On October 17, 2025, NIT and METU will organize the one-day online symposium, Sustainable Futures for Rural Heritage: Opportunities and Threats in Türkiye and the Netherlands, as the kick-off event of the UHL 2025 Yazılıkaya Living Lab program.

Many rural areas in Türkiye and elsewhere are multi-layered cultural landscapes shaped by millennia of human activity, yet currently facing significant risks related to environmental pressures, uncontrolled resource exploitation, depopulation, and fragmented management. These pressures threaten not only monuments and traditional buildings, but also the intangible practices, local knowledge, and communities that sustain rural life.

Focusing on the so-called Phrygian Highlands and comparable rural regions, the symposium will investigate the ways in which material and immaterial heritage of rural environments can be activated as a resource for sustainable development. The symposium intends to bring together scholars and students from diverse backgrounds with an interest in exploring the potential and challenges of, among other topics, heritage-based tourism, agro-ecological economies, (re-)use of traditional buildings, and community-led cultural initiatives and place-based development. The symposium also addresses how to communicate the value of complex, multi-layered heritage landscapes to diverse publics—ranging from local residents to international visitors, and how to develop strategies that not only inform, but also engage and empower communities to become advocates of their heritage.

Please register for the event in advance here. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with details on how to join the meeting. You can download the program booklet here. 

SYMPOSIUM PROGRAM

10.00 – 10.15 | OPENING SPEECHES
Fokke Gerritsen, Netherlands Institute in Turkey (NIT)
Özgün Özçakır, Graduate Program in Conservation of Cultural Heritage - Middle East Technical University (METU)

10.15 – 11.15 | SESSION I
A WIDER PERSPECTIVE ON RURAL HERITAGE IN TÜRKİYE AND THE NETHERLANDS
Fragile Lands: Values, Challenges, and Sustainable Futures of Historic Rural Landscapes as
Multi-Layered Living Habitats
A. Güliz Bilgin Altınöz (METU)
A New Approach to Locally Rooted Rural Development in the Netherlands
Vita Teunissen (SteenhuisMeurs)

11.15 – 11.30 | Coffee Break

11.30 – 12.30 | SESSION II
KEY ISSUES IN TÜRKİYE AND THE NETHERLANDS
At the edge of development: Ecological fragility, grief, and heritage economies in Taurus landscapes
Güldem Baykal Büyüksaraç (Istanbul University)
A Holistic Conservation Approach to Rural Settlements Integrating Tangible and Intangible Cultural Heritage
Özlem Karakul (Selçuk University)

12.30 – 13.30 | Lunch Break

13.30 – 14.30 | SESSION III
REUSING AND ADAPTING RURAL HERITAGE IN TÜRKİYE AND THE NETHERLANDS
Preservation and repurposing of historic farmhouses (‘stolpen’) in the province of North-Holland
Sander van Alphen, Netherlands Institute in Turkey (NIT)
Historic Rural Landscapes as Resources for Climate-Resilient Futures in Türkiye: What the Cases Tell Us?
Emine Çiğdem Asrav (Bilkent University)

14.30 – 14.45 | Coffee Break

14.45 – 15.45 | SESSION IV
PHRYGIANS AND THE PHRYGIAN HIGHLANDS
Phrygia and the Phrygians
Gülşah Günata, Netherlands Institute in Turkey (NIT)
Archaeologist and pioneer of rural heritage: Emilie Haspels in the Phrygian Highlands (1937-1958)
Fokke Gerritsen, Netherlands Institute in Turkey (NIT)

15.45 – 16.00 | Concluding Remarks

Image: Allard Pierson - Universiteit van Amsterdam, collection Emilie Haspels.