y.; Spoormans, L.; Pereira Roders, A. Stakeholder Roles in the Participatory Management of Diasporic Built Heritage: A Systematic Literature Review. Heritage 2026, 9, 74. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage9020074

AMA Style

Zhou Y, Spoormans L, Pereira Roders A. Stakeholder Roles in the Participatory Management of Diasporic Built Heritage: A Systematic Literature Review. Heritage. 2026; 9(2):74. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage9020074

Chicago/Turabian Style

Zhou, Yan, Lidwine Spoormans, and Ana Pereira Roders. 2026. "Stakeholder Roles in the Participatory Management of Diasporic Built Heritage: A Systematic Literature Review" Heritage 9, no. 2: 74. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage9020074

APA Style

Zhou, Y., Spoormans, L., & Pereira Roders, A. (2026). Stakeholder Roles in the Participatory Management of Diasporic Built Heritage: A Systematic Literature Review. Heritage, 9(2), 74. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage9020074

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