A Theory of Cultural Heritage: Beyond The Intangible 9781032263953, 9781032263946, 9781003288121

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A THEORY OF CULTURAL HERITAGE

A Theory of Cultural Heritage provides a structured and comprehensive picture of the concept of cultural heritage (CH) and its theoretical and practical derivatives. Arguing that the expanded notion of CH brings with it a number of unresolved conceptual tensions, Muñoz-Viñas summarizes the strong and weak points of the current discourse. Gathering together a range of existing views on cultural heritage and its practices, the book provides a dynamic overview of the theoretical underpinnings behind the notion and also considers how these could evolve in the future. By analyzing the conflicting meanings of the term cultural heritage and establishing a more nuanced ontological taxonomy, this book challenges some well-established views and outlines a framework that will allow the reader to better grasp the theoretical and practical complexities of this fascinating notion. A Theory of Cultural Heritage is a thought-provoking and valuable contribution to the existing literature, written in an engaging, clear style that will make it accessible to academics, students and heritage professionals alike. Dr. Salvador Muñoz-Viñas is a professor at the Instituto de Restauración del Patrimonio of the Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain. He holds university degrees in Art History and Fine Arts. During his career he has lectured in different centers and universities such as ICCROM, the Sorbonne, the British Museum, Harvard University, the Reinwardt Academy, or NYU. His work on cultural heritage has been published in English, Spanish, Chinese, Persian and other major Western and non-Western languages.

A THEORY OF CULTURAL HERITAGE Beyond the Intangible

Salvador Muñoz-Viñas

Cover image: Image generated with the assistance of AI after a prompt by Salvador Muñoz-Viñas. First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Salvador Muñoz-Viñas The right of Salvador Muñoz-Viñas to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-26395-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-26394-6 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-28812-1 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003288121 Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC

To Emilia and Diodoro

CONTENTS

List of Figures x Forewordxi A note on the thought style of this book xiii A note on the meaning of the terms xiv Acronyms used throughout the book xvii PART I

Setting the background

1

1 How to not be axiological: A brief history of cultural heritage

3

1.1 Before heritage  3 1.2 The original CH discourse  6 1.3 The expanded CH discourse  13 1.4 Nature as culture  27 2 (Un)definitions of ICH

35

2.1 Introduction: the undefinition of ICH 35 2.2 Expanding ICH (1): ICH as culture 37 2.3 Expanding ICH (2): tangible CH as ICH 39 2.4 An “intellectual aberration”? 40 2.5 And yet 42 3 (Un)definitions of CH 3.1 Introduction 44 3.2 (Un)definitions of CH  44

44

viii Contents

3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6

Ontologies of CH  46 Plural ontologies  54 Theoretical nihilism  55 Panheritage 56

4 A note on CH practices 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5

61

Introduction 61 Listing 62 Research 62 Musealization 63 Conservation 64

PART II

Setting the limits

67

5 Westernness, colonialism, and CH

69

5.1 Hard colonialism (and CH)  69 5.2 Criticizing the original CHD  70 5.3 East-West 72 5.4 Western roots  73 5.5 A criticism of a universal CHD  75 5.6 Spotting Westernness: an exercise  77 5.7 Interval: a case study  79 5.8 CH is made the Western way  81 5.9 Westernness as a feature of CH  82 5.10 Coming to terms with Westernness  83 5.11 Some paradoxes and a solution  85 6 Elitism, authority, and CH 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5

The problem and the solutions  89 Avoiding elitism  90 Selection/exclusion as a trait of the CH discourse  92 Exerting authority  97 Wrapping up  109

7 CH, authenticity, and fabrication 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5

89

Ways to be authentic: the Nara document  114 Many authenticities  115 The tautological argument  116 Authenticity and TCH  118 A thought experiment: the Theseus parade  119

114

Contents  ix

7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9

Assessing authenticity  120 ICH as fabrication  121 Safeguarding as fabrication  123 Being and not being authentic  125

PART III

Notes for a theory of cultural heritage

129

8 The ontologies of cultural heritage

131

8.1 A need for better ontologies of ICH  131 8.2 A case study in the ontologies of cultural heritage: K.331 132 8.3 CH ontologies: physical ICH  134 8.4 Can a performance be inherited?  136 8.5 CH ontologies: metaphysical ICH  137 8.6 CH ontologies: mindsets and datasets  139 8.7 The epistemic horizons of mindsets and datasets  142 8.8 A four-ontology CH model  143 8.9 Entangled ontologies  146 8.10 Heritageness ascription is not homogeneous  150 8.11 Ontological misunderstandings: recreation  150 8.12 Ontological misunderstandings: phenomenological approaches  151 8.13 Tangible and intangible  152 8.14 A step forward: beyond the intangible  153 9 Notes for a theory of CH

159

9.1 Humpty-Dumptying heritage: CH is a set of items  159 9.2 CH can be passed down  161 9.3 Modes of being: a four-ontology CH model  161 9.4 Caring for heritage so that it can be inherited  163 9.5 CH items are selected  164 9.6 CH impacts the world  167 9.7 CH is implemented through practices  167 9.8 Westernness (I)  167 9.9 Westernness (II)  169 9.10 CH is based on authority  169 9.11 The role of the experts  170 9.12 Authenticity as expectation  172 9.13 Epilogue. What is CH, then?  173 Index176

FIGURES

8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 8.7

The four-ontology CH model. The classical two-ontology CH model. The one-ontology CH models. Tangible versus intangible CH ontologies. Stable versus dynamic CH ontologies. Physical versus metaphysical CH ontologies. Embodied versus disembodied CH ontologies.

144 145 145 148 148 149 149

FOREWORD

“. . . in a world where ancient places are disappearing almost as fast as they can be recorded there is little time to dwell on theory. (Denys Byrne)”

Already in 1903, interest in cultural heritage was described as a ‘cult’ by prominent art historian Alois Riegl. Almost a century later, in 1998, and according to British historian David Lowenthal, the cult had become so radicalized as to become a ‘crusade.’ Indeed, the notion of cultural heritage is nowadays very popular and widespread, both among heritage professionals and the general public. It has also become very broad: it may include paintings as well as literary masterpieces, a voodoo ritual, or nuclear waste. The fast expansion of the notion of cultural heritage to include such a wide spectrum of things has been dubbed “the Heritage Big Bang” and constitutes a very interesting and involved phenomenon. Arguably, it is the wish to free the notion from some of its perceived problems (elitism, colonialism, Eurocentrism, etc.) what has broadened the concept so much that it has become difficult to manage. Nowadays, it may be impossible to tell CH from non-CH: a category that encompasses military weapons, a computer program, the Parthenon, basket-making practices, and even natural ecosystems is undoubtedly difficult to grasp. Perhaps as a response to this essential ambiguity, some authors have suggested that there is no need for an accurate definition of the notion of cultural heritage or that such a definition is not even possible. However, if we attempt to reflect on CH in some depth, we need conceptual boundaries beyond the idea that CH is what we call CH. The essay deals with this and other important aspects of the CH discourse. However, it does not aspire to discuss every possible issue in cultural heritage theory. The primary aim of this essay is to make the notion of cultural heritage and

xii Foreword

some of its peripheral concepts more manageable. This is done by mapping this knowledge field in a moderately innovative way – a way that may help the reader better understand its evolution, its current stance, and perhaps its future development. Also, this book introduces some arguments and categories that might help the reader to fine-tune some widespread ideas. Since these categories allow us to handle a complex reality, they work as tools, even if conceptual in nature. Thus, one goal of this book is to provide readers with new tools for their toolboxes. Please note, however, that these new conceptual tools need not replace the old ones in every case. Furthermore, the book might perhaps be useful even to readers who choose to neither replace old tools nor add newer ones: these reflections could still help them keep the old tools clean and sharp. In other words, I would be glad if the arguments developed in this book were thought-provoking or interesting enough to make readers reconsider some well-established ideas, or even to elaborate or refine the arguments in defense of those ideas. València, October 2022

A NOTE ON THE THOUGHT STYLE OF THIS BOOK

To achieve the goals described in the Foreword, a deliberate effort has been made to compose a text that is as uncomplicated as possible – one that contains few Greek-based words, uncommon notions, or utterly ambiguous metaphors. Admittedly, there are some, but they have been used as sparingly as possible: the essay concentrates on presenting clear, understandable arguments and ideas. Experienced readers (those acquainted with the literature in the cultural heritage field) will find that the essay deviates from the prevailing thought style in some ways. For example, there are few detailed case studies that are worth this name – whenever possible, examples in a list have been used instead. The use of a Gedankenexperiment (a ‘thought experiment’) as an argumentative device is another case in point. Quoting authors from outside the field (e.g., philosophers or fiction writers) is yet another one. The book has also undergone a distillation process in order to produce an essay that is dense but hopefully easy to read: dense in ideas per page, not dense in that it is obscure or hard to interpret. For this reason, when I have found a phrase from an author that would express what I tried to mean in a clear, straightforward way, I have used her or his very words in my discourse with all due recognition. This is a form of acknowledging their authority, but the reader needs to be aware that this essay draws on the ideas and insight of other authors than those quoted here.

A NOTE ON THE MEANING OF THE TERMS

As Ahmad has noted, “the finer terminology of ‘heritage’ has not been streamlined or standardized, and thus no uniformity exists between countries.”1 Cultural heritage is not a notion that is easy to translate out of (or into) English, at least not when an exact synonym is sought. As in many other cases, the nuances and innuendos the term has in a language are easily lost in translation, while other ones are gained in turn. To assume that the notion of ‘heritage’ has an exact equivalence in all languages (and their corresponding worldviews) might be a mistake. Even if the basic idea of the same concept may be similar, some details are likely to be more or less different. The fact that these differences exist is in itself a gentle and somewhat humbling reminder that cultural concepts are created and constructed by each society. The nuances that the notion of cultural heritage possesses in a particular language can perhaps be fully grasped by its native speakers only, but a glimpse of the more significant differences is indeed within reach of the average scholar. I am a native Spanish speaker, and, as such, can grasp the subtleties implicit in the term patrimonio cultural, which is the most accurate Spanish translation of cultural heritage. In Spanish, however, patrimonio involves not just that which is inherited from the pater (the Latin word for ‘father’ from which patrimonio is formed) but also everything that someone possesses. Thus, my patrimonio involves not just that which I inherited from my parents (including customs, education, a set of values, etc.) but also the newly built house my wife and I purchased at the turn of the century and in which we now live. That house is also part of my patrimonio, though it would rarely be considered ‘heritage’ in English – rather, it would perhaps be called part of my ‘estate.’ Thus, there is a subtle difference in how a Spanish speaker and an English speaker perceive the seemingly equivalent notion. This nuance is more or less common to other Latin-derivative languages, such as French or Italian, and can influence how ‘heritage’ is understood, discussed, and approached by persons with

A note on the meaning of the terms  xv

different cultural backgrounds. And while the difference may be too subtle to be bothered with in many cases, it can produce some conceptual tension when trying to fine-tune the terms. Other languages bring their own set of nuances. Unfortunately, I can only attest to them in a mediated way; that is, through the testimonies and interpretations of other persons who, in turn, speak to me in any of the few languages I  can understand myself. The German notion of Denkmal is a case in point. It is often translated as ‘cultural heritage’ and as “monument” (though in some cases this notion of ‘monument’ can be stretched to cover even a modest piece of paper, as posited by Alois Riegl in his 1903 masterpiece Denkmalkultus2). When speaking to my German or Austrian acquaintances, however, they have not been able to find a precisely identical notion to English ‘cultural heritage.’ For them, Kulturerbe is more akin to ‘cultural heritage,’ but I cannot intuitively grasp the conceptual difference as, unfortunately, I do not speak German. I think, however, that in spite of these small subtle differences between languages, the reflections presented in this book can be understood by most readers with a Western cultural background. These differences (and my difficulties to grasp them) grow as the cultural environment gets more distant. For instance, when asked for the Chinese translation of ‘heritage,’ a learned Chinese colleague kindly sent an email showing intriguing uncertainties: Heritage is translated to 遗产, and 遗产 can be divided into 遗 and 产, 遗 means ① to leave ② to forsake ③ to hand down; 产 means ① to bear ② to produce ③ product ④ property. So from my point of view, when 遗 is combined with 产, it surely represents some physical property that somebody leaves down, and some other people inherit it.3 Another accomplished Chinese colleague, however, argued differently, showing that no standard translation of the term exists: 遗产 need not be inherited by someone else . . . we [Chinese speakers] generally use other words to describe the verb “inherit”, that is “繼承”. And the meaning of 遗产 for us is mainly related to physical property that somebody leaves down, although some times we also use it to describe immaterial spiritual fortune that somebody leaves down historically.4 The difficulty in translating the notion of ‘heritage’ to Chinese and to Asian cultures in general is confirmed by Min-Chin Chiang (2019:88), for whom there is a “divergence in meaning” between the Chinese notion of ‘heritage’ and not just the English notion but also the ‘Euro-American’ notions in general: While the English term ‘heritage’ suggests a strong personal linkage and a sense of rootedness, the Chinese translation “wenhua zichan” is more

xvi  A note on the meaning of the terms

connected to material quality and economic value. At the same time, the feature of ‘materiality’ contained in the use of “zichan” (assets) adds to the difficulty the public has in understanding what non-physical ‘cultural assets’ refer to.5 What I suggest in this brief note is that the notions of cultural heritage may vary across different languages or cultures. ‘Heritage’ may not be exactly the same as patrimonio, Erbe, or 遗产. In all cases, the reader needs to be aware that small conceptual gaps can arise when trying to adapt the English terminology beyond its original settings, and that the notion of ‘cultural heritage’ is neither universal nor superior to other related notions from different cultural backgrounds. This relativistic standpoint may help to understand not just the scope of the ‘cultural heritage’ discourse but also some of the ideas outlined in this book.

Notes 1 Ahmad, Y. (2006) ‘The scope and definitions of heritage: From tangible to intangible’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 12(3), pp. 292–300, p. 299. Available at: https:// doi.org/10.1080/13527250600604639. 2 Riegl, A. (1903) Der Moderne Denkmalkultus: Sein Wesen Und Seine Entstehung. Vienna: Braumüller. 3 Zou Feichi, personal communication, 16 January 2020. 4 Ya Chun Tang, personal communication, 21 October 2022. 5 Chiang, M.C. (2019) ‘Intangibility Re-Translated’, in N. Akagawa and L. Smith (eds.) Safeguarding Intangible Heritage. London: Routledge, pp. 84–101, p. 88.

ACRONYMS USED THROUGHOUT THE BOOK

AHD: authorized heritage discourse CH: cultural heritage CHD: cultural heritage discourse dCHD: discourse on CHD ICH: intangible cultural heritage ICOM: International Council of Museums ICOMOS: International Council of Monuments and Sites IIC: International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works NH: natural heritage PAR: participatory action research TCH: tangible cultural heritage UNESCO: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

PART I

Setting the background

1 HOW TO NOT BE AXIOLOGICAL A brief history of cultural heritage

1.1  Before heritage For a man cannot lose either the past or the future: for what a man has not, how can anyone take this from him? (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book II)

It is not clear how old cultural heritage (CH) is. Not the items that make for what we call cultural heritage but rather the notion of cultural heritage, the idea that a particular thing belongs to a special category that we call cultural heritage. Of course, this crucially depends on what we understand as cultural heritage. For instance, if we interpret CH to be a set of objects from a distant past that are appreciated by cultivated Europeans as especially valuable, then it is undeniable that CH has a long lineage, dating back to the Renaissance or even earlier. On the other hand, if CH is understood as a set of monuments and artistic objects which are of paramount importance as documents for historical sciences, then CH should be considered no more than two or three centuries old. If CH is understood as a set of objects that are valuable to historians, ethnographers, and anthropologists as symbols of any culture (which may be Western or non-Western), then CH is a more recent contraption. If CH is understood as cultural expressions of any kind, material or immaterial, from any culture around the world, CH should instead be considered only a few decades old. The first chapter of this book discusses how CH has evolved through different stages, each one having its own nuances.

1.1.1  Has CH existed forever? The relatively recently coined concept and practice of heritage . . . (Shanks 2012:12) DOI: 10.4324/9781003288121-2

4  Setting the background

In a text published in 2001, anthropologist David Harvey argues that “heritage has always been with us” (Harvey 2001:320). This view is very interesting, as it serves to highlight not just some features of cultural heritage, but also an important terminological problem that is relevant here. For what is to be understood as heritage in this phrase? In this phrase, and in many other contexts, the term heritage may have at least three different senses. Heritage may refer to anything that some people have inherited, be it a house, a genetic trait, or an education. On the other hand, in the academic literature, heritage is often used as shorthand for “cultural heritage.” In turn, cultural heritage may refer to the set of items that constitute what we call “cultural heritage”: paintings, rituals, buildings, archaeological sites, traditions, languages, movies, etc. If understood in this sense, it is almost a truism that every human group has produced its very own cultural heritage, obviously tailored to suit its varying social, cultural, or religious needs. On the other hand, cultural heritage might also refer to the very idea of cultural heritage, to the concept that serves to group together all the items that are recognized as cultural heritage. The concept of cultural heritage is arguably grounded on the recognition of a set of features that make some cultural products special enough to be thought of as belonging to a category of their own (that of cultural heritage): the features that make them distinct from non-CH items. While some of these items date back to even the dawn of humanity, the idea (or perhaps the belief, the intuition, the knowledge) that they are special in some way, the idea that they share some traits that make us consider them different from the rest of cultural products in some sense, is certainly not nearly as old. The notion that some cultural items qualify as members of the set of items we call cultural heritage – in contrast to other objects, which do not qualify as such – is a much more recent invention. A theory of CH is bound to be primarily concerned with this conceptual aspect of CH: it is bound to be concerned with what makes CH what it is. Of course, having a rough idea of which items belong to the category of CH is a requisite for analyzing the concept and finding some features common to all of them: the features that make for heritageness. The possibility of discovering the traits of CH will be discussed later in this book. Still, for now, we only need to bear in mind that when we speak of drafting the history of CH, we are referring to the history of the category itself and not to the history of the different items that we consider to be cultural heritage. For many scholars, the notion of CH is, at most, a few centuries old, and some would agree that it is only a few decades old. Whatever the age assigned to the notion, it did not appear out of nothing, nor did it appear all of a sudden. The special appreciation and the attached interest in collecting, researching, and preserving valuable things from the past (some things from the past), which arguably is a direct ancestor of CH, has a long history throughout the world. However, the notion of CH (CH as we know it) has a clearly Western lineage.

A brief history of cultural heritage  5

1.1.2  Before CH: the Renaissance and later Between the 16th century and the end of the Enlightenment, the study of antiquities evolved following a pattern that resembles that of natural sciences. (Choay 2007:61; my translation1)

The collection and care of rare, valuable objects is a common thread throughout human history. The intuitive appeal for old, rare objects has been called antiquarianism (Schnapp et al. 2013; Miller 2017) and, as Alain Schnapp (2013:4) posits, collectors and antiquarians existed throughout the Middle Ages. We know collectors were important in the Ancient Greek and Roman worlds. . . . And long before the Renaissance, the Roman republic, or Greek civilization, the civilizations of the ancient Near East had placed antiquarian culture at the heart of their preoccupations. Alessandro Pergoli Campanelli (2013), for example, situates Roman Senator Cassiodorus at the very origin of the idea of conservation, while Zeynep Aygen (2013:1) provides a beautiful example of a very early approach to what could be seen as heritage preservation: “No person within the town . . . shall unroof or dismantle any house without a decree of the senate, unless he shall intend to restore such house to its former condition. Any person acting in violation of this prohibition shall be liable to pay . . . a sum of money equivalent to the value of the said house.” This clause is part of conservation legislation issued . . . during the Roman Empire. It addressed the citizens of Tarentum, a former Greek federation colony in southern Italy. . . . Its citizens had to adopt Roman laws, dedicated partly to safeguarding the region’s built heritage. Lex Municipii Tarentini provides evidence for the existence of an early conservation management concept. The appeal for valuable things from other times can also be detected during the Middle Ages when Europe lived through several renascences, during which the appreciation for artistic achievements from the Classical past became especially noticeable (Panofsky 1969). However, the true Renaissance, the Renaissance that took place in what we now know as Italy around the XIV century, introduced a different stance. The intense fascination for the culture of Greece and Rome in their classical periods brought along with it the will to not just collect items from the past but also to know them as thoroughly as possible. In these times, a sincere feeling of admiration for the works from that brilliant past fostered an unprecedented attitude, one that can easily be interpreted as an early ancestor of our notion of cultural heritage: such a lineage can, for instance, be detected in the concept of ‘antiquities,’ for which a prefecture was created in Renaissance Rome

6  Setting the background

that was held, for example, by Raphael. This attitude led to a movement of appreciation, research, and care for old buildings and artworks, which has lasted until our times under different guises. These forms of antiquarianism evolved through Europe in the coming centuries, while their methods became more and more akin to those of sciences. Terms like archaeophilia or archaeographia became increasingly popular. Archaeologia is another of these terms, one that is still used to describe the science that studies the past through its material remnants. This increasing appeal of scientific inquiry rendered early antiquarianism out of fashion. As summarized by Peter Miller, “antiquarianism lost its intellectual prestige in the eighteenth century . . . . From that point on, antiquarianism and history went their separate ways” (Miller 2013:75). The notion of cultural heritage, with its attached appreciation for knowledge and research, was conceived in these times. The notion is, in a meaningful way, a product of the Enlightenment and was in fact heavily influenced by the prevalent Zeitgeist, with the attached faith in Reason as the sole purveyor of epistemic legitimacy. The nascent notion of cultural heritage was also influenced by faith in democratic and universal values. These values, which later gave way to positivism and the French Revolution, did shape the Sciences, but also the Arts and the modern Western culture at large. Perhaps, the earliest explicit incarnation of what we now know as cultural heritage dates back to a century earlier, to 1685, when Spon established the concept mentioned earlier of “archaeographia.” He defined archaeographia as “knowledge of the monuments through which the Ancients transmitted their religion, history, politics and other arts and sciences, and tried to pass them down to posterity” (Miller 2012:37). Spon thus made it explicit that some particular old things (“monuments”) were expected to be both known (i.e., researched) and passed down to the others. During the 18th century, this idea, which is one of the tenets of the contemporary Western CH ethos, became widespread. Michael Falser (2015:3) sets a pretty precise range of dates: for him, the concept “matured” between 1760 and 1830. Françoise Choay would set a later date, for she found the closely related notion of ‘historical monument’ to have been ‘consecrated’ between 1820 and 1960 (2007:113ff). However, discrepancies like these aside, there is a consensus that the notion of cultural heritage that has been prevalent in the Western world in the last centuries was “a child of the European Enlightenment” (Falser and Juneja 2013:1).

1.2  The original CH discourse 1.2.1  Paris 1792 Let’s inscribe on all the monuments and imprint in all the hearts this sentence: barbarians and slaves hate sciences and destroy the artistic monuments; free people appreciate and care for them. (Abbé Henri Grégoire, 1793; my translation2)

A brief history of cultural heritage  7

The creation of CH was, and perhaps still is, a slow process. However, if we were asked to mark a precise date and place for the birth of cultural heritage, Paris 1792 would be a very good candidate. This year some events took place in France that illustrate a shift in how some valuable things from the past were to be approached. In 1792, only three years after the French Revolution, France’s social and political scene remained unstable. Among many other things, the emerging authorities were unsure as to whether the rich artistic and monumental heritage of both the French noblemen and the Catholic Church should be destroyed or preserved. For many delegates in the newly created Assamblée, this heritage represented the ancient régime: the palaces, the sculptures, the paintings had all belonged to the noblemen or the Church and were seen as painful reminders of everything that the Revolution sought to leave behind. In the turmoil that followed the popular uprising in 1789, many of these symbols had in fact already been plundered, destroyed, or damaged. Even though some influential persons advocated for the protection of these works, on 14 August 1792, the Assemblée issued a decree that authorized their looting and destruction. Such a decree may seem shocking to our modern sensitivity, but, perhaps for this very reason, it is particularly telling of how differently the things that we now consider cultural heritage could be contemplated in a not-sodistant past. However, this story unfolds in an even more interesting way. Only one month later, on 16 September, the same Assemblée issued another decree, mandating that the chefs-s’ouvre des arts should be conserved. This decree may symbolize the starting point in the history of the concept of CH. In those turbulent times, Father Henri Grégoire played a crucial role in defending what we now know as cultural heritage. Grégoire was an influential figure who argued that artworks and monuments were valuable to all the citizens, both as a didactic resource and a source of knowledge. Despite the decree issued by the Assemblée, the destruction of churches, monuments, palaces, and libraries continued throughout France. On 14 Fructidor, 2 (what we would call 14 August 1973), Grégoire issued a report of the destruction of what he called propriété nationale, which in 1794 was followed by another two reports. The passionate and powerful rhetoric of Grégoire was instrumental in preventing vandalism (a notion coined by Grégoire himself) in post-revolutionary France. Interestingly, these reports introduced some ideas that were later taken for granted in many ensuing CH discourses. For instance, the very notion of ‘national heritage’ may be easily linked to the notion of propriété nationale as described by Grégoire: a set of objects belonging to a collective and not to its legal owners only; a set of objects that are useful and valuable for the whole society, and, in fact, for the entire humanity; a set of objects that represent the best a culture has to offer, and which thus can be used as a source of collective pride for that group and to represent the group in front of others and thus to reinforce its identity. These objects were also useful as a source for building the true history of a nation or society: they were therefore valuable because of their documentary value as well. Perhaps most importantly, the term refers to “un héritage national à préserver” (Boulad-Ayoub 2012:10), a set of objects deserving special care and protection, for it needs to be handed down to our descendants: “The

8  Setting the background

monuments must be protected because men are just the bearers of a property for which the bigger family can hold them to account” (Boulad-Ayoub 2012:11; my translation3). Thus, if we had to establish a precise date for the birth of the notion of cultural heritage, September  1792 would therefore be a good candidate – as well as 1793 or 1794, when Gregoire issued his reports, or even 1790, when Talleyrand submitted to the Assemblée a decree that was described as the “acte fondateur dune politique du patrimoine” (Boulad-Ayoub 2012:12). Needless to say, however, the development of a CH discourse was a slow process, taking many decades or even centuries, and which, furthermore, evolved at different speeds in different countries. Setting the birth date of the notion of cultural heritage must be understood as a narrative device reminding us that the notion of cultural heritage is not a given but a social construct that responds to some historical, social, and political circumstances. One of the most innovative traits of this newly born, or at least emerging, concept was that it was assumed to have a universal value. This was much in the spirit of the times, when the faith in Reason and its unquestionable universal validity pervaded society. The Arts were also seen as a representation of Reason and, as such, were thought to have universal value as well. The Western artistic canon, enshrined by the seminal work of Winckelmann, Die Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums (“History of the Art of Antiquity”), and Baumgarten’s creation of aesthetics as an independent field of inquiry, took place only decades before the French Revolution and can be seen as steps in this crucial process.

1.2.2  Heritage, science, and conservation The art of conservation, I know, is recent. (Boito 1893:12; my translation4)

During the 19th century, the innovative set of ideas outlined by the French Assemblée gained ground throughout Europe. Some of the practices that have characterized the CH discourse through to today were established in this period. Thus, the number of museums rose substantially around Europe and the Americas, as well as the lists identifying the items that were to be considered CH. Many laws protecting CH were issued, and a new CH professional, the conservator, gained increased recognition. Conservation had particular relevance, as the early CH discourse evolved and matured through the reflections of many conservation practitioners and thinkers. The first theoretical efforts regarding cultural heritage can be found in implicit or explicit form in the discourses of Pietro Edwards, Simon Horsin-Deon, Christian Koester, Georg Dehio, Gustavo Giovannoni, and other conservators. The evolution of this discourse shows that the objects of conservation and cultural heritage have remained substantially similar from the late 18th century until the second half of the 20th (Martínez Justicia et al. 2009, González Varas 1999, Conti 1988, Borrelli 2010, Ciatti 2009, etc.).

A brief history of cultural heritage  9

Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, the prominent architect in charge of conserving the rich French architectural patrimoine, noted how those old buildings were approached in an entirely different light from before: Our age, and only our age since the beginning of history, has adopted an unprecedented attitude towards the past. It has undertaken to analyze, to compare and to classify it, and to construct its true history, by following step by step the march, the progress, the evolution of humanity. (Viollet-le-Duc 1866:15; my translation5) This was published in the eighth volume of Viollet-le-Duc’s influential Dictionnaire raisonné de l’architecture française du XI e au XVI e siècle, when he had already reached his professional maturity and had become the leading scholar in French architecture. It is a most knowledgeable person who is telling us that in his times, the idea that the past could be an object of inquiry (of scientific inquiry) was so innovative, so étrange, that some people could see it as an infirmité: “Such a strange fact cannot be, as some superficial thinkers suppose, a mere fashion, a whim, a sickness, because the phenomenon is complex” (Viollet-le-Duc 1866:15; my translation; my emphasis6). This innovative approach to the past and its objects involved a detachment from contemporary observers. Cathedrals, libraries, sculptures, and the like acquired a special status that somehow removed them from everyday life’s vulgarities and constituted a mark of CH objects. Perhaps due to the sheer speed of historical changes taking place at the moment, it was easier to see the past as detached from the present, when Reason, egalité, or liberté were thought to have replaced superstition and oppression. Thus, the historical monuments, as well as the other objects that were part of what later was known as cultural heritage, were indeed seen, by definition or by design, as something from the past: from a time that was reckoned as different from that of the observer. As Alberto Humanes has summarized, “the monuments acquire their ‘historical’ character when a detachment takes place that makes it possible to look at the past as a time different from the present” (2009:269; my translation7). At least until the second half of the 20th century, the shaping of cultural heritage remained closely linked to the discourse on cultural heritage conservation. The development of both the notion of cultural heritage and the discipline of cultural heritage conservation happened together, as they were intimately intertwined. To a great extent, the discourse of cultural heritage was, for most of its history, substantially similar to that of the set of things that have been described as “objects of conservation” (Muñoz-Viñas 2003, 2005). The discourse of CH conservation provides a very rich testimony as to how cultural heritage was thought of at the moment, and how it was expected to be approached. Perhaps with the brilliant, isolated exception of Alois Riegl (whose early death prevented him from making any consequential impact in the field), the progression through Cavaceppi, Edwards, Ruskin, Viollet-le-Duc, Boito, or Dehio is that of a discipline moving toward an increasingly scientific stance. Under this light, cultural heritage was seen

10  Setting the background

as something alien to the observer, as something from a different setting, distant in time or space, which had to be scientifically analyzed and understood. Viollet-leDuc had compared his contemporary approach to CH to that of the anatomical or geological studies of Cuvier (1866:15), and in the eyes of Camillo Boito, this approach was similar to paleontology (Boito 1893:32). CH objects were increasingly approached as if they were scientific specimens: as documents providing information to historians, archaeologists, and ethnographers. The objects that made for CH in these times thus acquired a special status – a status that led them to be contemplated in a particular way for which there were few precedents: they were to be seen (and thus cared for) as especially valuable not just because of their exceptional technical or artistic value or their usefulness as national or cultural symbols, but also because of their value as historical evidence. The advent of hard scientific conservation methods, which flourished around the central decades of the 20th century, emphasized the value of CH objects as historical or archeological evidence and represented the culmination of a process of materialization of cultural heritage. Since cultural heritage objects had primarily become historical documents from the past, they had to be scrutinized through the best available means for the task, which for many people in those times were the means provided by hard, natural sciences: chemistry, physics, and biology. These were seen as producing objective findings of universal validity, free from the biases and uncertainties involved in human sciences, and therefore preferable to them. From the standpoint of these sciences, an object of heritage was to be seen as an assembly of materials that would behave, age, and react according to the very same universal laws governing the natural world. As an art historian and a conservation scientist wrote in a well-known British journal, “subjective considerations [tend] to obscure facts, upon which alone fruitful discussion can be based” (MacLaren and Werner 1950:189). This is how cultural heritage was thought of between the second half of the 19th century and at least until the second half of the 20th century: as a set of historical documents that were to be scientifically contemplated, researched, and conserved. Under the influx of the natural sciences, cultural heritage became increasingly shaped and informed by the scientific discourse. The universal reach of its findings, which was already assumed in the reports of Grégoire, was guaranteed by the presumed inherent objectivity of science, or, in other words, by its essential independence from researchers’ tastes or preferences: after all, an atom, the laws governing the diffusion of a liquid through a porous structure, or the chemical composition of discoloring chromophore groups are the same regardless of the taste or nationality of the researcher or the place where the phenomenon is observed. As it now seems evident, things were not – are not – that simple. As it turns out, CH objects have in many cases an important emotional or social component: an artwork, a religious sculpture, a national monument, etc., all have subjective values and fulfill intangible functions. However, this realization would take a few decades to become truly widespread, as will be discussed later. In the meanwhile, a new kind of actor entered the heritage field, an actor that would gain an increasingly important role in the shaping and elaboration of the CH discourse: the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, also known as

A brief history of cultural heritage  11

UNESCO. This has been a very distinctive feature of the heritage field in the last 50 years: the CH discourse, which had previously been elaborated by conservators, art historians, philosophers, and other scholars, came to be noticeably influenced by an international organism in which agreements and conclusions are reached through voting and are thus heavily influenced by political interests. In a way, it is only natural that an organism like UNESCO would play such an important role: since the social role of heritage was getting increasingly recognized, the representatives of the social bodies could be expected to become increasingly relevant. It could be argued, in fact, that one of the most important contributions toward the widespread recognition that cultural heritage exists and is worthy of special care was UNESCO’s “Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage.”

1.2.3  Paris 1972 The deterioration or disappearance of any item of the cultural or natural heritage constitutes a harmful impoverishment of the heritage of all the nations of the world. (UNESCO 1972:Preamble)

The Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage was adopted in Paris in November 1972. The 1972 Convention marks the end of a cultural process that had begun around 200 years earlier and the global consecration of the term cultural heritage itself. The Paris 1972 Convention also consecrated the core beliefs that had fueled the debates in the French Assemblée gathered in Paris in 1792 and that were later refined, distilled, and fostered by so many theorists and practitioners. There is an almost uncanny resemblance between the discourse elaborated in Paris, 1792, and that of Paris, 1972. In a way, they are both the same discourse in more or less mature versions. The shared appeal to universal scientific or artistic values as the fundamental notion behind the rationale hints that the discourses of Paris 1792 and Paris 1972 are the same at their core. Grégoire, along with the members of the Assemblée, were convinced of “the civilizing mission of France, the fatherland of freedom” and assumed the duty to “expand the policies of conservation and improvement of the national heritage to the policies of conservation and improvement of the cultural heritage of the world” (Boulad-Ayoub 2012:32; my translation8). The 1972 Convention is also based on the assumption that some “monuments”, “groups of buildings,” and “sites” exist that have universal value. Thus, whilst fully respecting the sovereignty of the States on whose territory the cultural and natural heritage . . . is situated . . . the States Parties to this Convention recognize that such heritage constitutes a world heritage for whose protection it is the duty of the international community as a whole to co-operate. (UNESCO 1972:§6.1)

12  Setting the background

The Enlightened roots of the 1972 Convention are also evident in the mandate that the values of CH items be ascertained “from the historical, aesthetic, ethnological or anthropological point of view” or “from the point of view of history, art or science” (UNESCO 1972:§1). The reports by Grégoire and the UNESCO 1972 Convention – as well as the reflections of Viollet-le-Duc, Dehio, Giovannoni, Torres Balbás, and so many others – share a common, inherently Western, Enlightened pedigree, with its deeply rooted belief that universal cultural values can and do exist. However, this is not the only evidence of the common provenance of these discourses. At a popular level, the 1972 Convention is best known for having established the “World Heritage List,” a selection of the items of “outstanding universal value.” This initiative was, and still is, a resounding success, and it has contributed in many ways to the preservation and dissemination of many extraordinary monuments and sites throughout the world. It is also a prominent example of some of the practices that derive from the CH discourse: the making of lists. This practice was already present in the 1792 reports, when Grégoire stressed the need to make official inventaires, and has been present ever since. In essence, a CH list marks which items are to be considered CH and segregates them from those not included in the list. A list of CH objects has consequences for its components, the most immediate being that they are to be cared for in a special way. As the CH objects in the list are designated as holding special “artistic,” “historical,” or “scientific” values, they must be cared for so that those values are not compromised. In the CH discourse, this practice is nowadays called “conservation,” “restauration,” “restauración,” “restauro,” “restauração,” or “Restaurierung” in different Western languages. Another consequence of being in a list is that the CH objects are no longer seen as strictly private property but instead are, in some important sense, shared by society at large. The conservation of these ‘monuments’ is therefore a social duty, another common ideological tenet of the 1792 reports and 1972 Convention – and of the many reflections issued in between. Ultimately, all of these are versions of the same core ideology, an ideology that began to take form in Europe in the second half of the 18th century and that kept maturing for two centuries, an ideology that brought many innovative (“unprecedented”) beliefs to the Western world: the belief that some special objects (the items CH consists of) could, or should, be distinguished from other non-special ones, the belief that these special objects were bestowed with social or ideological relevance, the belief that they should be cared for in a particular way, different from how they had traditionally been cared for. The 1792–1972 CH discourse could be referred to in various ways: the “early CH discourse” or the “Enlightened CH discourse,” for instance, or simply, the “original CH discourse.” As the items it refers to are all made of matter, it could also be called the “material CH discourse.” However, from a theoretical point of view, it is also interesting to focus on the process of CH designation: on how one can tell the CH objects from the non-CH objects. As it turns out, this (original, material, Enlightened) CH discourse posits that the designation of the CH items is based on an assessment of their value. As the 1972 Convention explicitly

A brief history of cultural heritage  13

establishes, only the items of “outstanding” value can enter the UNESCO CH List. Furthermore, this value is to be judged “from the point of view of history, art or science.” This CH discourse is thus grounded on value assessments: it is therefore an inherently axiological discourse. According to this axiological CH discourse, the items that make for CH are selected because of the value they have for Art, History, or Science – which in practice means the value they have for historians, art historians, archeologists, or scientists.

1.3  The expanded CH discourse 1.3.1  Non-axiological CH The breadth of the anthropological definition of culture adds further difficulties as almost all aspects of human behavior can be claimed as part of one’s ‘culture.’ (Logan 2008:446)

Just as the Enlightenment and positivism shaped an intellectual landscape in Europe, the second half of the 20th century witnessed the emergence of a different Zeitgeist. A group of brilliant, if often obscure, thinkers sought to analyze the less evident traits implicit in any culture, and particularly in the Western culture. Umberto Eco, Michel Foucault, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Pierre Bourdieu, and other theorists afforded the analysis and deconstruction of the prevailing positivist episteme. In 1979, François Lyotard published a brief report on the state of culture and societies on behalf of UNESCO that would make a significant impact. Titled La condition postmoderne, this text forwarded the notion that the ideals propagated since the Enlightenment were becoming obsolete: according to Lyotard, the Enlightened “modern program,” based on the rule of Reason, was declining, replaced by a new ideological framework that he called “post-modernity.” The report by Lyotard suggested that the ideals fostered by the Enlightenment (equality, universal values, objective science, etc.) were being consciously or unconsciously abandoned. In some important regard, Lyotard had it right. At the time, the arbitrariness of many previously unquestionable notions was becoming more and more evident to more people. For instance, it was realized that, regardless of their relative merits, the European cultural values that were assumed to be universal were instead as biased as those of any other culture. This had significant consequences in many fields, including the CH field. Here, the selection of “historic and artistic works” that were designated as possessing special value was found to respond to a given worldview, thus emphasizing a specific type of achievements and historical traditions while concealing others. For example, a luxurious burial palace such as the Taj Mahal, made by a wealthy, powerful king for one of his wives, could be readily acknowledged as CH; however, a cemetery with thousands of humbly decorated tombs of ordinary people was unlikely to be considered CH, despite its being far

14  Setting the background

more representative of the culture prevailing among a vast majority of the people in a given place and time. Designating the luxurious, gigantic tomb made for a rich, empowered person as culturally valuable while disregarding the graves of common people responds to a particular historical and aesthetic canon, a canon that, among other things, tends to favor the tastes of a few (empowered, cultivated) persons over those of the ordinary people. Indeed, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the criteria by which something was to be considered cultural heritage were eminently based on the classical European, or Western if so preferred, cultural canon developed from the 18th and 19th centuries. As posited in the 1972 Convention, the designation of something as cultural heritage was based on the scientific, historical, or artistic value assigned to it. Thus, the adjective “cultural” in cultural heritage was unavoidably used in an axiological sense. According to this view, cultural heritage is a set of things selected through the assessment of some of their relative values. Cultural heritage was therefore composed of especially valuable buildings, especially valuable sculptures, especially valuable sites, etc. In practice, a vast majority of the value assessments involved in this concept were made by the people who better knew the field: knowledgeable Western, or Western-trained, experts with a sound knowledge of the Western cultural framework that had given rise to the notion of cultural heritage in the first place. The term cultural heritage thus came to include mainly objects that were a part of the Western cultural canon. Because of the assumed claims of objectivity and universality that underlay Western, Reason-based, scientific culture fostered by the Enlightenment, the notion that the European culture was not inherently superior to others probably came as a bitter realization. In the cultural heritage field, it meant that the previous efforts to spread the European canon were no longer seen as a generous “civilizing” effort, as first suggested by Grégoire, but as another form of colonialism: a cultural colonialism often imposed through the use of brute force, but also of what has been called “epistemic violence” (see, e.g., Castro-Gómez and Martin 2002; ToliaKelly 2017:33; Caswell and Ciphor 2020:160). In the final decades of the 20th century, that was just not acceptable. A  more neutral, presumedly non-colonial and egalitarian attitude was thus fostered: an attitude that would not require value judgments that, regardless of the honesty of the judges, were bound to be biased; an attitude according to which no particular culture or cultural expression should be considered more valuable than any other; an attitude that would give no excuse for imposing any cultural canon on anyone. In other words, the world was ready for a new, non-axiological version of CH.

1.3.2  Cultivated and popular cultures In the schools, the ‘cultural’ values which the educational system tries to inculcate are not those of the majority of the pupils or of their social background. (Taylor 1978:32)

A brief history of cultural heritage  15

The decades after the Second World War witnessed a number of economic, political, social, military, and cultural events. While the more obvious aspects of this state of affairs were evident to any well-informed person, philosophers and intellectuals also developed interesting reflections on this phenomenon. The political and cultural analysis of thinkers like Susan Sontag, Noam Chomsky, and François Baudrillard, among others, exposed, or at least revealed, the hidden cultural mechanisms that allow a society (usually, a Western capitalist society) to work as such. As it turned out, Western society was (and indeed still is) founded on subtle or not-so-subtle power struggles and systems of rule enforcement. Such power struggles took place in the political, technological, and economic areas, but also in the cultural arena. In his classic work La distinction. Critique social du jugement, published in 1979, Pierre Bourdieu (1979) showed how the notions of good and bad taste were constructed through several mechanisms and how, in the end, having a particular kind of taste serves to gain cultural prestige, which ultimately is a form of social power. In The Art, an Enemy of the People, published in 1978, Roger Taylor had already suggested that not just the appreciation of art but even the very notion of Art is a cultural construct that serves to discriminate the upper from the lower classes, while Władysław Tatarkiewicz’s History of Six Ideas (1980) highlighted the contingent nature of some of the core tenets of Western culture – and thus of its derivatives, such as CH. In summary, in the decades of 1970 and 1980, the realization that the more sophisticated forms of culture – the “cultura circunscrita” (Bueno 1996), the “hi-brow culture” (Eco 1964) – are not objectively or inherently superior to other forms of culture, such as the popular or “low-brow” culture, became increasingly widespread at many different levels. In a way, it could be said that, at least in the academic world, the classical and exclusive views of culture (culture as what Roger Scruton (2000) would perhaps call “cultivated culture”) became less and less appealing, instead being replaced by a less axiological concept of culture. In other words, the “cultivated culture” was slowly taken over by a nonjudgmental, anthropological notion of culture. In this context, cultivated culture consists of a restricted set of cultural expressions, a set that includes only the expressions that the cultural authorities have deemed as the paramount examples of cultural excellence, the most extraordinary accomplishments a culture has produced in the cultural arena. Quite often, this includes, for example, artistic expressions, scientific achievements, and grandiose buildings. Thus, in the Western world, knowing that the Mona Lisa is a portrait painted by Leonardo da Vinci is part of a non-written, Western cultural canon. A person unaware of this historical fact would place him- or herself outside the canon and would be deprived of a great deal of cultural authority in most Western settings. The Mona Lisa is, of course, a very well-known example, so it serves to discern only those who are very detached from what is considered the most basic ‘cultivated culture.’ It could be said that one needs not be very cultivated to know the Mona Lisa. Similarly, a popular song such as the Spice Girls’ “If You Wanna Be

16  Setting the background

My Lover” is not considered to be very ‘cultivated’ – which is a way to say that it may not be much liked by those who have made an effort to explore the more sophisticated musical expressions. Shostakovich’s Fugue in A major from the Preludes and Fugues Op.87 is probably a better example of ‘cultivated culture’ to these knowledgeable people. Indeed, it required a great deal of musical knowledge on the side of Shostakovich (who in fact seems to have composed it as an exercise in musical harmony after Bach’s The Well-Tempered Klavier) and on the side of the listener, who needs to be acquainted with the conventions of Western classical music to appreciate this work to the full. Ultimately, however, whether Shostakovich’s Fugue in A major is better or has greater artistic value than the Spice Girls’ hit is a matter of choice. It may be argued that the Spice Girls’ piece is probably more representative of the culture (in the anthropological sense of the term) in which it became such a musical success, while, on the other hand, Shostakovich is perhaps a better example of the more sophisticated music that only trained, ‘cultivated’ listeners can fully enjoy: these would possibly argue that the fugue is of higher quality. However, is there any essential, objective feature making it inherently better? The answer is “no.” This realization is almost painfully evident in George Dickie’s essay The Art Circle (1984), in which its author renounces theorizing on the notion of art, suggesting instead that art is what a group of empowered persons call art. In summary, deciding whether some cultural expression qualifies as art or not is not based on any external or scientifically ascertainable feature of the item under scrutiny but rather a matter of taste, even if of cultivated taste. This line of reasoning was extended to the analysis of the original, Enlightened version of CH, which, as outlined in the preceding sections, maintained that CH consists of the most valuable artistic and historic material expressions. And as the conventional nature of CH became more and more evident, the fact that those value judgments were mainly done by a reduced group of experts put the whole Enlightened CH discourse under suspicion: the aesthetic or cultural judgments involved in CH designation were seen as serving an elitist agenda; as reinforcing the social and political status quo; as supporting the idea that the culture of the empowered classes is superior to that of the lower classes; as connotating that the higher classes are superior not just in an economic sense but also in an intellectual sense – and perhaps hinting that both facts are related. Furthermore, from a transcultural standpoint, the Enlightened notion of CH implied that Western culture was superior to other cultures, and therefore there might be a justification for more or less patronizing (read colonial) policies.

1.3.3 Shaping a non-axiological discourse (I): all cultures are created equal There is no common standard for measuring both the economic and aesthetic values of an art work. One cannot subtract its functionality from, say, the importance of it serving as an historical document. (Van de Vall 1999:197)

A brief history of cultural heritage  17

In the last decades of the 20th century, the original Enlightened version of CH came under intense crossfire from both inside and outside the field of expertise. The in-house criticism came from the intellectuals, scholars, and CH professionals who realized the axiological, and thus inherently biased, nature of the notion of cultural heritage. The external criticism took place through the claims from non-Western countries and communities that the notion of CH was applied in a way that was unfair, and often detrimental, to their own cultural expressions. Both criticisms led to the construction and dissemination of a different notion of CH. In a nutshell, the new CH would avoid the problems of the classical version by simply renouncing to make value judgments: a new non-axiological version of CH took over. The theoretical framework for a non-axiological version of CH was not difficult to develop as it was underpinned by an already existing non-axiological notion of culture: culture not as ‘cultivated culture’ but as the set of rules and beliefs shared by the members of a group; that is, the type of culture that ethnographers and anthropologists had been studying for so long. The latest trends in the field were in fact heavily influenced by structuralism, an (admittedly diffuse) line of thought that aims at understanding the objects of inquiry as elements of a system and not at carefully studying each object, or its parts and components, in isolation. The model after which structuralism was created was that of linguistics. Swiss thinker Ferdinand de Saussure is said to have pushed forward this view after realizing that the signs in a language are not just defined by what they inherently mean but also by what they do not mean; in other words, the meaning of a term is not defined by itself alone, but by its standing in opposition to other terms within the language. Each system (each language, each structure) has its own set of elements and opposing elements, and studying their role in the system may be very revealing to better understand how it works. A case in point is the meaning of the terms by which “heritage” is translated in the different languages (briefly discussed elsewhere in this book): Denkmal, heritage, patrimoine, patrimonio – not to mention, for example, the Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean equivalents. The precise meaning of each term, with all its subtleties, innuendos, and nuances, can only be fully understood by knowing the system. Therefore, none of these notions can be said to be superior (more complete, more precise, more valid) to any other: they are just different, and it is just not sensible, or even feasible, to make any value judgment regarding each term: they all make sense within their systems. This argument can also be extended to many other cultural constructs and to cultures at large. The consequence is that no fair comparative value judgments can be made between two different cultures. All of them are autonomous systems, and no one can be rightfully considered superior to another. This non-axiological attitude, so crucial to this discourse, was very efficiently summarized in the World Conference on Cultural Policies that UNESCO organized in 1982 in Mexico DF: The conference was unanimous in recognizing and reaffirming with conviction and force the equal dignity of all cultures, rejecting any hierarchy in that area, since nothing could justify discrimination as between ‘superior cultures

18  Setting the background

and inferior cultures.’ . . . It therefore reaffirmed the duty of each to respect all cultures. (UNESCO 1982:§33) Anthropologists, especially in the second half of the 20th century, had already learned to avoid cultural bias, or rather to consciously aim at avoiding it. This non-axiological view of a culture is very useful when it comes to abandoning the cultural bias inherent in the earlier, Western-rooted version of CH and permeates the whole of post-axiological CH discourse. The 1982 document explicitly put in opposition the two meanings of the term culture: the ‘cultivated,’ axiological (‘restricted’) sense and the (preferable) anthropological, non-axiological sense: delegates were in agreement in understanding [culture] not in the restricted sense of belles-lettres, the fine arts, literature, and philosophy, but as the distinctive and specific features and the ways of thinking and organizing the lives of every individual and every community. (UNESCO 1982:§30) The anthropological sense of ‘culture’ was further described as the whole complex of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features that characterize a social group. It includes not only the arts and letters, but also modes of life, the fundamental rights of the human being, value systems, traditions and beliefs. (UNESCO 1982:41) As a matter of fact, the notion of culture and the adjective cultural may have very different meanings depending on which CH discourse is used. While the original discourse favored the ‘restricted,’ cultivated notion of culture, a newer, non-axiological CH discourse was fostered afterward that favored a ‘wider,’ anthropological (non-judgmental, egalitarian) notion of ‘culture.’ This egalitarian stance is a core feature of the CH discourse that developed in the second half of the 20th century and has become hegemonic in the field since the beginning of the 21st century.

1.3.4 Shaping a non-axiological discourse (II): the advent of the intangible Culture cannot be abridged to its tangible products because it is continuously living and evolving. (Williams 1960:11)

Under the theoretical framework of the early, axiological discourse, the objects of CH were selected through essentially subjective value assessments: for its

A brief history of cultural heritage  19

grandiosity, its ability to recall historical deeds, its agreement with the European idea of Art, etc. As is evident, no selection can be made without a selector who either establishes the criteria for selection or who individually handpicks them. Selectors are bound to have their own set of preferences, philias, and phobias, and reckoning with this can only lead to a more respectful and prudent stance in the face of other potential selectors. In the past, however, most cultivated people in Europe, and therefore in the Western world, believed that the Western aesthetic and historic canon was inherently superior to other cultural canons, so sharing it with different less-cultivated cultures was the right thing to do. However, this served to exclude a vast majority of non-Western cultural expressions from the realm of CH. One practical reason for this was that many of the most important cultural achievements in non-Western cultures are not made of long-lasting materials but ephemeral materials (e.g., wood or adobe) or even without any material (e.g., languages or rituals). The original CH discourse thus proved to be doubly restrictive as it excluded not only most non-Western paintings, buildings, or artifacts for aesthetics reasons but also every ephemeral or immaterial cultural product – a category which, as it turns out, includes many cultural expressions that are highly regarded in some non-Western cultures. As the tenets of the original CH discourse were challenged, a new, non-axiological version of CH was developed. This meant not only that non-Western cultural expressions were not to be regarded as inferior anymore but also that immaterial cultural products were no longer considered inferior to tangible cultural expressions: performances, traditions, or languages, etc. (the so-called intangible cultural heritage, or ICH) were reckoned as worthy cultural expressions in and of themselves, deserving similar appreciation to that of tangible CH (or TCH). ICH soon gained popularity in a sector of the cultural heritage world, especially among those professionals more familiar with the non-tangible aspects of a culture, such as ethnographers, sociologists, or anthropologists. The non-axiological CH discourse was to make a massive impact in the heritage field, not just by altering the theoretical tenets of the original CHD but also by expanding the concept in three different ways: first, the notion of CH ceased to include just the more grandiose cultural artifacts within a culture, instead also encompassing artifacts from the popular, “non-cultivated” culture. Second, it began to encompass cultural expressions from non-Western cultures on an equal footing with those from Western cultures. And third, it came to include intangible cultural heritage: languages, rituals, customs, crafts, etc. Since all these factors are closely intertwined, they can be seen as facets of the same phenomenon.

1.3.5  The intangible in cultural heritage The goal of any [conservation] intervention is to preserve or strengthen some meanings of the object. (Muñoz-Viñas 2009:56)

20  Setting the background

One of the traits of the European CH discourse was, and to some extent still is, its emphasis on material cultural products, an aspect of culture that the Westerners had considered especially valuable for many centuries. Works such as the Parthenon, the Sydney Opera, and the Versailles palace (or the Blue Mosque, the Pyramids, and the Mosque in Córdoba, Spain, to mention works from non-Western cultures) were considered prominent examples of CH. CH also included paintings and sculptures. Made of stone, wood, metals, and other relatively stable materials, these works were also made to last. However, damage, decay, or reuse were not ruled out and, as a consequence of the advent of the CH discourse, the people caring for these works endeavored to make them last as long as possible with as little alteration as possible. This is what gave rise to the conservation profession, which was, and still is, intimately linked to the CH discourse. Reciprocally, the more ephemeral artifacts were disregarded as being inherently less valuable – which admittedly does make sense in at least one way: ephemeral artifacts are valuable for a comparatively reduced group of people (its contemporaries only), which, all other circumstances being equal, diminishes its overall potential value for the people. Thus, tangible cultural heritage made of long-lasting, stable materials has some inherent cultural advantage: in theory, it can be experienced by more people. Along with the emphasis on scientific enquiry, this argument might help to explain why the original CH discourse dealt with material objects only. However, this does not mean that the intangible aspects of TCH were entirely ignored or dismissed. Rather, the role of the intangible mechanisms, such as the axiological processes or semantic functions, were soon reckoned with by some relevant classical theorists: Alois Riegl, who posited that CH is grounded on the set of values attributed to each object, is a prominent example (Riegl 1903); Cesare Brandi, for whom art conservation is literally an act of criticism, is another one (Brandi 1963). The Venice Charter promulgated in 1964 also hints at the recognition of the intangible aspects of CH: while some vague, almost protocolary references to some intangible aspects of the cultural property were standard in preceding documents, this Charter spoke to them a bit louder than usual. Its Preamble reads as follows: Imbued with a message from the past, the historic monuments of generations of people remain to the present day as living witnesses of their age-old traditions. People are becoming more and more conscious of the unity of human values and regard ancient monuments as a common heritage. (VV.AA 1964:Preamble) The Venice Charter is clearly rooted in the European tradition from which it emerged: the notion of “monument” still refers mainly to those objects reckoned as such by the European canon; also, it is still based on the idea that the values seen in the monuments are universal (“the unity of human values”) and that ancient monuments are “common heritage.” However, the immaterial aspects of CH are explicitly recognized: there is an emphasis that the objects fulfill a semantic function (are

A brief history of cultural heritage  21

‘imbued with a message’) and possess ‘value,’ both of which are intangible factors underpinning the heritageness of the items discussed in the Charter. In summary, immaterial factors played a role in the original CH discourse, though this role was admittedly secondary. Its importance, however, became much more significant in the last decades of the 20th century. The 1964 Charter had been issued in Venice, Riegl was working in Vienna finde-siecle, and Brandi in pre- and post-WWII Rome. These three cities represent some of the best examples of the Western tradition of cultural excellence. However, the most ground-breaking reflection on the topic in the last quarter of the 20th century came from an unexpected location. Six years after the promulgation of the UNESCO 1972 Convention in Paris, a delegation of Australia ICOMOS gathered in the otherwise inconspicuous Australian mining village of Burra and issued a document that discussed several theoretical aspects of CH conservation. The document was titled the “Burra Charter,” a title which seems to mimic (and perhaps mock) other important documents in the CH field, such as the aforementioned Venice Charter, the Athens Charter, and the European Charter of the Architectural Heritage. The Burra Charter later became widely popular and influential. The Charter, in fact, underwent various revisions and updates, increasingly emphasizing the relativistic nature of CH values. Already in its first version, the Burra Charter recognized that “conservation of a place should take into consideration all aspects of its cultural significance without unwarranted emphasis on any one at the expense of the others” (Australia ICOMOS 1979:Art.59). Through its successive iterations, it was openly recognized that the “monuments and sites” ICOMOS works with may have a number of meanings and values for a number of persons aside from the experts, and that these values need to be taken into account. Thus, for example, the 1999 version stated: “Co-existence of cultural values should be recognized, respected and encouraged, especially in cases where they conflict” (Art.13). And further, “the term cultural values refers to those beliefs which are important to a cultural group, including but not limited to political, religious, spiritual and moral beliefs. This is broader than values associated with cultural significance” (§1.1 Explanatory notes). Unlike the Venice Charter, no explicit (or even implicit) appeal to universal values is made. The Burra Charter introduced a clear culturally relativistic undertone in the classical CH discourse: by reminding us that CH objects may fulfill different functions for different people and that these need to be catered for, the preeminence of the experts (historians, archaeologists, conservators, etc.) as the sole voices in the heritage scene was undermined. In the following decades, other theorists reinforced and refined this idea. The role of the intangible in the field of tangible CH and the attached relativism was increasingly analyzed and reckoned with. Norbert Baer (1998), Miriam Clavir (2002), Marta De la Torre (2002), Erica Avrami (Avrami et al. 2000), and other theorists have contributed to our understanding that material CH items are seen as CH because of the intangible factors attached to them. This notion is nowadays common wisdom in the CH conservation field. Simultaneously, however, in the

22  Setting the background

final decades of the 20th century, steps were being taken in a closely related direction: in addition to recognizing the intangible in the TCH, the heritage field was moving toward recognizing the intangible cultural expressions as CH themselves.

1.3.6  The intangible as cultural heritage What emerges is a distinction between heritage as form, embodied in the preservation of objects, buildings, and sites, and heritage as performance or process, embodied in the transmission of broader cultural practices and beliefs. (Alivizatou 2012:46)

The original CH discourse had been developed from the viewpoint of a group of professionals whose duty was researching, disseminating, and caring for TCH: buildings, sculptures, manuscripts, paintings, etc.: the kind of objects that were found to be so valuable in the Western culture and that had created the CH discourse in the first place. Expectably, this discourse was not fully shared by other cultures because, among other reasons, their most valued cultural products are not necessarily made to last. For instance, Asia and Africa have a rich tradition of making artifacts out of, for example, leaves, adobe, or unstable paints, which, unlike the artifacts so highly appreciated in the European canon, are made to be periodically renewed or remade. Also, there are cultural products that are not made of material at all: oral traditions, rituals, technical skills, dances, and the like may be no less appreciated in many cultures than buildings, archival documents, or mural paintings. These immaterial items are part of what we now know as intangible cultural heritage (ICH). Through the second half of the 20th century, ICH gained increased recognition in the CH field and eventually became the object of its own influential UNESCO convention. The recognition of ICH as a type of heritage on par with tangible CH did not happen suddenly. The more important steps took place in the last quarter of the 20th century. A widespread story holds that the movement that culminated with the full recognition of ICH began in 1973, only one year after the 1972 Convention was issued.

1.3.7  UNESCO takes the lead It took several decades for UNESCO to decide exactly which aspects of communal life should receive the benefits of its safeguarding activities. (Pryer 2020:27)

In 1970 American singers Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel published the song “El cóndor pasa” in their LP Bridge Over Troubled Waters, which became a resounding success. “El cóndor pasa” was a version of a traditional Bolivian folk song,10 and in 1973, the Bolivian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Religion sent a letter

A brief history of cultural heritage  23

to UNESCO complaining that some people could be making money off a piece of Bolivian folklore without the Bolivian people getting any revenue from it. The letter read as follows: In the musical sphere, there are instances of melodies being wrongfully appropriated by persons unconnected with their creation, who register them as their own compositions to secure to themselves the benefits conceded by copyright regulations. This leads, amongst other things, to the debasement of the folkishness of the piece. The Bolivian ministry found that all the instruments for the protection of cultural heritage are aimed at the protection of tangible objects, and not forms of expression such as music and dance, which are at present undergoing the most intensive clandestine commercialization and export, in a process of commercially oriented transculturation. (Hafstein 2018:ch.2) According to UNESCO lore, this letter set off a diplomatic mechanism that eventually led to the triumphal recognition of ICH as a form of CH. Admittedly, it is doubtful that this was actually the case, but it hardly matters. What matters is that at about the time that the 1972 Convention marking the official consecration of the original, material, and axiological CH discourse was passed, some people were starting to call for the explicit recognition of some forms of immaterial heritage. During the following decades, this trend toward the recognition of ICH gained momentum. Interestingly, at many levels, the main driving force behind this paradigm shift was not a group of scholars or theorists but a multinational organism such as UNESCO. The work of UNESCO was commendable, for it successfully pushed forward a CH discourse that became widely accepted in a relatively brief period of time. The process, initially fostered by the cultural diplomats of Japan and Korea, proceeded in incremental steps. Among these steps, the earlier quoted World Conference on Cultural Policies held in Mexico City in 1982 was a major milestone, as it reinforced the notion that CH should be expanded to cover all kinds of cultural expressions and not just material objects. In 1985, UNESCO started working on a legal instrument to protect folklore, which crystallized in 1989 in the Recommendation on the Safeguarding of Traditional Culture and Folklore. On 16 and 17 June 1993, UNESCO organized a conference in Paris in which important steps toward the formal recognition of ICH as a form of cultural heritage were taken. The complex diplomatic and intellectual machinery behind UNESCO managed to compose a document in which the notion of intangible cultural heritage was put at the forefront for the first time. The document was titled after the conference (“Internal Consultation on New Perspectives for UNESCO’s Programme: the

24  Setting the background

Intangible Cultural Heritage”), and it sanctioned the usage of the term “intangible cultural heritage,” which replaced terms like “folklore” or “non-physical heritage,” which UNESCO had employed before. The document also established some ideas that nowadays have become common wisdom. For instance, the risk that Western categories might be inadvertently projected onto cultural manifestations from cultures that might not share the same worldview was explicitly acknowledged: care must be taken to avoid imposing the Western notion of specific disciplines, e.g. “music,” on the study of the cultures of other civilizations, such as the African cultures which are expressed by sounds. (UNESCO 1993:§24.iii) Also, the document reminded us that “the specific nature of each culture must be borne in mind in every action” (§24.iv) and that “priority must be given to the opinions of the exponents and audience of the intangible heritage in the countries concerned when revitalization actions are undertaken” (§24.v). All of these remarks show how the original (axiological, Enlightened, ‘cultivated’) notion of culture in cultural heritage was being overtaken by the anthropological (presumedly neutral, non-judgmental, non-colonial) notion. That same year, in 1993, Korea proposed implementing the 1989 convention through a list similar to the highly successful World Heritage List created in 1972, an idea that would bring ICH and tangible CH (or TCH) even closer through the application of similar practices. In 1996, the report “Our creative diversity” was issued, and the program “Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Heritage” was launched the following year. The meeting “International Consultation on the Preservation of Popular Cultural Spaces” was held in Marrakesh that same year, and three years later, in 1999, a conference was organized in Washington, DC, by UNESCO and the Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. Finally, in 2003, UNESCO promulgated the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. The 2003 Convention is the specular image of the 1972 Convention. If the latter represented a brilliant coda to the earlier, axiological version of the CH discourse (or perhaps its swan’s song), the 2003 Convention marked a grandiose overture to the newer non-axiological CH discourse.

1.3.8  Paris 2003 By the early 1990s, it was evident that [the UNESCO World Heritage List] had become increasingly non-representative. For example, Europe’s cultural heritage was over-represented . . . historic towns and religious buildings (cathedrals, etc.) were over-represented; the architecture was ‘elitist’ (castles, palaces, etc.). (Munjeri 2004:16)

The 2003 “Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage” has become highly influential at many levels. In a way, this document marked the

A brief history of cultural heritage  25

official recognition of a non-axiological, ICH-encompassing discourse, which has since become well-established and widespread. ICH is now a part of the standard conceptual toolkit of all cultural heritage professionals. The definition of ICH offered in the 2003 Convention has been exhaustively analyzed, discussed, and criticized in the scholarly literature, but, in spite of its shortcomings, it remains a reference for the current discourse on ICH. In this crucial document, UNESCO defined how cultural heritage was to be understood: not (or at least not just) as a set of objects, large or small, but also as a set of intangible cultural products, which the Convention describes succinctly as the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. (§2.1) Article 2 elaborates on this by describing several significant examples of ICH, all of which fall beyond what the original CHD understood as CH. Thus, “oral traditions,” “languages,” “festive events,” or even “social practices” in general became potential CH candidates. This openness made it possible for every culture in the world to have its own cultural heritage, regardless of whether or not they could or want to make stable, long-lasting objects, monuments, or artifacts similar to those in the Western world. In the 2009 reprint of the 2003 Convention, Koïchiro Matsuura, the UNESCO Director General who led the development of the 2003 Convention, stated that intangible cultural heritage might have significant beneficial effects on the peoples, such as acting as “a mainspring of cultural diversity,” being “a guarantee of sustainable development,” “helping communities grapple with the challenges of globalization,” “preserving the values and practices that define [each group’s] identity,” “promoting respect for other cultural traditions,” and fostering “mutual understanding.” In this light, ICH “encourages cultural exchange and understanding between peoples” and constitutes “an asset for harmony and peace among human beings” (UNESCO 2009:5–6). This may seem somewhat naïve or over-optimistic, but it is not entirely unreasonable – and may help the reader feel the spirit behind the document. The text of the 2003 Convention is not particularly nuanced, sophisticated, or elaborated. Most likely, it does not aim at that; perhaps, its primary virtue lies in precisely the opposite, in its being a straightforward and concise text, one that hits the right keys in an extremely clear, unambiguous manner. Whatever the reason, the document has become “wildly popular” (Stefano 2019). It is far and away the most influential and quoted document in the academic literature discussing ICH from any angle, and despite any shortcomings it may have, it nowadays remains a crucial milestone: in the words of Marilena Alivizatou (2012:15), it “brought intangible heritage into the international scene,” and as reckoned by Dawson Munjeri

26  Setting the background

(2009:131), “any serious discussion of intangible heritage must be influenced by this Convention.” In the view of Federico Lenzerini (2011:101) and arguably of many other authors, the Convention “correctly highlights the main elements of ICH and is based on the right philosophical rationale.” In summary, regardless of whether it is liked or disliked, the 2003 Convention marked a pivotal moment in the history of the CH discourse (or CHD): the moment in which intangible cultural heritage came to be widely recognized as an essential type of cultural heritage. The de-axiologization of the CH discourse thus expanded the concept of CH, which came to encompass not just material expressions of non-cultivated, popular culture, but also intangible, immaterial expressions. The 2003 UNESCO Convention marked the triumph of the non-axiological, ICH-encompassing CH discourse over the original one. Since the 1970s, the new non-axiological discourse had gained increased acceptance, but after 2003, it has become not just widespread but also firmly established at both institutional and academic levels. This is the discourse currently prevailing in most heritage centers, universities, and cultural institutions: this is the discourse that is taken for granted in most discussions, the discourse that everyone in the field assumes to be valid unless otherwise noted. It has become the standard discourse: the current doxa, the “paradigm” in Kuhn’s terms, the safe intellectual base – “hegemony,” in Gramscian lingo. However, some thinkers are already probing and even challenging it by exploring new territories.

1.3.9  The discourse on the CH discourse Intangible heritage should not be subject to external judgments of value or worth. (UNESCO 2015)

After the 2003 UNESCO Convention, a part of the academic work has been devoted to analyzing and refining the non-axiological CH discourse. Much of this work coalesced around what has been called “critical heritage studies.” These studies are variegated, but in general, they proceed by studying the cultural, social, and political implications of what has been called the “heritage regime” (Bowdler 1988:521; Bendix et al. 2013; Hølleland 2014; Cameron 2020:7), a regime that includes both the old, original CHD (here represented by UNESCO 1972) and the newer, ICH-encompassing, non-axiological CHD (here represented by UNESCO 2003). In a way, these studies have shaped a discourse on the CH discourse, or a metadiscourse, which could thus be abbreviated as dCHD. The dCHD sheds light on some not-so-evident consequences of the other CHDs. Some recurring, essential topics in the dCHD are the colonialism, domination, or elitism implicit in the original CHD, but also, even if to a lesser extent, in the newer, non-axiological CHD. Pablo Alonso González has described the dCHD

A brief history of cultural heritage  27

as “research . . . focusing on the sociopolitical context of heritagization processes.” He summarizes as follows: Generally, such studies adopt a constructivist stance on the objective reality of heritage, denying its existence at the phenomenological level. Certainly most, if not all, tend to assume the existence of a subjectivity of heritage and key actors in its production that must be ethnographically studied to ‘reveal’ or ‘discover’ their intentions .  .  .  . Differences in the critical field usually derive from the distinct roles assigned to certain ‘usual suspects’ that causally explain the production of heritage: the state . . . the elites and the state . . . heritage experts . . . nationalist ideology . . . power relations . . . or capitalism in a diffuse form . . . . The problems addressed concern who is creating heritage and who benefits from the process, the identities represented and excluded, whether or not the commodification respects the authenticity of heritage, etc. (Alonso González 2019:§1) The main goal of these studies is not to outline a new CHD but rather to better understand the existing CHDs and their implications. Both the axiological and the non-axiological CHDs are propositive in nature: they provide a theoretical framework from which concepts and guidelines for practitioners can be derived. However, the dCHD does not: its main aim is critically analyzing CH practice and the CHD. Thanks to this approach, very valuable insight has been gained about what constitutes and implies the notion of cultural heritage and its attached practices. Echoing the tradition of the continental critical philosophers and sociosophers from the 1970s and 1980s, the dCHD excels at exploring the side effects of the CHDs. However, it is less efficient when it comes to suggesting a paradigm to replace them.

1.4  Nature as culture The inflation of the term ‘heritage’ reinforces the temporality of the systems of representation, instead of menacing them as it could be thought. (Jeudy 2019:Introduction §14; my translation11)

The de-axiologization of the CH discourse has led to the fast expansion of the notion of cultural heritage, pushing it way beyond the original boundaries established during the 19th and 20th centuries. As noted earlier, this expansion has taken place in at least three domains: there has been an obvious axiological expansion (from the excellent and grandiose to the regular and popular), a geocultural expansion (from the Western-dominated areas to the world at large), and an ontological expansion (from the tangible only to both the tangible and the intangible). This three-fold expansion has been described as the “heritage boom” (Winter

28  Setting the background

2014; Kockel 2007:28; Tschofen 2007), as the “explosion of the notion of heritage” (Jeudy 2019; my translation12) or as the “heritage Big Bang” (Muñoz-Viñas 2013), and, as shown in §2.2 and §2.3, it may lead to identifying CH with culture at large. However, the notion may get expanded even further, as some authors have suggested that the notion of cultural heritage should include natural items too. This might not be as surprising as it seems, nor even as modern. The idea could be related to the notion of “ecomuseum” forwarded in Rennes by French theorist Georges Henri Rivière, also in 1947, and which gained momentum since 1967 after the experiences of the ecomuseums of Creusot-Montceau, of the Landes de Gascogne, and of Ousessant (Alonso Fernández 1999:168; see too Alivizatou 2022:7–12). The ecomuseum includes a territory (usually a rural one), its inhabitants, and their lifestyle (their customs, their crafts, their work). It can be considered an early version of a holistic concept of heritage, a version that includes not just a set of objects (TCH) but also its original setting and the set of practices, customs, and skills developed and practiced by its inhabitants (ICH). The natural space that hosts all of this CH and ICH is considered not just a container for everything else but also an integral part of the ecomuseum – that is, as heritage itself: as natural heritage (NH), to be precise. The notion of NH gained momentum, and in fact, the 1972 UNESCO Convention spoke of both cultural and natural heritage. However, even if they are discussed in the same document, cultural heritage and natural heritage still remain distinct notions. The difference between cultural and natural heritage is generally regarded as clear-cut or obvious. Culture and nature are two concepts that seem to stand in binary opposition: for most people, culture is anything that is not natural, and vice versa. However, this is not as simple as it might seem at first sight. Already in 2000, Félix Guattari openly claimed that “nature cannot be separated from culture” (2000:43), and in recent decades, there has been an “increasing awareness of the arbitrariness of the [nature/culture] categories” (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 2004:52), an increased realization that “the .  .  . nature-culture bifurcation” is “arbitrary” (Winter 2013: 395). To sum up an involved reflection, it could be said that this belief is based on two main arguments. First, “the recognition of the profound human impact on earth’s ecosystems . . . makes the insistence on the fundamentally distinct realms of culture and nature difficult to sustain” (Bangstad and Pétursdóttir 2022:5). Second, as Philippe Descola (2005) and other authors have posited, the very notion of nature may be considered to be a cultural construct in itself: by separating humanity from other animals, we create a notion (“nature”) that is inherently artificial. To use a simple, down-to-earth example, it could be argued that a human-built dam is a sophisticated version of a beavers’ dam – but we, the humans, categorize it otherwise, bestowing it with an artificial culturalness that exists only in the eye of the (human) beholder. Thus, the separation between culture and nature is the result of a somewhat conceited, anthropocentric view. A more complete, holistic view of the world thus reveals the arbitrariness of the nature/culture dichotomy and shows that what we call “natural heritage” can be seen as a form of CH. According to this view, the notion of CH could thus be expanded to

A brief history of cultural heritage  29

include “natural” heritage – which through a non-axiological prism may, in turn, be expanded to cover the whole planet Earth and its inhabitants, and also their tangible works and their intangible customs. This holistic view of CH-as-the-world will not be discussed here, both because it is not widespread enough and because it is theoretically unworkable (and this is a book on CH theory): if cultural heritage is the world, then we do not need such a notion as cultural heritage, as it becomes pointless and redundant. Also, it is one thing to say that some boundaries are arbitrary, and an entirely different thing to say that such boundaries are wrong or useless. The fact that something is arbitrary does not mean that it is unnecessary or that it does not make sense. For instance, in many countries only people older than 18 years are deemed mentally able to contribute to deciding the future of many millions of persons by casting a vote in an election. This is arbitrary (why 18 years? Why not 30 years? Or why not 18 years and five months?) – but it still makes sense. Speed limits are another example of useful arbitrary boundaries, as is the pass/fail numeric threshold in many education systems. The list could go on, but I just want to emphasize that even if the nature/ culture boundary is found to be arbitrary, it may still be useful: at the very least, without this boundary, the notion of cultural heritage may become so broad as to become almost useless. There is yet another argument against the heritage-as-the-world positions. It is philosophical in nature (no pun intended) and has to do with the fact that suggesting that the nature/culture dichotomy might be dissolved because “nature” is a cultural construct is a trivial statement: a truism that can be said of anything we may think of. Everything for which a name exists – a chair, a novel, an insect, a mountain – can in the end, or perhaps in the beginning, be said to be a cultural construct. However, the fact that a concept is culturally constructed does not necessarily mean that it is nonsensical or that it should be disposed of. There are reasons why we have created and keep creating so many cultural constructs, amounting to a manageable cognitive framework that allows us to cope with the reality outside. Reality is chaotic, hard to measure or classify, and even to interpret or understand: this is why we need cultural constructs to deal with the world. For some thinkers (from Fichte to Berkeley to Cassirer), the real world is in our minds: it is made of those constructs, it is made of our perceptions. These thinkers may or may not be right: we could probably see this argument as yet another instance of the old realism/nominalism debate. Of course, I will not delve into any depth in this classic querelle, but I will stress that we need cultural constructs to cope with the universe around us and that stating that the culture/ nature dichotomy is a cultural construct does not debunk it at all. We need cultural constructs to live, to speak, to exchange ideas, and to hopefully build new, improved cultural constructs that can serve us better than the previous ones. One of the main goals of this book is, precisely, to examine the CH construct and figure out how it might be tweaked and refined to help us better deal with that small part of the world we call cultural heritage at this moment in history, already in the third decade of the 21st century.

30  Setting the background

Notes 1 “Entre el siglo XVI y el final de la Ilustración, el estudio de las antigüedades evoluciona siguiendo enfoques comparables a los de las ciencias naturales: proponiendo un mismo tipo de descripción controlable – y por lo mismo fiable – de sus objetos de estudio.” 2 “Inscrivons sur tous les monuments et gravons dans tous les cœurs cette sentence: les barbares et les esclaves détestent les sciences et détruisent les monuments des arts; les hommes libres les aiment et les conservent” (Abbé Henri Grégoire, “Premier rapport sur le vandalisme”, 1793; quoted in Boulad-Ayoub 2012:64). 3 “Les monuments doivent être protégés en vertu de l’idée que les hommes ne sont que les dépositaires d’un bien dont la grande famille a le droit de vous demander des comptes” (Boulad-Ayoub 2012:11). 4 “L’arte de restaurare, lo so, è recente.” 5 “Notre temps, et notre temps seulement depuis le commencement des siècles historiques, a pris en face du passé une attitude inusitée. Il a voulu l’analyser, le comparer, le classer et former sa véritable histoire, en suivant pas à pas la marche, les progrès, les transformations de l’humanité.” Along this line of thinking, Viollet-le-Duc (1866:16) emphasized: “To see in this a fantasy, a fashion, a moral sickness, would be to judge very shallowly a fact of important reach. It would be the same as positing that the facts revealed by science, after Newton, are the consequence of whim of the human spirit.” (“Voir là une fantaisie, une mode, un état de malaise moral, c’est juger un fait d’une portée considérable un peu légèrement. Autant vaudrait prétendre que les faits dévoilés par la science, depuis Newton, sont le résultat d’un caprice de l’esprit humain.”) 6 “Un fait aussi étrange ne peut être, comme le supposent quelques esprits superficiels, une mode, un caprice, une infirmité, car le phénomène est complexe.” 7 “. . . los monumentos alcanzan su carácter “histórico” cuando se produce un distanciamiento capaz de generar una mirada sobre el pasado como tiempo diferente al que se está.” 8 “Grégoire, au nom du Comité d’instruction publique, convaincu de la mission civilisatrice et universelle de la France, patrie de la liberté, travaillera à élargir la politique de conservation et d’enrichissement du patrimoine national à une politique de conservation et d’enrichissement du patrimoine culturel mondial.” 9 In the Burra Charter, the notion of “place” includes a physical space and all of its contents. 10 Or maybe not. For an enlightening discussion on this topic, see Hafstein (2018:ch.2). 11 “. . . l’inflation du terme « patrimoine » renforce, au lieu de la menacer comme on pourrait le croire, la temporalité dans les mécanismes de la représentation.” 12 “C’est l’éclatement de l’idée de patrimoine.”

References Alivizatou, M. (2012) Intangible Heritage and the Museum. New Perspectives on Cultural Preservation. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Alivizatou, M. (2022) Intangible Heritage and Participation. Encounters with Safeguarding Practices. Abingdon: Routledge. Alonso Fernández, L. (1999) Introducción a la nueva museología. Madrid: Alianza Editorial. Alonso González, P. (2019) The Heritage Machine: Fetishism and Domination in Maragatería, Spain. London: Pluto Press (Anthropology, Culture and Society). Australia ICOMOS (1979) ‘The Australia ICOMOS Guidelines for the Conservation of Places of Cultural Significance (“Burra Charter”)’. Avrami, E., Mason, R. and De la Torre, M. (2000) Values and Heritage Conservation. Research Report. Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute.

A brief history of cultural heritage  31

Aygen, Z. (2013) International Heritage and Historic Building Conservation: Saving the World’s Past. 1st edition. New York: Routledge. Baer, N. (1998) ‘Does Conservation Have Value?’, in K. Borchersen (ed.) 25 Years School of Conservation: The Jubilee Symposium Preprints. Copenhagen: Konservatorskolin Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi, pp. 15–19. Bangstad, T.R. and Pétursdóttir, þ (2022) ‘An Ecological Approach to Heritage’, in T.R. Bangstad and þ. Pétursdóttir (eds.) Heritage Ecologies. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 3–27. Bendix, R.F., Eggert, A. and Peselmann, A. (eds.) (2013) Heritage Regimes and the State, Heritage Regimes and the State. Göttingen: Göttingen University Press (Göttingen Studies in Cultural Property). Available at: http://books.openedition.org/gup/348 (Accessed: 23 November 2021). Boito, C. (1893) Questioni pratiche di belle arti: Restauri, concorsi, legislazione, professione, insegnamento. Milan: Ulrico Hoepli. Borrelli, L.V. (2010) Conservazione e restauro delle antichità. Profilo storico. Roma: Viella. Boulad-Ayoub, J. (2012) L’abbé Grégoire et la naissance du patrimoine national. Quebec: Presses de l’Université Laval. Bourdieu, P. (1979) La distinction. Critique sociale du jugement. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit. Bowdler, S. (1988) ‘Repainting Australian rock art’, Antiquity, 62, pp. 517–523. Brandi, C. (1963) Teoria del restauro. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. Bueno, G. (1996) El mito de la cultura. Barcelona: Editorial Prensa Ibérica. Cameron, C. (2020) ‘The UNESCO imprimatur: Creating global (in)significance’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, pp. 1–12. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/135272 58.2020.1746923. Castro-Gómez, S. and Martin, D.A. (2002) ‘The social sciences, epistemic violence, and the problem of the invention of the “other” ’, Nepantla.Views from the South, 3(2), pp. 269–285. Caswell, M. and Ciphor, M. (2020) ‘Neither a Beginning Nor an End. Applying an Ethics of Care to Digital Archival Collections’, in H. Lewi et al. (eds.) The Routledge International Handbook of New Digital Practices in Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums and Heritage Sites. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 159–168. Choay, F. (2007) Alegoría del patrimonio. Barcelona: Gustavo Gili. Ciatti, M. (2009) Appunti per un manuale di storia e di teoria del restauro. Florence: Edifir. Clavir, M. (2002) Preserving What is Valued. Museums, Conservation, and First Nations. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Conti, A. (1988) Storia del restauro e della conservazione delle opere d’arte. Stockholm: Electa. De la Torre, M. (ed.) (2002) Assessing the Values of Cultural Heritage. Los Angeles, CA: The Getty Conservation Institute. Descola, P. (2005) Par-delà nature et culture. Paris: Gallimard. Dickie, G. (1984) The Art Circle. A Theory of Art. New York: Haven. Eco, U. (1964) Apocalittici e integrati. Comunicazioni di massa e teorie della cultura di massa. Milan: Bompiani. Falser, M. (2015) ‘Cultural Heritage as Civilizing Mission: Methodological Considerations’, in M. Falser (ed.) Cultural Heritage as Civilizing Mission: From Decay to Recovery. Cham: Springer, pp. 1–34. Falser, M. and Juneja, M. (2013) ‘ “Archaeologizing” Heritage and Transcultural Entanglements: An Introduction’, in M. Falser and M. Juneja (eds.) ‘Archaeologizing’ Heritage? Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg (Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context), pp. 1–20. Available at: https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-642-35870-8.

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González-Varas, I. (1999) Conservación del patrimonio cultural: Teoría, historia, principios y normas. Madrid: Cátedra. Guattari, F. (2000) The Three Ecologies. London and New Brunswick: The Athlone Press. Hafstein, V. (2018) Making Intangible Heritage: El Condor Pasa and Other Stories from UNESCO. E-book edition. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Harvey, D.C. (2001) ‘Heritage pasts and heritage presents: Temporality, meaning and the scope of heritage studies’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 7(4), pp.  319–338. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13581650120105534. Hølleland, H. (2014) ‘Mt Ruapehu’s Looming Lahar. Exploring Mechanisms of Compliance in the World Heritage Regime’, Primitive Tider. Special edition (Between dream and reality: Debating the impact of World Heritage Listing), pp. 75–92. Humanes, A. (2009) ‘Alegoría del patrimonio’, Patrimonio cultural de España, 3, pp. 268–270. Jeudy, H.P. (2019) ‘Introduction’, in H.P. Jeudy (ed.) Patrimoines en folie. E-book edition. Paris: Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme (Ethnologie de la France). Available at: http://books.openedition.org/editionsmsh/3764 (Accessed: 23 September 2020). Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, B. (2004) ‘Intangible heritage as metacultural production’, Museum International, 56(1–2), pp.  52–65. Available at: https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1350-0775.2004.00458.x. Kockel, U. (2007) ‘Reflexive Traditions and Heritage Production’, in U. Kockel and M.N. Craith (eds.) Cultural Heritages as Reflexive Traditions. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 19–33. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230285941. Lenzerini, F. (2011) ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage: The Living Culture of Peoples’, European Journal of International Law, 22(1), pp. 101–120. Logan, W.S. (2008) ‘Cultural Diversity, Heritage and Human Rights’, in B. Graham and P. Howard (eds.) The Ashgate Research Companion to Heritage and Identity. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Limited, pp. 439–454. MacLaren, N. and Werner, A. (1950) ‘Some factual observations about varnishes and glazes’, The Burlinton Magazine, 92(568), pp. 189–192. Martínez Justicia, M.J., Martínez Sánchez-Mesa, D. and Martínez Sánchez-Mesa, L. (2009) Historia y teoría de la conservación y la restauración artística. Madrid: Tecnos. Miller, P.N. (2012) ‘A Tentative Morphology of European Antiquarianism 1500–2000’, in A. Schnapp et al. (eds.) World Antiquarianism: Comparative Perspectives. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute, pp. 67–87. Miller, P.N. (2017) History  & Its Objects: Antiquarianism and Material Culture since 1500. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Munjeri, D. (2004) ‘Tangible and intangible heritage: From difference to convergence’, Museum International, 56(1–2), pp. 12–20. Munjeri, D. (2009) ‘Following the Length and Breadth of the Roots. Some Dimensions of Intangible Heritage’, in L. Smith and N. Akagawa (eds.) Intangible Heritage. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 131–150. Muñoz-Viñas, S. (2003) Teoría contemporánea de la Restauración. Madrid: Síntesis. Muñoz-Viñas, S. (2005) Contemporary Theory of Conservation. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Muñoz-Viñas, S. (2009) ‘Beyond Authenticity’, in E. Hermens and T. Fiske (eds.) Art, Conservation and Authenticities. Material, Concept, Context. London: Archetype Publications, pp. 33–38. Muñoz-Viñas, S. (2013) ‘My favourite piece of heritage (and the heritage Big Bang)’, eDialogos, 3, pp. 48–54. Panofsky, E. (1969) Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art. First Thus edition. New York: Harper and Row.

A brief history of cultural heritage  33

Pergoli Campanelli, A. (2013) Cassiodoro alle origini dell’idea di restauro. Milan: Jaca Books. Pryer, A. (2020) ‘Musical Heritaga as a Cultural an Global Concept’, in B. Norton and N. Matsumoto (eds.) Music as Heritage: Historical and Ethnographic Perspectives. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 21–43. Riegl, A. (1903) Der moderne Denkmalkultus: sein Wesen und seine Entstehung. Vienna: Braumuller. Schnapp, A. (2013) ‘Introduction. The Roots of Antiquarianism’, in A. Schnapp et al. (eds.) World Antiquarianism: Comparative Perspectives. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute, pp. 1–10. Schnapp, A., Falkenhasuen, L. von, Miller, P.N. and Murray, T. (eds.) (2013) World Antiquarianism: Comparative Perspectives. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute. Scruton, R. (2000) An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Modern Culture. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press. Shanks, M. (2012) ‘Let Me Tell You about Hadrian’s Wall . . .’ Heritage, Performance, Design. Amsterdam: Reinwardt Academy, Amsterdam School for the Arts. Stefano, M. (2019) ‘Folklife at the International Level: The Roots of “Intangible Cultural Heritage.” Part VI. World Heritage’. Available at: https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2019/04/ folklife-at-the-international-level-the-roots-of-intangible-cultural-heritage-part-viworld-heritage/ (Accessed: 17 September 2022). Tatarkiewicz, W. (1980) History of Six Ideas. An Essay in Aesthetics. Warsaw: PWN/Polish Scientific Publishers. Taylor, R. (1978) Art, an Enemy of the People. Hassocks: Harvester Press. Tolia-Kelly, D.P. (2017) ‘Race and Affect at the Museum. The Museum as a Theathre of Pain’, in D.P. Tolia-Kelly, E. Waterton and S. Watson (eds.) Heritage, Affect and Emotion. Politics, Practices and Infrastructures. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 33–46. Tschofen, B. (2007) ‘Antreten, Ablehnen, Verwalten? Was der Heritage Boom den Kulturwissenschaften Aufträgt’, in D. Hemme, M. Tauschek and R. Bendix (eds.) Prädikat Heritage. Wertschöpfung aus kulturellen Ressourcen. Münster: Lit Verlag, pp. 19–32. UNESCO (1972) Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/conventiontext/ (Accessed: 17 September 2022). UNESCO (1982) World Conference on Cultural Policies: Final Report. Available at: https:// unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000052505 (Accessed: 17 September 2022). UNESCO (1993) International Consultation on New Perspectives for UNESCO’s Programme: The Intangible Cultural Heritage. Available at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/ pf0000143226 (Accessed: 16 September 2022). UNESCO (2003) Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Available at: https://ich.unesco.org/en/convention (Accessed: 17 September 2022). UNESCO (2009) ‘Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage 2003. Basic Texts’. UNESCO Paris. Available at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf00 00186627?posInSet=3&queryId=066fec8f-f953-4860-a0ef-411e66861047 (Accessed: 6 August 2022). UNESCO (2015) Ethical Guidelines for Safeguarding of Intangible Heritage. Available at: http:// ich.unesco.org/en/ethics-and-ich-0866 (Accessed: 17 September 2022). Van de Vall, R. (1999) ‘Painful Decision: Philosophical Considerations on a Decision-Making Model’, in D. Sille, I. Hummelen and M. Zijlmans (eds.) Modern Art: Who Cares? An Interdisciplinary Research Project and International Symposium on the Conservation of Modern and Contemporary Art. Amsterdam: Foundation for Conservation of Modern Art, pp. 196–200.

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Viollet-le-Duc, E. (1866) ‘Restauration’, in Dictionnaire raisonné de l’architecture française du XIe au XVIe sècle. Tome Huitième. Paris: Libraires-Imprimeries Réunies Ancient Maison Morel, pp. 14–34. VV.AA. (1964) The Venice Charter. International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites. Available at: www.icomos.org/charters/venice_e.pdf (Accessed: 17 September 2022). Williams, R. (1960) Border Country. London: Chatton and Windus. Winter, T. (2013) ‘Going places; challenging directions for the future of heritage studies’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 19(4), pp. 395–398. Available at: https://doi.org/ 10.1080/13527258.2012.695509. Winter, T. (2014) ‘Heritage studies and the privileging of theory’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 20(5), pp. 556–572. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2 013.798671.

2 (UN)DEFINITIONS OF ICH

2.1  Introduction: the undefinition of ICH In its attempt to recognize the physical and non-physical structure of heritage sites, UNESCO has adopted the terms ‘tangible’ and ‘intangible’ cultural heritage. (Alves 2018:1)

As described in Chapter 1, the research efforts directed toward the deconstruction of the original, axiological CH discourse have resulted in an expanded, non-axiological version of CH, a version that includes both tangible works from popular and cultivated culture and intangible cultural heritage. In the early years of the 21st century, this newer version of CH became widely accepted and is now a part of the set of assumptions taken for granted in most professional discussions, that is, assumed in most official institutions and upon (or against) which most of the scholars working in the field build their reflections. The non-axiological, ICHencompassing CH discourse that replaced the original axiological discourse has become classical itself. This currently standard, neo-classical, or perhaps now-classical, version of the CH discourse responds to some theoretical and practical problems found in the original, axiological version of CH. However, it also brings its own set of theoretical challenges. While an analysis of the broader notion of CH is developed later, in this chapter I concentrate on some of the theoretical issues brought about by ICH. The impact of in the field of this subset of CH has been, and continues to be, so important that it deserves special attention. The concept of ICH gained relevance over the second half of the 20th century, but in 2003, when UNESCO issued the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, a milestone was set. The launching of the convention DOI: 10.4324/9781003288121-3

36  Setting the background

and its subsequent adoption by a vast majority of countries around the world hailed the triumph of ICH. To these days, the document remains an important, valuable reference in the field. Most of the Convention, however, is devoted to describing technical and procedural dispositions, such as the composition of the committees and the role of the signing countries. On the contrary, very little space is given to discussing the concept of ICH itself, which is just briefly outlined. It may therefore be somewhat surprising that this concise, almost tentative definition offered by UNESCO has become so influential in scholarly circles. One reason why it may be seen as surprising is because UNESCO is not an academic institution or a research center, but rather a plurinational body that reports to the UN; it gathers together representatives from nearly every country around the world and receives substantial funding from some of them, and is therefore subject to a number of political pressures and interests, behind-the-curtains negotiations, and quid pro quo agreements. Taking into account these considerations, it is remarkable that the definition of ICH elaborated in the 2003 meeting is still considered “the most salient instrument defining intangible heritage” (Alivizatou 2012:13). One possible explanation as to why this document has become the most quoted source in the academic heritage literature is the fact that, not being concerned with the nit-picking kind of scrutiny so common in academic circles, it provides (it dares to provide) a clear definition of what ICH actually is. The Convention thus defines ICH by establishing a set of features (Art. 1) and a list of examples (Art. 2). The four features are described in Article 1. Its first paragraph has already been quoted before, but it is worth repeating, this time in extenso: The ‘intangible cultural heritage’ means the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. This intangible cultural heritage, transmitted from generation to generation, is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature and their history, and provides them with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity. For the purposes of this Convention, consideration will be given solely to such intangible cultural heritage as is compatible with existing international human rights instruments, as well as with the requirements of mutual respect among communities, groups and individuals, and of sustainable development. (UNESCO 2003:§2.1; my emphasis) Section 2 of Article 2 offers further information, as it includes a list of examples of ICH: a) oral traditions and expressions, including language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage; b) performing arts;

(Un)definitions of ICH  37

c) social practices, rituals and festive events; d) knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe; e) traditional craftsmanship. In summary, ICH is defined by five features only. Thus, ICH consists of “practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith” that 1) are passed from generation to generation (which is inherent in the term “heritage”); 2) are “constantly recreated”; 3) are recognized as CH by groups and communities that sustain each heritage item; 4) create a sense of identity (which, again, is also recognized by the groups and communities themselves); and 5) are compatible with universal human rights. A definition may be clear, but it does not mean that it is perfect, and the definition offered in the Convention is certainly not perfect. The success of the 2003 UNESCO Convention in the academic world can be considered a symptom of how important it is to have a more or less clear definition (that is, a more or less clear concept) of what is being discussed. When discussing ICH, very few clear definitions exist, which explains why the very brief one presented in the UNESCO Convention has become the ground upon which so many scholars build our discourse – or, oftentimes, a kind of breakwater (or maybe a punching ball) against which we the scholars build our discourse. In this book, I aim to use the Convention for both ends. Very few concepts in the humanities are precisely definable, and, in fact, in many cases, a reasonable degree of uncertainty and conceptual flexibility may be beneficial for them actually to work. However, this does not mean that imprecision is beneficial in all cases and to all extents. A notion can only tolerate a limited amount of imprecision before it starts to malfunction. The following sections in this chapter delve deeper along this line of thinking, showing some problems in the ICH discourse that can explain why some authors wonder whether the notion of ICH might have become an “intellectual aberration” (Bortolotto 2014:2; my translation1).

2.2  Expanding ICH (1): ICH as culture How can we distinguish the life process of people in terms of their overall social relationships from the notion of heritage . . . ? (Alonso González 2019)

Indeed, from a theoretical standpoint, the vagueness of ICH is a significant problem: it means that when speaking of ICH, it is rarely clear what the speaker is

38  Setting the background

precisely referring to. The fact is, the term intangible cultural heritage may mean very different things to different people, which makes it very difficult to elaborate a sound theoretical discourse. This vagueness is in close connection with the non-axiological stance prevalent in the current, standard CH discourse. By aspiring to not make value judgments when selecting ICH items, the boundaries of the concept may be expanded ad libitum, such that ICH may be understood as encompassing not just some intangible items within a culture, but every intangible cultural expression in a culture, which is very close to saying that ICH may be understood to encompass the whole culture at large. Consider, for instance, the following statement, in which the term cultural expressions is presented as a synonym of ICH: “Viewed as the nuanced components of our cultural diversity, a great number of cultural expressions, or ‘intangible cultural heritage,’ are considered to be threatened” (Stefano et al. 2012:1); or this statement, which makes it even more explicit: “intangible cultural heritage represents everything: the immaterial elements that influence and surround all human activity” (Stefano et al. 2012:1; my emphasis). This expansive version of ICH serves to highlight the need for a definition. If the notion is not developed further, it can and does hamper a sound reflection on the topic, for what cultural expression is not ICH, then? Anything, from driving on the left track to sending WhatsApp messages to using bamboo sticks for handling food is ICH, and so is writing this book – or selling and purchasing it in a bookshop or over the Internet. ICH thus becomes difficult to distinguish from any cultural practice, including cooking, playing badminton, or reading essays on cultural heritage – or, as Cullen Murphy suggests, “the white lie (‘its social utility is hard to overestimate’), the passive voice (‘a conceptual space that at some point shelters everyone’), the space between things (‘a crucial but intangible component of all relationships’), self-fulfilling prophecies, silence, and irony” (Hafstein 2018:ch.3). If this view is accepted, a theory of ICH would de facto become a ‘theory of cultural practices.’ This would make the notion of ICH irrelevant or superfluous, as it would just become another name for already-existing concepts. The ICH-as-culture approach also implies critical practical problems. Consider, for instance, two practices that, as discussed in Chapter 4, characterize the CH regime: listing and conservation. How could this be applied to the notion of ICH-as-culture? How long would such a list be? Would it be possible to make it at all? What purpose would it serve? Also, would it be possible to conserve (or ‘safeguard’ if so preferred) all the practices of a culture? The answer is “no,” but would it make any sense even if it were possible? As François Jullien suggests (2017:57), a culture that does not evolve and change is “dead.” Would not any culture be better allowed to evolve free from the constraints imposed by the ‘heritage regime’? In summary, the super-expanded version of ICH (ICH-as-culture) makes ICH theoretically irrelevant (as it becomes synonymous with the pre-existing, well-established concept of culture) and

(Un)definitions of ICH  39

practically unviable (as it leaves ICH beyond the reach of the practices that define the CH field).

2.3  Expanding ICH (2): tangible CH as ICH Is there such thing as tangible heritage? (Wells 2020:15)

The mode in which ICH exists, or in other words, its ontology, is another source of confusion concerning the notion of ICH. A more detailed discussion of the ontologies of cultural heritage is developed in Chapter 8, so for now, it suffices to note that the notion of ICH has also been expanded beyond its seemingly natural limits by dissolving the apparently clear-cut ICH-defining feature of being intangible. According to some authors, ICH would thus include not just cultural practices but cultural practices and all artifacts used in them. Consider, for instance, this text, taken from the highly influential quarters of UNESCO. In March 2001, in Turin, ICH was defined as “peoples’ learned processes along with the knowledge, skills and creativity that inform and are developed by them, the products they create and the resources, spaces and other aspects of social and natural context necessary to their sustainability” (KirshenblattGimblett 2004:54). This TCH-including version of ICH was later consecrated in the UNESCO 2003 Convention, which rules that obviously tangible things (“instruments, objects, artefacts”) become intangible cultural heritage when used in cultural practices designated as ICH (Art. 7 §1). It is important to stress that these texts do not state that ICH is performed “with the aid” of some tangible items but rather that the tangible tools used in ICH are intangible cultural heritage themselves. From a theoretical point of view, the idea that tangible items can be designated as intangible cultural heritage seems an inherent contradiction. To accept this idea, the common meaning of the words needs to be stretched beyond the rules of language and logic. Combined together, the ICH-as-culture version of ICH described in the preceding section and the TCH-as-ICH version shown here would lead to a hyperexpanded version of ICH. Every single artifact (an axe, a car, a shoe, a pen, a book: whatever) is made to serve some cultural practice, such that if it were agreed that all “instruments, objects, artefacts” used in ICH practices are ICH, ICH would, in fact, end up including not just the intangible aspects of a culture, but also the totality of its artifacts: TV sets, Rothko paintings, ritual garments, and beer cans would thus be cultural heritage. The ontological expansion posited in some ICH reflections suggesting that tangible objects can be intangible heritage is therefore highly questionable from a theoretical standpoint, as it can render the rigorous conceptual analysis of the notion very difficult, but also from a practical standpoint, as it would make it impossible to develop the practices

40  Setting the background

through which the CH discourse can influence the world (listing, safeguarding, musealization, etc.).

2.4  An “intellectual aberration”? Heritage status depends on a declaration in which the symbolic value of the object is articulated. Heritage is the consequence of this declaration and thus arises through a performative utterance . . . . From this perspective, the utterance and the language in which it is produced are also constitutive of heritage. (Dormaels 2013:108)

In the short essay “El idioma analítico de John Wilkins,” first published in 1952, Jorge Luis Borges transcribes a zoological taxonomy, allegedly found in a Chinese encyclopedia. The taxonomy classifies animals into the following categories: a) belonging to the Emperor; b) embalmed; c) trained; d) suckling pigs; e) sirens; f) legendary; g) unleashed dogs; h) included in this classification; i) which agitate as if they were mad; j) countless; k) drawn with a very thin brush made with camel hair; l) etcetera; m) which have just broken a vase; n) which look like flies when seen from a distance. (Borges 1980:223; my translation2) As Foucault noted in the foreword to Les mots et les choses. An archéologie des sciences humans, this taxonomy is extraordinarily funny and shocking because it “shakes . . . everything familiar to our thinking – our thinking: the thinking of our age and our geography” (Foucault 1985:1; my translation3). Each category responds to a different criterion: the criteria are freely juxtaposed, thus defying the very purpose of any taxonomy and the rules of logic that we all take for granted and allow for sound, intelligible discourses. And yet, in a way, this Chinese taxonomy is not entirely different from other taxonomies, which always have some degree of imprecision and contrivance. Consider, for example, the list of examples outlined in section §2.2 of UNESCO’s 2003 Convention. According to it, ICH consists of items such as: a b c d e

oral traditions and expressions, including language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage; performing arts; social practices, rituals and festive events; knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe; traditional craftsmanship.

As in the Chinese encyclopedia, these examples overlap: for example, “practices concerning nature and the universe” (d) are most often “social practices” (c);

(Un)definitions of ICH  41

“rituals” (c) can and often do include “oral traditions and expressions” (a); and “traditional craftmanship” (e) is indeed a form of “knowledge” (d). However, the main conceptual problem here is not the somewhat blurred, overlapping criteria behind this list, but the fact that ICH (the very notion of ICH itself, the ICH discourse) is itself a “social practice” and “a form of knowledge concerning the universe,” as reckoned by other authors. Laurajane Smith, for example, has noted that “the discursive construction of heritage is itself part of the cultural and social processes that are heritage” (Smith 2006:13), while both Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (2004) and Stefano and Hafstein (2018) have explicitly stressed the “meta-cultural” nature of ICH. Assigning the ICH discourse itself with heritageness may pose logical problems as it implies that, much as the preposterous category (h) in Borges’ Chinese taxonomy, the ICH system should be considered a part of the ICH system itself. It also implies practical challenges. If the CHD (or “the discursive construction of heritage” if so preferred) is itself considered ICH, the practices attached to CH (such as listing, researching, or safeguarding – see Chapter  4) should be applied to it: the CH discourse itself should thus be safeguarded. This idea has already started to permeate the CH field somehow: for example, Mehdi Hodjat has discussed the “conservation of conservation methods” (Hodjat 2009), while in Japan, “conservation techniques for intangible and tangible cultural properties” are considered one of the three basic categories of intangible heritage defined by Law (Alivizatou 2022:105–109). UNESCO itself included the reconstruction of the old city of Warsaw in the List of World Heritage for it “illustrates the effectiveness of conservation activities in the second half of the 20th century” (García Cuetos 2009:65). However, it is doubtful that these initiatives can be taken much further without defeating their own purpose – and it is even more doubtful that they can be applied to a discourse and not to just a set of techniques. In summary, it is not possible to assume that the ICH discourse is itself an ICH item without somehow betraying some of the theoretical tenets behind the CH discourse, or rather discourses: preserving the early, Enlightened notion of CH for its being ICH would be logically impossible, for the early notion of CH does not reckon with any form of ICH itself. On the contrary, not preserving the old notion of CH defeats the newer, non-axiological notion of ICH, for the old CH is undoubtedly an important cultural expression which does involve “social practices, rituals,” “knowledge and practices,” and even “traditional craftsmanship.” ICH can thus not cope with the early, axiological version of CH as a form of ICH, for it comes close to becoming “an intellectual aberration”: much like the paradoxical “set of sets that are not members of themselves” highlighted by Russell and Zermelo or the disarming category (h) in Borges’s Chinese taxonomy, the Enlightened CHD challenges logic because it can neither remain outside nor inside of the newer allencompassing, non-axiological ICH paradigm. The notion of ICH thus does not work smoothly unless somehow tweaked or limited to some selected items – that is, unless it returns to the axiological, or at least selective, stance it attempted to overcome in the first place.

42  Setting the background

2.5  And yet Eppur si muove. (Galileo Galilei)

In a way, something may be beyond logic and still make sense at other equally important levels. Reading an absorbing fiction book, walking by the sea shore on a warm, sunny day, or leisurely chatting with good friends are down-to-earth examples of things that are often pleasurable and valuable but which remain beyond logic. These are based on feelings, and, as Rusaliç has suggested, ICH might also be grounded on feeling things (Rusalić 2009:7passim): some aspects of ICH may remain beyond logic too. However, even though this idea is certainly valuable, it is hoped that we can say something more about it; it is hoped that a more profound reflection can be made that helps to make it less of an “intellectual aberration,” or, at the very least, reveal the tweaks that are unconsciously made to the notion of ICH so that it can work. To elaborate such a reflection, we need to find some common features of ICH items that allow us to make the notion a bit more precise – not completely precise, which is rarely possible in human sciences, but at least not overly vague or ambiguous.

Notes 1 “If the appearance of ICH poses problems to those in charge of establishing cultural policies, the theorists of cultural heritage criticize its conceptual limits, because they perceive the notion as an intellectual aberration” (“Si la irrupción del PCI plantea problemas concretos a los responsables del establecimiento de las políticas culturales, los teóricos del patrimonio denuncian sus límites conceptuales, ya que perciben en la noción una ‘aberración intelectual’ ”). 2 “Esas ambigüedades, redundancias y deficiencias recuerdan las que el doctor Franz Kuhn atribuye a cierta enciclopedia china que se titula Emporio celestial de conocimientos benévolos. En sus remotas páginas está escrito que los animales se dividen en a) pertenecientes al Emperador b) embalsamados c) amaestrados d) lechones e) sirenas f) fabulosos g) perros sueltos h) incluidos en esta clasificación i) que se agitan como locos j) innumerables k) dibujados con un pincel finísimo de pelo de camello l) etcétera m) que acaban de romper el jarrón n) que de lejos parecen moscas.” 3 “Este libro nació de un texto de Borges. De la risa que sacude, al leerlo, todo lo familiar al pensamiento – al nuesto: al que tiene nuestra edad y nuestra geografía.”

References Alivizatou, M. (2012) ‘The Paradoxes of Intangible Heritage’, in M. Stefano, P. Davis and G. Corsane (eds.) Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, pp. 9–22. Alivizatou, M. (2022) Intangible Heritage and Participation. Encounters with Safeguarding Practices. Abingdon: Routledge. Alonso González, P. (2019) The Heritage Machine: Fetishism and Domination in Maragatería, Spain. London: Pluto Press (Anthropology, culture and society).

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Alves, S. (2018) ‘Understanding intangible aspects of cultural heritage: The role of active imagination’, The Historic Environment: Policy & Practice, 9(3–4), pp. 207–228. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/17567505.2018.1517141. Borges, J.L. (1980) Prosa Completa. Vol. 2. Barcelona: Bruguera. Bortolotto, C. (2014) ‘La problemática del patrimonio cultural’, Culturas. Revista de Gestión Cultural, 1(1), pp. 1–22. Dormaels, M. (2013) ‘The Concept behind the Word’, in M.T. Albert (ed.) Understanding Heritage. Perspectives in Heritage Studies. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 107–116. Foucault, M. (1985) Las palabras y las cosas. Una arqueología de las ciencias humanas. Barcelona: Planeta-De Agostini. García Cuetos, M.P. (2009) Humilde condición. El patrimonio cultural y la conservación de su autenticidad. Gijón: Trea. Hafstein, V. (2018) Making Intangible Heritage: El Condor Pasa and Other Stories from UNESCO. E-book edition. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Hodjat, M. (2009) ‘Conservation of Conservation Methods’, in N. Stanley-Price and J. King (eds.) Conserving the Authentic: Essays in Honour of Jukka Jokilehto. Rome: ICCROM, pp. 117–123. Jullien, F. (2017) La identidad cultural no existe. Madrid: Taurus. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, B. (2004) ‘Intangible heritage as metacultural production’, Museum International, 56(1–2), pp.  52–65. Available at: https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1350-0775.2004.00458.x. Rusalić, D. (2009) Making the Intangible Tangible: The New Interface of Cultural Heritage. Belgrade: ЕТНОГРАФСКИ ИНСТИТУТ САНУ. Smith, L. (2006) Uses of Heritage. London: New York: Routledge. Stefano, M. and Hafstein, V. (2018) Folklife at the International Level: The Roots of Intangible Cultural Heritage Part II, with Valdimar Tr. Hafstein. Available at: https://blogs.loc.gov/ folklife/2018/07/folklife-at-the-international-level-the-roots-of-intangible-culturalheritage-part-ii-with-valdimar-tr-hafstein/. Stefano, M.L., Davis, P. and Corsane, G. (eds.) (2012) Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. UNESCO (2003) Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Available at: https://ich.unesco.org/en/convention (Accessed: 17 September 2022). Wells, J.C. (2020) ‘Is there such a thing as tangible heritage?’, Forum Journal, 32(4), pp. 15–24. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1353/fmj.2018.0025.

3 (UN)DEFINITIONS OF CH

3.1 Introduction If we want to effectively communicate the value of “heritage” to the broader swath of humanity, surely we must first agree, among ourselves, what this concept is supposed to represent. (Wells 2020:15)

Defining cultural heritage is not an easy task. As argued in the first chapter, the concept has changed substantially since its inception, evolving from an axiological stance to a popular, non-axiological, ICH-encompassing stance. Furthermore, as discussed in the preceding chapter, ICH, one of the main subsets of the currently standard non-axiological notion of CH, is a very diffuse notion that can even be conceptually expanded to cover all cultural practices and even non-intangible objects: the conceptual problems of ICH are thus passed over to the umbrella concept of CH to which it belongs.

3.2  (Un)definitions of CH I have become all things to all people. (Corinthians 9:22)

To a certain extent, the undefinition of CH needs not be a substantial problem, as so many notions and concepts resist precise enunciation and are still usable. Indeed, many valuable reflections on CH have been elaborated without the need to have a definition of CH. However, this should not preclude any attempt at refining the notion, but rather encourage it. DOI: 10.4324/9781003288121-4

(Un)definitions of CH  45

A glance at the literature shows that, as is the case with so many abstract notions beyond the realm of natural sciences or mathematics, the definition of cultural heritage tends to be not just volatile but also somewhat diffuse. Even the notion of cultural heritage is often de facto debased by substituting the term heritage instead without further qualification. This is routinely done in many works on cultural heritage because in most cases the text flows better and, most importantly, because in most cases it is very easy for the reader to tell which kind of heritage is being referred to. However, as shown in Chapters  1 and 2, expanded versions of CH often make cultural heritage and heritage (heritage-at-large) literally synonymous. Aside from the expansive evolution of the notion described earlier, this may also be because, as Ashworth et al. (2007:7) suggest, “the expression ‘cultural heritage’ is tautological in that all heritage is, perforce, cultural.” In turn, this overlapping interpretation of the terms may have to do with the fact that the notion of ‘culture’ is itself contested and ambiguous: To observe that “ ‘culture’ is . . . something of a muddle” . . . is to reiterate an on-going argument that the concept is too elusive, too all-encompassing and even too inherently contradictory to be of use and, as such, even potentially dangerous. (Ashworth et al. 2007:7) Dispensing with the adjective ‘cultural’ in CH may thus be seen as a way to free the CH concept from some conceptual dangers. If this were the case, however, the strategy has not worked, for the definition of CH is still the object of a debate that has proved fruitful in many senses but that has not provided scholars, professionals, or the public in general with a widely accepted understanding of what CH is. Definitions of CH oscillate between the restricted view posited in the 1972 UNESCO Convention (which establishes in its first article that CH consists of “monuments,” “groups of buildings,” and “sites”) and the hyper-expanded view that cultural heritage could be “all things to all people” (Larkham 1997:85). This conceptual pluralism hinders any theoretical discourse, as the object of discussion is rarely clearly determined. Harvey (2001:319) has summarized this problem by noting that “there seem to be as many definitions of the heritage concept as there are heritage practitioners.” For the sake of clarity, however, such continuum can be divided into three main types of CH: a) the original, axiological CH, the one that developed between the 18th century and the second half of the 20th century; b) the non-axiological (non-colonial, non-elitist) CH: the one including ICH and that developed after the Burra Charter or the UNESCO 2003 Convention; and c) a hyper-expanded version of CH encompassing all cultural expressions (that is, culture in a broad sense) and even natural products and ecosystems. This version represents what could be called panheritage.

46  Setting the background

Of course, there are many nuances and in-betweens. This taxonomy does not aim at describing all the existing CH versions, which would be impossible if only for the reason noted by Harvey; rather, it aims at highlighting the more important types in a broad sense and showing how these differences may interfere with any reflection on the topic: the fact that such different notions may be taken for each other in a theoretical discourse hinders not just its development but also its validity. Simply put, the assertions made with a CH version in mind do not need to apply to others. Because of the undefinition of the concept of CH, much of the theoretical debate thus boils down to the fundamental question of what version of CH is being discussed at each moment by each author and what are their relative merits. This undefinition also translates into a fundamental aspect of CH: its ontology, the mode in which CH exists.

3.3  Ontologies of CH Natural, cultural, local, gastronomic, national, genetic, intangible, dark, material, documentary, archaeological, architectural . . . . Heritage is a word condemned to the persecution of qualifying adjectives, or if not, of the verb to be. Heritage always is something. (Alonso González 2019)

One consequence, or perhaps a cause, of the undefinition of CH is that its very ontology is unclear. In fact, the ontology of CH is an aspect that CH theorists have discussed thoroughly. It is, indeed, an aspect of paramount importance to understanding the concept of CH, and, in a way, its discussion has shaped much of the more recent CH discourses.

3.3.1  Tangible CH Intangible heritage must have a material dimension: the processes involved assume materiality and tangibility. (Arizpe and Amescua 2013:123)

As shown in the first chapter of this book, the original version of CH was rooted in the ideals of Winckelmann, Grégoire, Viollet-le-Duc, Riegl, or Boito among so many others, who contemplated CH as a set of objects possessing exceptional historical or artistic value. While this vision seems too restrictive for today’s standards, it had, at least, a conceptual advantage: clarity. If we concentrate on the ontology of these items, this becomes particularly obvious. All of them are tangible things that can be moved around, burnt, hammered, or painted over – or carefully cleaned, in-painted, or otherwise cared for by adding, modifying, or removing some materials. Their ontology is as simple as it can be: they are tangible objects made of matter. It could be said that the original, non-axiological CH consisted (or consists, for the nostalgic readers) of objects or, to be more precise, material objects.

(Un)definitions of CH  47

Since approximately the decade of 1970, however, the notion that CH includes only items of this particular ontology came under increasingly strong and widespread criticism. The criticism was (is) extremely variegated and, in most cases, extremely interesting, as it touches on some of the most fundamental tenets of the non-axiological versions of CH and has thus contributed both to a more complete understanding of the traditional concept of CH and its abandonment. Among other consequences of this criticism, the ontology of CH became more complex or, if so preferred, more plural.

3.3.2  Intangible CH [The] . . . false dichotomy [between TCH and ICH] . . . (Stefano 2019)

The ontological plurality of CH is a consequence of the advent of intangible cultural heritage onto the heritage scene. ICH brought about many changes in the field, including new ontologies: CH no longer consisted only of material objects (gilt wood, ceramic fragments, khipus, etc.) but also of other items that cannot be touched, items that are intangible: ideas, musical performances, traditional knowledge, social customs, etc. A clear-cut, precise ontological boundary separates both types of CH, which were nevertheless seen as complementary. However, as shown earlier, the intangible ontology gained increased acceptance and momentum and became so expansive as to encompass tangible objects too. The UNESCO 2003 Convention took this stance, while, for example, Smith (2011) and Arizpe and Amescua (2013:123) bluntly state that “all heritage is intangible,” a dictum that seems to bestow every CH item, whether tangible or not, with the ontological feature of being intangible. Of course, this does not mean that some authors believe that a tangible thing cannot be touched or is actually intangible. This all-encompassing notion of intangibility can in fact be seen as linked to several underlying ideas. Smith herself notes that all heritage is intangible, in so far as heritage is a moment, or a process of re/ constructing cultural and social values and meaning. It is a process, or indeed a performance, in which we . . . identify the values and cultural and social meanings that help us make sense of the present, our identities and sense of physical and social place. (Smith 2011:39) In a similar vein, Bortolotto explicitly admits that the ‘intangibility’ of heritage objects is not actually linked to their not being tangible but to the fact that even tangible things evolve through time and thus become intangible ‘processes’: ‘intangible cultural heritage’ does not rest on the intangibility of cultural expressions, but rather on its support of the idea that they are to be

48  Setting the background

understood in terms of time (as an evolving process) and usage (not just for aesthetic contemplation). It therefore involves a progressive shift . . . to considering them as processes. (Bortolotto 2007:21) In this light, these statements about the ontology of heritage mean that, when dealing with tangible CH, what matters are the intangible features attached to, or surrounding, the object (the ideology, the process, the semantic exchange, the attached values, etc.). In comparison, the material object is “not necessarily vital” for CH to exist (Smith 2006:44). For these authors, this makes the object itself so unimportant as to lack any philosophical or theoretical relevance, such that a piece of obviously tangible heritage can thus be said to be ‘intangible.’

3.3.3  CH as process No single physical definition of a heritage place seems capable of capturing the thoroughly fragmented reality of cultural heritage in the twenty‐first century. Thus, focusing on process, rather than object, may be a more useful approach. (Silberman 2016:30)

A shift toward a processual ontology of CH has taken place over the last few decades, which has led many authors to consider CH as “something more than a collection of things or, indeed, resources” (Waterton and Watson 2013:551). From this standpoint, “heritage is not a ‘thing,’ is not a ‘site,’ building or other material object . . . these things . . . are not themselves heritage. Rather, heritage is what goes on at these sites” (Smith 2006:44).” Heritage is thus to be seen as “a cyclical and continuous phenomenon” or as a “dynamic phenomenon” (Munjeri 2009:143–148) or as “a social and cultural process” (Smith 2006:84). As Bangstad and Pétursdóttir (2022:12) reckon, “it is now widely asserted that heritage can be thought as a verb rather than a noun,” a metaphor also used by Harvey (2001:327) when urging us to “understand heritage as a process, or a verb, related to human action and agency.” The emphasis on the processual ontology of CH is directly linked to the rise of ICH within the field and to the increasingly important role of anthropologists, ethnographers, and sociologists in the construction of the CH discourse. Broadly speaking, the rationale behind this shift rests on two ideas. First, on the realization that the ever-changing set of values assigned to CH items is an essential feature of CH. In Avrami’s words, “if, in fact, the field acknowledges that . . . values are constantly changing over time – one might argue that the more important bequest is heritage as process” (Avrami 2021:198). Second, from a purely philosophical standpoint, it has also been argued that objects do exist through time and thus become a kind of process themselves. DeSilvey (2017:29) has summarized this view as follows:

(Un)definitions of CH  49

In the past few decades, theoretical approaches that locate the identity of an object in its fixed material form have given way to more complex notions of object identification as a mutable and contingent process. Most recently, work has focused attention on the way that objects themselves can be understood as “processual events,” continually formed and transformed by their movement through a field of social and physical relations. This view allows for a more holistic understanding of CH, as the mechanisms leading to the production and reception of CH do not necessarily begin and end with the CH item itself. CH involves an (often unstable and blurred) set of conventions, customs, and rules intertwining in subtle and complex ways and resulting in a particular cultural product. Investigating such a process has revealed how CH is created, what needs and interests it serves, and what effects it produces, thereby significantly increasing our understanding of the phenomenon.

3.3.4  CH as recognition Esse est percipi aut percipere. (George Berkeley)

Another way CH may be said to be a process is by reckoning with the fact that CH becomes such because of a process of recognition by some observers, whether they are their makers or not. This process of recognition would thus be what constitutes the essence of heritageness. Esse est percipi: this Berkeleyan approach is closely related to processes of “heritagization” (Koch 2013; De Cesari and Herzfeld 2015; Bendix et al. 2013), “heritage-ification” (Lipp 2013), “ICH-isation” (Ku 2019), or “UNESCOization” (Berliner 2012), that is, the processes by which some items are recognized as CH. Bluntly summarized, this approach to the CH-as-process ontology brings the act (the process) of recognition at the forefront, identifying the CH item with the very process by which it is perceived as such.

3.3.5  CH as performance Heritage is a cultural process or performance of meaning-making. (Smith and Waterton 2009:44)

Other authors shift the focus from the processual nature of CH to the fact that CH is performed: the ‘performative’ ontology of CH contemplates CH as a set of actions performed at some moments in time. It might be argued that a performance is in fact a kind of process (a subset of the set of processes, if so preferred). However, the performative ontology presents at least two important peculiarities that make it different from the broader notion of process. First, in this context, a performance is

50  Setting the background

performed by some agents; second, unlike ‘process,’ a performance is not an abstract notion but always involves physical phenomena: it consists of sounds, light, scents, electric impulses, movements, and so forth. In this view, CH is something that is ‘constantly recreated,’ as posited in the UNESCO 2003 Convention: something that comes into existence as it is enacted and re-enacted; a practice (see, e.g., Harrison 2015:24ff) or rather a set of “cultural practices that are renewed and recreated by practitioners” (Alivizatou 2012:192), practices that are “mediated by human mediums engaging in real-time performances” (Lipp 2013:138). Interestingly, the CH-as-performance ontology can be interpreted in two ways: as implying that CH is performed by its makers; and as implying that the spectators also ‘perform’ heritage in different, not passive ways. In other words, in the CH-as-performance CH ontology, the performers can be both the makers of CH and the consumers of CH. This duality of meanings is a potential source of confusion, and when discussing the performative nature of CH, it may be helpful to note which type of performance is being referred to. Consider, for instance, the performance of traditional practices by local communities. In this context, it becomes clear that CH is performed by some actors from those local communities: a parade, a folk dance, a theater play . . . all of them are performed by local actors or players – by conscious ‘heritage agents’ – trained in the corresponding tradition. However, the viewers (or the spectators, or the consumers) also perform CH: by standing by the sidewalks, cheering, remaining silent, staying a pre-set amount of time in the same place, showing respect, clapping at the right moment with the right strength, etc. Adopting a Berkeleyan stance akin to that described in §3.3.4, it could even be argued that it is the spectators (i.e., the perceiving agents) who confer the performance with heritageness. This performative role of the seemingly passive spectators or consumers of heritage is extensible to all kinds of CH but is especially important in the case of TCH, when the makers of the CH work do not usually ‘perform’ anything after the object is finished. For instance (and Latour permitting), the visitors to the Parthenon Museum are the only CH performers there, perhaps except for the occasional presence of a stern-looking guard. The presence of other CH ‘performers’ (the curator, the historian, the conservator, etc.) is latent, too, but when the work is on display, it is the visitors who are expected to perform CH by reacting and behaving in a given, appropriate, proper way, by adopting an appropriate intellectual attitude, an attitude of “learning and rehearsal of self-enforced social discipline” (Gaskell 2000:199).

3.3.6  CH as its actors A much broader theoretical shift in the humanities and social sciences, a shift towards a more relational ontology concerned to probe the limits of a binary logic that serves to locate power and agency on either side of a subject/object divide. (Connor 2016:254)

(Un)definitions of CH  51

Taking the CH-as-performance ontology one step beyond, it has been suggested that CH also consists of its performers. Under this ontological approach, CH comprises the human actors performing the CH (whether a process, an interplay, a phenomenon, or else), either as self-conscious, volitive beings (e.g., Bagnall 2003) or as living beings embodying (storing?) a particular skill or worldview (e.g., Bollmer 2011). As posited by Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (2004:53), “over several decades of trying to define intangible heritage, previously and sometimes still called folklore, there has been an important shift in the concept of intangible heritage to include not only the masterpieces, but also the masters.” In a diffuse way, the view that “heritage [can be] embodied in people rather than in inanimate objects” (Logan 2007:33) is not that new. As early as 1793, Grégoire claimed that “un grand homme est une propriété nationale” (Boulad-Ayoub 2012:52), ‘propriété national’ being the term used at the time for cultural heritage. However, this idea had little impact on CH discourse until recently: only in the last century has the idea gained recognition in Asia and then worldwide. This ontological approach grounds the Living Treasure Programs fostered in Japan or Korea and by UNESCO itself between 1993 and 2003. Currently, it is linked to the notion of ICH and to the anthropological views prevailing in the currently standard, non-axiological CH discourse: “ICH, like Indigenous knowledge, is holistic. ‘It cannot be compartmentalized and cannot be separated from the people who hold it’ ” (Kearney 2009:217).

3.3.7  CH as experience Heritage had to be experienced for it to be heritage . . . moreover, it was the experience. (Smith 2006:47)

Another ontology of CH posited in the literature is the ontology of CH-asexperience. This ontology is close to the phenomenological or idealist positions described earlier when discussing the CH-as-recognition ontology. According to these positions, the ultimate reality is not the world outside or the chaotic physical phenomena surrounding us, but the experience we make of them. This principle is easily applicable to CH, too, as suggested, for example, by Ruggles and Silverman (2009:v), who argue that the modern notions of ICH do include “lived human experience.” This ontology of heritage, in summary, “is explained as a corporeal experience, and affective, embodied, emotional coming together of people and place” (Harrison 2022:44).

3.3.8  CH as sensorial experience Somatic experiences . . . inform our thinking about culture and the past. (Panayiotopoulos et al. 2019:94)

52  Setting the background

A variation of the CH-as-experience ontology is the CH-as-sensorial-experience ontology. This ontological version of CH considers CH as a set of “bodily sensations” (Hahn 2007), as a “multisensory, synesthetic experience” (Chronis 2006), or as “sensory perceptions” (Campelo et al. 2019:xxv). By highlighting the role the “sensual, haptic, corporeal and kinaesthetic” plays in CH, this theoretical stance gets very close to phenomenology: “these sorts of approaches . . . echo the language of phenomenology by foregrounding concepts such as performance and embodiment” (Waterton and Watson 2013:552–554). This “sensational heritage” (Crosby 2012; Hahn and Jordan 2014) or these “sensescapes” (Campelo 2019:131) constitute yet another ontology of CH.

3.3.9  CH as embodied knowledge Groups of human beings are the repository of the knowledge and practices that constitute ICH. (Amescua 2013:105)

CH has also been said to be a form of knowledge that is embodied in the people. Logan (2007:33) succinctly defines ICH as “heritage that is embodied in people rather than in inanimate objects” while other authors speak of mentefacts (Dubé 2004; Falser 2015:15ff). On a similar note, CH has also been described as “a mentality” (Smith 2006:54) or as a set of beliefs (or knowledge or memory or collective memory) (e.g., Bollmer 2011; Rusalić 2009:7). However, this embodiment needs not to be restricted to immaterial heritage. Hahn (2007) has developed this idea in her detailed research on the Japanese dance nihon buyō, demonstrating the great relevance of the actual (physical, tangible) bodies in the adequate transmission of CH and suggesting that the true heritage is actually embedded in the dancers themselves; the same rationale is in fact behind the “established Japanese heritage practice of designating heritage as a skill embodied in a practitioner and particular practice” (Akagawa 2019:210; my emphasis). In summary, under this ontology CH can be seen as a kind of knowledge that is embodied within a human person. In this context, however, ‘knowledge’ must be interpreted in an open sense, as it refers not just to the kind of knowledge that can be expressed in words but also to what Polanyi (1983) called ‘tacit knowledge’: skills, intuition, and dexterity are also part of this ontology of CH.

3.3.10  CH as event Observed with an unarmed eye but over a long duration, [Michelangelo’s] David appears as a slow performance, moving through time, changing. (Hölling 2021:7)

A variation, or a derivative, of the CH-as-process ontology assumes that the CH item is an event. This ontology is almost self-evident in the case of a concert, a

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national ceremony, or a tribal dance. However, and perhaps more interestingly, it has been linked to material objects, too. In the words of Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, “even things are events . . . . As existential philosopher Stanley Eveling has remarked, ‘A thing is a slow event’ ”(Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 2004:59). The rationale behind this seemingly counterintuitive idea is, however, impeccable, and is in fact close to the ‘process philosophy’ of Alfred Whitehead. Every material object evolves through time; this evolution may be so slow as to encompass many generations, so it may go unnoticed and even seem non-existent, such as in the cases of the Egyptian pyramids, Machu-Pichu, or the Mohai in Easter Island – or, daring into the natural world, Lake Victoria, the Grand Canyon, or Mount Everest. In all of these cases, we may safely guess that the objects have changed through time, even though given that the process is relatively slow by human standards, we cannot directly perceive it. In other cases, however, the event is more easily noticeable, as is the case of, for example, the darkening of silver pigments, the alteration of a chocolate sculpture by Dieter Roth, or, as suggested by Domínguez Rubio, the small cracks in a masterpiece of the Western artistic canon: [The small cracks visible in the painting] help us to remember that the physical knot Van Gogh created back in the summer of 1889 is slowly, but relentlessly, coming undone – and that consequently when we look at Starry Night, we are not looking at a completed object made in June 1889 but at a particular moment of a slow event that is still taking place as it unfolds through organic and inorganic processes. (Domínguez Rubio 2020:4) Interestingly, Domínguez Rubio notes the slow event taking place in Starry Night to emphasize the difference he establishes between an ‘object’ and a ‘thing.’ This view also affords a new ontology to which CH items may be ascribed, as, for Dominguez Rubio, an ‘object’ is something (some-thing) that plays a role – or, it could be said, the view we have of some material items and the functions it can fulfill: Objects exist within positions that allow them to perform functions, realize purposes, and carry meanings and values. Things, on the other hand, are functionless, purposeless, meaningless, and valueless material processes. Objects decay, wear down, break, malfunction, and have to be constantly mended and retrofitted to prevent their collapse. Things simply happen. They take place, blindly, aimlessly, and relentlessly: they are a pure material becoming that unfolds without any intention, plan, or goal. (Domínguez Rubio 2020:5; see too Domínguez Rubio 2016) In this sense, even a tangible CH item would indeed be a slow event: an object in the sense of Domínguez Rubio (probably inspired by the terminology used by classical philosophers such as Meinong) and not just a thing. Domínguez Rubio

54  Setting the background

thus dilutes the ontological boundary between objects and events. Still, the ontological boundaries of CH can be further blurred along this line of thinking. As Anderson (n.d.) has noted, if, as Stanley Eveling has asserted, “an object is a slow event” . . . then perhaps an event can be thought of as a fast object. If thinking of an object as a slow event allows us to experience its temporality, then thinking of an event as a fast object reminds us of the event’s materiality. This is indeed an interesting view, as it helps to keep in mind that real-world phenomena involve a number of different factors and different ontologies. If these stances are accepted, however, then the notions of ‘object’ and ‘event’ become interchangeable and lose much of their analytical efficiency. A  possible way to disentangle this conundrum is to consider the inherently subjective nature of the notions. Both events and objects involve physical and material phenomena, but we can make a difference between objects and events depending on whether or not their evolution is easily noticeable within the range of human perception. Even though both categories may not be mutually exclusive, the more easily the change is perceived, the more likely the phenomenon is to be recognized as an ‘event’ and not as an ‘object,’ and vice versa. In this context, understanding CH items as events means that it is the changes that happen in and around a cultural expression that make for its heritageness.

3.4  Plural ontologies Implicit in this theoretical shift is an epistemological imperative to understand the significance and work of entities, human and non‐human, in an expanded field of enquiry encompassing a plurality of relations . . . or even perhaps specific kinds of ecologies. (Connor 2016:255)

This list of ontologies attributed to CH is not exhaustive, but shows that CH has been said to exist in very different modes, ranging from material objects to sensorial experiences, from performances to variegated forms of knowledge. Of course, these ontologies do not exclude one another: some authors have in fact explicitly mentioned the “ontological plurality” of CH (Harrison 2015:24), reckoning with the fact that CH may have different modes of existence at the same time. This may complicate any CH discourse, as different ontologies may coexist in the same CH item. For instance, heritage may be “a cultural process of embodied performance” (Smith 2011:24), as well as “a material-discursive process in which past and future arise out of dialogue and encounter between multiple embodied subjects in (and with) the present” (Harrison 2015:27). Recognizing plural ontologies does make sense since CH items can manifest themselves under different modes of existence: an

(Un)definitions of CH  55

object, an event, a process, an experience, and so forth. Furthermore, there is no reason why it should be otherwise. As Logan et al. have put it (2016:16), “heritage . . . is increasingly recognized as a dynamic evolving interplay of multiple factors touching all aspects of contemporary human life.” However, the fact that the ontologies of a CH item may conflate in different ways and to different extents may make any discourse on the ontology of CH complex and involved. It also renders general claims about CH possessing a single ontological nature particularly misleading. In summary, the notion of CH is afflicted by the ambiguity caused to a great extent by conflicting, competing definitions and by the intertwining, diffuse plurality of ontologies attributed to CH – by the many modes in which CH is understood to exist or happen. When faced with the ontological complexities of CH, there are two particularly interesting reactions: theoretical nihilism and panheritage.

3.5  Theoretical nihilism What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet. (Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act 2)

In this context, theoretical nihilism consists of renouncing any reflection as to what characterizes CH, instead simply accepting the status quo. For example, Chiang notes that “as defined by the Cultural Heritage Preservation Act [of South Korea], ‘cultural heritage’ refers to ‘the designated or registered assets having historic, cultural, artistic and/or scientific value’ ” (Chiang 2019:87). In other words, and paraphrasing Formaggio1 (1977:11), for nihilist theorists, “CH is simply what men call CH” (or rather what other men call CH: in this case, what some lawmakers and officials call CH). Alonso González has summarized this stance by quoting Carman: Most critical heritage researchers . . . when facing the problem’s complexity, end up adopting the more purely positivist classifications of heritage. This is the case with Carman . . . for whom heritage is that which is categorized as such by law. (Alonso González 2019) These semi-tautological approaches to the notion of CH represent de facto a refusal to theorize. The designation of CH is presented as a matter of fact, a given, and no effort is dedicated to finding what CH items have in common or what can be said about all of them (beyond the trivial fact that some people have designated them as CH). However, this answer simply delays the real question, for the next logical step would be to ask those who have designated the CH items as CH why they have done so. By declining to ask this question, the nihilistic theorists are implicitly or explicitly (and consciously or unconsciously) admitting that no valid answer is to be expected: that no definition of CH is possible.

56  Setting the background

This may seem like a poor response, or at least a lazy one, but it goes much further and deeper than it may appear at first sight. Suggesting that the concept of CH is not reasonable (in the sense that there is no rationale supporting it) may be somewhat disappointing, but it is in fact a powerful, transcendent idea. This book, however, is based on the opposite assumption: it is based on the idea that there is some rationale behind CH: that there are features that serve to tell CH from nonCH, and that these features can be researched and discussed.

3.6 Panheritage [In 2001] Arizpe . . . listed principal elements of ICH as follows: life (birth, rites of ages and betrothal, wedding and death), social (kinship, community, settlements, border and nation), biodiversity (botany, zoology, pharmacopoeia, agriculture), land (nature beliefs, names, landscape and property), symbolic (signs, representations, rituals and fags), spiritual (cosmo vision, animistic beliefs, sacred books, liturgies), literary (oral literature such as legends and epic stories and printed literature), performing arts (high arts and local arts), and festive (season’s calendar, games, religious festivals, school festivals). (Aikawa-Faure 2009:25)

Believing that no working definition of CH can be successfully theorized may lead to theoretical nihilism. However, the fact that no conceptual boundaries can be established can also lead to a hyper-expanded view of CH. If no theorization is possible, the notion of CH can be seen as having no conceptual restrictions. A consequence of the vagueness behind the notion of CH is that its boundaries may become extremely diffuse or loose. Thus, by simply pushing the envelope a bit, CH can be made to encompass literally any cultural phenomenon. The expansion of the notion is potentially limitless. This lack of limits, however, brings some theoretical issues. For instance, if ICH is understood as encompassing all cultural expressions, the notion of ICH (as well as its parent notion, CH, of which it is a subset) is made redundant and useless, as it becomes just another term for a well-established, widespread notion: culture. Machuca has concisely expressed this phenomenon speaking of ICH: “intangible culture, in general, tends . . . to be considered as heritage, and this leads to confusion between culture and heritage” (Machuca 2013:62). This confusion may produce “an alarming and problematic extension of the ‘heritage aura’ to cover all aspects of human life” (Bortolotto 2007:29). The porous, diffuse boundaries of ICH, or the lack of any boundary at all, compromise the practical and theoretical usefulness of the notion of CH at large: a concept that means anything is of little practical use. The metaphoric “Tragedy of Intangible Abundance” described by Biga (2021) could well be used to describe this problem. A more important step in the expansion (dilution, dissolution?) of the concept is perhaps that of the seemingly clear-cut boundary between tangible and intangible items of the world; however, as noted in §3.3.6, things can be taken a step further

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since those who create, sustain and appreciate ICH have also been considered to be CH themselves: “today, heritage is suddenly everywhere . . . and does not apply simply to ‘cultural objects’ but also to the way of making them, and to the people who are the bearers of this technical knowledge” (Bortolotto 2007:29), which in turn means that “people are .  .  . objects of cultural preservation” (KirshenblattGimblett 2004:58). As suggested in §1.4, the seemingly solid conceptual boundary between ‘cultural’ and ‘natural’ heritage has also been questioned or declared dissolved, which might take the ambiguity of the concept even further, beyond the realm of what is, or was, commonly understood as ‘culture’ (in passing rendering the qualifier ‘cultural’ in ‘cultural heritage’ pointless). In summary, through the dilution of the boundaries of the notion, CH may become a notion encompassing all cultural expressions but also the agents behind those cultural expressions and even natural items and phenomena. It is the combination of these expanded versions of CH what leads to panheritage. Panheritage is a simple response to a conceptual problem (namely, the lack of a clear-enough understanding of CH), and, as such, some authors find it a useful or even desirable notion. For instance, Machuca (2013:61) suggests that “the approximation between the notion of cultural heritage and culture itself has had the advantage of permitting a breakaway from the sclerotized concept of heritage.” Panheritage is indeed an extremely flexible, pliable, and open version of CH. From a theoretical standpoint, however, it may be too pliable and open. The “extension of the ‘heritage aura’ to cover all aspects of human life” leads to understanding heritage as literally everything we leave behind one second after it is produced. This includes, for example, nuclear waste (Buser 2015; Holtorf and Högberg 2021), plastic residues and carbon monoxide from combustion engines (Harrison 2022:31), or “polluted air and water, floating islands of plastic in the ocean . . . landfills, genetically modified plants and organisms that perhaps fundamentally transform ecosystems, and all the rest” (Bryant 2022:69). Under this light, heritage would not just be a synomym of ‘culture,’ but rather with ‘the world.’ At the end of the day, panheritage renders the notion of CH redundant and superfluous.

Note 1 “Art is everything that men call Art” (“L’arte è tutto ciò che gli uomini chiamano arte”) (Formaggio 1977:11).

References Aikawa-Faure, N. (2009) ‘From the Proclamation of Masterpieces to the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage’, in L. Smith and N. Akagawa (eds.) Intangible Heritage. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, pp. 13–44. Akagawa, N. (2019) ‘National Identity, Culinary Heritage and UNESCO. Japanese Washoku’, in N. Akagawa and L. Smith (eds.) Safeguarding Intangible Heritage. London: Routledge, pp. 200–217.

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Alivizatou, M. (2012) Intangible Heritage and the Museum. New Perspectives on Cultural Preservation. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Alonso González, P. (2019) The Heritage Machine: Fetishism and Domination in Maragatería, Spain. London: Pluto Press (Anthropology, culture and society). Amescua, C. (2013) ‘Anthropology of Intangible Cultural Heritage and Migration: An Uncharted Field’, in L. Arizpe and C. Amescua (eds.) Anthropological Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage. Cham: Springer, pp. 103–120. Anderson, S. (n.d.) Inherent Vice: Contagion and The Archive in The Times Square Show. Available at: http://archive.hemisphericinstitute.org/hemi/es/e-misferica-61/s-anderson. Arizpe, L. and Amescua, C. (2013) ‘Annexe. General Discussion: Identifying Key Issues’, in L. Arizpe and C. Amescua (eds.) Anthropological Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage. Cham: Springer, pp. 121–132. Ashworth, G.J., Graham, B. and Tunbridge, J.E. (2007) Pluralising Past. Heritage, Identity and Place in Multicultural Societies. London: Pluto Press. Avrami, E. (2021) ‘Sustainability, Intergenerational Equity, and Pluralism: Can Heritage Conservation Create Alternative Futures?’, in C. Holtorf and A. Högberg (eds.) Cultural Heritage and the Future. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 198–216. Bagnall, G. (2003) ‘Performance and performativity at heritage sites’, Museum and Society, 1(2), pp. 87–103. Available at: https://doi.org/10.29311/mas.v1i2.17. Bangstad, T.R. and Pétursdóttir, þ. (2022) ‘An Ecological Approach to Heritage’, in T.R. Bangstad and þ. Pétursdóttir (eds.) Heritage Ecologies. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 3–27. Bendix, R.F., Eggert, A. and Peselmann, A. (eds.) (2013) Heritage Regimes and the State, Heritage Regimes and the State. Göttingen: Göttingen University Press (Göttingen Studies in Cultural Property). Available at: http://books.openedition.org/gup/348 (Accessed: 23 November 2021). Berliner, D. (2012) ‘Multiple nostalgias: The fabric of heritage in Luang Prabang (Lao PDR)’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 18, pp. 769–786. Biga, B. (2021) The Economics of Intellectual Property and Openness. The Tragedy of Intangible Abundance. London: Routledge. Bollmer, G.D. (2011) ‘Virtuality in systems of memory: Toward an ontology of collective memory, ritual, and the technological’, Memory Studies, 4(4), pp. 450–464. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698011399407. Bortolotto, C. (2007) ‘From objects to processes: UNESCO’s “intangible cultural heritage” ’, Journal of Museum Ethnography, 19, pp. 21–33. Boulad-Ayoub, J. (2012) L’abbé Grégoire et la naissance du patrimoine national. Quebec: Presses de l’Université Laval. Bryant, L.R. (2022) ‘Wilderness Heritage. For an Ontology of the Anthropocene’, in T.R. Bangstad and þ. Pétursdóttir (eds.) Heritage Ecologies. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 66–80. Buser, M. (2015) Rubbish Theory: The Heritage of Toxic Waste. Amsterdam: Reinwardt Academy. Campelo, A. (2019) ‘Immaterial Heritage and Sense of Place’, in A. Campelo et al. (eds.) Cultural Heritage. London: New York: Routledge, pp. 129–138. Campelo, A., Reynolds, L, Lindgreen, A., and Beverland, M. (2019) ‘Foreword and Acknowledgement’, in A. Campelo et al. (eds.) Cultural Heritage. London: Routledge, pp. xxiii–xvii. Chiang, M.C. (2019) ‘Intangibility Re-Translated’, in N. Akagawa and L. Smith (eds.) Safeguarding Intangible Heritage. London: Routledge, pp. 84–101. Chronis, A. (2006) ‘Heritage of the senses. Collective remembering as an embodied praxis’, Tourist Studies, 6(3), pp. 267–296. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1468797607076674.

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Connor, A. (2016) ‘Heritage in an Expanded Field: Reconstructing Bridge‐ness in Mostar’, in W.S. Logan, M.N. Craith and U. Kockel (eds.) A Companion to Heritage Studies. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, pp. 254–267. Crosby, J. (2012) ‘They brought the essence of Africa – Social memory, sensational heritage, and embodied practices in Perico and Agramonte, Cuba’, Congress on Research in Dance Conference Proceedings, 2012, pp. 63–69. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/cor.2012.9. De Cesari, C. and Herzfeld, M. (2015) ‘Urban Heritage and Social Movements’, in L. Meskell (ed.) Global Heritage: A Reader. Chichester: Wiley and Sons, pp. 171–195. DeSilvey, C. (2017) Curated Decay. Heritage beyond Saving. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Domínguez Rubio, F. (2016) ‘On the discrepancy between objects and things: An ecological approach’, Journal of Material Culture [Preprint]. Available at: https://doi. org/10.1177/1359183515624128. Domínguez Rubio, F. (2020) Still Life: The Behind-The-Scenes Struggle to Preserve Art at MoMA. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Dubé, P. (2004) ‘La hermosura de lo vivo o el regreso de lo reprimido’, Museum International, (221–222), pp. 125–132. Falser, M. (2015) ‘Cultural Heritage as Civilizing Mission: Methodological Considerations’, in M. Falser (ed.) Cultural Heritage as Civilizing Mission: From Decay to Recovery. Cham: Springer, pp. 1–34. Formaggio, D. (1977) Arte. 2nd edition. Milan: ISEDI. Gaskell, I. (2000) Vermeer’s Wager. Speculations on Art History, Theory and Art Museums. London: Reaktion Books. Hahn, T. (2007) Sensational Knowledge: Embodying Culture through Japanese Dance. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Hahn, T. and Jordan, J.S. (2014) ‘Anticipation and embodied knowledge: Observations of enculturating bodies’, Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology, 13(2), pp. 272–284. Harrison, R. (2015) ‘Beyond “natural” and “cultural” heritage: Toward an ontological politics of heritage in the age of anthropocene’, Heritage & Society, 8(1), pp. 24–42. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1179/2159032X15Z.00000000036. Harrison, R. (2022) ‘Legacies: Rethinking the futures of heritage and waste in the Anthropocene’, in T.R. Bangstad and þ. Pétursdóttir (eds.) Heritage Ecologies. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 31–48. Harvey, D.C. (2001) ‘Heritage pasts and heritage presents: Temporality, meaning and the scope of heritage studies’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 7(4), pp.  319–338. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13581650120105534. Hölling, H.B. (2021) Introduction: Object – Event – Performance. E-book. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Holtorf, C. and Högberg, A. (2021) ‘Nuclear Waste and Cultural Heritage of the Future’, in C. Holtorf and A. Högberg (eds.) Cultural Heritage and the Future. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 144–158. Kearney, A. (2009) ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage. Global Awareness and Local Interest’, in Intangible Heritage. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 209–224. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, B. (2004) ‘Intangible heritage as metacultural production’, Museum International, 56(1–2), pp.  52–65. Available at: https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1350-0775.2004.00458.x. Koch, G. (2013) ‘Studying Heritage in the Digital Era’, in M.T. Albert (ed.) Understanding Heritage. Perspectives in Heritage Studies. Berlin: De Gruyter (Heritage studies, 1), pp. 169–181.

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Ku, M. (2019) ‘ICH-isation of popular religions and the politics of recognition in China’, in M. Akagawa and L. Smith (eds.) Safeguarding Intangible Heritage. London: Routledge, pp.187-199. Larkham, P.J. (1997) ‘Heritage as Planned and Conserved’, in D.T. Herbert (ed.) Heritage, Tourism and Society. New York: Pinter, pp. 85–116. Lipp, T. (2013) ‘Materializing the Immaterial. On the Paradox of Medializing Intangible Cultural Heritage’, in M.T. Albert (ed.) Understanding Heritage. Perspectives in Heritage Studies. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 135–152. Logan, W.S. (2007) ‘Closing Pandora’s Box: Human Rights Conundrums in Cultural Heritage Protection’, in H. Silverman and D.F. Ruggles (eds.) Cultural Heritage and Human Rights. New York: Springer, pp.  33–52. Available at: https://doi. org/10.1007/978-0-387-71313-7_2. Logan, W.S., Craith, M.C., and Kockel, U. (2016) ‘The New Heritage Studies: Origins and Evolution, Problems and Prospects’, in W. S. Logan, M. C. Craith, and U. Kockel (eds.) A Companion to Heritage Studies. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, 1–25. Machuca, J.A. (2013) ‘Challenges for Anthropological Research on Intangible Cultural Heritage’, in L. Arizpe and C. Amescua (eds.) Anthropological Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage. Cham: Springer, pp. 57–69. Munjeri, D. (2009) ‘Following the Length and Breadth of the Roots. Some Dimensions of Intangible Heritage’, in L. Smith and N. Akagawa (eds.) Intangible Heritage. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 131–150. Panayiotopoulos, A., et  al. (2019) ‘Heritage as Embodied Co-Creation: “Living the History” of the Titanic in Cobh’, in A. Campelo et al. (eds.) Cultural Heritage. London: Routledge, pp. 85–96. Polanyi, M. (1983) The Tacit Dimension. Gloucester: Peter Smith. Ruggles, D.F. and Silverman, H. (2009) ‘Preface’, in D.F. Ruggles and H. Silverman (eds.) Intangible Heritage Embodied. New York: Springer, p. v. Available at: https://doi. org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0072-2. Rusalić, D. (2009) Making the Intangible Tangible: The New Interface of Cultural Heritage. Belgrade: Етнографски Институт СанУ. Silberman, N.A. (2016) ‘Heritage Places: Evolving Conceptions and Changing Forms’, in W.S. Logan, M.N. Craith and U. Kockel (eds.) A Companion to Heritage Studies. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, pp. 29–40. Smith, L. (2006) Uses of Heritage. London: Routledge. Smith, L. (2011) All Heritage is Intangible. Amsterdam: Reinwardt Academie. Smith, L. and Waterton, E. (2009) Heritage, Communities and Archaeology. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Stefano, M. (2019) Folklife at the International Level: The Roots of ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage’. Part VI. World Heritage. Available at: https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2019/04/folklife-atthe-international-level-the-roots-of-intangible-cultural-heritage-part-vi-world-heritage/ (Accessed: 1 August 2022). UNESCO (1972) Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/conventiontext/. UNESCO (2003) Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Available at: https://ich.unesco.org/en/convention (Accessed: 17 September 2022). Waterton, E. and Watson, S. (2013) ‘Framing theory: Towards a critical imagination in heritage studies’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 19(6), pp. 546–561. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2013.779295. Wells, J.C. (2020) ‘Is there such a thing as tangible heritage?’, Forum Journal, 32(4), pp. 15–24. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1353/fmj.2018.0025.

4 A NOTE ON CH PRACTICES

4.1 Introduction Culture exists only in and through practices. (Ashworth et al. 2007:7)

The CH field is defined not just by its discourse but also by its attached practices. These are obviously crucial to all CH professionals, but in a way, also to the discourse from which they derive and that they reciprocally contribute to sustaining and shaping. In fact, CH practices serve for more than that, as they ground CH institutions, channel CH leadership, and in general sustain what a number of authors (e.g., Peacock and Rizzo 2008; Sandis 2014; Brulotte and Di Giovine 2014; Schneider 2011) have called “the heritage industry.” Therefore, a brief overview of the most relevant CH-related practices may be helpful in the context of a theoretical essay such as this. One way to approach the CH discourse, in fact, would be to look not at its underlying theoretical framework but at some of its more conspicuous, real-world symptoms: the practices it fosters, the real-world actions that serve to implement its theoretical tenets, what we could call its ‘indices,’ in the Peircean sense of the term. These practices are the immediate consequences of the CH discourse and the means through which the CH discourse ceases to be abstract and becomes factual. CH practices are varied, and there is no agreement as to what they are precisely: Hennessy (2012:33) emphasizes “collection, interpretation and exhibition”; Falser (2015:17) speaks of “register[ing], preserv[ing), represent[ing], and exhibit[ing]”; the UNESCO 2003 Convention (Art. 2.3) establishes that the measures “ensuring the viability of intangible cultural heritage” are “the identification, definition, research, documentation, preservation, promotion, enhancement, transmission . . . education DOI: 10.4324/9781003288121-5

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and revitalization”; much along the same line, Graham (2009:198) includes “identification, documentation, research, preservation, protection, promotion, enhancement, transmission, [and] revitalization,” and Alivizatou (2022:6) “identification,” “research/documentation,” “preservation/protection,” “promotion/enhancement,” “transmission,” “education” and “revitalization.” The list could go on, but in this chapter, I highlight four of the practices most authors reckon with, arguably the most important ones: listing, research, musealization, and conservation.

4.2 Listing Heritage making is itself not unlike list making .  .  . listing shadows heritage making. (Hafstein 2018:ch.3)

Strictly speaking, the first (and foremost) CH practice would be the process of designation: the assessment of the relevant properties and features of some cultural expression and its selection as CH. The direct consequence of this selection process is the creation of lists of those items. These lists (or “inventories,” “catalogs,” etc.) may have different reach (local, national, international, private, etc.); they may also have a different value (legal, cultural, social, economic, touristic, etc.). However, they represent in all cases the formal and public declaration that some items have special value that turns them into cultural heritage. Listing is in fact one of the most recognizable symptoms of the Western CH discourse: it has become “paramount in professional heritage practice” and “the crux of many national and local heritage systems” (Avrami 2021:199). A CH list is thus a constitutive element of CH and represents a practice of great relevance: a list of CH (whether local, national, or international or whether coming from an NGO, a legal body, an academic institution, or a group of aficionados) is the very instrument by which CH is formally declared as such. In a relevant way, the CH discourse requires a list: without such formal recognition, a CH item can only be considered tentative or potential, but not actual. CH lists thus have a transformative power – such that they may be said to have ‘magical’ effects on the cultural expressions included in them (Askew 2010).

4.3 Research Lived elements of culture are subjected to the discursive impact of previous ethnographic research and the veneration of past repertoires. (Kuutma 2013:12)

Research is another practice brought about by the CH discourse. In a way, it is similar to listing, but while listing concentrates on discerning CH from non-CH

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and making it explicit, research consists of increasing the attention paid to the item and knowing it better. CH research aims at dissecting and understanding the item through the methods of human and material sciences. This impulse is recognizable from the very early stages of the history of CH. Consider, for instance, the work of German scholar Karl Otfried Müller (1797–1840). From his point of view, the study of art had undergone three stages: in the first stage, dating between 1450 and 1600, art was studied by artists for art’s sake; between 1600 and 1750, he spoke about an “antiquarian” attitude. After 1750, however, he noted that a new approach started to prevail: he called it “scientific.” His reflections were presented in his Handbuch der Archäologie der Kunst, published in 1830 and then in 1835. He explained that “the main object of this Manual is to reduce to scientific order the materials contained in archaeological literature . . . strictly confining itself to the visual arts [zeichnenden Künste] of the ancients” (Miller 2017:130). Four decades later, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc believed that the goals described by Müller had been achieved – and he should know well. Viollet-le-Duc not only contributed to the actual care and restoration (and reshaping, and heritagization) of such well-known examples of Western cultural heritage as Notre Dame, Carcassone, and the castle of Pierrefonds but also wrote an impressive nine-volume Dictionnaire on the history of French medieval architecture. As noted in Chapter 1, in the eighth volume of this work he highlighted as a sign of his times the will to “analyze,” “compare,” “classify,” and “shape the true history” of the remnants from the past” (Viollet-le-Duc 1866:15; our translation1). In a significant way, texts like these allow us to witness the birth of the CH discourse and realize that an important part of it has not changed much. The scientific aspirations have been a constant in CH discourse since its inception: appealing to some form of Truth is still common in the CH field, as is the wish to remain faithful to the historical, scientifically researched past rather than to current aesthetic tastes, needs, or preferences. Cultural heritage is still investigated and classified by archaeologists, historians, ethnographers, anthropologists, art historians, and other experts, very often working on behalf of states, universities, local governments, supranational organisms, NGOs, and other cultural heritage institutions with different aims and resources: designating something as CH transforms it in an object of scientific inquiry and attention.

4.4 Musealization The objects within a museum have entered the place and have been transformed into heritage. (Alonso Fernández 1999:122; our translation)

Musealization is another cultural practice closely connected with CH discourse, especially (but not exclusively) with the original Enlightened CH discourse. The museum was initially thought to allow the public at large to enjoy and admire some of the finest and most representative objects in Western material culture. Quite early,

64  Setting the background

museums assumed the role of social didactic institutions. This didacticism is evident, for instance, in natural history museums, though it is observable in every kind of museum. In the 1947 General Assembly of the International Council of Museums, these institutions were defined as “any permanent institution that keeps and exhibits collections of objects of cultural or scientific nature, for education, study or enjoyment” (II, Art. 3; cit. in Alonso Fernández 1999:67; my translation2). Nowadays, even art museums have didactic goals: their goals are not only to provide a pleasurable artistic experience but also to give the visitors “the true history” (to use Viollet-le-Duc’s words) of the artworks (or under a less naïve viewpoint, to spread a cultural canon). This phenomenon is somewhat paradoxical. In nearly every case, musealizing something means taking it out of its context, thus obscuring some essential traits of its ‘true history’ or its ‘true nature.’ Panayiotopoulos et al. (2019:92) have summarized this paradox in a direct, straightforward way: the very process of removing artifacts and placing them in museums, as well as the acts of abstraction and interpretation involved in doing so, render the authenticity of these objects questionable . . . because “every relic displayed in a museum is a fake in that it has been wrenched out of its original context.” This form of ‘faking’ is very easily observable in nearly any museum around the world. Consider, for instance, the Nereid Monument in the British Museum: it is no longer atop a sunny hill, where it needs to be walked to with some effort, nor is it used (or usable) for performing any ritual, except the very modern “ritual of civilization” (Duncan 1995) that is visiting a museum. This requires a special attitude: quiet, polite, reverential, introspective, curious, and open-minded. The museum-visiting ritual (as any other ritual, for that matter) means that the actor must adopt “alternative habits to those . . . in their home or other public places” (Cochrane 2010:34).

4.5 Conservation Critical heritage studies inevitably confront the conflict between the desire for conservation and corresponding processes of demographic elimination. (De Cesari and Herzfeld 2015:171)

Conservation (or ‘preservation,’ or ‘safeguarding’) of CH items, and especially the idea that it is a social duty, is another trait of both the early and current CHD. As Arantes has stressed, “cultural preservation as a public policy is a product of Western cultural history” (Arantes 2013:39). This seems only natural. As I will argue in §8.5, one trait of heritage is that it can be inherited. In turn, this requires that it can be conserved for a period of time that, given the average human lifespan, can be said to be of at least a few decades: it seems commonsensical that something that cannot be conserved somehow cannot be handed down to the next generations. Heritage, of any kind, needs to persist

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enough for it to be passed down to others: conservation is thus a quintessential practice, one that is inherent to the notion of heritage itself. Of course, no object can be conserved ad infinitum, since all of them, from a newspaper to the paintings in the Lascaux cave, have a finite life expectancy. However, even with the awareness that every object will eventually fall prey to physical (or cultural) entropy, conservators work to increase the life-expectancy of CH objects so that as many people as possible, now and in the future, can enjoy them or learn from them. Object conservation, which was once seen as a scientific activity, is now understood by its practitioners as an active cultural intervention in which a number of non-technical choices are made. Since the early 19th century, conservation professionals have developed sophisticated techniques and skills to modify CH objects so they can perform their assigned function more efficiently, in a way that makes the objects “more satisfying to more people” (Muñoz-Viñas 2020:7) – and it may be interesting to note the phrase “more people” does include our descendants. Safeguarding ICH has also become a fundamental practice. As discussed in §7.4 through §7.8, this is done through documentation, training, and re-enacting or, in other words, by creating records and working with people. This branch of CH conservation is thus theoretically complex, as it may be difficult to tell apart from regular cultural practices. Still, ‘safeguarding’ ICH is reckoned as an important type of CH preservation in the field, and it must be explicitly mentioned here. Listing, research, musealization, and conservation are closely interlinked. In a way, they imply each other and may even overlap and blend. Of course, they are not the only practices deriving from the CH discourse, but they are arguably the most important ones. Also, they show how the CH discourse manifests itself in the world – and some of the practical consequences such discourse can have on the cultural ecosystem.

Notes 1 See Chapter 1, note 5. 2 “el Consejo internacional de museos reconoce como museo a toda institución permanente, que conserva y expone colecciones de objetos de carácter cultural o científico, para fines de estudio, educación y deleite.”

References Alivizatou, M. (2022) Intangible Heritage and Participation. Encounters with Safeguarding Practices. Abingdon: Routledge. Alonso Fernández, L. (1999) Introducción a la nueva museología. Madrid: Alianza Editorial. Arantes, A. (2013) ‘Beyond Tradition: Cultural Mediation in the Safeguarding of ICH’, in L. Arizpe and C. Amescua (eds.) Anthropological Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage. Cham: Springer, pp. 39–56. Ashworth, G.J., Graham, B. and Tunbridge, J.E. (2007) Pluralising Past. Heritage, Identity and Place in Multicultural Societies. London: Pluto Press. Askew, M. (2010) ‘The magic list of global status: UNESCO, World Heritage and the agendas of states’, in S. Labadi and C. Long (eds.) Heritage and Globalisation, London: Routledge.

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Avrami, E. (2021) ‘Sustainability, Intergenerational Equity, and Pluralism: Can Heritage Conservation Create Alternative Futures?’, in C. Holtorf and A. Högberg (eds.) Cultural Heritage and the Future. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 198–216. Brulotte, R.L. and Di Giovine, M.A. (eds.) (2014) Edible Identities: Food as Cultural Heritage. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited. Cochrane, A. (2010)’ Replaying the Past in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, in S. Koerner and I. Russell (eds.) Unquiet Pasts. Risk Society, Lived Cultural Heritage, Re-designing Reflexivity. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 33–48. De Cesari, C. and Herzfeld, M. (2015) ‘Urban Heritage and Social Movements’, in L. Meskell (ed.) Global Heritage: A Reader. Chichester: Wiley and Sons, pp. 171–195. Dormaels, M. (2013) ‘The Concept behind the Word’, in M.T. Albert (ed.) Understanding Heritage. Perspectives in Heritage Studies. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 107–116. Duncan, C. (1995) Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums. New York: Routledge. Falser, M. (2015) ‘Cultural Heritage as Civilizing Mission: Methodological Considerations’, in M. Falser (ed.) Cultural Heritage as Civilizing Mission: From Decay to Recovery. Cham: Springer, pp. 1–34. Graham, L.R. (2009) ‘Problematizing Technologies for Documenting Intangible Culture: Some Positive and Negative Consequences’, in D.F. Ruggles and H. Silverman (eds.) Intangible Heritage Embodied. New York: Springer, pp. 185–200. Available at: https://doi. org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0072-2. Hafstein, V. (2018) Making Intangible Heritage: El Condor Pasa and Other Stories from UNESCO. E-book edition. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Hennessy, K. (2012) ‘From Intangible Expression to Digital Cultural Heritage’, in M.L. Stefano, P. Davis and G. Corsane (eds.) Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, pp. 33–46. Kuutma, K. (2013) ‘Concepts and Contingencies in Heritage Politics’, in L. Arizpe and C. Amescua (eds.) Anthropological Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage. Cham: Springer, pp. 1–15. Miller, P.N. (2017) History  & Its Objects: Antiquarianism and Material Culture since 1500. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Muñoz-Viñas, S. (2020) ‘Metamorphosis of a Profession’, in On the Ethics of Cultural Heritage Conservation. London: Archetype Publications, pp. 1–15. Panayiotopoulos, A., Lichrou, M., O’Malley, L. and Patterson, M. (2019) ‘Heritage as Embodied Co-Creation: “Living the History” of the Titanic in Cobh’, in A. Campelo et al. (eds.) Cultural Heritage. London: New York: Routledge, pp. 85–96. Peacock, A. and Rizzo, I. (2008) The Heritage Game. Economics, Policy and Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sandis, C. (ed.) (2014) Cultural Heritage Ethics. Between Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0047.02. Schneider, R. (2011) Performing Remains. Art and War in Times of Theatrical Reenactment. Abingdon: Routledge. UNESCO (2003) Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Available at: https://ich.unesco.org/en/convention (Accessed: 17 September 2022). Viollet-le-Duc, E. (1866) ‘Restauration’, in Dictionnaire raisonné de l’architecture française du XIe au XVIe sècle. Tome Huitième. Paris: Libraires-Imprimeries Réunies Ancient Maison Morel, pp. 14–34.

PART II

Setting the limits

5 WESTERNNESS, COLONIALISM, AND CH

5.1  Hard colonialism (and CH) The question of the equality of races, peoples, or cultures has meaning only if we are talking about an equality in law, not an equality in fact. In the same way, men who are blind, maimed, sick, feeble-minded, ignorant, or poor . . . are not respectively equal, in the material sense of the word, to those who are strong, clear-sighted, whole, healthy, intelligent, cultured, or rich. (Roger Caillois 1955; cit. in Césaire 2000:72–73)

Nowadays, after the egalitarian, non-axiological CHD has become officially recognized and adopted by both political institutions and the academic world, it may be contentious to say that some cultures are, or have ever been, superior to others. Such a statement is certainly questionable, among other reasons because it is not easy to establish a fair yardstick by which the greatness of any culture is measured: being open and tolerant? Offering a purposeful life? Preventing inequality? Providing a strong community link? Allowing a lucky few to become immensely rich? However, there is one aspect in which the European colonial powers were superior to others: their military abilities, skills, and tools were better than those of many other peoples. Unfortunately, many European powers ruthlessly used military superiority to exert economic and political domination over many territories and peoples outside of Europe – and inside Europe, for that matter. Military superiority also implied the dissemination (and too often the enforcement) of the whole European worldview, including the Enlightened episteme (that is, Reason and Science as the only valid source of knowledge) and the European cultural canon (including the European artistic customs and traditions). Nowadays, it seems clear that, in spite of any positive effects it could have, this process was often both a tool and an excuse for domination. In the end, as Kersel DOI: 10.4324/9781003288121-7

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and Luke (2015:73) have summarized, “advancement of imperial powers was the goal behind archaeology, conservation, museums, and heritage sites.” Regardless of the honesty of the involved cultural agents (or of their level of cynicism), “heritage, indeed, has a proven record as an excellent soft power option” (Kersel and Luke 2015:75). Speaking of ‘cultural colonialism’ can be somewhat confusing. The differences with ‘cultural proselytism,’ ‘cultural influence,’ ‘cultural assimilation,’ ‘acculturation,’ ‘transculturation,’ ‘cultural diffusionism,’ and other related notions may be blurry and lead to ambiguity. However, I will not delve into any depth into the interesting and often subtle differences between all these concepts. Instead, I will use the makeshift term soft cultural transfer to describe the peaceful seeding or adoption of a cultural product (a custom, a belief, a notion, etc.) from a (generally stronger) culture into another. In this sense, ‘soft cultural transfer’ includes different forms of more or less civilized cultural transplant and opposes the hard cultural colonialism that was obvious in the 19th century. In these times, Europeans believed their culture was superior to any other, and many European powers claimed (more or less hypocritically) that it was their duty to share it with inferior cultures and peoples. It was also painfully evident in more recent times, as the opening quote shows in a very crude way: to a substantial extent, the current, non-axiological CHD is an attempt to denounce and prevent any form of cultural colonialism.

5.2  Criticizing the original CHD This dilemma between a world heritage and a nascent national/regional or community heritage is further illustrated by two articles in Antiquity . . . concerning the Kow Swamp Pleistocene burials, Victoria, Australia. The argument put forward . . . asserted that the early date of the skeletons made the issue one of world heritage (because the burials contained valuable information concerning the origins of humankind) . . . . The native contention was that it was disingenuous to create the “world” heritage attribute when so little native culture had been within their own orbit. (Emerick 2001:282–283)

It is the criticism of the early, original CH discourse that gave rise to the currently prevailing non-axiological CH discourse. In an important way, the current CHD was shaped after this criticism and was (is) an attempt to overcome the problems perceived in the original CHD. This criticism has been presented in different forms throughout the literature, but there is an underlying consensus as to what the main issue is: in all cases, there is a frequent reference to the CH discourse being Western, elitist, and exclusionary. This text, taken from a Manifesto issued in 2013 by the Association of Critical Heritage Studies, is a good summary of these views: Heritage is, as much as anything, a political act and we need to ask serious questions about the power relations that “heritage” has all too often been

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invoked to sustain. Nationalism, imperialism, colonialism, cultural elitism, Western triumphalism, social exclusion based on class and ethnicity, and the fetishizing of expert knowledge have all exerted strong influences on how heritage is used, defined and managed. (Logan et al. 2016:18) The Western cultural bias is especially noticeable in the original CHD, against which the criticism was addressed in the beginning: such discourse was imperialist (as it celebrated and imposed the triumph of Western worldviews, tastes, and criteria), it was racist (as it mainly consisted of cultural expressions of white people), and it was based on the authority of experts (thus provoking the exclusion of the laypersons). Elitism is therefore related to the Westernness of the CH items and the judgment of experts, but also the aesthetic quality of the CH items and their fitting with the Western cultural canon. In the original axiological CHD, “the dominant perception of ‘heritage’ draws heavily from the Western European architectural and archaeological conservation and preservation practices that define it as material, monumental, good, aesthetic, and of universal value” (Kuutma 2013:4). Kuutma rightly connects the criteria for heritageness in the original CH discourse with its Western roots: it is from these roots that the core traits of the original CH discourse derive – a discourse that is exclusionary because only the rich and powerful can produce something that is “monumental,” and only a handful of talented persons (often working for the rich and powerful) can produce the kind of extraordinary things that rank so high in the Western culture. The “material” nature of CH is also mentioned, as is its “universal value” – a presumedly universal value that is not determined by consultation with the people but by another selected group, that of the experts. In summary, even though the original CHD aimed at making the most valuable cultural products available to everyone, it was still inherently elitist because it excluded both non-Western cultural expressions and popular cultural expressions. According to many authors, some of these problems keep afflicting the CH field: for example, still in the second decade of the 21st century, Rudolff and Buckley (2016:527) believed that “Eurocentrism” remains the first in a list of six problems in need of a solution in the heritage field.1 It might be argued, however, that the original CHD, that which was prevalent since Grégoire until around the 1950s, is no longer ‘dominant’ but dying, or rather dead. Already in the third decade of the 21st century, it is nearly impossible to find a theorist defending the original, axiological CHD (or any Eurocentric CHD, for that matter). On the contrary, the current non-Western, non-axiological discourse has gained predominance in the field and has become the ruling discourse, the basic set of assumptions that are taken for granted and from which (or, for the daring, against which) newer reflections and ideas are elaborated: in the last two decades, a vast majority of the published work in the CH field are explicitly or implicitly based on these apparently non-Western and non-elitist positions.

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5.3 East-West To many people in Asian regions, ‘cultural heritage’ is a translated term. In the local context, similar notions may exist in the local language but are now being slowly replaced by the imported term of ‘cultural heritage.’ (Chiang 2019:84)

A collective work published in 2001 asked whether the Western idea of universal, material heritage fostered by UNESCO’s 1972 Convention “is an essential mechanism for the protection of the world’s cultural and natural heritage, or whether it subjugates a diversity of cultural traditions to specifically Western ideas” (Layton et al. n.d.; my emphasis). Indeed, the original, Western CHD has been extensively criticized for its being loaded with “Eurocentric parochialisms” (Winter 2013:397) and, more importantly, for its being colonial, that is, for imposing these parochialisms on other cultures. In many important regards, the now-classical, non-axiological CHD aims at eradicating these problems and is certainly more open than the original, axiological version. It could not be otherwise: as it needs to accommodate more visions and worldviews, the notion needs to be more encompassing. The main strategy to pursue this goal has been, and still is, incorporating some traits of non-Western cultural traditions into the Western CH discourse. These nonWestern are often Asian: in fact, the CH literature tends to present the dichotomy between the earlier and the current CH discourses as a dichotomy between ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ CH discourses. The differences between the Western and the Eastern approaches to CH have been discussed numerous times. Many authors suggest that the Eastern views are more concerned with the immaterial and transient and less with the long-lasting material objects, which is a reason for emphasizing ICH over TCH. As Wei and Aass (1989:8) have summarized it, “the tendency in the West is to focus on the material aspect . . . while the Eastern approach focusses [sic] on the genius loci.” These differences have become one of the tenets of the currently prevailing nonaxiological ICH-encompassing CH discourse. As Taylor (2015:67) notes, “there is much made of the differences between ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ philosophies of conservation in academic discourse . . . the claim being that the West only regards tangible or material aspects, and the East focuses on intangible heritage.” Along this line of thinking, a number of authors (e.g., Holtorf 2012:153; Jeudy 2019:Introduction §9, §14; Alonso González 2019, §2; Byrne 2014:99) have identified the aim of the original CHD to preserve (‘freeze’) tangible cultural objects as a mental disorder (an “obsession”). On the contrary, the most remarkable characteristic of the ‘Eastern-oriented’ CHD is the recognition of ICH as the most important (or even the only important) component of cultural heritage. The advent of ICH in the heritage world was both fostered and sanctioned by UNESCO, culminating in the 2003 Convention. In the previous years, UNESCO’s heritage agenda had been heavily influenced by “long-term and extensive lobbying from non-Western nation states and Indigenous peoples” (Akagawa and Smith

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2019:2). Hafstein hints that the governments of Japan and Korea played the leading role in this movement and that, in the years previous to the 2003 Convention, these countries carried out intense diplomatic work to bring the ‘Eastern’ ways with heritage to the fore (Hafstein 2009, 2018). Much of the new, non-axiological CH discourse has assimilated (or at least concurs with) these positions. As commonly understood, the original Western CH discourse was essentially restrictive and exclusively centered on tangible objects and stasis, while, on the other hand, the Eastern CH discourse is open, fluid, and favors intangible cultural expressions. The contrasting East/West attitudes have been explained as responding to a broader philosophical framework. As Kerney (2009:212) has noted, the “West” . . . is characterized by a human centeredness that only voluntarily engages with the “natural world,” cementing a separation between the human and non-human worlds . . . . This is unlike the “East,” which is held to conceive of nature in a contemplative-intellectualist and supremely connected sense. In the end, it is argued, the differences in Eastern and Western approaches to heritage derive from “differing underlying approaches to the cosmology of the world” (Wei and Aass 1989:8). The reasons for these differences obviously fall outside of the scope of this book: what matters here is to be aware that these differences exist, and that the ICH-encompassing, ‘non-Western,’ approach to CH is often related to Eastern worldviews. In summary, the original, Enlightened CHD has been criticized for being Eurocentric (as it privileged European cultural values) and colonial (as it was forcefully imposed on the rest of the world), and these criticisms lay at the core of the non-axiological CHD, which, in a way, was raised as a response to them. These critical views are nowadays widely agreed upon, in fact, and are almost taken for granted on the CH scene: they have become the currently dominant and hegemonic CHD. As some time has passed since they were elaborated, we are perhaps ready to develop a more refined analysis of these arguments. Throughout the following sections of this chapter, three main ideas will be presented to this end. First, I  will note that the tenets of the modern, ‘non-Western’ CH discourse, even if willfully adopted by non-Western cultures, remain essentially Western; second, that no notion of CH can aspire to have universal validity without adopting a somewhat patronizing (or ‘soft colonial’) attitude; and third, that the current, non-axiological CHD is still made (and to a great extent ruled) by Westerners or Western-trained professionals using Western categories.

5.4  Western roots This approach to heritage has an explicit social and political end in line with UNESCO’s founding philosophy. Through the institutionalization of difference, global agendas seek to realize its domestication. (Bortolotto 2007:29)

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The concept of cultural heritage was (and in fact is) a part of the contemporary Western cultural canon. The idea that because of its relationship with the historical sciences or with the Fine Arts some objects deserve to be the subject of the practices discussed in Chapter 4 was alien to many cultures for most of their history (including, as shown in Chapter  1, the European culture before the Enlightenment). Certainly, every culture has a set of objects that are considered special in some sense and that are subject to some special attention. Furthermore, every non-Western culture is likely to make and own some objects that can draw the attention of Western archaeologists or anthropologists, or even of some adventurous art historians – who might well trade or loot or smuggle them to be included in a Western collection. However, it is doubtful that the members of non-Western cultures could initially consider it to be cultural heritage, as this notion was invented in Europe and then exported (or often imposed) abroad. It was the European (read ‘the colonial’) cultural system that projected on the foreign cultures its own categories, and it was the European cultural system that labeled some of the other people’s products as cultural heritage. Cultural heritage is a European intellectual category that has been bestowed on objects from non-European cultures for much of its history, whose members might have a vague idea (or no idea at all) of what such notion meant or represented. Even if some aspects of the CH discourse are tweaked or adapted, and even if the CH discourse becomes appealing to non-Western cultures, it will remain historically Western: its Western roots are inescapable unless the notion is transformed into something essentially different – which might or might not be the right thing to do. For the time being, however, the core tenets of the original, Western CH notion remain in the currently standard ‘Eastern-oriented,’ non-axiological, ICHencompassing CHD. Thus, even if the criteria for CH designation are relaxed to encompass a wider variety of items, a) the idea that some cultural items need to be publicly designated as belonging to a special category (cultural heritage) is a Western idea; b) the idea that some cultural items are valuable for the whole community and not just for their makers and users is a Western idea; c) the idea that these items can be valuable for all humankind is a Western idea; d) the idea that national political bodies have moral, legal, and technical authority over these items even if they are made, owned, or maintained by a reduced number of people is a Western idea; e) the idea that supranational bodies have some authority (moral or otherwise) over these items is a Western idea; f) the idea that items designated as CH must be ‘safeguarded’ or ‘preserved’ to prevent its natural evolution is a Western idea; g) the idea that a group of professionals, the CH experts, may have special authority over the CH item is a Western idea; h) the idea that CH items exist in ‘authentic’ or ‘false’ states (and that the ‘authentic’ state is preferable) is a Western idea;

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i) the idea that CH items are valuable as evidence for anthropological, historical, archeological, or scientific inquiry is a Western idea; j) the idea that CH items are worthy objects of scientific inquiry themselves is a Western idea; k) the idea that CH should be available for all to enjoy is a Western idea; and l) the idea that CH should foster egalitarianism, human rights, and other related values is a Western idea. In spite of its inherent Westernness, the CH discourse has spread beyond the cultural environment that created it, in many cases because non-Western CH professionals and officials – and even laypersons – find it interesting enough to adopt it. It might be thus thought that the CH discourse is becoming ‘universal.’ However, this universality is just geographical: all it means is that a Western idea (the notion of CH) has been successfully transferred to, or shared with, other cultures. Ultimately, reckoning with the Westernness of the notion of CH should not matter much. To give a down-to-earth example, just as Judo is a Japanese invention that has successfully spread throughout the world and is still considered essentially Japanese, CH has spread throughout the world, and there should be no issue acknowledging that it is essentially Western. This is nothing to be ashamed of (or proud of, for that matter) but a trait of the notion. Just as with Judo, the notion of CH has been tweaked, adapted, and become slightly less Western as it spread throughout the world, but in many essential regards, CH is still Western just as Judo is still Japanese.

5.5  A criticism of a universal CHD Heritage in settler societies must assume a “predatory” role. (Harrison 2008:178)

Even if the Western roots of the CH discourse are not a reason for criticism, the colonial consequences of the original CH discourse are hard to question. To avoid these, contemporary CH theorists call for a more open discourse that can lead to a CH discourse of global, transcultural validity: a CH discourse that would not be culturally biased. Unfortunately, there is a conceptual problem that might make this an impossible endeavor, for such a universal CH notion undermines its own tenets: implementing the notion of CH at a universal level would imply disseminating a Western notion (CH) upon the rest of the cultures in the world, thus Westernizing them somewhat. This problem lies at the core of some misunderstandings. Before the arrival of Westerners (either peaceful or violent), indigenous or non-Western peoples did not have, and arguably did not need, a notion of cultural heritage that is equivalent to a concept invented and developed in 18th- and 19th-century Europe. They could and did have items that qualify as what the people raised in the Western cultural

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tradition would call cultural heritage, but it is highly doubtful that they would ever consider those items to be cultural heritage, or that they would have a notion that is remotely similar: a notion linked to Enlightened notions of Reason, human rights, egalitarianism, universalism, or Science was not to be found outside a Western setting before colonial times. For making a CHD work in non-Western settings, it was necessary to seed somehow the foreign concept of cultural heritage in the locals, which effectively amounts to a form of “soft cultural colonialism – a colonization of the mind” (Harker 2018:36) or, at the very least, to an “ideology transfer” (Byrne 1991:273). Paradoxically, it is difficult that a CHD that is at the same time universal and non-Western can exist. It is only through a discursive strategy of imposition (in the original Latin sense of the term: im-ponere, to put one thing over another) that many peoples can be said to have cultural heritage. The idea that cultural clashes related to CH happen because their notion of cultural heritage encompasses different items than ours is based on the unwarranted assumption that every people must have cultural heritage. Even if (or perhaps because) “aboriginal people tend to value the contemporary or very recent past as highly as they do the distant past” and “without the linear construction of European time all parts of the past are equally important” (Burke and Smith 2010:30), it is unlikely that they may be interested in researching the remnants from the past or any traditional custom through scientific methods, that they believe that these remnants or customs can have universal value, or that they think that should be made available to the general public. Certainly, they would not need a list or inventory telling them which items are more highly regarded by them – and they would not feel the need to care for them in any special way other than how they were cared for before: as Byrne asks, “to what extent, though, is the conservation ethic in their countries a thin veneer? None of these contributors [to the collective volume Archaeological Heritage management in the Modern World (Cleere 2000)] explain how or if heritage conservation is rooted in national culture. (Byrne 1991:232) In this example, as in so many others like it, it would be conceptually much simpler to reckon with the fact that some peoples lack the notion of cultural heritage, as much as they lack (or at least lacked before Western intervention) other equally alien notions, such as ‘Christmas,’ ‘symphony,’ or ‘pool party’ – and just as we Westerners lack a number of notions that non-Westerners have and use to approach the world and for which we have no equivalent words or concepts. As Byrne (1991:272) has put it, “Western notions of heritage do have a place in the non-Western world. But this does not mean that they have not been imposed.” Attempting to seed no matter what version of the CH discourse onto cultural settings where this notion does not exist is an example of soft cultural transfer. We, the CH professionals and scholars, must bear in mind “what is at stake when we simply and uncritically map Western concepts onto non‐Western . . . contexts” (Meskell 2016:484).

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Seeding the notion of CH need not be done through brute force, as in imperial times; it can be imposed (put over) with the aid of persuasion or seduction, perhaps through some form of diffuse bribery (e.g., by promising economic benefits from tourism or funding from international bodies) or by a blend of persuasion and soft pressure. In the end, the CHD might even be willfully adopted by cultures or communities that had never needed it. Still, no matter the means, seeding a foreign cultural tradition means somehow modifying the receiving culture to suit the standards of another (often more powerful) one. Thirty years ago, Byrne asked: If the heritage management we now see in the West derived from an Enlightenment shift in Western thinking then how is one to account for the presence of this same heritage in countries of the non-Western world which did not experience the Enlightenment? Is it a case of Western imperialism? (Byrne 1991:231) Ndoro and Wijesuriya (2015:131) provide an answer: “the systems and practice of heritage management experienced in parts of Asia and Africa today were imposed in these continents during the colonial period.” However, whatever the answer the reader may give to this question, what needs to be emphasized is that CH reached the “countries of the non-Western world” through forms of hard or soft cultural transfer, cultural colonialism, cultural diffusion, or whatever term may be used to describe the introduction of beliefs, tastes, or ideologies created in a particular cultural setting into another, different one where they did not exist before.

5.6 Spotting Westernness: an exercise Do concepts that generate all human knowledge, under which one could in principle classify all the dispersion of the different cultures and thinkings, exist? It is believed that such concepts exist (I have believed it) while we remain in the environment of European languages. However, when meeting a culture alien to the European tradition and language . . . . I am not so sure. (Jullien 2017:40–41; my translation2)

The Westernness inherent in the current, non-axiological CH discourse can go unnoticed, paradoxically often concealed behind the veil of universalism. Consider this seemingly perfectly sensible statement from the influential Nara Document on Authenticity (VV.AA 1994): “All judgements about values attributed to heritage as well as the credibility of related information sources may differ from culture to culture . . . . Thus, it is impossible to base judgements of value and authenticity on fixed criteria” (Art. 11) The Nara Document was issued by a group of experts who met in 1994 in the Japanese city of Nara to challenge the material view of authenticity prevailing in UNESCO documents and the CH field in general. The Nara Document introduced a relativist undertone to the notion of authenticity, reckoning that the

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authenticity of a cultural expression could reside in factors other than its matter and that these could vary between different cultures. However, even if the Nara Document was intended to question the classical Western CH discourse, this quote is a beautiful example of how the Western, Enlightened view of universalism underpins the currently standard – or non-axiological, or ‘non-Western,’ or UNESCOized (Coskun 2019:227) – CH discourse. “All judgements about values attributed to heritage as well as the credibility of related information sources may differ from culture to culture”: it is hard not to agree. However, what about the statement that “it is thus not possible to base judgements of value and authenticity on fixed criteria”? This is different. True, the criteria for authenticity may and do change between different cultural settings, but are not those criteria fixed (as fixed as these criteria can be) within each cultural group? These criteria work within each setting, and it is indeed possible “to base judgements of value and authenticity” on these local ‘fixed’ criteria: this is routinely done whenever and wherever people care about the authenticity of something. Thus, if the assertion that “it is thus not possible to base judgements of value and authenticity on fixed criteria” made sense to the authors of the Nara Document (and if at first sight may make sense to most of us – if it can be almost instantly agreed), it is because there is an important underlying assumption that shapes the whole discourse and its perception: the assumption that the cultural frame of reference for those criteria defining authenticity and value must not be that of the group which has produced them, but rather that of the whole world: that of the Universal Culture and its attached set of values that the Enlightenment envisioned and which, paradoxically, the Nara Document attempts to criticize or dismantle. The criteria are indeed fixed at a local level. The statement in the Nara Document seems acceptable only because we are assuming (most often in an unconscious manner) that a universal set of criteria of authenticity can, and perhaps should, exist. In other words, the statement makes sense because we are looking at each culture from a standpoint that is not local – a standpoint that encompasses the whole world and therefore has universal validity; a standpoint that allows us to see all local cultures from above, as subsets of a single, grandiose, universal culture. Only from this standpoint can it be said that the criteria for authenticity are ‘not fixed.’ It could be asked: “For whom are those criteria not fixed?” and the answer would not be “for the makers and owners of the CH item in question” but rather “for all the world” or, getting to a more practical position, “for the experts believing that a universal standpoint can be set.” True, there is no universal set of criteria to assess cultural value or authenticity, but this does not mean that the criteria are not ‘fixed’ within each cultural group. The idea that a universal set of values exists, and that it is somehow superior to (and thus preferable to) the fragmented, more local cultural views, was certainly present in colonial times. The current version of this idea is fundamental to the heritage world because the very notion of cultural heritage derives from it: from the very Western idea that a form of universal Reason exists. As argued previously, it is this belief, in fact, that led to (or at least served to justify) the forms of brutal colonialism prevalent in the 19th and 20th centuries. The modern, non-axiological, anti-colonial CH discourse is still deeply rooted in Western ideologies and

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worldviews: these are embedded in the very notion of cultural heritage and are, therefore, impossible to avoid. However, it is perhaps opportune to stress that I do not aim at issuing any cultural or ethical judgment in this regard: being Western is not necessarily a good or bad thing, just as being Eastern or African is not necessarily a good or bad thing either. Intercultural exchange can be mutually enriching if done on the correct terms. However, we should not lose sight of the fact that any notion of CH is going to be culturally biased (or even “predatory”) – unless we decide to use these particular words (“cultural heritage”) to refer to something other than what cultural heritage means – that is, unless we squarely ‘Humpty-Dumpty’ the notion as discussed in §9.4. At the end of the day, any CH discourse needs to be a Western cultural product to some important extent. Even the expanded, non-axiological, ‘Eastern,’ ICH-encompassing version of the CH discourse is bound to be Westernbiased because it inherits the essential traits of the concept invented and developed by Grégoire, Viollet-le-Duc, Dehio, and so many other Western thinkers.

5.7  Interval: a case study How far may new forms of performance or innovation be pursued without altering the core conception of a given cultural practice? (Arizpe and Amescua 2013:124)

The gamelan is a traditional ensemble of musical instruments typical in some regions of Indonesia. Each gamelan consists of a different number and types of instruments; these may vary depending on the age, importance, and style of the gamelan, but the typical gamelan is played by between 25 and 50 musicians. However, unlike in Western tradition, these beautifully embellished instruments (drums, bells, gongs, metallophones, flutes, some bowed lutes, etc.) do not belong to any players but rather to the community. In fact, they are not carried around by the players: instead, they are housed in a special building to which the musicians and the listeners come every time. In stark contrast to the Western tradition, musicians are not the most important part of a musical performance. Instead, it is the set of instruments that bears a unique name, marking its identity and relevance. Thus, the instruments in the gamelan set are inseparable, as are, for instance, the chapters of Don Quixote or the movements of each of Bach’s Brandenburg concerts. Separating the instruments from their gamelan would diminish their value and would be damaging to the gamelan itself. In fact, for some people, a gamelan may be more transcending than the Brandenburg concert, Don Quixote, or many other European artistic masterpieces, for the gamelan is thought to have religious and spiritual value. As Jones-Amin et al. (2006:139) have summarized it, For the Javanese, the gamelan is a highly revered set of instruments, deeply embedded in their mythology and beliefs in mysticism, possessing sacred and spiritual powers and divine origin . . . . Both musicians and non-musicians

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are humble and respectful to the gamelan. It is believed that spirits guide each instrument in the gamelan. In 2000, the Asian Civilisation Museum of Singapore acquired Ngambar Arum (“Golden Fragrance”), a gamelan, for the opening of its flagship wing at Empress Place, which was due in March 2003. Ngambar Arum was put on display in the Southeast Asian Performing Arts Gallery, where it was to be played in situ by students and professional musicians. Taking a gamelan to a museum is in itself an interesting decision, as, in a way, it goes against the local culture from which the gamelan proceeds. The museum, a place where CH is stored and displayed outside of its original context – and often also against its original intended purposes – is a cultural institution that directly emanates from the same European tradition that led to the creation of cultural heritage: as argued in Chapter 4, musealization is a practice that is closely linked to this notion. Thus, a cultural clash (even if an admittedly soft one) happens when an institution with Western roots – a museum – has to accommodate an object (or rather an ensemble of objects) from a different cultural tradition, a culture without the Western notion of CH. Harmonizing the two traditions is not easy and can only be done through compromise. Perhaps the most obvious compromise is the site itself. A room in a museum is entirely alien to the gamelan, which is usually played in covered spaces with open walls. Also, because of the space available, only a part of Ngambar Arum could be permanently displayed (some instruments had to be stored at a conservation facility). On the other hand, out of respect to the gamelan and the local culture, its conservators were advised to follow some rules that would be entirely out of place in a Western setting: Women should not treat the instruments while menstruating. A small prayer should be said prior to treatment and, out of respect, permission should be sought from the gong. No-one should step over the instruments, because the Javanese believe the spirit resides inside. (Jones-Amin et al. 2006:141) Furthermore, incense burning, which would be forbidden in a Western museum, was allowed for those musicians willing to make an offering to the gamelan before playing – a practice that requires that the smoke detectors be temporarily disconnected. In summary, the CH practices that allow the gamelan to work as heritage are neither entirely Western nor entirely Javanese. The gamelan is not played in the original (right? authentic?) place, and for a number of reasons, “the players do not like the museum rules” (Henderson and Nakamoto 2016:71). Reciprocally, its musealization or its conservation policies are not what they would be in a Western environment. The fact is, the Western CH discourse cannot always work smoothly in a non-Western setting. This is certainly the case with the original axiological CH

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discourse but also with the more open, non-axiological CH discourses. As the case of Ngambar Arum shows, by simply designating something as CH, its functions and status change, and conflicts may arise. What this example suggests is that trying to implement a mostly Enlightened, Western CH discourse with its attached set of practices on items from non-Western cultures is likely to produce practical, ethical, and theoretical conflicts. These are often smoothed over through compromising, but if the local cultural views do not fully prevail, or in other words, if the local traditions are somewhat altered to suit the Western ideology, this compromising can be interpreted as a form of soft cultural transfer.

5.8  CH is made the Western way The uneasy bedfellows: universality and cultural heritage. (Cleere 2001:22)

CH is also very Western in another crucial sense. Its discourse is mainly developed in Western institutions, under Western traditions, in Western languages, and in the Western thought-style we, the Western academics, know well: adopting a distant, neutral stance with a somewhat inherent patronizing attitude towards the subject of inquiry; flooding the text with references to other (mostly Western) texts and quoting approved sources only and in the right dose; using Greek or Latin derivative words and concepts; disseminating the discourse through well-established Western publishers, journals and media; and so forth. In turn, this thought style is spread throughout the world by leveraging Western cultural prestige. For example, speaking of archaeology and heritage management, Byrne (1991:230) describes how Western archaeologists exert a strong influence on the local cultural scene: Their influence stemmed from [a)] the opportunities they had to work in other countries – archaeology following the flag either directly or through the favourable climate created by economic aid and military alliance – and from [b)] sponsoring the education of archaeologists from non-Western countries at “home” universities, from [c)] their ability to publish and disseminate research over large areas and from [d)] the intellectual thrall in which leading exponents at great universities could hold their less advantaged colleagues over large parts of the world. The CH discourse is not just Western by birth; it is also raised in the Western thought style and using Western concepts and notions by Western-trained experts. Many of us, the academics contributing to shaping the CH discourse, cannot help it, as we all have a markedly Western training. Furthermore, most of the Westborn authors, such as myself, are barely aware of the reflections made by other thinkers writing in, say, Korean, Indian, or Cantonese Chinese; even worse, we

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cannot be sure as to whether or not such reflections exist at all, as the notion of CH may or may not have an equivalent in their worldviews. Again, there is no reason for either shame or pride, as few people can know more than a handful of languages. However, this somehow weakens the criticism against the Westernness of the original CH discourse: not only because Westernness is an inherent trait of all the CHDs, no matter how modern or how well-intended, but also because this discourse is mainly developed by professionals and scholars with markedly Western backgrounds. Noting the inherent Westernness of the notion of CH also serves to question the idea that this Western notion (cultural heritage) should or could be truly universal. However, the Westernness of the CH discourse is not necessarily a problem. Of course, it can be a problem if the Westernness of the CHD is used as an alibi for any abuse, as has happened (very often) in the past. However, if understood in a sensible, humble, respectful way, the inherent Westernness of CH is only a problem if the persons dealing with CH believe that the CHD (whichever CHD they happen to prefer) can be truly non-Western.

5.9  Westernness as a feature of CH In Mecca’s case, for instance, a noticeable challenge was the resistance coming from religious extremist views; there is a fear that giving certain monuments or sites extra significance could make them prone to “wrongful” worship practices leading people to seek blessings from those monuments or even cultivating idol worshipping, both of which are against Islamic principles. (Serafi and Fouseki 2017:129)

Criticizing the CH discourse for being Western is unfair. Even the currently prevailing, non-axiological, “Eastern-oriented” CH discourse is Western to an important extent: no CHD can avoid being Western without becoming something else. If the notion of CH is to be retained in the future (and please note that this is a crucial if), it would instead be more efficient to think of Westernness not as a problem but as an inherent feature of all CH discourses: there is no such a thing as a genuinely non-Western CHD. Even if factors such as the criteria for CH designation may be tweaked for them to become more acceptable and useful in non-Western cultures, the notion remains essentially Western: it was invented in Europe, responds to the Western episteme, and its discourse is made by Westerners or by Western-trained experts working in the Western thought-style. In fact, most of the criticisms that the CHD was or is Western do not question the core assumptions of the discourse: CH as a social asset, CH as worthy inheritance, CH as possessing universal value, CH as scientific evidence, CH as a set of items that must be safeguarded, CH as ‘authentic’ cultural expressions, etc. Interestingly enough, these core theoretical tenets of both the original and the non-axiological CHDs are rarely criticized on the grounds that they are Western.

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5.10  Coming to terms with Westernness Is there historical heritage that is not European? (Tonin and Colonna 2017:128)

Since the CHD discourse is inherently Western by birth, it can only be implemented or adopted in non-Western settings through successful soft cultural transfer, or ‘soft cultural colonization’ of the people acquiring the notion and its attached ideology. Those willing to export or import the discourse need to be aware that such cultural transfer from the West is inescapable. This cultural transfer can be done by brute force, as in the hard colonial times, but it can also be done through persuasion: the CHD may be an appealing, beneficial cultural construct for many people beyond the West. In any case, cultural transfer has been, or is, a need for the CHD to be disseminated or adopted by nonWestern cultures. Criticizing the expansion of the CHD beyond the West because it is an act of cultural ‘colonialism’ is thus not always sound: there must be at least a certain ‘colonization of the mind’ for the CHD to spread beyond the Western boundaries – and importantly, this need not be a bad thing. In fact, the ‘colonization of the mind’ is an ever-present social and personal phenomenon, one that allows both groups and individuals to evolve. To give a very straightforward example, it might be said that by having written this essay, I am attempting to somehow ‘colonize’ a tiny area of the mind of the reader. I would even argue that having a somewhat ‘colonizable’ (flexible, inquisitive, open) mind is a mark of intelligent persons. As in so many cases, this kind of Western ‘colonization of the mind’ is not inherently bad in the CH field either: what can be criticized is the forceful imposition of such Western discourse, but not the fact that it is Western or that it has been transferred from the West. In order to make such cultural transfer easier, compromising (that is, relaxing some of the tenets of the CHD so that it can be more acceptable for the locals) is a common strategy: the CHD can be re-shaped and tweaked to better suit the needs of each cultural setting, that is, the CHD may be de-Westernized to different extents. For instance, international authority over the CH items may be forsaken, as can the need to safeguard or preserve them or the duty to make them available to the general public: this alone would make the CHD more bearable in many cases. However, even if some tenets of the CHD are abandoned, the set of remaining ones are bound to be Western, regardless of how willingly non-Westerners may accept them. In other words, there are always to remain some traces of Westernness in a CHD recognizable by such a name. Again: this is not necessarily good or bad in itself. Compromising can only be taken to a certain point: the point beyond which CH ceases to be CH and becomes a different thing. By removing some of its (Western) theoretical tenets, by thinning the discourse, the CHD becomes less and less Western but also less and less of a CHD. The only way to make a CHD fully

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non-Western would be to dispose of all its principles. However, if all of the Western ideological tenets are abandoned, then there would be no compromising at all, as there would not be any CHD. The CHD would simply cease to be a CHD. In other words, the CHD cannot be fully de-Westernized without becoming another discourse (which might or might not be a good thing: this is not being discussed here). If even the mildest forms of cultural transfer implicit in compromising over the CHD are considered unacceptable, then it is time to dispose of the notion of CH – and please note that this hypothesis is not a mere rhetorical exercise: the concept of cultural heritage is a contingent cultural construct that was established a couple of centuries ago, and there is no reason why it could not become obsolete at some point. If this were the case, Western scholars and professionals could be tempted to try to keep using the old (Western) term cultural heritage to refer to something that is thoroughly different – which could easily be interpreted as a symptom of the not-so-good old Eurocentrism. Another option could be to search for a replacing notion not just among the Western conceptual toolboxes or the major Western languages, but also among other cultural traditions. Interestingly, some authors are already considering the possibility that some non-Western notions could transform the Western CHD into a different – perhaps richer – discourse. For example, Inaba discusses the Japanese notions of koshiki, which might be roughly translated as ‘older material state’ (2009:155), and joshiki, which describes the “established forms” in an artistic performance (2009:160); I myself have called for kintsugi as a potentially helpful principle in objects conservation (Muñoz-Viñas 2018:64–67), and Hossam Mahdy (2015) has provided a fascinating set of Arabic notions that could help to shape a different CHD, one that could be better suited to more cultural environments. The concept of Atlaal, for instance, gathers “both tangible and intangible aspects of ruins, including memories and feelings”; Haram “means a protected place that includes a significant site as well as its associations, intangible aspects and its buffer zone”; Waqf “is a system of endowment that was developed in Muslim communities to secure the sustainable management and conservation of public, charitable and religious institutions”; and so forth. All of these and other notions lack a direct equivalent in Western languages and worldviews and could become a part of the conceptual toolbox of both Western and non-Western CH professionals in the future. If the goal is to elaborate a truly universal CH discourse – or perhaps a post-CH discourse – this would be a way to start implementing such an ambitious, transformative project without falling into some intellectual contradictions. However, that is a big if, an if that needs to be carefully pondered, because it may effectively mean the end of the CH field as we know it. Yet again: undertaking this project may or may not be a good idea (this question falls beyond the reach of this essay), but it could certainly become a possibility in the coming times. In the meanwhile, however, compromising (that is, rejecting some of the tenets of the CHD while maintaining others) seems to be the best option to safeguard the CH regime at a global scale.

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5.11  Some paradoxes and a solution Heritage is based on continuous cultural, natural, political and intellectual colonization and decolonization processes. (García-Esparza 2018)

The original CH discourse was obviously Western, as it was designed to work in Europe and not in a globalized world. When taken beyond its original setting, it still kept (and keeps) supporting a Western set of values, which has led to cultural clashes and conflicts. The ICH-encompassing, non-axiological CHD aimed at dispelling these problems by relaxing the requirements for something to be considered CH so that each cultural group could have its own cultural heritage. However, when dealing with universalism, localism, and colonialism, the non-axiological CH discourses create their own set of theoretical problems. Already well into the 21st century, it is paradoxical to attempt to spread a Western notion (CH) to nonWestern cultures and then claim that this does not imply a more or less subdued soft-colonial attitude. It is also paradoxical that the current CH discourse attempts to give universal validity to a Western, local notion (cultural heritage) while stressing that each community has its own values, concepts, and worldviews. Finally, it is a paradox that the current non-axiological, non-colonial CH discourse, which aims at reckoning and respecting the local cultural traditions, also aspires to eradicate a local cultural tradition such as the original, Enlightened Western CH discourse. All these paradoxes can be solved either by dissolving the notion of CH as we know it, transforming it into something different that we can only barely envision, or accepting that Westernness is a trait of all CHDs and that this needs not to be a problem always and in every case. In fact, becoming aware of this trait will weaken the aspiration to universalism implicit in the original CH discourse developed in the 18th and 19th centuries, which had such dire consequences. Such an acceptance can only have the opposite, humbling effect: only respect and sensibility toward other cultures can be gained by curtailing the authority CH professionals may feel when dealing with people from non-Western cultural settings. Admittedly, relinquishing authority is not easy, but reckoning with the Western nature of the notion of CH will surely make it easier to avoid the problems that the aspiration to universalism has caused and could keep causing. Reciprocally, the recognition that any CHD needs to be at least somewhat Western may make the Westernness of the CH practices more easily acceptable for many non-Westerners who might otherwise perceive it as disturbing or colonial.

Notes 1 “. . .We have identified six inter‐related problems where focused reform could deliver significant, alternative, and better futures for the World Heritage system. These are: (1) the problem of Eurocentrism; (2) the problem of inflation and overload; (3) the reduction of credibility; (4) the problem of inclusion; (5) the nature/culture divide; and (6) the problem of conservation.”

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2 “¿Existen conceptos generadores de todo entendimiento humano, bajo los cuales se podrían ordenar, en principio, todo lo disperso de las culturas y del pensamiento? Se cree que sí (yo lo he creído) mientras se esté en el ámbito de la lengua europea. Pero, al frecuentar una cultura externa a la tradición y a la lengua europea . . . ya no estoy tan seguro.”

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Harrison, R. (2008) ‘The Politics of the Past: Conflict in the Use of Heritage in the Modern World’, in G. Fairclough et  al. (eds.) The Heritage Reader. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 177–190. Henderson, J. and Nakamoto, T. (2016) ‘Dialogue in Conservation Decision-Making’, Studies in Conservation, (61), pp. 67–78. Holtorf, C. (2012) ‘The heritage of heritage’, Heritage & Society, 5(2), pp. 153–174. https:// doi.org/10.1179/hso.2012.5.2.153. Inaba, N. (2009) ‘Authenticity and Heritage Concepts: Tangible and Intangible – Discussions in Japan’, in N. Stanley-Price and J. King (eds.) Conserving the Authentic: Essays in Honour of Jukka Jokilehto. Rome: ICCROM, pp. 153–162. Jeudy, H.P. (2019) ‘Introduction’, in H.P. Jeudy (ed.) Patrimoines en folie. E-book edition. Paris: Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme (Ethnologie de la France). Available at: http://books.openedition.org/editionsmsh/3764 (Accessed: 23 September 2020). Jones-Amin, H., Tan, H. and Tee, A. (2006) ‘Gamelan: Can a Conservation-Conceived Protocol Protect It Spiritually and Physically in a Museum?’, in D. Saunders, J.H. Townsen and S. Woodcock (eds.) The Object in Context: Crossing Conservation Boundaries. London: International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, pp. 138–143. Jullien, F. (2017) La Identidad Cultural No Existe. Madrid: Taurus. Kerney, A. (2009) ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage. Global Awareness and Local Interest’, in L. Smith and N. Akagawa (eds.) Intangible Heritage. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 209–225. Kersel, M.M. and Luke, C. (2015) ‘Civil Societies? Heritage Diplomacy and Neo-Imperialism’, in L. Meskell (ed.) Global Heritage: A  Reader. Chichester: Wiley and Sons, pp. 70–93. Kuutma, K. (2013) ‘Concepts and Contingencies in Heritage Politics’, in L. Arizpe and C. Amescua (eds.) Anthropological Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage. Cham: Springer, pp. 1–15. Layton, R., Stone, P.G. and Thomas, J. (n.d.) ‘Destruction and Conservation of Cultural Property’. Abstract. Available at: www.taylorfrancis.com/books/ edit/10.4324/9780203165096/destruction-conservation-cultural-property-laytonstone-thomas (Accessed: 1 August 2022). Logan, W.S., Craith, M.N. and Kockel, U. (2016) ‘The New Heritage Studies: Origins and Evolution, Problems and Prospects’, in W.S. Logan, M.N. Craith and U. Kockel (eds.) A Companion to Heritage Studies. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, pp. 1–25. Mahdy, H. (2015) ‘Proposed Arabic-Islamic Contributions to the Theory of Conservation for Cultural Heritage’, in VV.AA. (ed.) Heritage and Landscape as Human Values. ICOMOS 18th General Assembly. Firenze, Italia 9/14 Novembre 2014. Conference Proceedings. Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, pp. 610–614. Meskell, L. (2016) ‘Heritage and Cosmopolitanism’, in W.S. Logan, M.N. Craith and U. Kockel (eds.) A Companion to Heritage Studies. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, pp. 479–490. Muñoz-Viñas, S. (2018) The Transactional Nature of Heritage Conservation. Amsterdam: Reinwardt Academy-Amsterdam University of the arts. Ndoro, W. and Wijesuriya, G. (2015) ‘Heritage Management and Conservation: From Colonization to Globalization’, in L. Meskell (ed.) Global Heritage: A Reader. Chichester: Wiley and Sons, pp. 131–149. Rudolff, B. and Buckley, K. (2016) ‘World Heritage: Alternative Futures’, in W.S. Logan, M.N. Craith and U. Kockel (eds.) A Companion to Heritage Studies. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, pp. 522–540. Serafi, S.A. and Fouseki, K. (2017) ‘Heritage Conservation and Sustainable Development in Sacred Places: Towards a New Approach’, in M.T. Albert, F. Bandarin and A.P. Roders

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(eds.) Going Beyond: Perceptions of Sustainability in Heritage Studies No. 2. New York: Springer International Publishing, pp. 115–131. Taylor, J. (2015) ‘Embodiment unbound: Moving beyond divisions in the understanding and practice of heritage conservation’, Studies in Conservation, 60(1), pp. 65–77. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1179/2047058413Y.0000000122. Tonin, T. and Colonna, A.P. (2017) ‘Ethics, Patrimony and Research. Questions about European Concepts to Brazilian Objects’, in F. Braga, W. Salvatore and A. Vignoli (eds.) Atti Del XVII Convegno ANIDIS L’ingegneria Sismica in Italia: Pistoia, 17–21 Settembre 2017. Pisa: Pisa University Press, pp. 128–136. UNESCO (1972) Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/conventiontext/ (Accessed: 17 September 2022). VV.AA. (1994) The Nara Document on Authenticity. Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/ archive/nara94.htm (Accessed: 1 August 2022). Wei, C. and Aass, A. (1989) ‘Heritage conservation: East and West’, ICOMOS Information, 3, pp. 3–8. Winter, T. (2013) ‘Going places: challenging directions for the future of heritage studies’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 19(4), pp. 395–398. Available at: https://doi.org/ 10.1080/13527258.2012.695509.

6 ELITISM, AUTHORITY, AND CH

6.1  The problem and the solutions The elitist appeal to register, preserve, represent, and exhibit something called cultural heritage. (Falser 2015:17)

Closely linked to its Western bias, the original CH discourse was also criticized for its elitist nature. In this context, ‘elitism’ is to be understood in at least two senses. On the one hand, the original Enlightened CHD was elitist because it favored what were considered to be the greatest cultural achievements, most often attached to the wishes and tastes of kings, emperors, religious leaders, tycoons, and other empowered people, thus disregarding the everyday expressions of popular culture. On the other hand, the original CH discourse was also elitist in that it was dominated by a group of experts, an intellectual elite that decided whether or not a particular cultural product was valuable enough to be considered CH without taking into account other opinions. Thus, the CH realm came to be non-egalitarian and anti-democratic, for it was controlled by people other than its makers, thus “most often produc[ing] conflict and exclusion of the local” (Kersel and Luke 2015:71) – or at least of some locals, whose stories and cultural expressions may be kept out of the CH haven through “the marginalisation of class from the academic discourse” (Chynoweth 2022:6). In summary, the old CHD was characterized by “habits of ignoring whatever did not fit authorized, official, colonial, monumental, or academically respectable models of heritage”; in turn, “the same essentialist notion of culture infuses much of the expert discourse on heritage . . . and renders it susceptible to political exploitation, even to the point of collusion between scholarship and exclusionary politics” (De Cesari and Herzfeld 2015:171). DOI: 10.4324/9781003288121-8

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The elitism in the selection of CH items and the fact that the CH field is led and controlled by an elite body of experts have been the object of harsh criticism from various authors since the last decades of the 20th century and remain a relevant topic in the professional literature. An important part of the current CH discourse has been and still is based on the explicit rejection of both types of elitism and the search for an egalitarian and democratic approach to cultural heritage. In order to solve the problem, two basic strategies have been adopted. First, the criteria for CH designation have been expanded to include not just extraordinary masterworks or grandiose buildings but also popular cultural expressions. Second, the right of the communities to designate their own CH has been acknowledged, thus displacing the experts as a legitimate source of authority in the CH field.

6.2  Avoiding elitism I am not prepared to set myself over those less knowledgeable about the history of the landscape who come to Steel Rigg to enjoy the views. Such experiences are real, are rooted in all sorts of more or less sophisticated understanding. (Shanks 2012:16)

The simplest strategy to solve the problem that CH is composed of exceptional, imposing works only consists of opening the criteria for CH designation so that it encompasses popular items that are not necessarily linked to the higher classes and sophisticated tastes. This is one of the tenets of the currently prevailing non-axiological CHD. As Kuutma (2013:4) describes it, “a conceptual shift has occurred in the last decade . . . with the aim of being universally inclusive in avoiding the references to social stratum or inferiority.” According to Kuutma’s timeline, this “conceptual shift” leading to a more inclusive CH took place in the decade before the publication of her text – that is, between 2003 and 2013. The year 2003 is when the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Heritage was issued. As noted earlier in this book, one of the core problems for the signatories of the 2003 Convention was the need to avoid the elitist stance of CH that the 1972 Convention fostered. The 1972 Convention aimed at highlighting works “of outstanding value” only, which often meant the works made by outstandingly skillful or creative people for outstandingly rich or powerful people; furthermore, such value was established by well-trained experts or empowered officials. Because of this, the critics argued, the heritage of the popular classes was ignored, dismissed, and, therefore, underrepresented. The delegates attending the 2003 Paris meeting were thus in need of finding a more egalitarian criterion that would not be based on value judgments: a non-axiological criterion. The argumentative fencing between the delegates shows how egalitarianism in the CH field took different shapes. In the debate, three positions were established. First, that of the delegates aspiring to create a list of masterpieces of intangible

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cultural heritage, which thus would advocate for a purely axiological stance based on criteria of excellence and quality. However, other delegates suggested that, in order to avoid cultural biases or subjectivity, the criterion could be the representativeness of the item; in other words, the list would become a kind of cultural Noah’s Ark: the items in the list would not necessarily be better or worse than those left out of the list but would consist of samples representing all types of cultural expressions. Finally, another group of delegates argued that no selection should be made at all, as any one of them would be unavoidably exclusionary and represent a form of elitism. Valdimar Hafstein (2018:ch.3), a direct witness, recounts some of the arguments: The committee was divided between states that wanted a list of masterpieces (based on the 1972 World Heritage List and the Proclamation of Masterpieces modeled on that list) and other states that preferred to see an inclusive ‘register’ without reference to aesthetic criteria. Japan spearheaded the former group. The Caribbean proposal . . . claimed that a selective list based on criteria of excellence would divert the aim of the new convention . . . such a list would be ‘subjective and elitist.’ The Caribbean countries proposed instead an International Register that would encompass any cultural expression submitted by any signatory country. No judgment would be needed: The only conditions for inscription would be technical requirements for ‘complete documentation’ of the heritage, including a description of any ‘national legislation which concerns it,’ a ‘plan of action for its safeguarding,’ and ‘identification of the custodian(s) of this heritage.’ This way, no cultural expression, regardless of its origin or nature, would be rejected by any expert or decision-maker “under the criteria of excellence or aestheticism” (Hafstein 2018:ch.3). In the end, and after a “heated debate,” both the Caribbean egalitarian proposal and the criterion of excellence were rejected: in the words of Akagawa (2016:80), “the original criteria of being ‘outstanding’ was changed to being ‘representative’ in order to avoid injecting comparative value into intangible heritage.” Regardless of the outcome, the “heated debate” shows how the non-axiological CH discourse may transit through meandering pathways in its attempt to dodge all forms of elitism. In this chapter, however, I will argue that it ultimately fails to achieve this goal or even that it cannot achieve this goal. There are four main reasons why. First, as discussed throughout §6.3 and its subsections, selection is a trait of any working CH discourse, be it made by a group of experts or a community of laypersons, or whether the selection is based on the criterion of representativeness or not. Second, as posited in §6.4.2 and §6.4.3, it is the experts who will reckon or

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reject the legitimacy of a community to make CH claims. Third, it is the experts who will give or take validity on any such selection, as shown in §6.4.4. Fourth, as implicit throughout this chapter (and perhaps throughout the whole book), the experts’ authority is needed to sustain the CHD and its related practices: without such authority the field would collapse and vanish. A  genuinely egalitarian, bottom-top, or democratic CH regime is theoretically impossible.

6.3  Selection/exclusion as a trait of the CH discourse 6.3.1  Quasi scherzando: exclusion is not intrinsically wrong The decisions to save one building or cultural site almost invariably means that some other cultural buildings or sites cannot be saved. (Vecco 2019:145)

In “El enemigo número one de la censura” (“The enemy number one of censorship”), Bustos Domecq1 tells the story of the editor of a literary journal who aspires to avoid all kind of censorship, either ideological, thematical, or aesthetical. In the end, he opts for not excluding any of the submissions; also, to avoid prioritizing some authors over others for purely subjective reasons, he decides to publish the submissions according to the alphabetical order of the author’s name. The tale ends with the editor claiming not to have enough funds to publish any author beyond Añañ (Borges and Bioy Casares 1981:508). This humorous story challenges the idea that avoiding selection is a good thing for it prevents bias, subjectivity, exclusion, or other forms of ‘censorship.’ If nothing is excluded in any endeavor, a mere accumulation of items (of any kind: paintings, tales, movies, philosophical ideas, historical facts, etc.) will result. In these accumulations, all types of important and (mostly) unimportant items (no matter what yardstick is used to measure this) will be piled in together. This magmatic, all-encompassing heap of items may actually serve to conceal the most valuable of them (again, whichever the criterion used to measure its interest: historical, anthropological, economic, artistic, emotional, social, personal). The task of the editor of a literary journal is just that: excluding some works in order to offer the better ones to the readers. Selection is necessary for such a journal to make sense. Provided that some trust in the skills of the selectors exists, people will gladly pay for them to do so instead of wasting a tremendous amount of time in search of the better, more enjoyable pieces. This book, for instance, has gone through similar selective processes, and it is natural that it has: the book has been selected for publication by the editors, while other proposals have been excluded. Of course, I have also selected some topics, arguments, and sources – the ones that I have found more telling or interesting. Many other topics, arguments, and sources have been excluded, and (it is hoped) the process of selection and exclusion has made the book better overall. In summary, although ‘exclusion’ is

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a term that comes loaded with negative connotations, excluding things may be the right thing to do in many cases. The alternative (not selecting anything) may actually be non-practical or even absurd in all aspects of life. CH is no exception.

6.3.2  CH is based on selection and exclusion The process of folding past conditions into present ones is selective; it has to be. (Samuels 2015:3)

The cultural heritage discourse is directly linked to the idea of selection. This is acknowledged by a number of CH scholars: for instance, Gamboni (2001:9) stresses how heritage “results from a continuous process of interpretation and selection,” Logan and Smith (2019:xiii) note that heritage “results from a selection process,” and Haftstein emphasizes “how central questions and mechanisms of selection are to heritage practices” (Hafstein 2018:ch.3). Selecting always involves leaving out something: selection is thus almost a synonym of exclusion. This is also widely recognized by some CH authors who acknowledge that “the system of heritage is structured on exclusion” (Hafstein 2018:ch.3). Heritage is, thus, “exclusionary” and, furthermore, “intentionally so” (Marçal 2018:279). At first sight, the notion that CH may be ‘intentionally exclusionary’ can be interpreted as ethically questionable. This moral stance is easily detectable in many instances of the non-axiological CHD. Consider, for example, Zehbe’s call for a “redescription of ‘heritage’ as a vortex of intersecting, inherently incomplete, mutable relationships” opening up “a theoretical perspective that doesn’t construct it as an ‘exclusionary practice’ ” (Zehbe 2015:194), or Byrne’s criticism that “the selectivity of heritage discourse can serve to bury or efface certain places at the same time as it reveals and celebrates certain others” (Byrne 2009:230). In these quotes, as in many other similar ones, the moral innuendo is latent in the use of terms: according to these views, selecting CH items does not just serve to preserve the items designated as CH but also, and perhaps even mainly, to perform exclusion and to efface or bury many other cultural expressions – which does seem ethically wrong. However, such a moral judgment is unsound. Exclusion is a given in any process of selection, and selection is a given in so many moments in life. For instance, when some people decide to spend some hours, or minutes, of their lives reading this text, they are at the same time excluding other possible activities, like, for example, reading another book about CH theory, reading a fiction book, chatting with friends, jogging, or napping. Thus, reading this book may also be seen as an ‘exclusionary’ activity – and it is indeed exclusionary, but there is nothing wrong with it. This rationale may be extended to almost any activity (buying a TV set, traveling, attending a sports event, etc.) and certainly to those linked to the heritage field. Selection/exclusion is a fact of life. Of course, the selection/exclusion process may be done well or badly, but this cannot serve as an argument to dismiss

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any process of selection on the grounds that it involves exclusion: all of them do, be they well or badly done. As a matter of fact, even the communities that decide on creating, caring for, or performing some cultural expressions proceed through selection and exclusion, as does any group that chooses to assign some cultural expression with greater value than others. As shown later, even the experts who designate some cultural expressions as being more ‘representative’ than others proceed through selection and exclusion. They need to.

6.3.3  Representativeness as choice “Heritage” is a value-laden concept with no neutral ground of connotation . . . . Heritage, as a normative concept, entails evaluation. (Arizpe and Amescua 2013:121)

Establishing the criterion of representativeness allowed for an agreement to be reached by a majority of delegates attending the sessions that gave rise to the UNESCO 2003 Convention. However, while this solution does make sense in the context of a multitudinous discussion in an international organism, it does not necessarily constitute a theoretically sound option. At first sight, representativeness may seem an objective or neutral criterion – a criterion that is safe from, among other things, aesthetic preference or cultural bias. However, this is simply not the case: ‘being representative of something’ is not a neutral criterion. At the very least, when selecting a ‘representative’ cultural item, or ‘the most representative’ item, two crucial choices need to be made: first, what needs to be represented, and second, which item is best suited to the task. Choosing what is to be represented cannot be done objectively, but rather implies an assessment of value. If we speak of representing ‘a culture,’ what does that mean? What is to be represented? Identity (national, local, private)? History (a particular event, a long, evolutive process, a military victory, a scientific achievement)? Folklore (a parade, an ancient craft, a ritual, a cooking tradition)? Artistic merit (a building, a painting, popular art, a musical masterwork, the work of an artist, an artistic style)? Ideology (political, religious, ethical)? And so forth: these choices need to be made from inescapably subjective standpoints. Moreover, once what needs to be represented is chosen, the representer (the signifier, in semiotic terms) must also be decided. Which festival, which painting, which ritual, which musical piece is best suited in each case? This is also decided through subjective (if educated) assessment. Representativeness is not an inherent feature some items possess but rather a quality that depends on the interpreter. What message is transmitted by anything and how well it is transmitted crucially depends on the sender and receiver of the message. Nelson Goodman’s elegant reflection on the conventional nature of samples is opportune here: Let me tell you two stories – or one story with two parts. Mrs. Mary Tricias studied such a sample book, made her selection, and ordered from her favorite

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textile shop enough material for her overstuffed chair and sofa – insisting that it be exactly like the sample. When the bundle came she opened it eagerly and was dismayed when several hundred 2” × 3” pieces with zigzag edges exactly like the sample fluttered to the floor. When she called the shop, protesting loudly, the proprietor replied, injured and weary, “But Mrs. Tricias, you said the material must be exactly like the sample. When it arrived from the factory yesterday, I kept my assistants here half the night cutting it up to match the sample.” This incident was nearly forgotten some months later, when Mrs. Tricias . . . decided to have a party. She went to the local bakery, selected a chocolate cupcake from those on display and ordered enough for fifty guests, to be delivered two weeks later. Just as the guests were beginning to arrive, a truck drove up with a single huge cake. The lady running the bake-shop was utterly discouraged by the complaint. “But Mrs. Tricias, you have no idea how much trouble we went to. My husband runs the textile shop and he warned me that your order would have to be in one piece.” The moral of this story is not simply that . . . a sample is a sample of some of its properties but not others. The swatch is a sample of texture, color, etc. but not of size or shape. The cupcake is a sample of color, texture, size, and shape, but still not of all its properties. Mrs. Tricias would have complained even more loudly if what was delivered to her was like the sample in having been baked on that same day two weeks earlier. (Goodman 1978:63–64) What Goodman shows here, in a characteristic light-spirited though extremely compelling way, is that the mechanisms of representativeness are directly linked to a set of conventions that make some features of the sample semantically efficient in a given context (in the context of Goodman’s story, for example, the color, but not the size; the texture, but not the shape of the edges). For something to work as a representative of a category of things, a number of assumptions need to be shared between the person selecting the sample and those interpreting it, which in turn means that representativeness is, too, culturally dependent: a representative item can only function as such if some conventions are explicitly or tacitly agreed upon because, otherwise, the selected item may represent the wrong things for some people. This is actually a common occurrence, one that is behind some of the more poignant ethical problems in the CH field. For example, a set of bones may represent a burial system for archeologists, a living cultural tradition for anthropologists, a historical event for historians – or a family lineage for the relatives of the dead. Representativeness may be varied and conflicting. Any mechanism of representativity implies choosing what will be represented and how (or through which item) it will be represented. In the CH world, it will be the experts who will decide on all these aspects – or who will hand some of this power to others and will then approve their choices. The notion of representativeness does not serve to elude the ‘elitist’ bias in CH practice.

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6.3.4  Selection is needed: a practical argument Choosing is always a kind of injustice. The best, in any circumstance, would be never to choose, because we could keep everything at the same time . . . . However, the fact is that it is impossible: we have to choose. (Marzal 2021:132; my translation2)

In the CH field, as in any other one, a non-selective, or, if so preferred, non-exclusionary attitude would also lead to absurdity. As in the tale by Bustos Domecq, a truly non-exclusionary CH discourse (one that refuses to select or exclude anything) would lead to piling together all kinds of items – and given the undefinition that surrounds the notion(s) of CH, this would mean a truly massive pile of items of the most disparate nature. In practical terms, this would imply amassing an inventory of CH items so huge that it would border on the unmanageable or the useless. Such an inventory would be of little help to anyone. Interestingly enough, to make sense of such a huge, comprehensive, non-biased, non-exclusionary list, most people would probably end up resorting to shortlists of the most interesting items – most often made by other people who do not shy away from excluding what they consider the least interesting items. This would again debase the idea that a truly non-axiological CHD is viable. This same line of reasoning can be applied not just to CH designation but to all CH practices. For example, CH preservation (or conservation or safeguarding) is one of the defining practices of the CH discourses: simply put, recognizing something as CH implies that it will be cared for in a special way. An all-encompassing, non-selective view of CH, however, could result in what Vecco (2019:145) has described as “a titanic desire to conserve absolutely everything.” Not just titanic, it might be said, but even plainly unfeasible, not only for practical reasons but also because it is an inherently contradictory endeavor, because ‘conservation’ (or ‘preservation’ or ‘safeguarding,’ if so preferred) implies a type of special care that is different from that applied to common, non-CH items: “it is impossible to conserve everything; conserving everything means not conserving anything” (Vecco 2019:145). This represents a down-to-earth, practical argument why not being selective is a theoretically weak idea. A straightforward answer to this practical argument would be to eliminate the duty to preserve, conserve, or safeguard all the enormous amount of CH items resulting from a non-exclusionary stance, aiming instead at preserving some of the CH items only while not depriving the rest of heritageness. However, this would only postpone the crucial question, for what would then be preserved? Who would select what is to be preserved, or who would exclude what is not to be preserved? Furthermore, this would lead to establishing two different categories of CH: unworthy-of-preservation CH and worthy-of-preservation CH. The second CH category would be substantially similar to the earlier version of CH, the one that implied that CH items should be preserved, which would bring back the same problem: the need to select the items deserving special care and attention while not excluding the rest.

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In summary, removing selection/exclusion from the CH discourse is a way to debase the very notion of CH by making it encompass everything, rendering it pointless and redundant. As noted by Samuels, Hafstein, Gamboni, Smith, Logan, and so many authors, a CH discourse needs to be selective, which is a way of saying that it needs to be exclusionary. Criticizing the CH discourse for this very fact is theoretically unsound.

6.4  Exerting authority While I am assured of the good intentions of heritage managers in agencies . . . where community consultation is accepted and encouraged, I also see little challenge to the institutional and management infrastructures that uphold the radical and hierarchical distinction between managing professionals and engaging with client communities. (Shanks 2012:15)

There is another way in which the modern, non-axiological CH discourse fails to be egalitarian, democratic, or non-elitist. The role of the experts in the construction and development of the CH discourse and the CH notion itself has been, and continues to be, paramount. Despite the modern CHD claims to non-elitism, the CH discourse is sustained by experts from various cultural spaces: officials in local, national, and supranational institutions; cultural managers; anthropologists; conservators; ethnographers; folklorists; academics; historians; archaeologists; university researchers – all of them play a leading role in the field. Without them, in fact, the field would not exist at all. These experts, however, are members of an intellectual or professional elite. No matter how well-intended and egalitarian they aim at being, their cultural status will show up when working with CH (among other things, because their working on CH is due to that status). Experts sustain the field, but their presence is not always welcome. It was not welcome in many colonial situations, and it is not always welcome in many circumstances nowadays: whenever the interests of the experts collide with those of the communities. An expression of the rejection of the experts’ authority in the CH field is the notion of authorized heritage discourse (or AHD). In a nutshell, the AHD is “a discursive and rhetorical justification for understanding heritage as old, aesthetic, material, Western, and expert‐interpreted” (Smith and Campbell 2016:443). The very term authorized heritage discourse is somewhat misleading because every discourse, including the discourse denouncing the AHD itself, is authorized by someone,3 be it a multinational organism, an academic institution, or a group of thinkers. However, the notion has become very widespread in the field as it efficiently functions as shorthand for some of the problems many practitioners in the CH field attempt to avoid and overcome: favoring Western worldviews over those of other cultures, fostering a colonial stance, supporting material cultural expressions while dismissing intangible cultural heritage, or enforcing a cultivated cultural canon based on excellence at the expense of popular culture. This set of problems includes the elitism inherent in the

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experts’ authority, which, it is suggested, entails negative practical and ethical consequences for its “privileging the expert and their values over those of the non-expert” (Smith 2006:30). And yet, as is argued in the following pages, the experts’ authority is a requirement for modern CHD to work, or in fact for any true CH discourse to work. Such authority is inherent in the very notion of CH.

6.4.1  Authority through proselytism When US scholars adopted the deconstructive stance that “all folklore is made, not found,” they perceived folklorists to have carried out ‘folklorization.’ (Kuutma 2016:50)

Perhaps, the first and foremost way in which CH experts exert our authority is by disseminating the notion that CH exists. In 18th-century Europe, this was done, among others, by Cavaceppi, Edwards, and Grégoire, who started a trend that in the 19th century was developed by the likes of Viollet-le-Duc, Secco-Suardo, Horsin-Deon, Poleró y Toledo, Boito, or Riegl. The notion of CH, and the CH discourse upon which it is built, thus became accepted and taken for granted in the Western world, becoming an integral part of its cultural system. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, as some of the European nations expanded their colonial rule, the original CH discourse and its practices were exported and often forcefully imposed onto the colonies. This served, for example, to justify an Enlightened, cultivated looting of many cultural properties. The socially admitted looting ended as the empires collapsed, but, interestingly, the CH discourse that had sustained such remained, though under a different, non-axiological guise, as discussed in Chapter 1. Furthermore, this discourse was often fostered and developed by the former colonies, by international organisms, and, most importantly at this point of our reflection, by many Western scholars and experts who sincerely opposed any form of colonialism. This meant that the CH experts maintained a fundamental role in the field beyond the original Western setting that had given way to the CH discourse in the first place. By spreading and implementing the CH discourse (any CH discourse), Western (or Western-trained) scholars and professionals are showing others how to see a relevant part of the world and themselves, and how to behave in some respects. This influence (which needs not be negative in every case) is more difficult to realize for the CH experts, as most of us take it for granted, but this is not a reason to ignore it or pretend it is not there – rather the opposite.

6.4.2  A bottom-up model? Of course, hand in hand with any listing and categorization exercise is a process of selection, casting in high relief the political dimensions of heritage at its core. With this in mind, I pose a question . . . who are the gatekeepers of these heritage categories, and how are their decisions made? (Stefano 2019)

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Once the CH discourse is successfully seeded into, and perhaps even willfully adopted by, other cultures, the practices that accompany it (designation, research, conservation, musealization, etc.) become another means through which authority is exerted. Making lists of CH items, that is, the formal designation of some cultural expressions as “cultural heritage,” is one such practice. Under the original CH discourse, the CH field was almost exclusively ruled by experts: it was the historian, the archeologist, the anthropologist, or some peers in the relevant field of expertise who decided whether or not a given object was worthy of preservation for future generations – whether or not it was a worthy inheritance, whether or not it was worthy heritage. As some CH authors consider such a role to be a form of cultural elitism resulting from a non-egalitarian, nondemocratic attitude, it has been posited that it should be ‘the community’ that would designate its own heritage, so that the researcher or the expert would no longer be a ‘privileged’ player in the CH arena. To illustrate: Anthropological research has also taken a new turn in the sense that what it processes and generates has to pass through the viewpoint and meanings that the social players themselves give it as subjects of the cultures studied. This makes it obvious that there is a need to recognize the cognitive autonomy of the subject peoples. With this, hermeneutics has abandoned the privileged perspective of the interpreter with a viewpoint that presumes to show the truth. (Machuca 2013:62) This idea was already present, if in plainer words, in the Final Report of the 1993 UNESCO meeting “International Consultation on New Perspectives for UNESCO’s programme: the Intangible Cultural Heritage.”: The participants wondered what would be the qualifications of the persons who awarded the ‘criterion of excellence.’ Several participants believed that only the inhabitants of the locality concerned, the artists and their audience, were able to pass such a judgment. (D.16) Ten years later, this idea became a tenet of UNESCO’s 2003 Convention itself, in which the role of ‘communities’ in the designation and safeguarding of cultural heritage is explicitly stressed: The ‘intangible cultural heritage’ means the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. (UNESCO 2003:Art. 2.1) According to this view, a “top-down model” of CH designation should be considered literally a “danger” (Perkin 2010:107). To avoid such danger, the current

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non-axiological CHD instead fosters a community-driven approach, a model that supposedly subverts the classical CH discourse and frees it from its inherent antidemocratic elitism. However, no matter how well-intended this position is, it does not deprive experts of their authority. It only shifts their power, which remains paramount. Ultimately, the authority of the experts is not questioned: the experts do retain and exert a special authority, as they are arguably the only actors that “may take an active and informed stance within the processes of social arbitration” (Smith and Waterton 2009:76). When it comes to designating what is CH (and what is not CH), the authority of the experts working under the modern anti-elitist CHD paradigm is exerted in two main ways: first, it is the experts who decide whether or not a group of people counts as a legitimate ‘community’ and thus can make claims about heritage; second, it is the experts that will ultimately decide which cultural expressions count as CH, filtering out those which do not deserve to be safeguarded or passed on to future generations.

6.4.3  Authority through legitimization of communities Marginalised groups may have good reasons for non participation [in a community-based cultural project] . . . . The agency of participants cannot be assumed, and the extent to which participants must rely on “conventions of dominant narrative structures .  .  .” or risk the wrath of the ruling authorities, is often unacknowledged. (Norton 2019:85)

Under the modern CHD paradigm, the notion of community becomes very important, as it represents the primary legitimizing source of CH, replacing the figure of ‘the expert’ in some CH discourses. In practice, however, it still is the experts who will give or take legitimacy to a ‘community’ or another: they remain an important figure of authority when it comes to acknowledging which ‘communities’ have the right to make claims to moral or practical ‘authorship’ or ‘ownership’ on some CH items. Simply put, the CH discourse, whether pretendedly ‘authorized’ or not, rests on the authority of these experts. These listen to some selected ‘communities’ (or, more often, to some authorized members of the ‘community’), and their authority is in turn legitimized (authorized) by the expert. That CH experts have authority in their fields of expertise may seem undesirable for some authors, and it can truly be undesirable if the experts’ authority is badly used. However, relinquishing the authority to the ‘community’ is not necessarily better. One reason is that the notion of ‘community’ can be understood under different, conflicting criteria. If I carry on a very simple exercise of autoethnography, I can claim to be a member of several ‘communities’: the community of university professors; the community of heritage professionals; the community of civil servants; the community of Spanish people; the community of citizens of Valencia; the community of art-lovers; the community of followers of the Valencia

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CF soccer team; the community of baby boomers; and so forth. Each of these communities has its own links, its own interests, and its internal (intra-communitarian) and external (inter-communitarian) conflicts. At different moments in my life, I emphasize my belonging to one community or another, and deal with the conflicts this may pose. For instance, my interest as a Valencia CF soccer fan may conflict with my interests as a citizen of Valencia when it comes to determining where a new stadium should be built, and my interests as a middle-class Spanish citizen who would like to have my taxes lowered may conflict with my interests as a civil servant who gets paid out of these taxes. The tensions within myself when dealing with these topics are a metaphor for the kind of tensions that can arise between and within real communities. It also shows how a community is not a static notion. Communities are transversal and dynamic, and their members may or may not feel like members of a given community at some given moment, since, as Cohen (1985:98) notes, a community exists in the minds of its members, and should not be confused with geographic or sociographic assertions of ‘fact’. By extension, the distinctiveness of communities and, thus, the reality of their boundaries, similarly lies in the mind, in the meanings which people attach to them. As Emma Waterton and Laurajane Smith (2010:8) observe, “communities are run through with divergent interests, anger, boredom, fear, happiness, loneliness, frustration, envy, wonder and a range of either motivating or disruptive energies.” When dealing with cultural heritage, power struggles may occur within and between different ‘communities,’ and it will be the more vocal or otherwise stronger ‘community’ – or the more vocal or stronger members within a community – that will take precedence. In these circumstances, relying on a ‘community’ to make decisions on cultural heritage that may affect different people, now and in the future, and in not-so-evident ways, may not always be fair or sensible. Even under an apparently community-driven CH system, whether or not any given cultural expression is actually to become a part of the CH system crucially depends on the experts who will acknowledge the rights of any given community to be recognized as such and thus to choose their own CH. As Byrne has pointed out, “the subaltern status of non-Western societies is acknowledged in authorizing them to define their heritage in their own terms” (Byrne 2014:205). ‘Authorizing the community’ is a most consequential way in which the CH experts have exerted, and keep exerting, their influence, and not just over the CH of non-Western communities but also the CH of Western ones. This is a trait of the system: it is the experts who assign legitimacy to communities; it is the experts who decide which of the many transversal, dynamic ‘communities’ within a more or less large group of persons deserve to be legitimized or authorized: the inhabitants of a village, an ethnical minority, the members of a religious cult, the participants in a festival, the practitioners of some craft, etc.

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6.4.4  Authority through filtering acceptable CH What is remarkable here is the acknowledgment that traditions have to be recognized as intangible cultural heritage, that they are proposed but that to be recognized authorities must assess their importance and adjudicate among them. (Hafstein 2018:ch.3)

If through whatever process a community is reckoned to have the legitimacy to make CH claims, the community may be asked to tell which cultural expressions are most valuable for each one of their members; however, it is again the experts who will decide whether or not a cultural expression is fit enough to make it into some explicit or implicit list or inventory and thus to become cultural heritage. In practice, the experts can veto any candidacy on both technical and ideological grounds. For something to become CH, it needs to fit with the current views on the subject that prevails among experts; that is, it needs to fit within the idea of what a CH item can be or should be. The experts may exert their authority by establishing how a list should be composed (typically, according to the practices prevailing in their field of expertise – anthropology, art history, archaeology, musicology, folklore, etc.). Some authors have in fact complained that the lists of CH items may not respond to the experts’ standards, as they are usually conducted in circumstances that frequently do not contribute to reaching academically desirable levels of ethnographic density. They can therefore be grounded in doubtful interpretations about the cultural meanings enrooted in the social practices that they aim to nurture. (Arantes 2013:39–40) Of course, it is the experts and not the laypersons who can establish what an “academically desirable” level of “ethnographic density” actually is, or discern whether an interpretation of the “cultural meanings” is “doubtful” or not. Aside from the technical aspects involved in the designation and listing of CH items, the experts can filter out some candidate items for ethical or ideological reasons. The first article of the UNESCO 2003 Convention forwards the caveat that not all cultural expressions will be allowed to become CH: “consideration will be given solely to such intangible cultural heritage as is compatible with existing international human rights instruments, as well as with the requirements of mutual respect among communities, groups and individuals, and of sustainable development.” This process of ideological filtering does make sense, for, as Avrami (2021:202) has starkly noted, “culture may be viewed as the driver of many forms of oppression and violence, from slavery to genital mutilation.” This in turn leads her to ask a crucial, poignant question: “So are only some aspects of culture considered a right while others are not?”

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The short answer is “yes”: not all traditions or cultural expressions must be preserved or otherwise fostered just because they are cultural heritage in an anthropological or historical sense. The CH discourse is inserted into a larger cultural (social, moral, political) framework, which it contributes to articulating. This framework includes ethical principles like, for example, human rights, animal rights, or ecological sustainability, which the CH discourse should not challenge. This does make sense: in a society, there are higher, more important ends and principles than CH, and CH needs to abide by them to be both beneficial and acceptable. This realization has many implications, but in this context, it serves to stress two ideas further: first, that experts do play a crucial role in the designation of CH, and second, that this is not necessarily a bad thing.

6.4.5  Authority through research (I) The doctrine, processes and regimes of expertise which produce outstanding universal value can thus be seen as also producing a form of ‘insignificance.’ (Cameron 2020:7)

The research work that precedes CH designation and especially that which CH designation entails is another CH-building practice in which the role of experts is paramount. This is almost a truism, as it is evident that the average layperson is not prepared to conduct what we understand as ‘research’ in this context. A substantial degree of training is a requirement for adequately conducting such ‘research,’ so this practice is de facto reserved for anthropologists, historians, folklorists, material scientists, archaeologists, conservators, and other experts. CH research is both an experts’ duty and a source of legitimization of their authority. Research increases our knowledge of the researched CH items, but at the same time puts the experts in a position of superiority since they become the people who best know the item. The following quote serves to concisely and efficiently illustrate the epistemic relationship between the experts and the laypersons in the field of cultural heritage research: Here are two directions that I have taken in my own research over the last ten years, first in West Africa (Guinea) and now in South East Asia (Laos). First of all, it may be helpful to distinguish between two levels of analysis: what can be called the ‘reflexive theory of transmission’ (the way people perceive and verbalize the process of transmission and loss itself) and the observable ‘processes of transmission’ through which knowledge, emotions, and practices are actually passed down. The first level opens onto a fascinating question for anthropologists: what ‘transmission’ and ‘loss’ are for people themselves. (Berliner 2013:74; my emphasis)

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This example shows how an expert can make a distinction between what laypersons (i.e., the members of a community) feel and think about the transmission of their cultural heritage and what “actually” happens. The laypeople, in fact, are only entitled to “perceive and verbalize” their views under a particular paradigm only, one of their own, which is described as a “reflexive theory of transmission.” However, they do not provide a true view of what is actually passed down: this is only knowable to the expert. Thus, the expert becomes the agent in the position to know what truly happens in the heritage process; the views of the laypersons who make the cultural heritage about the heritage process play a secondary role: these are contemplated as “a fascinating question for anthropologists.” This, of course, should not be interpreted as a criticism of CH research methods and goals: experts are experts because they know their field better than nonexperts. However, this is indeed a criticism of the idea that experts can, or should, perform CH research without exerting their authority on their field of specialization. CH research is a knowledge-driven practice, and what makes experts to be experts is their epistemic superiority in their fields. There is a reason why they are the ones who decide on the goals of the research, its methods, and its scope. In the CH field, they decisively contribute to establishing a corpus of knowledge around each item that in turn defines and shapes how the item is perceived, or even is, for both other experts and laypersons. For example, an old painting in a cave may be an example of primitive art, but also a ritual device for connecting with the self (or with the divinities, nature, or any other transcending entity) or a symbol that identifies a collective; a medieval sword may be a historical weapon, but also a symbol of a military feat, an example of medieval creative design, or evidence of the history of alloy technology; an old religious ritual may be a touristic attraction, but also a nationalistic device or simply a religious ritual; and so forth. By approaching a cultural expression from a given standpoint, CH research fosters, or consecrates, some views of the item and thus contributes to shaping its identity as CH – to shaping its heritageness. Also, by way of example, research provides hints to other researchers on how CH items may be researched, producing a kind of epistemic chain reaction.

6.4.6  Authority through research (II) Violent actions of heritage-isation that are performed through public policies, projects, activities or discourses from public and private CH agents. (Gnecco 2019:52; my translation4)

Working under the scientific paradigm, CH researchers should not interfere with the thing being researched. This is comparatively easy to achieve in the case of tangible CH, where the object of inquiry is not self-conscious, has no volition, and experiences no feelings. In the case of ICH, however, this is more difficult to achieve. Researching the behavior of a group of persons is bound to alter their behavior somehow, thus making it impossible to abide by the rule that the researcher should not interfere with the object of inquiry.

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It might be argued that some of the epistemic requisites of the hard-science paradigm need to be relaxed when applied in humanities, and especially in ICH research, since the object of study is often human beings who have rights, interests, and volition. One interesting attempt to transform these research activities into an egalitarian space (and one that shows the limits of this endeavor) is the so-called ‘participatory action research’ (PAR). Through the use of different techniques that need not be detailed here, PAR seeks “democratic control and participation in defining the problems to be studied,” “empowerment,” and “more democratic forms of knowledge.” Over the last few years, PAR tools and methods have been deployed in a variety of fields in the social sciences . . . such as public health . . . organisation studies . . . refugee studies . . . gender studies . . . geography . . . anthropology . . . archaeology . . . and heritage studies. (Alivizatou 2022:31) However, this and other similar attempts at democratizing research fail to reckon that not all people have the same epistemic authority in every field of knowledge. Fals-Borda, one of the key proponents of PAR, makes this problem evident when asserting that the goal of participatory research is “increasing the input and control of . . . the subordinate classes, the poor, the peripheral, the voiceless, the untrained, the exploited grassroots in general . . . over the process of production of knowledge” (Fals-Borda and Rahman 1991:30). The quote is in fact very telling of the underlying non-egalitarian stance of even the so-called ‘democratic’ research, because it fails to acknowledge that common people do produce knowledge: how to behave in a restaurant, how to best use the underground system, what are the best words for a given circumstance, what supermarket offers the best value for money, etc. This kind of knowledge, furthermore, may be far more helpful in many more real-life scenarios than, for example, knowing the physical principles behind a black hole, the nature of the chromatic musical scale, or the monadic philosophy of Leibniz; however, what matters now is to note that (a) this is knowledge too; (b) such knowledge is produced by ‘common people’; and (c) ‘common people’ do have control over it. Therefore, there is no need to “increase the input and control of common people” over this kind of knowledge. By asserting that ‘common people’ do not have control “over the process of production of knowledge,” it is implied that only the experts produce knowledge or, in other words, that only the experts’ knowledge deserves to be considered as ‘knowledge.’ This barely concealed attitude of epistemic superiority negates the idea of epistemic democracy that is being apparently defended in PAR – or in some CHDs. I wonder what my reaction would be if a group of well-intended ‘common people’ approached me to share their knowledge of, say, caffeinated drinks or reggaeton music, aiming to making it more democratic and participatory by sharing their knowledge and expertise with others who lack it. I must reckon that they do have an epistemic superiority over me: they are the experts in those fields; they know better. Epistemic inequity happens in nearly every aspect of any knowledge system.

106  Setting the limits

Thus, while PAR and other initiatives that aim at countering the ‘elitism’ of experts in the CH field are supposed to empower common people and bring an egalitarian stance into these fields of knowledge, CH research still needs to be based on the inherently ‘elitist’ (but eminently commonsensical) idea that some people know better some aspects of the world. This knowledge may have been acquired through formal training (as is often the case of ‘experts’ with academic background) or through real-life experience (as is often the case of what we call ‘laypersons’), but the fact is that some people possess knowledge that other people lack. This remains true in the field of CH and particularly in the field of CH research. And yet, once again, it must be stressed that there is nothing inherently wrong with this. Epistemic authority, in different fields and scenarios, is a given, even a necessity: societies are based on many different spheres of authority that intertwine. It could not be otherwise, and thus it cannot be a reason for sound criticism. The problem (i.e., what could be criticized) is not that authority is exerted but rather that such authority is not exerted in respectful, sensible, and sensitive ways.

6.4.7  Authority through Research (III) In the case of history, the list of questions, the method and the documents shape the boundaries of the paradigm. (Trépanier 1992:254; my translation5)

There is yet another way in which the experts exert authority through research. CH includes not just artistic masterpieces or popular folklore but also, for instance, fragments of ceramic vases, old newspapers, and archival records. This subset of the cultural heritage constitutes what could be called ‘documentary’ or ‘evidential’ CH: CH items that are almost exclusively used by researchers as documents for their research. Researchers working with this evidence thus have an important say in designating what is considered CH. This kind of ‘evidential CH’ is often ignored in the modern CH discourse, but it may be helpful not to lose sight of it in any theoretical reflection on CH.

6.4.8  Authority through musealization and conservation Once things are on the List, these qualifying conditions also become the conditions for protection. (Stovel 2004; cit. in Akagawa 2016:80)

Musealization is another practice through which experts exert their authority on CH. The museum as we know it is a European invention dating from the 19th century and shows the traits of the early, Enlightened CH discourse. As a public institution designed with didactic and aesthetic purposes and accessible to every person regardless of their social condition, what is to be displayed and shown, and

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ultimately its very message, is decided by experts: by professionals who are knowledgeable in the field. Thus, it is this reduced group of persons who prioritize some items over others and who therefore decide what shall be displayed and what shall not. They also decide how each item will be displayed: which prominence will be given within the whole collection or how it will be presented to the spectators. Conservation or safeguarding is another practice through which experts exert their authority on the items CH consists of. Speaking of the conservation (or ‘safeguarding’) of intangible cultural heritage, Graham (2009:185) has summarized how this authority is exerted by posing a set of “political questions”: Who decides what cultural forms are to be recorded, documented, and safeguarded? What is the purpose(s) of heritage documentation, in specific instances? . . . Who is doing the safeguarding and what are the relationships, particularly relationships of power and authority, between various parties involved in safeguarding practices, including institutions such as museums, universities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), as well as their representatives in interactions with various local-level community organizations, institutions and their individual members? Who are the audiences of heritage documentation and how are safeguarding practices and presentations of safeguarded materials accountable to the needs and interests of distinct audiences? What practices are appropriate, and not appropriate, to safeguarding intangible expressive forms for specific cultures or social groups? How are safeguarded performances made accessible (in culturally appropriate ways) to members of traditional communities whose forms of intangible heritage are being safeguarded? In the field of object conservation, these questions often translate into more specific questions. For example, will missing parts be replaced? If so, how will they be replaced? By inserting an identical fragment that cannot be told from the original or just a shape that vaguely reminds us of the missing fragment? Which level of access will be granted to the spectators? How will the item be displayed? As new, showing some of its age or in whatever condition it presently is, no matter how shabby? All of these questions are answered by CH experts, who try to bear in mind the needs and tastes not just of contemporary spectators, but also of future ones.

6.4.9  Authority through semantic selection The celebration of the fine estates, homes and pursuits of the landed aristocracy so associated with the National Trust in England is . . . a legitimation of existing class relationships behind the wealth and property. (Shanks 2012:16)

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When CH items are selected from the continuum of things and facts and experiences around us, we are actually selecting some “fragments of the world” (Keene 2005) for the meanings they convey, or rather, for some of the meanings they could convey. A CH item may convey a plethora of different meanings, not all of which are equally valuable to everyone. Thus, some meanings are chosen and emphasized through the CH practices. Semantic selection is a given when designating, researching, presenting, or preserving some CH items. This is one of the main goals of the whole CH system. For example, a standard sewing machine in a museum can represent, among other things, technical advance, the democratization of technology, a vanishing popular practice, the gender bias of some activities in the average Western homes in the 20th century, or even the particular story of the user of that sewing machine. The experts decide which of these aspects are to be emphasized by selecting one sewing machine and not another, researching some facets of its history and not others, cleaning and repairing it in a particular way, displaying it in a given context and, most often, accompanying it with an explanatory text informing the viewer on what meaning the item is expected to transmit – in other words, through musealization, research, and conservation. For instance, in 2013, the National Museum of American History in Washington displayed in a prominent space a common sewing machine to represent the exploitation of immigrants in clandestine workshops: emphasizing a meaning over others is a way of exerting authority, and in fact other sewing machines in the collection are instead made to represent the technology and aesthetics prevailing at the moment of their making. In a similar vein, when Velázquez’s Venus at Her Mirror in the National Gallery of London was slashed by a suffragist in 1914, the conservators skillfully repaired the slashes; as a consequence, evidence of the fight of women for a fundamental right was (is) concealed – instead, the relevance (or, it could be argued, the prevalence) of Velázquez, Baroque painting and the Western artistic canon are quietly and efficiently emphasized. On a not-sodifferent note, Akbaş and Kelekçi (2021) recount how the restoration of the Izmit Paper Factory (SEKA) has obliterated the signs of the important workers’ struggles for better working conditions that took place until the early years of the 21st century when the factory was completely shut down: instead, it now represents the advancement of industrial technology in Turkey. In summary, by emphasizing some meanings in a CH item, others are relegated to a secondary place, or, it might be argued, concealed, or even eradicated forever by the experts. Meaning choice is a common phenomenon in the CH field and, very often, an expert’s responsibility. As noted elsewhere, selection is a given in the CH system, and it is thus unfair to criticize the CH system just because selections are made. This also applies to meanings: we may not like the selection of the meanings the item is made to convey, but a selection needs to be made, and is made, in all cases, since there is no way an item can be made to mean everything it could mean. For instance, we might criticize the sewing machine in the NMAH, for it is not made to represent gender bias in the Western world; we could in fact think that the experts have chosen to ‘conceal’ gender bias by choosing to use the sewing machine to represent a form of worker exploitation that

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is not related to gender. However, making the sewing machine represent gender bias would be just another choice that could also be criticized for the very same reasons: what about racism, or child exploitation – or simply the history of technology? There are many messages to send, but, once again, not all of them can be sent at the same time or with the same strength. Selection is a necessity in any CH discourse. As a matter of fact, the criticism that CH discourse involves a biased selection often conceals the wish to make a different (but still biased) selection of meanings. Once more: selection is an inescapable trait of the CH system. The fact that a selection is made is not a sound criticism; the fact that a different (presumedly better) selection could be made is what could be criticized.

6.5  Wrapping up The curators had insisted that all signage be removed from the buildings – a collection of reconstructed farmhouse from different eras – because there were no signs on them back in the eighteenth century. . . . Visitors to the attraction, needless to say, were bamboozled. (Brown 2019:12)

If CH makes sense is because of the experts’ intervention: because the experts have successfully fostered, disseminated, and implemented the concepts they (we) have developed and which are (often rightly) thought to change people’s lives for the better by sending the right message, by hailing the correct value, or by providing a cultural or social sense of community. The experts’ authority is what grounds the field. We may dislike how the experts exert their authority but not the fact that they exert authority: without this authority the field would collapse or vanish (and it would not exist at all in the first place). This authority is a requirement for the whole field to make sense. The authority of the experts should not be questioned in itself, as it is not questioned in so many other areas; instead, the abuse of such authority is what can, and indeed should, be questioned. In the heritage scene there will always be one or more characters playing the role of the authorized voice. CH needs to be a top-down construction. It is unclear how it could be a bottom-up construction, among other things because, if it could be the case, there would be no need for anyone at ‘the top’ to do anything at all, perhaps other than passively observing, studying, and analyzing what is going on without aiming at changing anything: the CH profession would then be identical to the work of, for example, anthropologists, archaeologists, or ethnographers. Maybe what is actually meant when suggesting that the CH field should be a bottom-up construction is that the people at the top should act in a respectful, sensitive manner. This often translates into persuading the people at the bottom to do part of the job (performing or caring for the CH, even selecting it within some parameters established by the experts) while the people at the top watch and reward them (e.g., with some kind of formal recognition or by allocating some resources) when they do good

110  Setting the limits

work – that is, what the top-people consider ‘good work.’ But this is not a genuine bottom-up regime. An actual bottom-up CH regime is not possible unless the experts cease to exert their authority, which is close to saying that an actual bottom-up CH regime is not possible. The idea that the CH field should be ‘egalitarian,’ ‘democratic,’ and not ruled by experts can only make sense if understood in a very imprecise sense: as a somewhat crude rhetorical device (a metaphor or a hyperbole) suggesting not that the laypeople should decide what cultural expressions are more valuable for them and how they should be cared for (this already happens without the need to reckon anything as CH), but a different thing: that the experts should be sensitive to the needs and interests of those who are affected by their decisions, that is, the people who perform CH, the neighbors, the spectators, etc. The notion of ‘democracy’ has strongly positive connotations, and deservedly so. However, these connotations should not lure us into believing that a democratic system can be safely applied to decision-making in all kinds of situations. In fact, every person has greater authority than others in her or his respective field of expertise. It would make little sense, for example, to decide democratically the thickness of the trusses in a bridge, the best solvent in a painting conservation treatment, or perhaps even whether public funding should be allotted to conduct an anthropological study in a remote location or to build a playground in a popular neighborhood. Even worse, a strictly democratic CH decision-making process is likely to be detrimental to the heritage of minorities of all kinds (racial, ethnic, religious, linguistic, etc.). If at all, CH decisions can be people-friendly or peopleoriented – meaning that the experts should bear in mind the affected people (e.g., through consultation or collaboration) and do their job in respectful, sensible ways. This idea could perhaps be better expressed by noting that the producers of a cultural expression do have complete authority over it, but once this cultural expression is recognized as cultural heritage, the CH experts acquire authority over it. Cultural expressions are sustained by the people; cultural heritage is sustained by both the people and the experts. As with so many other fields of expertise and knowledge, the CH field is based on forms of (often – but not always – well-exerted) authority. The criticism that experts exert their authority in the CH arena in a non-democratic fashion needs to be approached with intellectual finesse.

Notes 1 Honorio Bustos Domecq is the alias used by Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares to publish some works they wrote together. “El enemigo número uno de la censura” was first published in 1977. 2 “Elegir es siempre una variedad de la injusticia. Lo mejor, en cualquier circunstancia, sería no tener que escoger nunca, poder quedarnos con todo al mismo tiempo . . . Pero el caso es que resulta imposible: tenemos que elegir.” 3 See, for example, Watson 2019:1, where the notion is criticized for its being applicable to some cases only; and Alonso González 2017 and 2019, where the paradox that

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the principles behind the AHD have themselves become a weapon for giving or taking authority is highlighted. 4 “. . .actos violentos de patrimonialización que se ejecutan a través de políticas públicas, proyectos, acciones o discursos de los operadores patrimoniales públicos y privados.” 5 “Dans le cas de l’histoire, le questionnaire, le méhode, et la documentation dessinent les contours du paradigme.” Trépanier is discussing the work of Canadian historian and thinker Lionel Groulx. He adds: “I am using the word ‘paradigm’ to mean a set of criteria agreed by the peers, in a given time and within an established field of knowledge, in order to play the role of a validating and legitimizing system” (p. 254, note 21; my translation). (“J’emploi le mot paradigme dans le sens d’ensemble de critères retenus par les pairs, a une époque donnée, au sein d’un savoir constitué, pour y jouer le rôle d’instance de validation et de légitimation.”)

References Akagawa, N. (2016) ‘Intangible Heritage and Embodiment: Japan’s Influence on Global Heritage Discourse’, in W.S. Logan, M.N. Craith and U. Kockel (eds.) A Companion to Heritage Studies. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, pp. 69–86. Akbaş, M. and Kelekçi, Ö. (2021) ‘From factory to museum: The obliteration of the history of resistance’, in A. Chynoweth (ed.) Museums and the Working Class. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 161-172. Alivizatou, M. (2022) Intangible Heritage and Participation. Encounters with Safeguarding Practices. Abingdon: Routledge. Alonso González, P. (2017) El Antipatrimonio: fetichismo y dominación en Maragatería. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Alonso González, P. (2019) The Heritage Machine: Fetishism and Domination in Maragatería, Spain. London: Pluto Press (Anthropology, culture and society). Arantes, A. (2013) ‘Beyond Tradition: Cultural Mediation in the Safeguarding of ICH’, in L. Arizpe and C. Amescua (eds.) Anthropological Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage. Cham: Springer, pp. 39–56. Arizpe, L. and Amescua, C. (2013) ‘Annexe. General Discussion: Identifying Key Issues’, in L. Arizpe and C. Amescua (eds.) Anthropological Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage. Cham: Springer, pp. 121–132. Avrami, E. (2021) ‘Sustainability, Intergenerational Equity, and Pluralism: Can Heritage Conservation Create Alternative Futures?’, in C. Holtorf and A. Högberg (eds.) Cultural Heritage and the Future. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 198–216. Berliner, D. (2013) ‘New Directions in the Study of Cultural Transmission’, in L. Arizpe and C. Amescua (eds.) Anthropological Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage. Cham: Springer, pp. 71–78. Borges, J.L. and Bioy Casares, A. (1981) Obras comletas en colaboración. 1. Con Adolfo Bioy Casares. Madrid: Alianza Editorial. Brown, S. (2019) ‘Poets Know It: Cultural Heritage and the Great Divide’, in A. Campelo et al. (eds.) Cultural Heritage. London: Routledge, pp. 11–22. Byrne, D. (2009) ‘A Critique of Unfeeling Heritage’, in L. Smith and N. Akagawa (eds.) Intangible Heritage. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 229–252. Byrne, D. (2014) Counterheritage Critical Perspectives on Heritage Conservation in Asia. New York: Routledge. Cameron, C. (2020) ‘The UNESCO imprimatur: Creating global (in)significance’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, pp. 1–12. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/135272 58.2020.1746923.

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Chynoweth, A. (2022) ‘ “Which Side Are You on”? Towards Meaningful Attention to Class in Museums’, in A. Chynoweth (ed.) Museums and the Working Class. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 1–18. Cohen, A. (1985) The Symbolic Construction of Community. London: Routledge. De Cesari, C. and Herzfeld, M. (2015) ‘Urban Heritage and Social Movements’, in L. Meskell (ed.) Global Heritage: A Reader. Chichester: Wiley and Sons, pp. 171–195. Fals-Borda, O. and Rahman, M.A. (1991) Action and Knowledge: Breaking the Monopoly with Participatory Action Research. New York: Apex Press (G – Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series). Available at: https://books.google.es/ books?id=jHqpPwAACAAJ. Falser, M. (2015) ‘Cultural Heritage as Civilizing Mission: Methodological Considerations’, in M. Falser (ed.) Cultural Heritage as Civilizing Mission: From Decay to Recovery. Cham: Springer, pp. 1–34. Gamboni, D. (2001) ‘World Heritage: Shield or Target?’, Conservation. The Getty Conservation Institute Newsletter, 16(2), pp. 5–11. Gnecco, C. (2019) Diálogos en patrimonio cultural No2. El señuelo patrimonial. Pensamientos postarqueológicos en el camino de los incas. Tunja, Colombia: Maestría en Patrimonio Cultural Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia. Goodman, N. (1978) Ways of Worldmaking. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing. Graham, L.R. (2009) ‘Problematizing Technologies for Documenting Intangible Culture: Some Positive and Negative Consequences’, in D.F. Ruggles and H. Silverman (eds.) Intangible Heritage Embodied. New York: Springer, pp. 185–200. Available at: https://doi. org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0072-2. Hafstein, V. (2018) Making Intangible Heritage: El Condor Pasa and Other Stories from UNESCO. E-book edition. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Keene, S. (2005) Fragments of the World: Uses of Museum Collections. Amsterdam and Boston: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann. Kersel, M.M. and Luke, C. (2015) ‘Civil Societies? Heritage Diplomacy and Neo-Imperialism’, in L. Meskell (ed.) Global Heritage: A  Reader. Chichester: Wiley and Sons, pp. 70–93. Kuutma, K. (2013) ‘Concepts and Contingencies in Heritage Politics’, in L. Arizpe and C. Amescua (eds.) Anthropological Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage. Cham: Springer, pp. 1–15. Kuutma, K. (2016) ‘From Folklore to Intangible Heritage’, in W.S. Logan, M.N. Craith and U. Kockel (eds.) A Companion to Heritage Studies. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, pp. 41–54. Logan, W.S. and Smith, L. (2019) ‘Series Editors’ Foreword’, in N. Akagawa and L. Smith (eds.) Safeguarding Intangible Heritage. London: Routledge, pp. xiii–xiv. Machuca, J.A. (2013) ‘Challenges for Anthropological Research on Intangible Cultural Heritage’, in L. Arizpe and C. Amescua (eds.) Anthropological Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage. Cham: Springer, pp. 57–69. Marçal, H. (2018) ‘Public Engagement towards Sustainable Heritage Preservation’, Heritage for Future, 1, pp. 265–290. Marzal, C. (2021) Nunca fuímos más felices. Barcelona: Tusquets Editores. Norton, B. (2019) ‘Filming Music as Heritage. The Cultural Politics of Audiovisual Representation’, in B. Norton and N. Matsumoto (eds.) Music as Heritage: Historical and Ethnographic Perspectives. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 79–101. Perkin, C. (2010) ‘Beyond the rhetoric: negotiating the politics and realising the potential of community-driven heritage engagement’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 16(1-2), pp. 107-122.

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Samuels, K.L. (2015) ‘Heritage as Persuasion’, in K.L. Samuels and T. Rico (eds.) Heritage Keywords. Rhetoric and Redescription in Cultural Heritage. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, pp. 3–28. Shanks, M. (2012) ‘Let me tell you about Hadrian’s Wall .  .  .’ Heritage, Performance, Design. Amsterdam: Reinwardt Academy, Amsterdam School for the Arts. Smith, L. (2006) Uses of Heritage. London: Routledge. Smith, L. and Campbell, G. (2016) ‘The Elephant in the Room: Heritage, Affect, and Emotion’, in W.S. Logan, M.N. Craith, and U. Kockel (eds.) A Companion to Heritage Studies. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, pp. 443–460. Smith, L. and Waterton, E. (2009) Heritage, Communities and Archaeology. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Stefano, M. (2019) Folklife at the International Level: The Roots of ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage’. Part VI. World Heritage. Available at: https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2019/04/folklife-atthe-international-level-the-roots-of-intangible-cultural-heritage-part-vi-world-heritage/ (Accessed: 1 August 2022). Stovel, H. (2004) ‘The World Heritage Convention and the Convention for Intangible Cultural Heritage: Implications for Protection of Living Heritage at the Local Level’, in VV.AA. Utaki in Okinawa and Sacred Spaces in Asia: Community Development and Cultural Heritage, Okinawa International Forum 2004. Tokyo: The Japanese Foundation, pp. 129-135. Trépanier, P. (1992) ‘Lionel Groulx, historien’, Les Cahiers des dix, 47, pp. 247–277. UNESCO (1972) Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/conventiontext/. UNESCO (1993) International Consultation on New Perspectives for UNESCO’s Programme: The Intangible Cultural Heritage. Available at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/ pf0000143226 (Accessed: 17 September 2022). UNESCO (2003) Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Available at: https://ich.unesco.org/en/convention (Accessed: 17 September 2022). Vecco, M. (2019) ‘Value and Values of Cultural Heritage’, in A. Campelo et al. (eds.) Cultural Heritage. London: Routledge, pp. 23–38. Waterton, E. and Smith, L. (2010) ‘The recognition and misrecognition of community heritage’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 16(1–2), pp. 4–15. Watson, S., Barnes, A.J. and Bunning, K. (2019) ‘Introduction to Part I’, in S. Watson, A.J. Barnes and K. Bunning (eds.) A Museum Studies Approach to Heritage. London: Routledge, pp. 9–13. Zehbe, K. (2015) ‘What Brain Dead Persons Can Tell us about (Intangible) Cultural Heritage’, in K.L. Samuels and T. Rico (eds.) Heritage Keywords. Rhetoric and Redescription in Cultural Heritage. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, pp. 181–196.

7 CH, AUTHENTICITY, AND FABRICATION

7.1  Ways to be authentic: the Nara document Only if the mystique of authenticity . . . is cast off will scope be found. (Phillips 1997:25)

The CH discourse translates into a set of practices. Perhaps the first one is listing, that is, identifying and publicly declaring something as being CH; this is often followed by other closely related actions: classification, research, musealization, conservation, dissemination, etc. These practices must proceed around the CH item but, in theory, should not transform it. For most people, a CH item needs to be authentic to work as CH, and must not be artificially contrived, modified, or contaminated: it needs to be authentic to work as CH. In correspondence, many CH professionals aspire to remain ‘neutral,’ which among other things means that they aim not to alter the CH item, which would pollute it somehow and compromise its authenticity. And yet, regardless of how widespread this notion may seem, there are some important theoretical problems that haunt its validity. For what is it to be authentic? This often-used notion is actually quite convoluted and potentially misleading. Over the 20 years the UNESCO 1972 Convention had been running, some problems had been detected with one of the main criteria for a piece of cultural heritage to be designated as having “outstanding value for the humanity” (UNESCO 1972:Art.  11.2). In order to be included in the prestigious World Heritage List, the “Operational Guidelines” established by UNESCO for the implementation of the List describe the criteria that a piece of heritage “should meet the test of authenticity in design, materials, workmanship and setting” (UNESCO 1977:§B.9). Straightforward as it might seem, the requirement to DOI: 10.4324/9781003288121-9

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“meet the test of authenticity” regarding the “materials” of the monument or site was, however, a problem for some types of monuments found in non-Western countries that are periodically rebuilt. The paradigmatic example is that of the wooden Ise temples in Japan, which are rebuilt anew every 20 years. Here, the claim that the materials are authentic finds some conceptual difficulties. Can the 10-year-old fabric of a 1,000-year-old temple be considered ‘authentic’? In fact, the concern with the material components as a bearer of authenticity is rooted in the European cultural tradition, but it is not easy to translate into every culture. Consequently, in 1994 the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs and the Nara Prefecture, in cooperation with UNESCO, ICCROM, and ICOMOS, organized the Nara Conference on Authenticity in Relation to the World Heritage Convention. This conference aimed at revising some of the basic tenets of the 1972 World Heritage Convention and the highly successful World Heritage List. As expressed in the resulting document (VV.AA. 1994), the ultimate goal of the meeting was to reckon with “the legitimacy of the cultural values of all parties” (§6), and the core idea behind the document was the idea that “all cultures . . . should be respected” (§7). In the Nara document, the notion of authenticity is not entirely removed from the original CHD and its underlying appeal to universalism (see §5.6), but the notion is indeed relativized to the point of making it depend on factors such as “spirit” or “feeling”: Depending on the nature of the cultural heritage, its cultural context, and its evolution through time, authenticity judgements may be linked to the worth of a great variety of sources of information. Aspects of the sources may include form and design, materials and substance, use and function, traditions and techniques, location and setting, and spirit and feeling, and other internal and external factors. (§13) Nowadays, this may be taken for granted, but at the time the task still required “intellectual courage” (VV.AA. 1994:§1). The 1994 revision of the Operational Guidelines of UNESCO’s World Heritage List, in fact, omitted the requisite for the materials of a piece of cultural heritage to be ‘authentic.’ In a few years, not only was a new type of cultural heritage (ICH) explicitly reckoned with, but the material fabric of tangible CH items lost much of the importance it had held up until then.

7.2  Many authenticities It is important to think about who are the ‘others’ of authenticity. Is authenticity opposed to hybridity? Is it opposed to simulation? Who builds which oppositions? (Arizpe and Amescua 2013:129)

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The Nara Document was composed to offer a solution to an important conceptual problem in the original CH discourse, and it indeed contributed to expanding our views on the notion of authenticity. However, even despite its being a very frequently used concept, there still is a great deal of ambiguity over the meaning of the term, which in turn may substantially weaken any reflection in which it is used. ‘Authenticity’ can be interpreted in different ways, depending on the author and context. In fact, there exist a number of taxonomies sustaining multiple authenticity discourses and thus the ambiguity of the notion. Consider, for instance, Jones’s distinction between ‘materialist’ authenticity, “which treats authenticity as a dimension of ‘nature’ with real and immutable characteristics that can be identified and measured,” and ‘constructivist’ or ‘cultural’ authenticity – which is “popular amongst academics and cultural critics, who see authenticity as a product of ‘culture’ ” (Jones 2010:182). Along this line, Panayiotopoulos et al. (2019) also acknowledge the existence of opposing notions of authenticity, which they call ‘essentialist’ and ‘constructivist.’ To a great extent, these coincide with the notions described by Jones: “essentialism tends to reify particular traditions and cultures (especially those that continue from pre-modern times) as authentic, constructivism views culture as dynamic and flexible.” Interestingly, these authors note that “understandings of authenticity can be located on a continuum of theoretical streams from pure essentialism to pure constructivism,” which would give rise to many possible ways to interpret the meaning of the term. Using a very popular metaphor, it has been suggested that there is a “fluidity of authenticity” (Panayiotopoulos et al. 2019:92–93). Indeed, as Wang puts it, authenticity is “not a matter of black or white, but rather involves a much wider spectrum, rich in ambiguous colours” (Wang 1999:353). A quick search through the published literature shows that in the cultural heritage discourse, the ‘continuum’ or the ‘spectrum’ of authenticities includes, aside from existential, materialist, and essentialist authenticities, “experiential authenticity” (e.g., Kolar et al. 2019:73), “objective authenticity” (e.g., Reynolds et al. 2019), “staged authenticity” (e.g., Chhabra et al. 2003), “perceived authenticity” (e.g., Su 2018), “dynamic authenticity” (e.g., García-Esparza 2016), or “emotional authenticity” (e.g., Majewski 2019:242ff.). The list could go on, but these examples should suffice to show how authenticity is a convoluted concept in the heritage field. However, what needs to be emphasized here is that conflicting authenticities exist and that this is a potential source of problems in any reflection involving the notion.

7.3  The tautological argument Salvador Muñoz-Viñas argues that authenticity is meaningless because one cannot claim that something exists in a non-authentic state: the “present condition is the only actually authentic condition.” . . . Muñoz-Viñas’ critique of the concept of authenticity remains within an overly simplistic binary. (Grünfeld 2022:285–286)

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As Jones (2010:181) has put it, authenticity exerts an “ineffable, almost magical, power,” and most people would readily agree that authenticity plays a crucial role in the CH field. Authenticity seems to be one of the core features of every CH item. A non-authentic piece of heritage is not heritage, but something else. Reciprocally, ‘authentic heritage’ seems a pleonasm. The so-called ‘tautological argument’ I developed elsewhere (Muñoz-Viñas 2009) may help to approach these ideas in a more nuanced way. In philosophy, a tautology is a self-evident statement or, in other words, a statement that is guaranteed to be true in whatever imaginable world. For instance, the statement “X is X” is a tautology, regardless of what term we might substitute for “X.” “A black X is black” is another example of tautology, as is “a yellowed painting is yellowed,” “a torn paper is torn,” or “a broken clock is broken.” In actual speech, this simplistic phrasing is seldom used; instead, some qualifiers and periphrases are often used without altering the core idea. For instance, “a yellowed painting is yellowed,” “a torn paper is torn,” or “a broken vase is broken” might equally be expressed by saying “a true yellowed painting is yellowed,” “an authentic torn paper is torn,” or even “the authentic condition of a broken vase is broken.” All of these statements are bound to be true, in any case. They are not very informative, as they tell us nothing new, but, in exchange, they have the essential property of being always true: in any circumstance, unequivocally. In the cultural heritage field, however, things may be more convoluted. Consider an old building – Notre Dame, for instance. As these lines are being written, the Paris monumental cathedral is awaiting reconstruction after the infamous fire that destroyed its roof and iconic spire. Some projects include erecting a hi-tech structure of glass and steel in the place of the original spire. Some people, however, find this objectionable because it would not correspond to the authentic Notre Dame. After the fire, these people argue, the authentic Notre Dame should be restored. But what exactly does ‘authentic’ mean in this context? What does ‘authentic’ actually refer to? In this context, and for many people, the ‘authentic’ Notre Dame is the Notre Dame that existed before the fire. The reconstruction should thus attempt to rebuild the roof, the spire, and all other damage caused by the fire. However, the tautological argument suggests that this is somewhat less obvious than it might seem – and not just because the spire was actually added in the 19th century by Viollet-le-Duc. For what is the authentic condition of a burnt building? The authentic condition of a burnt building is ‘burnt.’ And it is also true that an authentic spire-less building has no spire at all. Notre Dame is burnt, and has no spire: how can we (or anyone, for that matter) believe that the ‘authentic Notre Dame,’ the famous Gothic building that suffered from neglect for centuries, that was thoroughly rebuilt in the 19th century, and that suffered a severe fire in 2019 that destroyed its spire, needs a spire to be authentic? In other words, does an authentically burnt Gothic building need to look like it had never burnt to be authentic? Would not it rather be less authentic if such a burnt building was made to look as new?

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The intuitive answer would perhaps be “yes,” but it is actually “no.” By applying the same rationale described earlier, it might be asked: “what is the authentic condition of a building that has lost a spire in a fire and which had the spire painstakingly restored?”; the answer (the tautological, indisputably true answer) would be: “a building that has had its spire destroyed and then restored truly has a spire,” or “the authentic condition of a building that has had its spire rebuilt after it collapsed is ‘with a spire.’ ” In summary, the actually authentic condition of a building, or anything else, for that matter, is the condition in which it exists. Anything else is nothing more (or nothing less) than a kind of fiction – a memory, a more or less educated guess, an expectation. In summary, the tautological argument shows that the notion of authenticity is used as a noble disguise for other notions . . . . If we can honestly think that obliterating the imprints of history can make an object more authentic, it is because we are using the term in a displaced sense: by ‘authentic’ we usually mean ‘preferable’, ‘more useful’, ‘more beautiful’, ‘more meaningful’, etc. (Muñoz-Viñas 2009:37)

7.4  Authenticity and TCH The only identity cultural heritage objects can have is that of some fictional creation. (Olivier 2022:85)

The notion of authenticity in the CH field may not be what it seems, but this does not mean that it is useless. Just as many other myths in every society, the notion of authenticity in the CH arena is both meaningful and useful, especially if appropriately understood: as suggested elsewhere, we (the professionals who sustain the fiction) “need to be aware that it is a fiction – or, at the very least, that the meaning we confer to the notion of authenticity has important peculiarities” (Muñoz-Viñas 2009:38). In practice, when speaking of material objects, authenticity judgments are usually done by comparing the history of the thing to our idea about what it should have been. Very often, there exists a widespread underlying agreement as to what the history of the ‘authentic’ object needs to be. For instance, an ‘authentic Renaissance building’ was built in Europe around the 15th century – not much earlier, not much later – according to a set of well-defined style cues. And an ‘authentic bank note’ has been printed in some official printing house – a banknote printed elsewhere is likely to be a forgery. As these assumptions are so widespread, most of us just assume them: we choose to assume them – which is eminently sensible in most cases, as living in a society requires a number of rules, customs, and beliefs to be agreed upon. However, in other occasions (such as in the case of Notre Dame)

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there is no such widespread agreement, which in turn gives rise to a discussion about the relative merits of each one’s ‘authentic condition’ or each one’s ‘authenticity.’ What this shows is that authenticity is based on more or less widespread subjective beliefs or expectations: even though it may seem counterintuitive, the authenticity of a material, tangible object does not depend on the object, but on the subject. Authenticity literally is a subjective matter, because an object always exists in an (historically, objectively) authentic condition; instead, it is our beliefs and expectations about what the object should be (the Renaissance building should have been built in the 15th century, the bank note should have been printed by an official institution) what can be demonstrated false – but not the real, actual, existing object: an object cannot exist in a state of falsehood. Interestingly, things are not very different when speaking of intangible items.

7.5  A thought experiment: the Theseus parade In Japan, where, as Siegenthaler . . . notes . . . the official celebration of heritage value “threatens to privilege a particular version of tradition over all other versions . . . as well as ruling out more obvious forms of innovation altogether.” (Akagawa 2016:81–82)

Let’s imagine that at some moment in the 19th century, a group of people in a Mediterranean island organizes an event known as “the Theseus Parade.” The parade involves dancers and singers in colorful costumes, people formally dressed carrying flags and penchants, and not just one, but two musical ensembles, a brass band and another group with drums, wooden-carved flutes, and other local instruments. Through the years, the Theseus Parade becomes a well-established tradition, and in the last decades of the 20th century, it is recognized as CH. As the parade becomes more and more well-known, more tourists and visitors flock to the island to watch it. After a few years, the organizers and members of the parade find that some aspects of the parade are more liked by both the visitors and the officials from the state cultural agency that will decide whether or not the parade will get funding and media coverage: some costumes are preferred over other ones, while the musical performance of the ensemble using popular instruments is preferred over that of the more modern brass band. As a consequence, the makers emphasize these aspects in order to attract more visitors and gain further recognition in the national and international CH systems: the folk ensemble takes the leading role in the parade, displacing the brass band, and more colorful costumes are included at the expense of the others. Eventually, the parade is performed on a different, wider street so that it may be watched by more spectators. Also, microphones and loudspeakers are installed for the voices of the paraders to be clearly heard. All of these small incremental changes make the parade even more popular, attracting more people and gaining increased recognition among both laypersons

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and CH professionals. However, a group of islanders disagrees: they believe those changes have altered the nature of the Theseus Parade, betraying its tradition and roots. They thus organize a parallel event, which they call the “Real Theseus Parade.” The “Real Theseus Parade” faithfully replicates the parade as it was originally performed. We thus have two Theseus Parades, each made by members of the same community. Now, how should we answer if asked which parade is more authentic? Which one should be supported by the CH institutions?

7.6  Assessing authenticity There will always be a variety of stakeholders in any community with complementary, competing, and sometimes colliding desires. This leads to a number of authenticities. (Kersel and Luke 2015:87)

In the area of philosophy that studies Truth, the so-called ‘coherence theory’ is the most widespread. Arguably, it is also the most widespread theory among the public in general. This theory posits that in order to determine whether a statement is true or false, it needs to be checked against the corresponding observed facts – against the external world. If the facts and the statement coincide, the statement is said to be true. While not identical, the mechanism of authenticity works in a similar way when applied to CH objects. As discussed previously, the authenticity of an object does not depend on the object itself. As the tautological argument shows, the object is always authentic (or exists in an ‘authentic condition’) as its state is undoubtedly real and resulting from equally real, authentic historical or physical facts. In practice, the ‘authenticity’ of an object depends on the coherence between the history of the object and the observer’s belief on what that history should be. In the case of TCH items, the object of inquiry is relatively stable, both in the physical and epistemic senses. In the case of ICH items, however, the object of inquiry is inherently unstable and volatile, but in practical terms its authenticity is judged through a similar rationale: the expected history of the ICH item is compared to its actual history; in other words, the expected evolution of the ICH item (the evolution that in our opinion the item should have undergone) is compared with the evolution it has actually undergone. In the case of the Theseus Parades, the person assessing the relative authenticity of both parades needs to compare the ‘authenticity’ of the older one (the one that has been incrementally modified to suit the preferences of most people (‘Theseus I’) to the authenticity of the ‘newer’ one, the one which reproduces the parade as performed several decades ago (‘Theseus II’). The defendants that Theseus I is the more authentic ICH item will hold that it is the actual result of the actual history of

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the actual parade and that a parade is bound to evolve through time: for them, the evolution of Theseus I is what it should have been. On the other hand, the defendants of Theseus II will argue that because of the continued incremental alterations of the original Theseus Parade, Theseus I is no longer authentic: for them, Theseus II is the more authentic version because it is similar to the original, non-artificially altered parade – or, to use our terms, because the evolution Theseus I is not what it should have been, while Theseus II better reflects what that evolution should have been. As is obvious, this debate is one of preference. Ultimately, both Theseus I and Theseus II are equally authentic: both happen in time and space and both are the result of equally authentic historical events and respond to the needs and tastes of members of the community. Both of them are. Whether we find one to be more authentic than the other is simply a matter of personal bias: it is a matter of which Theseus Parade better fits our pre-conceived ideas about what the parade (or the history of the parade) should have been. Admittedly, these pre-conceived ideas may be backed with more or less historical or ethnographic knowledge, and the persons assessing the authenticity of each parade may have very different backgrounds, ranging from a researcher working on a Ph.D. thesis on the Theseus Parade to a weekend tourist to the makers of both parades (who might, in fact, have been influenced by the opinions of the Ph.D. researcher, by marketing campaigns, or else). However, ultimately this does not matter much to the point being made here: assessing the authenticity of an ICH item is a matter of personal preference. The fact is, historical events have made us have not one but two different Theseus Parades. If someone can say that a parade is more ‘authentic’ than the other, it is because he or she is using the notion of authenticity as a ‘noble disguise’ for other equally respectable notions, such as taste, need, or preference.

7.7  ICH as fabrication The Nambikwara watched the anthropologist [Claude Lévi-Strauss] making notes and attributed power to the process of writing . . . . [Claude Lévi-Strauss] blames himself for destroying the innocence of the Nambikwara, and introducing power relations into their communitarian way of life. (Belsey 2002:76)

The reflection on the authenticity of the Theseus Parades is also helpful if seen from its reverse side: just as it can be stated that both parades are authentic, it could also be said that both parades are fabricated. On the one hand, Theseus I is altered to suit the tastes of the tourists and heritage officials. Theseus II, on the other hand, is artificially frozen in time, its normal evolution deliberately inhibited. In both cases, these choices respond to the will of people: their makers are volitive beings with agency over what they do, which is bound to lead the parade in one direction

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or another: the parade is necessarily a contrivance, made to suit the interests, tastes, and preferences of a group of people. In the case of the Theseus Parades, the fabrication results from the interference of heritageness in their natural evolution. In an important sense, such fabrication is inherent to ICH-ization (Ku 2019:188) of any cultural expression. The very designation of any cultural expression as CH makes its performers aware that it has value for others than themselves, thus influencing the performers’ behavior and triggering changes that would not have happened otherwise. In this thought experiment, it is the wish to boost the interest that the heritageness of the parade stirs among local and non-locals that sparks a series of artificial changes (including the creation of another version of the same parade), a series of changes that would not have happened if the parade(s) had not acquired CH status. This is only natural. Designating any tangible or intangible cultural product as CH makes it deviate from what would have been its normal evolution had it not been bestowed with heritageness. If it had not become CH, the parade could have remained mostly unaltered – or maybe not: perhaps it would have had a more lively or intense life, perhaps even a shorter life. However, the exact changes in the life of the parade do not really matter here. What matters is to note that a vast majority of CH items live a different life after being reckoned as cultural heritage. Thus, the very moment something starts its life as CH, a new life starts; a life that is not the life a regular, non-CH item would live, but rather a different one, marked by the consequences of CH practices and its derivatives. In the case of the Theseus Parade, its makers couldn’t ignore that the parade is not just valuable for themselves and the locals, but also for other people (CH officials, ethnographers, documentarists, tourists, etc.); out of pride (local, personal or else), greed, wish to please, or a newly felt cultural duty, they felt the need to alter the parade in one way or another – or even to create an entirely new alternative one. As Skounti (2009:74) has summarized, The acquisition of heritage status of intangible or non-material kind .  .  . introduces a distortion between the heritage and the locality (and society) that gave birth to it. Heritage status results in a loss of connection with the territory .  .  . the production of an intangible cultural heritage inevitably requires sacrificing something, that very thing that turns cultural facts into heritage; these facts can no longer be the same, they become other, especially for those who own or perform them. The Theseus Parade is obviously a harmless thought experiment, but there are many examples showing how heritagization modifies and alters any item onto which it is applied: the cases of Angkor Wat (in which “newly invented traditions” such as pony riding, ballooning, and ox-cart tourism have been introduced) (Falser 2015:27), the Day of the Dead in Tzintzunzan (which has become a performance “addressed to spectators” attracting tens of thousands of visitors from Mexico DF) (Pratt 2013:81–82), the Mazu beliefs (which after the interventions of the Chinese

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and Taiwanese cultural institutions have evolved in different ways in each place) (Chiang 2019:94ff), the Maragatería traditions in Spain (which their performers have adapted to suit the visitors’ expectations) (Alonso González 2017), or the Mevlevi Semah Ceremony in Turkey – also known as the Whirling Dervishes Dance – (whose nomination as ICH was rejected by most of the dancers’ associations because the ceremony was portrayed as a folk dance rather than an act of worship with religious significance) (Alivizatou 2022:3) are just some examples of this phenomenon. The process of CH-ization casts a “novel view” on cultural expressions that their bearers “thought they knew so well” (Byrne 2014:196), and this novel, previously non-existing view alters the way the cultural expression is perceived, approached, and lived by their makers. The personal story recounted by Pratt is equally telling: I grew up near an Amish village called St  Jacobs where a store sold the quilts the women made over the long winter months. After many years away, I returned there to look for a quilt to buy, and found it had become a tourist destination for people from the city (Toronto). The store had become a ‘Country Store’ where one could buy ‘Amish Quilts’, and inside the store on the second floor on display sat an Amish woman, quilting. The sight of the woman on display, performing an ‘authentic’ enactment of quilting shook me to my core. I felt I was in an ontologically altered universe, that a form of being had changed. (Pratt 2013:81–82) Pratt concludes: “once there is a list, the intangible items or practices or knowledges on it become performable, that is, they can be articulated as performances addressed to spectators.” If only for this, designating a cultural expression as CH implies a certain degree of fabrication. At the end of the day, “to label a practice or a site as heritage is not so much a description . . . as an intervention” (Hafstein 2018:Conclusion).

7.8  Safeguarding as fabrication By attempting to preserve cultural practices, UNESCO conventions and experts as well as national heritage professionals, far from inhibiting transmission and culture mechanisms, effectively transform them. (Berliner 2013:76)

Safeguarding cultural heritage is a complex endeavor. In the case of TCH items, it involves several technical and theoretical issues: decisions need to be made as to how much resources need to be allotted to the conservation of each item; its impact on the present and future audiences needs to be considered; historical, artistic, economic, and symbolic values need to be assessed; the chemical and physical

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instabilities need to be studied; delicate, almost surgical procedures need to be carried out; etc. Safeguarding ICH involves technical issues as well, but these most often fall beyond the scope of the material sciences; instead, they are closer to human sciences such as psychology, history, sociology, and anthropology. There are thus crucial differences between safeguarding tangible and intangible cultural heritage. Safeguarding (or ‘preserving,’ or ‘conserving’) tangible cultural heritage is mostly about working for people by interacting with objects. Safeguarding intangible cultural heritage is mostly about working for people by interacting with people. For example, what would it mean to ‘safeguard’ the Theseus Parade, as intended by the makers of Theseus II? First and foremost, it would imply persuading people as to how the parade should be performed and training them to do so by showing which costumes are the right ones, which music should be played, which instruments should be used, how the parade should be scheduled, which dances should be performed, and so forth. It would also imply disseminating the knowledge that the parade possesses CH value – which to all effects means persuading the people (both local and visitors) that the parade is loaded with heritageness. In summary, safeguarding ICH consists of making people behave in a prescribed, pre-established (pre-fabricated) way. Safeguarding the Theseus Parade, it might be argued, may also involve investigating and documenting the parade: videorecording it, taking pictures, conducting interviews, taking measurements of whatever can be measured, making written descriptions, etc. Still, this is not actually safeguarding the parade, but instead documenting it: producing a more or less detailed description of the parade, producing new records, producing new evidential heritage (as described in §6.4.7). This does help to preserve the memory of the parade, but, as is well-known, the map is not the territory, just as a portrait of a person (no matter how detailed or whether it is a photo, a sculpture, or a 3D hi-res scan) is not the person. Admittedly, these documents might help other people perform the Theseus Parade as it was performed some time ago. However, once again, the documents are not the parade. The documents (or the memories of the persons consulted, or the candid historical photographs found somewhere, or any other source used for the purpose) are evidence for determining how the parade was performed at some moment in time. Actually safeguarding the parade consists of training people to carve the right masks, to make the right costumes with the right colors and shapes, to play some uncommon instruments, to walk and sing and dance in a given manner, etc. Documentation becomes a tool to this end, a learning aid. Only in this secondary role can documenting an ICH item be considered ‘safeguarding.’ Actually ‘safeguarding’ the parade is essentially the same as organizing the parade the usual way. Both the organizers of the ‘official’ Theseus I Parade and the organizers of Theseus II train people to perform in a given way: playing some music, dancing some dances, walking at some pace, etc. The only difference is that Theseus I  freely flows through history, naturally adapting to societal and cultural changes, including the will to increase its heritageness or appeal to visitors or locals, while the Theseus II Parade tries to be ‘historically accurate’ by replicating earlier iterations of the parade. Theseus II thus represents a deliberate attempt at safeguarding a

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piece of heritage. However, no matter how well the preliminary scientific research is done, no matter how philologically accurate the re-enactment may be, and no matter how faithful the safeguarded parade is to the available documentation, it will always be a contrivance, an artificial deviation from what the normal life of the parade would have been otherwise. Safeguarding intangible cultural heritage is another form of CH fabrication.

7.9  Being and not being authentic The Yamato Declaration (adopted in 2004 . . .) states that “the term ‘authenticity,’ as applied to tangible cultural heritage, is not relevant when identifying and safeguarding intangible cultural heritage.” (Deacon and Smeets 2013:139)

Cultural heritage, or rather the practices of cultural heritage, always entail some kind of fabrication. In the case of tangible cultural heritage, the object is likely to be maintained and perhaps restored, in a different way and in a different context than it would have been otherwise (Muñoz-Viñas 2013, 2020). In the case of the ICH item, the performers are also likely to perform it differently than they would before becoming aware that it has some heritageness. The fact is, the heritageness of any cultural item transforms both the item and the way most people, including its performers, perceive it. Alteration is an inherent trait of CH. This may seem like suggesting that CH is a form of faking, but this is not the case. As the tautological argument proves, any CH item is authentic in the condition in which it exists: any other condition is but a memory or a hypothesis on the condition in which an observer would want the item to exist. A statement or a belief may be false, but not the real world: if we may feel that some facts or objects in the world are not ‘authentic,’ it is because they do not meet our expectations. Again, this does not mean that we should stop using the notion of authenticity, but rather that we should use it more carefully and with awareness of the actual meaning of the term: as an expression of taste or preference. After all, there is nothing inherently wrong with having tastes or preferences, or with trying to change a small part of the world to make it better or more enjoyable than it is. The beautiful thing about the two Theseus Parades is that they can coexist: both Theseus I and Theseus II are fabricated to suit the preferences of their makers, and neither is more or less authentic or false. The case of the Theseus parade would be a much less interesting thought experiment if the authorities of the island believed that only one Theseus parade could exist, banning the other one, even though it would certainly make for an intriguing paradox that this could be done for the sake of authenticity.

References Akagawa, N. (2016) ‘Intangible Heritage and Embodiment: Japan’s Influence on Global Heritage Discourse’, in W.S. Logan, M.N. Craith and U. Kockel (eds.) A Companion to Heritage Studies. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, pp. 69–86.

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Alivizatou, M. (2022) Intangible Heritage and Participation. Encounters with Safeguarding Practices. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Alonso González, P. (2017) El Antipatrimonio: Fetichismo y dominación en Maragatería. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Arizpe, L. and Amescua, C. (2013) ‘Annexe. General Discussion: Identifying Key Issues’, in L. Arizpe and C. Amescua (eds.) Anthropological Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage. Cham: Springer, pp. 121–132. Belsey, C. (2002) Poststructuralism: A  Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780192801807.001.0001. Berliner, D. (2013) ‘New Directions in the Study of Cultural Transmission’, in L. Arizpe and C. Amescua (eds.) Anthropological Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage. Cham: Springer, pp. 71–78. Byrne, D. (2014) Counterheritage Critical Perspectives on Heritage Conservation in Asia. New York: Routledge. Chhabra, D., Healy, R. and Sills, E. (2003) ‘Staged authenticity and heritage tourism’, Annals of Tourism Research, 30(3), pp. 702–719. Chiang, M.C. (2019) ‘Intangibility Re-Translated’, in N. Akagawa and L. Smith (eds.) Safeguarding Intangible Heritage. London: Routledge, pp. 84–101. Deacon, H. and Smeets, R. (2013) ‘Authenticity, value and community involvement in heritage management under the world heritage and intangible heritage conventions’, Heritage & Society, 6(2), pp. 129–143. Falser, M. (2015) ‘Cultural Heritage as Civilizing Mission: Methodological Considerations’, in M. Falser (ed.) Cultural Heritage as Civilizing Mission: From Decay to Recovery. Cham: Springer, pp. 1–34. García-Esparza, J.A. (2016) ‘Rethinking the validity of the past. Deconstructing what authenticity and integrity mean to the fruition of cultural heritage’, International Journal of Architecture Technology and Sustainability, 1(1), pp. 20–33. Available at: http://dx.doi. org/10.4995/vitruvio-ijats.2016.4595. Grünfeld, M. (2022) ‘Culturing Impermanence at the Museum: The Metabolic Collection’, in H. Geismar, T. Otto and C.D. Warner (eds.) Impermanence: Exploring Continuous Change across Cultures. London: UCL Press, pp. 272–291. Hafstein, V. (2018) Making Intangible Heritage: El Condor Pasa and other Stories from UNESCO. E-book edition. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. Jones, S. (2010) ‘Negotiating authentic objects and authentic selves. Beyond the deconstruction of authenticity’, Journal of Material Culture, 15(2), pp. 181–203. Kersel, M.M. and Luke, C. (2015) ‘Civil Societies? Heritage Diplomacy and Neo-Imperialism’, in L. Meskell (ed.) Global Heritage: A Reader. Chichester, UK, pp. 70–93. Kolar, T., Koklič, M.K. and Žabkar, V. (2019) ‘Managing Sustainable Consumption of Cultural Heritage’, in A. Campelo et  al. (eds.) Cultural Heritage. London: Routledge, pp. 71–84. Ku, M. (2019) ‘ICH-isation of Popular Religions and the Politics of recognition in China’, in N. Akagawa and L. Smith (eds.) Safeguarding Intangible Heritage. London: Routledge, pp. 187–199. Majewski, J. (2019) ‘Playing with Intangible Heritage. Video Game Technology and Procedural Re-enactment’, in N. Akagawa and L. Smith (eds.) Safeguarding Intangible Heritage. London: Routledge, pp. 232–249. Muñoz-Viñas, S. (2009) ‘Beyond Authenticity’, in E. Hermens and T. Fiske (eds.) Art, Conservation and Authenticities: Material, Concept, Context. London: Archetype Publications, pp. 33–38.

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Muñoz-Viñas, S. (2013) ‘The Frankenstein Syndrome’, in P. Hatchfield (ed.) Ethics & Critical Thinking in Conservation. Washington, DC: American Institute for Conservation of Historic & Artistic Works, pp. 111–126. Muñoz-Viñas, S. (2020) ‘The Frankenstein Syndrome’, in S. Muñoz-Viñas (ed.) On the Ethics of Cultural Heritage Conservation. London: Archetype Publications, pp. 91–98. Olivier, L. (2022) ‘Cultural Heritage and Memory of the Ecumene in the Age of the Anthropocene’, in T.R. Bangstad and þ. Pétursdóttir (eds.) Heritage Ecologies. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, pp. 81–91. Panayiotopoulos, A., Lichrou, M., O’Malley, L. and Patterson, M. (2019) ‘Heritage as Embodied Co-Creation: “Living the History” of the Titanic in Cobh’, in A. Campelo et al. (eds.) Cultural Heritage. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 85–96. Phillips, D. (1997) Exhibiting Authenticity. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Pratt, M.L. (2013) ‘Thoughts on Intangibility and Transmission’, in L. Arizpe and C. Amescua (eds.) Anthropological Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage. Cham: Springer, pp. 79–82. Reynolds, L., Lindgreen, A. and Beverland, M. (2019) ‘The People and Processes Underscoring Authentication of the Blaevanon World Heritage Site: Mediating “Hot” and “Cool” Authentication’, in A. Campelo et al. (eds.) Cultural Heritage. London : Routledge, pp. 85–96. Skounti, A. (2009) ‘The Authentic Illusion: Humanity’s Intangible Cultural Heritage, the Moroccan Experience’, in L. Smith and N. Akagawa (eds.) Intangible Heritage. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, pp. 74–92. Su, J. (2018) ‘Conceptualising the subjective authenticity of intangible cultural heritage’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 24(9), pp. 919–937. UNESCO (1972) Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/conventiontext/. (Accessed: 17 September 2022). UNESCO (1977) Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage Convention. Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/archive/opguide77b.pdf (Accessed: 17 September 2022). VV.AA. (1994) The Nara Document on Authenticity. Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/ archive/nara94.htm (Accessed: 1 August 2022). Wang, N. (1999) ‘Rethinking authenticity in tourism experience’, Annals of Tourism Research, 26(2), pp. 349–370.

PART III

Notes for a theory of cultural heritage

8 THE ONTOLOGIES OF CULTURAL HERITAGE

8.1  A need for better ontologies of ICH The passion for ontology that we experience today in the social sciences. (González-Ruibal 2017)

The evolution of the concept of CH shows that there exist two main types of CH discourses. First, the original CHD positing that CH consists of tangible objects of exceptional historical or artistic value. Second, the non-axiological discourse, which holds that CH consists of both tangible and intangible items from both cultivated and popular cultures. There still is a third type of CH discourse that dissolves any precise boundaries positing that almost anything, cultural or natural, is CH. This discourse may directly lead to some forms of panheritage or even theoretical nihilism, is not widespread, and, as of now, exists in tentative, magmatic form. Each of these broad categories encapsulates different views as to what CH is. However, the dispersion of these views is notably greater in the second and third categories than in the first one, corresponding to the original CHD. To a great extent, this happens because the original CHD assumed that CH items could exist only as material objects. Under this discourse, CH items could only have a single mode of existence: a single ontology. The other CH discourses, however, posit that CH items can have other ontologies. Intangible CH is an obvious example of a different ontology brought into the CH realm by the non-axiological discourses, and one that has gained much popularity. As shown in Chapter 3, however, CH has also been said to have other ontologies (CH-as-process, CH-as-sensorial-experience, CH-as-knowledge, and so forth). All of these reflections make sense in some way, and, it might be argued, all add to our understanding of CH or, at the very least, to our understanding of some types of CH (namely, those that fit within DOI: 10.4324/9781003288121-11

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each ontology). However, when it comes to understanding CH as a whole, a multidimensional approach to the ontologies of CH is almost a necessity. In order to illustrate this point, a real-life example may be of help.

8.2 A case study in the ontologies of cultural heritage: K.331 Discourse on music heritage has too often evaded the challenge of maintaining performance and creation, the factors that define artistic practice. (Howard 2020:281)

During his short life, Austrian musician Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed several piano sonatas, many of which display an unparalleled elegant, delicate, almost minimalist beauty: Mozart piano sonatas are among the most remarkable musical pieces created in the history of Western music, and, as such, they represent a prominent example of the European cultural canon. The sonata K.331 is one of the most famous ones, mostly (though perhaps not fairly) because of its third movement, the well-known “Turkish march.” This sonata is undoubtedly a conspicuous example of cultural heritage. However, what actually is the heritage here? The answer is not immediately apparent. The sonata can be said to exist as CH in different ways, which, furthermore, intermingle with each other. First, it existed as a group of four paper sheets with musical signs and notes written by Mozart himself, most likely around 1780. Until recently, only the sheet preserved in the Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum in Salzburg was known to have survived through the centuries. However, in 2015, two more sheets were discovered in the National Sczéchényi Libray in Budapest. These manuscripts are among the most valuable pieces in their respective collections and represent an example of European tangible cultural heritage. When Mozart had finished writing K.331, he sent the manuscript to a contemporary printer, Artaria, for it to be typeset, printed, and sold to the public along with the scores of K.330 and K.332. Artaria, as well as Breitkopf & Härtel and other subsequent publishers, used to introduce small changes into the original scores, both deliberately (by adding dynamics, by correcting what was perceived as calligraphic errors, by expanding writing shortcuts, etc.) or simply by mistake. As a result, as the sonata was printed and reprinted, slightly different versions of the sonata were created: the latest versions were created only a few years ago, since the current Henle-Urtext edition has spotted and corrected several small divergences after checking the newly discovered manuscripts. In any case, each of these versions is a valuable document for the history of Mozart’s music and represents another piece of heritage in itself – another instance of K.331. Given its documental value, copies of the printed versions are themselves heritage and are in fact preserved in libraries and archives. On the other hand, both the manuscripts and the printed scores can be considered to be no more than the material support of a particular set of information: a set

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of musical notes arranged in a specific way over a stave. After all, it is this sequence of notes that makes for the music, and the paper or inks used to note them down is just a mnemonic device and not the sequence of notes itself. For instance, the score could actually be displayed, for example, on a computer screen – and in fact several computer programs already exist that allow music players to conveniently read the sheets from a tablet. The score (the sequence of notes) K.331 consists of pure information. As such, it is not a physical entity: it is immaterial, or intangible, and exemplifies another way in which this piece of Western cultural heritage can and does exist. And yet, it could also be reasonably argued that the actual sonata is neither an abstract sequence of notes nor a collection of printed or written papers: the actual sonata is the sound produced following the notes in its score by a capable player using a suitable keyboard instrument. The “Turkish march,” for example, is ultimately a series of sound waves expanding through the air and striking the ears of the listener: arguably, this is what we call music, and this is what the manuscript and the abstract score aim at producing. The sequence of notes, as well as its paper supports, are just preliminary steps in its making, but not the actual music. Thus, K.331 can also exist in an entirely different way: as a physical phenomenon – or, it could be argued, as something that is performed, and which exists only as it is performed. Music can be played by a musician, but also through technological means: the player needs not to be a human person, as it can be a technological device, too. K.331 can exist by playing a recording with a suitable mechanical or electronic apparatus. This recording may be on a tape, a wax cylinder, or a vinyl record, for example. It can also exist in CD form. All these things (the tape, the wax cylinder, the vinyl, the CD) are tangible objects portraying instances of the actual music of Mozart’s K.331, and each of them can become the heritage item itself: those of which few copies exist and have thus become scarce are already preserved in libraries and archives. When this happens, and just as happens with Mozart’s holographs, their efficiency as CH items is closely related to the preservation of their material components. From a theoretical point of view, the CD is particularly interesting, as the actual CD (the shiny plastic disk) is a placeholder for a digital recording consisting of a very long string of 0s and 1s. Just as the score (the sequence of notes) can be considered cultural heritage existing in a purely abstract dimension, this string can also be considered as such as well: the data in the digital recording is purely abstract and can exist regardless of the type of material support on which it is stored – for instance, it could be stored on a floppy disk, on a USB stick, or a hard disk – or on a (huge) number of paper sheets, for that matter, but it is not the paper sheets, the USB stick, or the floppy disks that constitutes the heritage here, as they are dispensable: just as the literary works described by Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451, the data string or, more likely, the score, could exist in the memory of a smart enough person and still be heritage. Finally, some could argue that K.331 exists only as it is being played by a pianist: music is a time-based art, and it happens as it is created; a recording, whichever the means, is a portrait of the thing, but not the actual thing: under this viewpoint, it would be the performance of the sonata that can and must be considered as the true, actual heritage item.

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In summary, Mozart’s K.331 can be understood as a CH item in very different ways. According to the currently standard ontological taxonomy, it can be said that K.331 can exist as a piece of heritage in tangible and intangible forms: the manuscript, the printed scores, and some records would be tangible heritage, while the sequence of notes, the digital recording data, the performance, and the sound waves would be intangible heritage. However, it seems counterintuitive to consider the sequence of notes, the sound waves, the digital data, and the actual performance as belonging to the same ontological category of cultural heritage. They indeed share the basic feature of being intangible, but there are essential differences between them. In fact, these differences can serve to refine the tangible/intangible taxonomy by establishing new categories within the huge umbrella of ICH – and, in passing, to dispel some misunderstandings. By highlighting these ontological differences between the various types of CH, a more detailed CH ontological model can be outlined. Such a model may help us approach the potentially overwhelming conceptual expanse of CH in a more nuanced way. As I wrote elsewhere, after the Big Bang (the famous, original one), fragments of material began to coalesce into smaller, discrete entities – the identities we can identify, the identities we use to describe, analyze and, ultimately, understand the outer universe: galaxies, planets, stars, etc. In a way, the same thing is happening in the heritage world. Some fragments of the ‘heritage-in-general’ universe have already started to coalesce: tangible heritage vs. intangible heritage; ‘world heritage’ vs. local heritage; public heritage vs. private heritage; heritage as a whole vs. heritage property; etc. (Muñoz-Viñas 2013:89) In this book, I aim to suggest other possible discrete entities within the cultural heritage universe. In the following sections, I establish several categories according to an ontological criterion, that is, according to the mode of existence of the items it consists of. These ontological categories allow for a more granular analysis of CH and ICH that may help to theorize CH in a more refined way – and explain why these concepts may be so difficult to approach as single conceptual entities). The category of physical intangible CH is an example.

8.3  CH ontologies: physical ICH The Activation Report completed for the 2016 ‘BMW: Tate Live’ activation of ‘Time’ captured that the work had a physical presence in the Turbine Hall at Tate for 3 weeks consistently. (Lawson et al. 2019:125)

It is certainly tempting to identify ‘tangible cultural heritage’ with ‘physical cultural heritage’ – with the attached implication that ‘intangible cultural heritage’ is

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inherently ‘non-physical’ or, as can be surmised, ‘metaphysical.’ According to Alves (2018:1), this is in fact what the UNESCO experts aimed at when establishing the notions of ‘tangible’ and ‘intangible’ cultural heritage since it was “in its attempt to recognize the physical and non-physical structure of heritage sites [that] UNESCO adopted the terms ‘tangible’ and ‘intangible’ cultural heritage.” However, this view is wrong, because not all intangible cultural heritage is metaphysical. On the contrary, many cultural expressions usually ascribed to the ICH category are essentially (ontologically) physical, a trait that allows us to tentatively recognize two different ontologies within the vast realm of ICH: physical ICH and metaphysical ICH. The category of physical ICH would include physical, perceivable phenomena, or, in other words, performances or events that can be perceived by the human senses. These always consist of very physical phenomena: photons being absorbed or reflected from a heavily decorated costume, sound waves being emitted by a musical instrument, bodies moving at some given moment in a precise manner, etc. These physical phenomena are inherent to every CH performance of every kind, be it musical (e.g., the Aka polyphonic singing), religious (e.g., the Ethiopian Epiphany), artistic (e.g., a session of Nihon buyō), or popular (e.g., the horse and camel Ardhah). In fact, any example of CH performance is bound to exist as a set of physical phenomena (lights, sounds, scents, flames, forces, energies, etc.) conflating to produce a cultural event, which we recognize as CH. However, the ontological nature of ‘physical ICH’ may cause some theoretical issues. As physical ICH most often occurs through phenomena taking place within a brief timespan (on the human time scale: lasting for no more than a few hours or days), their existence is, for the human observer, inherently volatile and bound to disappear. To use Taylor’s words, they lack “continuous physical embodiment” (2015:73). This discontinuity is paramount. As stressed by Phelan in her classical essay, Performance’s only life is in the present. Performance cannot be saved, recorded, documented, or otherwise participate in the circulation of representations: once it does so, it becomes something other than performance. To the degree that performance attempts to enter the economy of reproduction it betrays and lessens the promise of its own ontology. Performance’s being . . . becomes itself through disappearance. (Phelan 1993:146) Even if a performance is re-enacted, each actual performance is unique: artistic performances can be defined as consisting of “unrepeatable artistic events” (Giombini 2017:315), while in traditional rituals “there is always an aspect of creative renewal in their execution” (Geismar 2022:15). There is thus some theoretical tension in assuming that physical ICH can be heritage – in assuming that something that can exist only for a brief period of time, and which therefore cannot be inherited by anyone, can be considered heritage.

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8.4  Can a performance be inherited? I only am who I am in inheriting from a world to which things give me access as memory supports and screens of projection. Because humans conserve traces of their lives in . . . everything called ‘property’ or ‘patrimony,’ the narrative of their stories and histories can be transmitted from generation to generation. (Stiegler 1998:68)

By definition, heritage is something that has been inherited, something that has been passed down to others as the very etymology of the word implies – not just in English: for example, “the Polish word for heritage is dziedzictwo, which derives from the verb dziedziczyc (to inherit) and the noun dziedzic (heir), and refers to ‘what has been inherited’ ” (Kockel 2007:1), while in Latin languages such as Italian, Portuguese, French, and Spanish, the equivalent words (patrimoine, patrimonio, etc.) originally referred to that which is inherited from the parents. The inheritability of heritage is a common thread through different Western languages. It is also implicit in the current meaning of the English word ‘heritage.’ The first two meanings the second edition of the Collins Dictionary assigns to heritage are “something that is inherited at birth” and “anything that has been transmitted from the past or handed down by tradition”; the other meanings also imply that heritage is something that can be passed to others. This is a view that is not only common and widespread but also one that is not questioned in the heritage literature – rather the opposite: as Gotman (2019) notes, heritage implies the existence of two kinds of actors: a receiver – and a giver . . . . All heritage is the establishing of a relationship between a giver and a receiver. The word refers to the passing of a material or immaterial asset. (my translation1) This is an important idea, since understanding that “heritage starts with what individuals inherit and bequeath” (Lowenthal 1998:31), that “heritage refers to those memories of the past that are ‘transferred from one generation to another’ ” (Chronis 2006:269), or that “cultural heritage is something that can be inherited” (Turnpenny 2004:296) does have a significant impact on what is to be understood as cultural heritage. How can a performance (e.g., a military parade performed in 1997, a theater play performed in 2011, a religious ceremony performed in 1988) be passed down? Consider a family trip: most would say that the souvenirs or the photos from the trip are the heritage of that trip. On the other hand, those authors suggesting that a performance can be heritage could argue that the actual heritage of the trip is the trip itself. However, while we may agree that the most important thing (especially for the travelers) may actually be the very act of traveling, the experiences lived during the trip, and the feelings it aroused, there is a reason why it is difficult to agree that traveling is the heritage: the act (the process) of traveling, the trip itself,

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can be recollected, evoked, remembered, or represented through oral narrative, photos, souvenirs, etc., but it cannot be properly passed to others or inherited, so it is hard to argue that the trip can be considered heritage in any strict sense. The photos and the souvenirs admittedly play a secondary role here: they are just mnemonic tools, icons, symbols. However, they can be passed to others, they can be inherited by someone, they can become heritage. We can pass to others (or inherit, or keep) the mnemonic material devices that foster or spark the memories from the trip, but not the trip – not the performance of the trip, not the act of traveling: that happened in the past and is over; using Phelan’s words, “it has ceased to exist.” Assuming that the trip is heritage is a metonymic process of conceptual transfer through which the notion of heritage is expanded far beyond its boundaries. And yet, many people would argue that performances can be ‘heritage,’ and in fact many CH items in national and international lists are performances of some kind. We thus should ask: what is meant when we say that a performance is cultural heritage? What do we mean, for example, when we say that the Misterio de Elche, a religious theatrical representation performed yearly in Elche, Spain, since the Middle ages, is cultural heritage? The Misterio is one of the earliest events inscribed in the List of Representative ICH, so it might seem unquestionable that it is heritage. However, like any performance, it does disappear once the performance is over. It “ceases to exist” after a few hours, so how can it be passed down? What is actually passed down? What is actually passed down is not the event itself, which is not possible given its ephemeral nature, but rather some souvenirs (photos, recordings, accounts, documentation, etc.) and, more importantly, the set of rules (implicit or explicit, written or oral) that tell the performers and the spectators when and how the Misterio must be performed. A CH performance, a CH process, an event of any kind, is never actually passed down, and therefore it cannot be heritage in a rigorous sense. Stating that a given performance (or a ritual, or a craft, or a festival, or anything that is performed) is “cultural heritage” does not mean that the performance itself is heritage. It could not be, as it cannot be passed down: performances are inherently ephemeral by human standards. When we state that a given performance “is cultural heritage,” the term “performance” is used in a displaced sense, as it does not actually refer to the performance but rather to the set of rules governing the performance, or to some items that serve to recall it, such as, for example, records documenting the performance or artifacts linked to it that can work as mnemonic devices: this is what can be passed down. It is in this sense that performances are included in the CH ontology model discussed in §8.9.

8.5  CH ontologies: metaphysical ICH There is the intangible within the intangible, that is, the symbolic dimension of intangible cultural heritage. (Arizpe and Amescua 2013:123)

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Metaphysical ICH is that which does not consist of anything physical – that which exists out of the physical world and is not subject to any laws governing it. Taking the examples presented in UNESCO’s 2003 Convention, “oral traditions,” “languages,” or “knowledge concerning nature and the universe” would be examples of metaphysical ICH. A literary work or the Japanese tradition of washi making are also examples of metaphysical ICH. It is important to avoid taking the metaphysical ontologies of intangible cultural heritage for its physical expressions. A metaphysical entity can only be expressed through physical phenomena of some type, but, as most semioticians would agree, this does not mean that the concept symbolized and its symbol are the same. Our world is laden with metaphysical entities that are reckoned as such and are not taken for their symbols: from currencies to philosophy, from democracy to Art, from Archimedes’s principle to Human Rights. All of these abstractions exist as metaphysical items in our worldviews, and it is rare to confound them with their physical expressions: thus, a coin is not the currency but an instance of such, and if it falls to the floor, it becomes neither the law of gravity nor the general theory of relativity. Bringing this rationale into the cultural heritage field, the performance of the Bolivian Diablada in the Oruro festival of 2014 is not the Diablada but just one instance of the Diablada. Strictly speaking, the Diablada, in fact, is (or exists as) an abstract idea in the minds of those who know it. Similarly, a spoken language is not a conversation, nor is the information transmitted through it; rather, it is an abstract set of rules shared by the speakers governing how vocal sounds can be combined to transmit very sophisticated kinds of information. The Diablada, like any other tradition, consists of a series of prescribed actions and behaviors (timings, costumes, movements, rhythms, etc.). Those who perform the tradition know the rules and at the same time shape them: they know which behaviors fall within tolerable margins and decide which behaviors would be beyond, or perhaps against, the tradition. Musical concerts, languages, festive events, religious rituals, and any other tradition can also be subject to this form of analysis: all of them consist of abstract rules shared and shaped by the members of the groups that sustain each tradition and that are implemented through its physical, inherently non-permanent enactments (or performances). Another example of ICH in UNESCO’s 2003 Convention is “knowledge concerning nature and the universe” (e.g., a particular view of the world, a religion, a cosmogony, a set of myths, or scientific information on any subject). These are not rules but a different type of knowledge: a type of knowledge that may influence or even determine the behavior of people but that is not strictly prescriptive. However, the differences between prescriptive and non-prescriptive knowledge and all their in-betweens are not relevant at this point of the argument. What needs to be emphasized now is that the rules governing a language, a ritual, or a worldview are all abstract or metaphysical. They are thus ontologically different from performances, which consist of a series of physical phenomena. Knowledge and rules of behavior are also different from performances in that they can be passed down to others.

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8.6  CH ontologies: mindsets and datasets The key dichotomy in understanding both types of heritage is not materiality/ immateriality, but rather staticity and dynamism. (Amescua 2013:105)

Metaphysical ICH can exist in at least two crucially different modes. On the one hand, metaphysical ICH can exist as inherently ‘dynamic,’ ‘embodied’ knowledge in a sense akin to that of, for example, Bollmer (2011), Lipp (2013), or Crosby (2012). On the other hand, metaphysical ICH can also exist as a fixed set of data existing independently of any subject. These two kinds of metaphysical CH can be called mindsets and datasets, respectively. Novels, sacred texts, music scores, and mathematical formulae are examples of datasets. Datasets are not always reckoned with in many theoretical reflections on intangible cultural heritage. For example, neither the UNESCO 2003 Convention nor its derivative Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity mention any example that could count as such, and discussions on this kind of intangible cultural heritage are scarce in the relatively abundant CH literature. Digital datasets are perhaps the only notable exception: nowadays, with the fast rise of anything digital, computer programs, digital images and documents, and even ‘digital folklore’ are becoming an increasingly relevant branch within the field of cultural heritage (see, e.g., Severo 2018; Cameron and Kenderdine 2007; Wellington and Oliver 2015; Rivas and Adarve 2019). As digital technologies keep pervading our societies, the non-physicality of digital datasets is becoming more intuitively perceivable by many people. However, regardless of how they may be stored or transmitted (that is, regardless of whether they are printed on paper, inscribed on a ceramic tablet, or stored on a silicon chip), both digital and nondigital datasets are ontologically non-physical – or metaphysical. The differences between datasets and mindsets may be shown by comparing, for instance, traditional rituals and literary works. Literary works are static sets of data, while rituals may and do change with every iteration and through time. Unlike the ritual, a literary work is created at some given point in time and is not expected to experience any further change. A Shakespeare sonnet, for instance, was created in the 17th century as a given, precise sequence of words. Indeed, it may experience some corruption through time: the copyists may have added or removed some words, either deliberately or not, or may simply have mistaken some letters when reading the source manuscript. If the sonnet is printed, the typists may also commit mistakes, and, of course, the spelling, the grammar, and even the contents may have been more or less subtly altered to suit the language and the tastes of the times. Corruption of the original source can and does happen, and it is the work of many philologists, literary critics, and linguists to spot the alterations and distill a text that is as close to the original (authentic? canonical?) work as possible. These experts can and do argue over what is the original, pristine, or canonical version.

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However, even if the pristine, untouched original is not perfectly known or agreed upon, an ideal, pristine, canonical version of the text is assumed to exist (see, e.g., Eggert 2009:131ff): the sonnet was created at some given point in history and is not expected to be recreated again. Furthermore, and unlike a ritual, its existence is independent of the subject: contra Berkeley, Dewey (the idealist Dewey, that is, as in Art as Experience), or Brandi (1963), a literary work can be said to exist out of the people’s minds. As Lipp (2013:140) has put it, it exists as “data that can then be stored independently from the human body.” Thus, the sonnet exists as a set of data, which can be registered on any number of media without really depending on the medium itself: the sonnet will remain the sonnet whether it is written on a sheet of paper, painted on a wall, or stored as a pdf file somewhere in the cloud. Datasets are pure information, and as such, they are not directly subject to laws of entropy: they can only be ‘damaged’ through forgetting. On the contrary, mindsets, such as languages, crafts, traditions, and rituals, may indeed change and evolve due to social influx – and it is perhaps opportune to stress that at this point in the discussion, we are talking about metaphysical ICH, so in this context a ‘ritual’ is not to be understood as its physical performance (its physical ontology) but rather as an abstract entity: as the (metaphysical) set of rules governing the ritual, the set of rules resulting from “the underlying consensus of linguistic and non-linguistic behavior, assumptions, practices, traditions and natural propensities which humans, as social beings, share with one another” (Grayling 2001:97) – the underlying consensus which, among other things, allows us to identify a sequence of actions and physical phenomena as an instance of a particular CH item. Unlike the Shakespeare sonnet, these underlying rules are modified whenever the community that performs the ritual sees fit. Rituals are indeed “vulnerable to social dilemmas” (Cominelli and Greffe 2012:248) (or, depending on the viewpoint, they may benefit from them). Therefore, a ritual may change in many ways (the venue may change, the people allowed in may change, the performers may change, the duration of the performance may change, the props may change, etc.) in reaction to cultural, social, or technological circumstances. As the ritual is performed time and again, it is bound to subtly (or boldly) change with every iteration, in what Lenclud (1987:122) describes as a process of “créativité ‘cyclique.’ ” Consider, for instance, the Fallas, a local fiesta in Valencia, Spain, the city where I was born and still live. This massive fiesta, included in UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, has experienced and keeps experiencing changes in the rules governing its development and performance: the ceremonial dresses have changed through the last decades from a black, uniformlike dress for the falleros (the men performing the fiesta) to dresses like those of the 18th-century Valencia farmers; some events have changed its setting, such as a magnificent night-time fireworks display that now takes place by the sea shore; others have been extended, such the multitudinous parade in honor of the local patron Virgen de los Desamparados, which now lasts for two days instead of one; the fallas themselves (the big monuments which are burnt on the night of March 19 and which the fiesta revolves around) are no longer made of cardboard, wood, and

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cloth – cloth is no longer used, while polystyrene plastic is now allowed to some extent; and so forth. The Fallas have evolved in response to social needs and preferences: the black dresses were introduced during General Franco’s dictatorship and then rejected in the 1970s; the night fireworks were moved from the city center to a more ample venue to allow for the increasing audience to attend; polystyrene is permitted as a building material to make it possible to build larger fallas; and so forth. Mutability is an inherent feature of all ‘living’ rituals, as well as other examples of metaphysical ICH, such as craftmanship, oral storytelling, or cooking. The ever-changing nature of this type of CH is explicitly reckoned within the field. In the words of Wulff, rituals “transmit traditional cultural values and social practices . . . they adapt them to the actual demands of the community . . . . The performance of rituals is not simple repetitive activity, but a creative social act” (Wulf 2006:60; cit. in Braeuchler 2012:155). Rituals are thus not fixed. No two performances of the same ritual will ever be the same, and not just because it is technically impossible to duplicate all of the physical minute details that any event consists of: the abstract, metaphysical rules governing its performances are also inherently unstable and bound to change and evolve. As Bollmer (2011:462) has beautifully put it, “rituals . . . cannot help to become other.” These features allow us to establish a clear-cut ontological difference between a literary work (i.e., a dataset) and the rules governing a ritual (i.e., a mindset). Even though both are intangible and metaphysical, a literary work is created as a finished work by one or more authors, while a ritual is expected to necessarily evolve, as it is ‘recreated’ once and again. As Dewey would put it, the literary work “remains (subject to the ravages of time) self-identical through the ages” (Dewey 1980:113). The ritual, however, is inherently mutable, or, to be more precise, mutating. Its physical instances (its performances) may vary in a number of technical details, and thus, “there is always an aspect of creative renewal in its execution” (Geismar et al. 2022:15), but the metaphysical rules that define all of its instances are not expected to remain the same either, as they can be consciously or unconsciously amended and remade through time. There is no ‘canonical’ performance of a ritual: it cannot be, both because of the technical impossibility that two performances can be the same and because the rules governing the ritual may change themselves. Paraphrasing Dewey, it could be said that rituals remain “self-different” through the ages and that existing through self-differencing is an ontological feature of rituals and other mindsets, such as languages, ceremonies, and traditional crafts. Unlike that of datasets, this ontology of ICH is well reckoned in the literature: mindsets are akin to the mentefacts posited by Falser (Falser 2015:15ff), the collective memory defined by Bollmer (2011), or the embodied knowledge discussed by, for example, Lipp (2013), Stefano (2019), and Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (2004). It could thus be defined as “heritage that is embodied in people rather than in inanimate objects” (Logan 2007:33), or, more concisely, as the “living heritage” posited by Cominelli and Greffe (2012:247) or the “embodied heritage” posited by Silverman (2008) or Keller (2009). In a way, it could also be related to the “sensational knowledge” described by Hahn and Jordan (2014), the corresponding “sensational

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heritage” by Crosby (2012:67ff), or Chronis’s “heritage of the senses” (2006). All these notions present different nuances that might be relevant for the purpose of this argument. However, a discussion of their relative merits is not necessary now, as all of them refer to inherently mutable knowledge or skills that are embodied in the minds or bodies of the subjects performing it and are constantly adapted and readapted by the subjects themselves. On the contrary, datasets are inherently stable works, whose alteration is accidental and, very importantly, may not happen at all; they consist of pure information expressed in formal notation systems that can be stored on material supports external to any subject.

8.7  The epistemic horizons of mindsets and datasets The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. (Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus:§5.6)

The fact that datasets are registered through a formal language system reduces their epistemic horizon. A set of Latin characters, the structural formulae used in chemistry, the Aresti notation system describing an airplane’s acrobatic routine, etc.: each of these finite sets of symbols represents only some aspect of the physical or mental world. For instance, a literary work is made of written characters representing spoken words. In the external, physical world, words can be spoken out loud, as they are part of a human spoken language, and the voice can be modulated in several ways, such that it can transmit affection, disregard, haste, respect, ennui, etc. However, written words only represent so much of the spoken language: the accents, the tone, or the melody of the phrases are not within the epistemic horizon of writing and thus are not a constituent of the literary heritage. A benefit of the limited epistemic horizon of datasets is that they can be replicated ad infinitum without any loss of information. Thus, a literary work can be precisely reproduced regardless of the medium in which the words are written. The Shakespeare sonnet mentioned earlier will remain the same whether written with Chinese ink on a hand-made sheet of paper or laser-printed on a sheet of fourdrinier paper. It will also remain the same if read on a tablet or on a stone wall on which it has been inscribed in Roman capital letters – or on a photo of that stone, or on a photocopy of the photo. As said previously, it is the formal language (whether written, mathematical, musical, a programming language, or other) that determines its own epistemic horizon, so these material details do not really affect the sonnet itself, which is an abstract, metaphysical entity. Those material details may affect the reader in some ways (who may find it more convenient to read the sonnet on one medium or another) but not the data (the sequence of words) that make for the sonnet, which remains the same in all cases and which can be precisely replicated time and again.

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Mindsets, on the contrary, cannot be precisely replicated or even transmitted, as they exist in a plastic, ever-changing, imprecise form. They are embodied heritage and thus cannot exist out of the minds (or bodies) of those who sustain the mindset at conscious and unconscious levels. As posited by Bourdieu, what is thus incorporated is placed outside the realms of consciousness, therefore sheltered from voluntary and deliberate transformation, sheltered even from explicitation: nothing seems more ineffable, more incommunicable, more irreplaceable, more inimitable . . . than the values ​​embodied – made body – by the . . . persuasion of an implicit pedagogy, capable of inculcating a . . . cosmology, ethics, metaphysics, politics. (Bourdieu 2000:298; my translation2) In other words, a performance resulting from a mindset or an oral description can be recorded or documented by any available means – it can be “medialized” as Lipp (2013) calls this process – but the resulting product is neither a mindset nor the performance itself, but rather another thing altogether: using the term introduced earlier, it could be said that those registers or documents are actually newly produced datasets.

8.8  A four-ontology CH model The triumvirate of this book’s title [Object – Event – Performance] does not, however, do away with the object entirely. In addition to its being unavoidable in art historical and conservation narrative, it has also played a critical role in recent philosophical trends committed to realism and nonanthropogenic thinking. (Hölling 2021:8)

The ontological categories discussed earlier can be summarized as an ontology CH model that serves to distinguish four broad CH ‘categories of being’ in which CH items exist (Figure 8.1): a) b) c) d)

tangible objects; fixed sets of data (or ‘datasets’); embodied knowledge (or ‘mindsets’); and, performances or events.

Events or performances should not actually be considered heritage in a strict sense, but rather physical expressions or epiphanies of the true heritage (i.e., that which can be inherited or transmitted). However, they have been included in the model for two reasons. On the one hand, because performances are a direct expression of mindsets: thus, even if performances are not CH in a strict sense, they are

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FIGURE 8.1 

Performances Mindsets Datasets Objects

The four-ontology CH model.

CH in a mediated, metaphorical sense. On the other hand, and more importantly, because of intellectual inertia: performances are customarily considered ‘heritage’ in national and international documents, in much of the literature, and among many CH experts and laypersons, and excluding them from the taxonomy of cultural heritage could make this book far too removed from the prevailing views in the field for it to be understandable or acceptable. In order to remain within a wellestablished tradition that still shapes the CH world, the notion of cultural heritage is more or less forcefully made to encompass items (performances and events) that cannot be inherited or passed down and that thus can only be considered ‘heritage’ in a loose, rhetorical sense. Mindsets often derive from popular culture, and as hinted previously, this CH ontology has been extensively discussed from the anthropological standpoint currently prevailing in many CH studies. Datasets, on the other hand, are often produced and curated by experts from different fields (archivists, historians, philologists, computer technicians, conservators, etc.), so until now they have not received the same degree of attention in the CH literature. In fact, mindsets and datasets have rarely been theorized as opposing categories in an ontological taxonomy of CH. Also, the physical nature of performances is seldom acknowledged, even if this puts them in opposition to mindsets and datasets, which are strictly metaphysical. It is the opposition of ontologies and their conceptual relationship that confers the four-ontology model with an

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Tangible

The classical two-ontology CH model.

Objects Original 1-ontology model

FIGURE 8.3 

CULTURAL HERITAGE

CULTURAL HERITAGE

FIGURE 8.2 

Intangible

Intangible

Modern 1-ontology model

The one-ontology CH models.

added value as an analytical tool in the CH discourse. This model can thus work as an alternative, or rather a complement, to the traditional two-ontology CH model based on the tangible/intangible dichotomy (Figure  8.2) or even to both the old and modern single-ontology models that posit respectively that CH consists of tangible objects only and that “all heritage is intangible” (Figure 8.3). The one- and two-ontology models were developed at different moments in time, and they remain valid for understanding CH in several ways. However, a four-ontology CH model can be a welcome addition to the CH conceptual toolbox, as it may foster a more granular analytical approach to different types of cultural heritage: each of the four categories outlined in the model presents significant ontological differences that the model brings to the conceptual forefront, thus

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aiding in systematizing the diverse “domains of heritage . . . as particular ontologies of heritage” (Harrison 2018:1378).

8.9  Entangled ontologies In the age of the Anthropocene, we no longer have the privilege of a practice of simply selecting the heritage we want or of naming, systematising and isolating the components that we endorse or take responsibility for. (Bangstad and Pétursdóttir 2022:22)

Analyzing something (a blood sample, a mineral, a computer program, a language, a philosophical concept, anything) means splitting it into smaller, more manageable parts. This does not mean that each part of the thing analyzed can continue to function by itself. The categories described in the four-ontology model are no exception, as they cannot work in isolation. They need items from other ontological categories to work as heritage. For example, a CH tangible item such as a Rembrandt painting needs a mindset (e.g., a basic knowledge of the Western artistic canon – which is, for instance, what has allowed the reader to understand what “a Rembrandt painting” means in this context) for it to become, or work as, cultural heritage; and a tradition such as haegeum-playing needs a very tangible haegeum, but also a mindset on the part of the player and the listeners (haegeum-playing skills and an understanding of Korean musical language) as well as a performer. Furthermore, a dataset such as, for example, the Epic of Gilgamesh, would not exist as CH if it had not been somehow inscribed in a physical object, such as a papyrus roll, a paper book, a set of ceramic tablets or a silicon chip. Traditional skills, as, for example, the skills needed to make amatl, relies on embodied knowledge – on what I have called a mindset – but they require very tangible amatl and some set of tools (and an actual performance of the amatl-making process) for them to become CH. All four ontologies outlined in the taxonomic model outlined here (the tangible object, the dataset, the mindset, and the performance) need items in one or more of the other categories to successfully work as heritage: they come together and need to entangle in complex ways. This entanglement can even be more conceptually involved than it might seem at first glance, since some well-established traditional antinomies have been challenged by contemporary cultural critique and also by some CH theorists. For instance, memory, thinking, or other mental or psychic processes have been seen not as abstract phenomena but rather as physical phenomena. Thus, for Bollmer (2011:452), the notion of ‘collective memory’ does not refer “to any psychic phenomena, but [to] the direct formation of assemblages out of humans and the technological in the practice of memory as movements,” while for Rodowick (1997:29) “on its most fundamental level, subjectivity is nothing more than a body’s preparation to

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act or respond in a sensorimotor relation.” The thoughts themselves may be seen as actually physical since, as suggested, for example, by Harrison (2015:30), they are embodied in a very tangible object (the brain) working through the exchange of small electric charges. Also, the boundary between objects and performances may be seen as blurred or misleading: as noted in §3.3.10, a thing may be seen as a slow event, while an event can be thought of as a fast object. Along this same line, B.H. Smith (1970) has argued that performances can happen in the minds of the subjects as, for example, “all silent readers actualise and therefore, in a sense, perform the text they are reading in their heads” (Eggert 2009:132), thus further blurring the boundaries between datasets, mindsets, and performances. Meskell (2016:483) notes that “heritage practitioners are increasingly learning that process is everything,” but in an equally loose sense, it could also be said that everything is a process. Certainly, the different ontologies of cultural heritage inescapably mesh and intertwine in intricate ways. However, while it is always opportune to stress the complexity of the heritage phenomenon, from a theoretical standpoint, it may not always be a good strategy to suggest that the cultural heritage process and the cultural heritage item cannot, or should not, be distinguished. The relevance of the complex process by which cultural heritage is produced can be safely highlighted, studied, and theorized without relinquishing a notion (the traditional notion of cultural heritage as a discrete stage – or gear, or part – of the process of cultural heritage production and consumption) that can still prove to be useful in many cases, especially when analyzing CH. In these cases, it may be very helpful to have conceptual tools that allow an utterly complex set of phenomena to be split into simpler components. The taxonomy presented here is a step in this direction: it could be described as a contribution to the anatomy of cultural heritage, in contrast to the more widespread research trend focusing on what could be described as its physiology – that is, on its working processes. The four-ontology CH model can also serve to problematize some overarching views on ICH or CH that are valid for some of their ontologies only: it serves, for instance, to show that not all heritage is intangible (see §8.13), that not all ICH is embodied knowledge, that not all ICH is “constantly recreated” (see §8.11), or that assigning performances to the same ontological category as languages, social customs, or computer programs (ICH) is an oversimplification. The four model also brings into the spotlight a broad category of ICH (the datasets) that is often assigned a marginal role in the current CH discourse. Furthermore, the model may serve to establish complementary categorial criteria beyond the traditional tangible/intangible dichotomy (Figure 8.4) that could be helpful in some circumstances: stable CH versus dynamic CH (Figure 8.5), physical CH versus metaphysical CH (Figure 8.6), or embodied CH versus disembodied CH (Figure 8.7). Even if, against what I suggest, the notion of CH-as-product is negated in favor of the notion of CH-as-process, the ontological categories discussed in this chapter could still prove to be useful theoretical tools, as they may facilitate a more nuanced approach to the vast array of physical and metaphysical items and phenomena involved in both CH items and processes.

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FIGURE 8.5 

Mindsets

INTANGIBLE

Datasets Objects

TANGIBLE

Tangible versus intangible CH ontologies.

CULTURAL HERITAGE

FIGURE 8.4 

Performances

Performances DYNAMIC

Mindsets Datasets STABLE

Objects

Stable versus dynamic CH ontologies.

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FIGURE 8.7 

PHYSICAL

Mindsets METAPHYSICAL

Datasets Objects

PHYSICAL

Physical versus metaphysical CH ontologies.

CULTURAL HERITAGE

FIGURE 8.6 

Performances

Performances Mindsets

EMBODIED AND DISEMBODIED EMBODIED

Datasets DISEMBODIED

Objects

Embodied versus disembodied CH ontologies.

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8.10  Heritageness ascription is not homogeneous The conventions we use embody values. (Gaskell 2000:11)

If seen under the ontology model developed here, cultural heritage can be split into four broad ontologies, each of which needs all or some of the others to work as cultural heritage. However, that does not mean that all the ontologies involved in a single CH process are necessarily reckoned as cultural heritage. For instance, the elaborated mindsets of both the player and the listener of a performance of K.331 are not considered heritage, and while an early wax cylinder recording of this sonata may be regarded as heritage, a much more faithful digital recording is likely to be considered disposable. In a similar vein, while the extraordinary skills required to make washi are seen as cultural heritage, the equally extraordinary skills necessary to properly play K.331 on a grand piano (or to build it, for that matter) are seldom considered to be cultural heritage. Reciprocally, the three manuscript sheets of K.331 are considered heritage, but the instruments used in making washi are not. In a similar vein, Crime and Punishment is considered to be cultural heritage, but the mindset behind the Western cultural canon that allows for its appreciation, or the reading skills needed for that to happen, are not; the delicate skills required for making fans, umbrellas, baskets, or many other objects from date palm developed in many countries in the Arabian world are considered cultural heritage, but the fans, umbrellas, or baskets themselves are not; a computer game such as Pong is considered cultural heritage, but a paper printout of the program or performing (playing) the game are not. The fact is, some ontologies of the same cultural phenomenon are considered to possess more heritageness than others. In other words, not all the items (tangible or intangible, physical or metaphysical) that are required for CH to work as such actually become CH. Through the process of heritagization (which Severo [2018:170] has aptly described as “cultural heritage selection” and Dormaels [2013:108] as “choice”), heritageness may be ascribed to some ontologies of the same CH phenomenon only, or even to just one of them. Thompson (1979) and Michalski (1994) have made valuable contributions to our understanding of the mechanisms of heritageness ascription, while, for example, the Brustolon and Mustang paradoxes have shown its volatility (Bonsanti 1997; Muñoz-Viñas 2003, 2005), but what needs to be stressed here is that not all the aspects (or facets, or dimensions, or ontologies) of a cultural heritage item are always considered to have the same degree of heritageness, regardless of how necessary they may be for the whole heritage process to happen.

8.11  Ontological misunderstandings: recreation Information . . . is imperishable. (Garcia Morales 2019:31)

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An ontological taxonomy of CH beyond the overly simplistic tangible/intangible dichotomy may help dispel misunderstandings that hamper the development of sounder CH discourse. In particular, it serves to dispel some unwarranted claims about some varieties of ICH. Consider, for instance, the claim that intangible cultural heritage is “constantly recreated” (UNESCO 2003 Convention §2.1). While this has not been the object of much criticism in the CH literature, it does reveal a limited understanding of what intangible cultural heritage is, as it consciously or unconsciously fails to recognize that some ICH items are datasets (music scores, written literary works, mathematical formulae, etc.) that are not constantly recreated, but stable items for which a canonical version exists. Admittedly, historical research can sometimes lead to modifying the canonical dataset, but if this ever happens, it still results in substituting another presumedly stable, canonical dataset, one not expected to change in the future. “Constant recreation” cannot be considered a property of ICH in general, but of mindsets and performances only.

8.12 Ontological misunderstandings: phenomenological approaches Dynamic authenticity is about perception, action, experience and social practice. (García-Esparza 2016:24)

ICH has also been said to be an ‘experience,’ sensorial or otherwise. If we agree with Berkeley that anything and everything comes into actual existence when perceived, then CH is an experience and thus is undoubtedly “constantly recreated.” Unfortunately, however, if these positions are accepted, the statement becomes a truism that fails to shed any light on the nature of CH, for every single entity in the universe, either physical or intellectual, would be “constantly recreated” as it is perceived: a chair is our experience of a chair, an artwork is our experience of an artwork, a book on CH theory is our experience of a book on CH theory, etc. It has also been stated that CH is a kind of performance or process, which, for the reasons discussed earlier, is true of some types of CH only. Objects, for example, are not performed, even though some performances happen sometimes around them or with them: gamelans are played, stupas are used for praying, paintings in a museum are aesthetically contemplated, etc. Consider, for instance, the following statement: Heritage is not a ‘thing’, is not a ‘site’, building or other material object . . . these things . . . are not themselves heritage . . . . Heritage, I want to suggest, is a cultural process . . . and the sites themselves are cultural tools that can facilitate, but are not necessarily vital for, this process. (Smith 2006:44) This statement, and others of its kind, can be questioned for at least two reasons. First, while it is true that sometimes a particular, unique object is not vital in a

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CH phenomenon (as is the case of, e.g., the piano in a concert or the conductor’s baton), there are other times in which the object is vital indeed. For instance, the contemplation of a Vermeer, Hagia Sophia, and Machu Pichu are heritage processes in which a particular CH material object is truly vital, as vital as, for example, the instruments in a gamelan performance. Furthermore, they are so vital that for most people it is these objects that are considered heritage, and not the process of experiencing or contemplating the buildings or the painting, or the mindset necessary for such a process to take place. Second, understanding that cultural heritage itself is the process (or event, or phenomena) by which it is created (or recognized) constitutes a revised version of the post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this) fallacy. This classical fallacy consists in assuming that there necessarily is a causative relationship between two things that happen in sequence: the classic example is assuming that the sun rises every day because the rooster crows. The revised version of the fallacy used in the CH field is what could be called the post hoc ergo hoc (after this, therefore this) fallacy: the assumption that because two things happen in sequence, both are the same. This fallacy is applied in the CH field by positing that because a CH item becomes such after it has been created or recognized as CH, the CH item is the process of its creation or recognition as CH. In our worldview, for example, a classical poem possesses an ontological identity. It is a dataset in which we reckon heritageness: the poem, for us – for most people – is a CH item. The process through which it is experienced as CH is a necessary step for the poem to fulfill its function as CH, but experiencing the poem cannot be considered CH just because of this relationship – just as, for example, tuning the piano is a necessary step for performing K.331, but it is not a performance of K.331, and making pigments and paints is a necessary step for painting an aboriginal painting in a cave in Arnhem Land, but it is not the painting. Assuming that cultural heritage is the whole process of CH production and consumption means that the notion of cultural heritage is to be understood in a warped way, a way that, furthermore, is thoroughly different from that common among most people. The complex process of production/consumption of cultural heritage items has proved a valid, intellectually useful object of inquiry, but producing a product is not the product. Not distinguishing between both is a potential source of confusion, and certainly of ontological confusion.

8.13  Tangible and intangible “Heritage” only comes into being via the discourse of heritage, and to this extent heritage, being by nature discursive, is always intangible. (Byrne 2009:230)

Another source of ontological confusion has to do with the notion of intangibility. ICH can be described as a theoretically invasive concept, which, as shown

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previously, has led some authors to suggest that all heritage is intangible and, therefore, that the difference between tangible and intangible CH is moot. As noted before, the UNESCO 2003 Convention is a remarkable example, as it states that “objects,” “instruments,” or “artifacts” are instances of intangible cultural heritage (§2.1). While these positions are defensible, they need the meanings of ‘tangible’ and ‘intangible’ to be heavily distorted for them to work. I would suggest that pan-intangibility (the idea that “all heritage is intangible”) should be understood as a rhetorical device to emphasize the idea that tangible and intangible items work together. Throughout this chapter, I  have in fact emphasized the co-laboratio (‘joint work’) between tangible and intangible items in the CH realm, which is already widely recognized in the field. Thus, for example, the UNESCO 2003 Convention notes in its very Preamble, the “deep-seated interdependence between the intangible cultural heritage and the tangible cultural and natural heritage”; Gonçalves and Deacon (2003) describe tangible and intangible CH as “two sides of the same coin”; and Marcos Arévalo (2010:§3) stresses that “they cannot be dissociated” (my translation3). And yet, the fact that tangible CH (objects) and intangible CH (mindsets, datasets, performances) usually work together in any CH process does not mean that they are the same – just as the cylinder and the connecting rod in a gas engine need each other for them to work, but they are not the same either. The tangible/intangible dichotomy is not moot, and while a structural study may emphasize the relationship between each part of a structure, an analytical approach may also be beneficial to better understand the whole. In this sense, it may be opportune to stress again that neither the tangible objects supporting the CH phenomenon nor the ICH items related to them need to be CH themselves. As discussed in 8.11, heritageness needs not to be assigned to every single factor involved in the production or consumption of any given CH item. Instead, it is conventionally ascribed to some of its ontologies only.

8.14  A step forward: beyond the intangible The [2003 UNESCO] Convention signalled the expansion of the global system of heritage protection from the tangible . . . to the intangible . . . . It is an expansion that many heritage professionals . . . see as opening up a Pandora’s box of difficulties, confusions and complexities. (Logan 2007:33)

Intangible cultural heritage is a useful, valuable notion. In the last few decades, it has received much attention in the CH field, and deservedly so. Thanks to the work of many heritage scholars, professionals, officials, and national and international bodies, in the last decades of the 20th century many people became more aware that a culture is much more than its tangible products: by establishing the tangible/intangible dichotomy, our understanding of the CH field was improved. We might now be ready to develop a similar process. ICH is a notion we have

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created for a reason: it is a concept that has served (and will keep serving) us to identify a part of the realities we work with. However, as the reflections on CH become more and more polyhedral and multifaceted, the classical two-ontology model shows its weaknesses. In summary, nowadays, the notion of ‘intangible cultural heritage’ may benefit from further development. Many authors in the CH field attempt to theorize the branch of cultural heritage they know better. For example, many CH professionals and scholars with a background in anthropological studies tend to leave ICH items such as classical musical, literary works, or Greek philosophy out of their analysis while concentrating on popular and intangible cultural expressions such as rituals, customs, or traditions. The consequence is that the notion of ‘intangible cultural heritage’ is often limited to some types of intangible cultural expressions only. It is because of this unconscious, restricted view of CH that intangible cultural heritage may be said to be ‘dynamic,’ ‘constantly recreated,’ or ‘embodied’ – something that is only true of some ICH items. The fact is, many ICH items are not dynamic, embodied, or constantly recreated. This biased approach to CH isunderstandable – and to some extent unavoidable – as most professionals tend to concentrate on the types of CH they are more acquainted with: there exists, so to speak, a kind of conceptual ‘tunnel effect’ that limits the scope of cultural heritage. A four-ontology model helps overcome this problem by freeing the notion of ICH from a too-restrictive view. Mindsets are indeed dynamic, embodied, and constantly recreated; performances are dynamic, constantly recreated, and oftentimes embodied. But while they are ICH, ICH is not just mindsets and performances. What can be said of mindsets and performances may not be valid for other types of ICH, such as datasets, which are both static and disembodied. By noting that ICH includes items with very different ontologies, the model outlined in this chapter helps to overcome the theoretical problems derived from the lack of more granular concepts. Simply put, the four-ontology model helps us be aware that many of the reflections on ‘intangible cultural heritage’ refer to some types of ICH only. During the 20th century, the CH profession came to realize that the notion of cultural heritage was more complex than previously thought. Consequently, the notion was expanded through a complementary notion, that of intangible cultural heritage. Well into the 21st century, however, the notion of ‘intangible cultural heritage’ might have proved too wide and broad for it to be conveniently and even successfully theorized as a single notion. Thus, this may be the right moment to gently introduce concepts such as ‘mindset,’ ‘dataset,’ or ‘performance’ that can help to fine-tune our understanding of the field. By reckoning with these CH ontologies – by going beyond the intangible – the CH discourse will be able to evolve toward less restrictive positions.

Notes 1 “[l]’héritage suppose l’existence de deux catégories d’acteurs . . . un preneur – et un transmetteur . . . . Tout héritage est la mise en rapport d’un transmetteur et d’un récepteur. Le terme rappelle la passation d’un bien matériel ou immatériel.”

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2 “Ce qui est ainsi incorporé se trouve placé hors des prises de la conscience, donc à l’abri de la transformation volontaire et délibérée, à l’abri même de l’explicitation: rien ne paraît plus ineffable, plus incommunicable, plus irremplaçable, plus inimitable, et par là plus précieux, que les valeurs incorporées, faites corps, par la transsubstantiation qu’opère la persuasion clandestine d’une pédagogie implicite, capable d’inculquer toute une cosmologie, une éthique, une métaphysique, une politique.” 3 “Los bienes culturales materiales e inmateriales no pueden disociarse, pues refieren categorías contiguas.”

References Alves, S. (2018) ‘Understanding intangible aspects of cultural heritage: The role of active imagination’, The Historic Environment: Policy & Practice, 9(3–4), pp. 207–228. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/17567505.2018.1517141. Amescua, C. (2013) ‘Anthropology of Intangible Cultural Heritage and Migration: An Uncharted Field’, in L. Arizpe and C. Amescua (eds.) Anthropological Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage. Cham: Springer, pp. 103–120. Arizpe, L. and Amescua, C. (2013) ‘Annexe. General Discussion: Identifying Key Issues’, in L. Arizpe and C. Amescua (eds.) Anthropological Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage. Cham: Springer, pp. 121–132. Bangstad, T.R. and Pétursdóttir, þ. (2022) ‘An Ecological Approach to Heritage’, in T.R. Bangstad and þ. Pétursdóttir (eds.) Heritage Ecologies. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 3–27. Bollmer, G.D. (2011) ‘Virtuality in systems of memory: Toward an ontology of collective memory, ritual, and the technological’, Memory Studies, 4(4), pp. 450–464. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698011399407. Bonsanti, G. (1997) ‘Riparare l’arte’, OPD Restauro, 9, pp. 109–112. Bourdieu, P. (2000) Esquisse d’une théorie de la pratique précédé de trois études d’ethnologie kabyle. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. Braeuchler, B. (2012) ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage and Peace Building in Indonesia and East Timor’, in P. Daly and T. Winter (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Heritage in Asia. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 153–167. Brandi, C. (1963) Teoria del restauro. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. Byrne, D. (2009) ‘A Critique of Unfeeling Heritage’, in L. Smith and N. Akagawa (eds.) Intangible Heritage. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 229–252. Cameron, F. and Kenderdine, S. (eds.) (2007) Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage: A Critical Discourse. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Chronis, A. (2006) ‘Heritage of the senses. Collective remembering as an embodied praxis’, Tourist Studies, 6(3), pp. 267–296. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1468797607076674. Cominelli, F. and Greffe, X. (2012) ‘Intangible cultural heritage: Safeguarding for creativity’, City, Culture and Society, 3(4), pp. 245–250. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j. ccs.2012.10.003. Crosby, J. (2012) ‘They brought the essence of Africa – Social memory, sensational heritage, and embodied practices in Perico and Agramonte, Cuba’, Congress on Research in Dance Conference Proceedings, pp.  63–69. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/ cor.2012.9. Dewey, J. (1980) Art as Experience. New York: Perigee Books. Dormaels, M. (2013) ‘The Concept behind the Word’, in M.T. Albert (ed.) Understanding Heritage. Perspectives in Heritage Studies. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 107–116. Eggert, P. (2009) Securing the Past: Conservation in Art, Architecture and Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Falser, M. (2015) ‘Cultural Heritage as Civilizing Mission: Methodological Considerations’, in M. Falser (ed.) Cultural Heritage as Civilizing Mission: From Decay to Recovery. Cham: Springer, pp. 1–34. García-Esparza, J.A. (2016) ‘Rethinking the validity of the past. Deconstructing what authenticity and integrity mean to the fruition of cultural heritage’, International Journal of Architecture Technology and Sustainability, 1(1), pp. 20–33. Available at: http://dx.doi. org/10.4995/vitruvio-ijats.2016.4595. Garcia Morales, L. (2019) Teoría de la conservación evolutiva: Conservación y restauración del arte de los nuevos medios. S.l.: BoD. Gaskell, I. (2000) Vermeer’s Wager. Speculations on Art History, Theory and Art Museums. London: Reaktion Books. Geismar, H., Otto, T. and Warner, C.D. (2022) ‘Introduction’, in H. Geismar, T. Otto and C.D. Warner (eds.) Impermanence: Exploring Continuous Change across Cultures. London: UCL Press, pp. 1–24. Giombini, L. (2017) Musical Ontology. A Guide for the Perplexed. Rome: Mimesis International. Gonçalves, A. and Deacon, J. (2003) General Report of the Scientific Symposium on “Place – Memory – Meaning”: Preserving Intangible Values in Monuments and Sites. (ICOMOS 14th General Assembly and Scientific Symposium). Available at: www.icomos.org/victoriafalls2003/finalreport-rapporteurs.pdf (Accessed: 20 September 2022). González-Ruibal, A. (2017) ‘The Virtues of Oblivion: Africa and the People without Antiquarianism’, in B. Anderson and F. Rojas (eds.) Antiquarianisms: Contact, Conflict, Comparison. E-book. Oxford : Oxbow Books, p. Ch.3. Gotman, A. (2019) ‘Le présent de l’héritage’, in H.P. Jeudy (ed.) Patrimoines en folie. E-book edition. Paris: Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme (Ethnologie de la France). Available at: http://books.openedition.org/editionsmsh/3764 (Accessed: 1 August 2022). Grayling, A.C. (2001) Wittgenstein: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press. Hahn, T. and Jordan, J.S. (2014) ‘Anticipation and embodied knowledge: Observations of enculturating bodies’, Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology, 13(2), pp. 272–284. Harrison, R. (2015) ‘Beyond “natural” and “cultural” heritage: Toward an ontological politics of heritage in the age of anthropocene’, Heritage & Society, 8(1), pp. 24–42. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1179/2159032X15Z.00000000036. Harrison, R. (2018) ‘On heritage ontologies: Rethinking the material worlds of heritage’, Anthropological Quarterly, 91(4), pp.  1365–1383. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1353/ anq.2018.0068. Hölling, H.B. (2021) Introduction: Object – Event – Performance. E-book. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Howard, K. (2020) ‘Afterword’, in B. Norton and N. Matsumoto (eds.) Music as Heritage: Historical and Ethnographic Perspectives. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 278–283. Keller, J.D. (2009) ‘Geographies of Memory and Identity in Oceania’, in D.F. Ruggles and H. Silverman (eds.) Intangible Heritage Embodied. New York: Springer, pp. 127–146. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, B. (2004) ‘Intangible heritage as metacultural production’, Museum International, 56(1–2), pp.  52–65. Available at: https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1350-0775.2004.00458.x. Kockel, U. (2007) ‘Reflexive Traditions and Heritage Production’, in U. Kockel and M.D. Craith (eds.) Cultural Heritages as Reflexive Traditions. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 19–33. Lawson, L., Finbow, A. and Marçal, H. (2019) ‘Developing a strategy for the conservation of performance-based artworks at Tate’, Journal of the Institute of Conservation, 42(2), pp. 114–134. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/19455224.2019.1604396.

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Lenclud, G. (1987) ‘La tradition n’est plus ce qu’elle était . . . Sur les notions de tradition et de société traditionnelle en ethnologie’, Terrain, 9, pp. 110–123. Lipp, T. (2013) ‘Materializing the Immaterial. On the Paradox of Medializing Intangible Cultural Heritage’, in M.T. Albert (ed.) Understanding Heritage. Perspectives in Heritage Studies. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 135–152. Logan, W.S. (2007) ‘Closing pandora’s box: Human rights conundrums in cultural heritage protection’, in H. Silverman and D.F. Ruggles (eds.) Cultural Heritage and Human Rights. New York: Springer, pp.  33–52. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/ 978-0-387-71313-7_2. Lowenthal, D. (1998) Possessed by the Past. The Heritage Crusade and Spoils of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marcos Arévalo, J. (2010) ‘El patrimonio como representación colectiva. La intangibilidad de los bienes culturales’, Gazeta de Antropología, 26(1). Meskell, L. (2016) ‘Heritage and Cosmopolitanism’, in W.S. Logan, M.N. Craith and U. Kockel (eds.) A Companion to Heritage Studies. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, pp. 479–490. Michalski, S. (1994) ‘Sharing Responsibility for Conservation Decisions’, in W.E. Krumbein et al. (eds.) Durability and Change. The Science, Responsibility, and Cost of Sustaining Cultural Heritage. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, pp. 241–258. Muñoz-Viñas, S. (2003) Teoría contemporánea de la Restauración. Madrid: Síntesis. Muñoz-Viñas, S. (2005) Contemporary Theory of Conservation. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Muñoz-Viñas, S. (2013) ‘My favourite piece of heritage (and the heritage Big Bang)’, eDialogos, 3, pp. 48–54. Phelan, P. (1993) Unmarked: The Politics of Performance. London: Taylor & Francis. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203359433. Rivas, R. and Adarve, A. (2019) Folklore digital y política en España. Logroño: Dirección General del Deporte y del Instituto Riojano de la Juventud. Rodowick, D.N. (1997) Gilles Deleuze’s Time Machine. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822396871 (Accessed: 29 October 2020). Severo, M. (2018) ‘The Power of Lists: World Heritage through Its Information System’, in C.L. Salvatore (ed.) Heritage Care and Management. Theory and Practice. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 169–180. Silverman, H. (2008) ‘Embodied Heritage, Identity Politics, and Tourism’, Anthropology and Humanism, 30, pp.  141–155. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1525/anhu.2005. 30.2.141. Smith, B.H. (1970) ‘Literature, as performance, fiction, and art’, The Journal of Philosophy, 67(16), pp. 553–563. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/2024579. Smith, L. (2006) Uses of Heritage. London: Routledge. Stefano, M. (2019) Folklife at the International Level: The Roots of ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage’. Part VI. World Heritage. Available at: https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2019/04/folklife-atthe-international-level-the-roots-of-intangible-cultural-heritage-part-vi-world-heritage/ (Accessed: 1 August 2022). Stiegler, B. (1998) ‘The time of cinema: On the “new world” and “cultural exception” ’, Tekhnema. Journal of Philosophy and Technology, 4, pp. 62–118. Taylor, J. (2015) ‘Embodiment unbound: Moving beyond divisions in the understanding and practice of heritage conservation’, Studies in Conservation, 60(1), pp. 65–77. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1179/2047058413Y.0000000122. Thompson, M. (1979) Rubbish Theory: The Creation and Destruction of Value. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Turnpenny, M. (2004) ‘Cultural heritage, an ill‐defined concept? A  call for joined‐up policy’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 10(3), pp. 295–307.

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UNESCO (2003) Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Available at: https://ich.unesco.org/en/convention (Accessed: 17 September 2022). Wellington, S. and Oliver, G. (2015) ‘Reviewing the Digital Heritage Landscape: The Intersection of Digital Media and Museum Practice’, in C. McCarthy (ed.) Museum Practice. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell (The International Handbooks of Museum Studies), pp. 577–598. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118829059.wbihms225. Wulf, C. (2006) ‘Immaterielles kulturelles Erbe als Herausforderung Für Interkulturelles Lernen’/’Intangible Cultural Heritage as Challenge For Intercultural Learning’’, in M.T. Albert and S. Gauer-Lietz (eds.) Perspektiven des Welterbes – Constructing World Heritage. Frankfurt/Main: IKO-Verlag für interkulturelle Kommunikation.

9 NOTES FOR A THEORY OF CH

The relationships between theory and practice are . . . partial and fragmentary . . . . Practice is a succession of relays from a point of theory to another, and theory is a set of relays from one practice to another. (Deleuze and Foucault 2012:29–30; my translation1)

9.1  Humpty-Dumptying heritage: CH is a set of items When it comes to determining the meaning of cultural heritage, there are two possible strategies. First, we can call cultural heritage whatever we feel like and then expect the listeners or readers to abide by our views, kind of like what Humpty Dumpty explained to Alice: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – that’s all.” The second strategy is completely opposite and consists of adopting a stance akin to that of Wittgenstein (the mature Wittgenstein, not the young one), who claimed that the meaning of a term is actually determined by its usage. Therefore, the best way to find out the true meaning of a term like cultural heritage would be to investigate how it is used. The Humpty-Dumpty strategy implies exerting epistemic authority in an active way. As said earlier, it is not necessarily a bad thing that there are masters: it all depends on which type of masters we are talking about. The old master painters, for DOI: 10.4324/9781003288121-12

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instance, keep exercising their mastery over those looking at their paintings today, and we all recognize that some people have become masters at some jobs or tasks. As with anything, following someone we recognize as a master in her or his field of expertise may be a wise thing to do. It all depends on choosing the right master for the right purpose and acting with the right combination of reverence and criticism – or, in the case of the master, with the right dose of humility and prudence. On the other hand, the Wittgenstein strategy is an example of a more democratic, bottom-up attitude. It also implies a somewhat passive stance, one that does not aim at improving things but rather at understanding how people use language without changing anything. An efficient theory should probably stand somewhere in-between, and indeed this is the approach I  am adopting in this book. Completely ignoring the realworld usage of a term may not be practical, as it is unlikely that suggesting a usage far detached from the real world will make a strong impact, or even that it can be accepted, or understood, by the target audience. For example, this is why the four-ontology model outlined in the preceding chapter includes a category (‘performances’) that cannot be inherited or passed down and therefore can hardly be considered ‘heritage.’ Performances have become such a popular category in the CH field that leaving them out of a taxonomy of CH would hinder its actual efficiency: perhaps even positing that performances can only be considered CH in a rhetorical, ‘displaced’ sense, as I am doing, might be going too far for some readers. In order to outline a theory of CH, we need to establish some basic agreement as to what we refer to when using the term cultural heritage. Even if it may seem obvious to the reader, it may still be useful to stress that I am not Humpty-Dumptying cultural heritage, that what I understand as cultural heritage is what the term means for most people: not the cognitive, social, or cultural process of CH making or recognition, but rather the product, the consequence of that cognitive, social, or cultural process. Cultural heritage is a set of items, not the processes by which those items are produced or recognized. These processes happen through a series of complex cultural and social mechanisms (training, practice, diffusion, enforcement, seduction, etc.), which may be utterly interesting in themselves, but they should not be confused with their end product, just as, for example, a musical composition is not the process of composing it. Identifying the product with the production would be an example of the post hoc ergo hoc fallacy discussed earlier: “after this, therefore this” – the fallacy that consists of identifying something with some of its prerequisites or causes. Identifying a product with its causes, however necessary these causes are, is a conceptual mistake. CH is produced through a process of ‘CH-ization,’ but CH is not the process of CH-ization – just as, for example, a chair is not said to be the process of woodworking but a product or consequence of woodworking. Positing that cultural heritage is the process through which cultural heritage comes into existence is going too far in Humpty-Dumptying cultural heritage, just as suggesting that the notion of intangible includes objects that are obviously tangible is going too far in Humpty-Dumptying ICH. The meanings of the notions we use in a sound theoretical discourse can only be stretched to a certain point.

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9.2  CH can be passed down By definition, ‘heritage’ is something that has been, or at least can be, passed down to others. Something that cannot be inherited cannot be heritage in any strict sense – that is, unless the meaning of the term is forcefully distorted beyond recognition. For instance, the simple but intense pleasure experienced by walking along with a loved one on a particularly beautiful day is indeed real, but it cannot be ‘heritage’ as it cannot be passed down to others. If at all, that pleasure can be remembered or recalled, perhaps with the help of some mnemonic aids (a photo, a recording, a conversation, etc.), but neither the memory nor the mnemonic aids are the thing recalled. A memorable performance of K.331, or a memorable performance of a Korean haegeum or a gamelan, can be genuinely experienced (lived) once: it can be recalled, again with or without the help of devices such as a score or a recording, but the performance itself cannot be passed down to others, just as a memorable soccer match or a wedding ceremony cannot be passed down to others. These cultural expressions can only be recalled, perhaps by using documents or memory-priming devices, from oral accounts to written cutouts from the newspapers, from audio recordings to memorabilia, from video recordings to photographs. However, the match, the wedding, or the musical performances cannot be passed down to other people, just as CH events or performances of any kind cannot be passed down. It is the mnemonic aids that can be passed down. The set of rules that shape a performance can also be passed down to others. In the case of a soccer match, this includes the custom of walking to the stadium, gathering with friends, singing some anthems, cheering on your team and booing the rivals, cheering after a goal, etc. This can be passed down: all these customs could become ‘heritage’ if recognized as such. Also, the rules governing the match can be passed down to others. Indeed, the customs and the rules are actually both rules, either written or non-written, that tell the participants how to behave in a given situation and which allow everyone to understand what is going on and react accordingly and appropriately. The rules of the game are data and can be handed to others in any suitable support (normally in written form) precisely and without any loss of information; the rules governing the behavior of the spectators exist in the their minds, and as such they are unstable and volatile. These non-written rules are bound to evolve and change through time but they can still be passed down to others by way of training or example: they can be heritage. On the contrary, performances can be considered heritage through a metonymic process of semantic transfer only, not in a strict sense.

9.3  Modes of being: a four-ontology CH model In its origin, around the end of the 18th century or the beginning of the 19th century, cultural heritage included tangible objects only: paintings, manuscripts, buildings, etc. This state of affairs lasted around 150 years, so for most of its history, CH existed in a single ‘mode of being,’ in a single ontology. During the second half of the 20th century, the notion of CH came to include intangible cultural expressions,

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such as languages, festivals, craftsmanship, traditions, etc. This important shift added a second ontology to the category of cultural heritage: intangible cultural heritage gained widespread recognition and thus expanded the scope of the notion of CH. In other words, CH became a dual-ontology notion, as its items could exist in either tangible or intangible forms. However, the two-ontology view of CH presents some conceptual problems. Simply put, ICH items may differ in important ways, which makes it difficult to issue a coherent theoretical discourse about this category. For instance, stating that ICH is “constantly recreated” is not right, as there are ICH items (e.g., a poem or a digital photograph) that were created at a moment in history and are rarely, if ever, recreated; and it is difficult to accept that the very tangible objects used in a performance (costumes, instruments, ornaments, etc.) can be considered intangible CH, as posited by different authors. The broad category of ICH is therefore insufficient to grasp in some depth the complexities of non-tangible cultural heritage. In other words, the two-ontology CH model differentiating between tangible and intangible CH is nowadays insufficient for a comprehensive analysis on CH and may in fact be misleading: a single, homogeneous discourse on ICH can only have a limited reach. CH is better understood if a four-ontology CH model is used. This model distinguishes three categories of true heritage plus an additional category (performance) that can be considered heritage through a semantic displacement. These ontologies are: 1) tangible, material objects; 2) mindsets or embodied knowledge: sets of ideas, skills, or beliefs that only exist in the mind or bodies of the individuals; 3) datasets: information that can exist in non-human material supports, such as a paper sheet, a computer disk drive, or a CD; and 4) performances. As discussed earlier, performances are not true heritage since they lack a clear-cut and almost platitudinous feature of heritage: the ability to be passed down to others. A  CH performance exists only during a brief (by human standards) time, and then ceases to exist, so it cannot be inherited by anyone. It cannot decay or deteriorate, and it cannot be restored either. If at all, it can be recorded or otherwise documented, but the documentation is not the performance – in fact, this documentation most often becomes another CH item itself, usually a new dataset. A performance can also be re-enacted, but this is just another, different performance abiding by the same set of rules – by the same mindset. Language is misleading when it allows us to speak of “preserving a performance”: this is an oxymoron. This oxymoron, however, is not always perceived as such. There is a well-established tradition of considering performances as proper heritage: performances have been maintained in this taxonomy so as to not deviate too much from the realworld usage of the notion.

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This four-ontology CH model can give theoretical support to several dichotomies existing within the broad CH and ICH categories, thus allowing for a more refined discourse. For example, it makes it possible to distinguish between physical and metaphysical ICH (datasets and mindsets are metaphysical, performances are physical), stable and dynamic CH (objects and datasets are stable; mindsets or performances are dynamic), embodied and disembodied CH (mindsets are embodied, datasets are disembodied), and conservable, replicable, or trainable CH (objects are conservable, datasets are replicable, mindsets and performances are trainable). The four-ontology model also reveals the confusion inherent in so many reflections in which the broad notion of intangible cultural heritage is wrongly used to refer to some ontologies of ICH only, namely mindsets and performances. This problem lies behind some important misunderstandings, perhaps related to the projection of the views of some CH professionals (anthropologists, archaeologists, conservators, etc.) over the whole expanse of CH items. By going beyond the tangible/ intangible theoretical framework, a better, more solid discourse can be developed.

9.4  Caring for heritage so that it can be inherited A performance cannot be lost because of any external cause (an accident, physical decay, vandalism), as it is ephemeral by nature: ephemerality is an inherent trait of performances: this is in fact why no one can inherit them. On the other hand, mindsets, datasets, and objects can be passed down to others, which reciprocally implies that they could not be passed down (because of accidents, the ravages of time, or deliberate action): unlike performances, mindsets, datasets, or objects can be lost, totally or partially – in other words, they can be totally or partially damaged. Reciprocally, they can also be cared for, safeguarded, or preserved. The preservation strategies for each ontological CH category are pre-determined by their very ontological nature. Thus, objects can be preserved through direct intervention on their material fabric or by ccontrolling the physical environment surrounding them: the temperature, the light, the relative humidity, the human interactions, etc. These measures arrest the deterioration of objects by delaying chemical reactions and preventing wear and tear. Datasets, on the other hand, can be replicated ad infinitum on different supports. Furthermore, datasets can be preserved through replication with no loss of information at all as they are expressed in formal language systems using a limited set of discrete, conventional symbols. Unlike objects and datasets, mindsets lack a canonical version. Mindsets, or embodied knowledge, can be transmitted between persons by way of example, through active tutoring, lecturing, and so forth. In other words, mindsets can be passed down through training, which implies a certain degree of variability: the mindset of an individual or group cannot be faithfully replicated. Mindsets can also be documented, which may help to reproduce them in the future – but, unlike with datasets, there will always be more or less substantial losses in the process: no mindset can be documented without a loss of information. No documentation system (writing, drawing, photography, video, measurements, interviews, etc.) exists

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that does not have an epistemic horizon, which in practice translates into a simplification of the thing or event documented (in this case, some type of embodied knowledge). Furthermore, mindsets, datasets, and objects can be undamaged – or repaired, or ‘restored’ to a different, preferable condition. This is an inherent trait of genuine cultural heritage items: they can be preserved or safeguarded, but also altered to make them more valuable.

9.5  CH items are selected CH items cannot include everything in the world. An all-encompassing notion of CH would be synonymous with ‘culture,’ thus becoming redundant or pointless. As a matter of fact, not everything around us is CH: some cultural expressions are recognized as CH while others are not. CH items are selected from among the whole plethora of existing cultural products. There is, there needs to be, a selection process: CH items need to be told apart from non-CH items. Many authors have stressed that CH items are selected because of the values people attach to them. Some of them, such as Vecco (2019), Labadi (2013), Avrami et al. (2000), Cazado Pérez (2018), or De La Torre (2013), have developed valuable theoretical models and taxonomies describing what types of values make for a CH item and how they relate to each other. Already in the 20th century, Michalski (1994) posited that tangible CH items are selected mainly because of their semantic properties. They work as symbols and meaning-making devices, as “semiophores” in the sense posited by Pomian (1998) (which is actually very close to the original sense of the term: literally “meaning carriers”). For Michalski, the meanings that tangible CH items make are of three types: social, scientific, and private. This model can be transposed to every kind of CH item with some tweaks. Social meanings most often serve to transmit ideological messages, showing what is to be valued (religious faith, proper morality, freedom, human rights, historical deeds, cultural excellence, philanthropy, etc.). Many CH items represent these messages in more or less direct ways: thus, for example, tanks from the Second World War are on display in Normandy, just as carefully maintained sections of the Chinese Wall remain literally on display in the heart of the country. These items do transmit ideological messages about resilience, historical greatness, or national identity. All of these meanings and other closely linked ones entangle and overlap in complex ways, so these categories are difficult to systematize and not mutually exclusive. Scientific meanings encompass all the information that experts in the human sciences (historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, etc.) can extract from the CH item. In the case of tangible items, these meanings may have a clear material edge, as these include all kinds of evidence that can now be obtained with the aid of sophisticated analytical techniques (e.g., the examination of DNA, the precise quantification of trace elements, or the identification of pollen particles). In the case of intangible CH items, those meanings include the many features that linguists, ethnographers, or anthropologists can interpret to better understand the evolution of a language, a social structure, or a tradition.

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The boundary between social and private meanings is diffuse in some cases. There are items that only a small group finds valuable, so they linger in between both categories. This is inherent to the so-called ‘modest heritage’: the CH of a small local club, a family, or a group of friends. Most of these (private?) meanings fall beyond the reach of social sciences (which tend to work with larger groups) and thus are not paid much attention in the current CH literature. It might in fact be asked if private heritage can be said to be strictly ‘cultural.’ (If the answer is “no,” the items of private heritage, however symbolic and meaningful for a small group of persons, could not be considered to be CH in a rigorous sense). In summary, CH items are designated as such according to their semantic strength as either social or ideological meaning-bearers or as evidence for ethnohistoriographic sciences. This cannot be determined through a precise algorithm, as there is no clear-cut, mathematically expressible criterion that separates CH from non-CH. As posited by Michalski, heritageness is a matter of probability: the higher the sum of the previously described semantic strengths, the more likely a cultural expression will become cultural heritage. Drawing on Michalski, I have discussed elsewhere what makes an object become an ‘object of conservation’ (Muñoz-Viñas 2003, 2005). As conservation is one of the core practices inherent to the CHD, the notions of ‘object of conservation’ and ‘cultural heritage item’ are conceptually interchangeable in most cases, so this discussion is easily usable when it comes to ascertaining the selection criteria used to identify CH in general. Aside from the ideological (identitarian, religious, ethical, etc.) contents of the messages, other semantic features that make for a conservation object are: a) its symbolic strength (the stronger the symbol, the more likely it is to be recognized as CH); b) it is often working as a synecdoche of the thing represented (that is, its being a part of that which it represents: an old tank in Normandy represents the fight for political freedom; the remnants of the Chinese wall represent the historical lineage of China); and c) the alteration of the original meanings or functions (the tanks in Normandy are no longer menacing anyone just as the Chinese wall does not prevent anyone from invading the country). In addition, risk of damage and scarcity are other important factors contributing to something being considered a CH item. It must be stressed again that these features are to be seen as increasing the likelihood that some item will be recognized as CH, but not all of them are needed for something to become CH, nor are they bound to have the same importance in each case. There is another important consideration when selecting a CH item: it needs to transmit the right message. Indeed, there are cultural expressions that would send an inappropriate message. For instance, the tradition that married women must have their hair entirely cut or the tradition that women cannot show their faces in public spaces could be contentious for many people, as was, in a different

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context, the tradition of killing a goat by throwing it from a bell tower – a tradition that existed in a Spanish town and that was eventually banned. Similarly, statues of Romanian dictator Ceausescu would send the wrong message nowadays, as Romania became a democracy after Ceausescu was overthrown in 1989. All these cultural expressions are based on long-standing traditions, and the statues of the dictator may even have an artistic tinge. However, the meanings they carry (or carried) are not currently considered appropriate for most people: as they go against some widespread beliefs, they are unlikely to be considered cultural heritage. Then again, a historian could claim that the statues were actually symbols with historical relevance, which they probably were, so they should have been considered CH items and duly preserved (either as a reminder of things to avoid or as a symbol of nostalgia). The fact is that different agents may think, or feel, differently about the messages transmitted by a cultural expression. When this happens, a power struggle may ensue: the result is not always a balanced compromise. In the real world, experts, the public, cultural associations, media, and many other agents with a say in the cultural scene may play a role in the selection of CH. All of these agents exert their power to implement their views – which may involve a number of seemingly spurious factors (e.g., economic gains, religious concerns, or political advantage). In any case, all these agents forward an axiological judgment: a judgment based on the different values (scientific, social, economic, emotional, religious, etc.) that the CH item may have. The selection of CH is always a subjective affair. Please note, however, that this is not a criticism: objective criteria can be utterly absurd (e.g., assigning marks to the student’s essays according to the weight of the sheets or the size of the pdf), while subjective criteria can be very reasonable (e.g., assessing a student’s essay according to its perceived quality). Contrary to the general opinion, neither objective criteria are intrinsically good nor subjective criteria are intrinsically bad. I gently ask the reader to ponder whether his or her opinions about this book are based on objective or subjective criteria, and whether the nature of these criteria renders the opinion more or less valid or relevant. Just as CH selection is an axiological, subjective process, the selection of the particular ontology (or ‘dimension’ or ‘aspect’) of the same cultural phenomenon that will be assigned with heritageness is also the result of subjective choice. Thus, the tools necessary for a voodoo ritual may not be recognized as CH, while the mindset behind the voodoo ritual (the long tradition that shapes it: the non-written set of rules that guides its performance) may be considered CH. On the other hand, an old building used to host a Catholic mass may be regarded as CH, but the mindset shaping the performance of the mass – the tradition of celebrating the mass according to a well-established ritual – may not be regarded as CH at all. The ascription of heritageness to one or another of the ontologies involved in the same cultural phenomenon is also the result of subjective choice. In this regard, it may also be important to note that selecting some cultural expressions as CH implies excluding others. CH can thus be seen as a process of selection and exclusion: in

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other words, CH is inherently selective and exclusionary. This is not good or bad in itself but a necessary trait for CH to exist.

9.6  CH impacts the world Cultural heritage does not happen in a vacuum: being semantic devices, CH items influence the people around them. By designating something as CH, the designators are telling everyone that such something is particularly valuable for some reason. This, in turn, tells people to appreciate it and even how to behave in front of it: chanting, clapping, standing up, remaining quiet, staring at it, walking at a slow pace, etc. These prescribed, shared behaviors have a socializing effect – a civilizing effect, as Duncan (1995) would have it. Furthermore, CH items are also expected to be cared for in a particular way, a way that differs from how non-CH items are cared for and that is often called ‘conservation,’ ‘preservation,’ or ‘safeguarding.’ As mentioned earlier, the messages sent by CH items must support the right ideologies, which CH items help to disseminate and support: group identities (a country, a region, a city, etc.), moral principles (decorum, freedom, solidarity, etc.), cultural values (the proper cultural canon, refined tastes, religious beliefs, etc.), and so forth. Heritageness has an influence on the people around: it does something and therefore is never neutral. Again, this is not necessarily good or bad: whether CH can be considered to have positive or negative effects depends on how the messages it transmits and the impact it has on the world are judged by the experts or the observers.

9.7  CH is implemented through practices The CH discourse comes into real-world existence through a set of practices: research, listing, conservation, and musealization are some of the most important ones among those performed by CH experts and professionals. It is through these practices that CH manifests itself in the world. Of course, there are other essential CH practices, such as establishing a system for the qualification of CH stewards and professionals or CH dissemination through teaching or training. All these practices lead to propagating the idea that some objects are special in some sense, which in turn shapes the behavior of many persons: for example, by suggesting what to visit, how to react before certain items, what to remember, what to appreciate (and conversely what to not appreciate), etc. What needs to be stressed here is that the CH discourse entails a set of real-world actions and reactions performed or led by experts, which influences other people’s behavior in complex ways.

9.8  Westernness (I) The notion of CH is contingent: it is a cultural invention created in a given cultural and historical setting. Its history suggests that it was an overall good invention, but it also shows that it has changed through time and that several CH discourses exist.

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In order to properly understand a CHD and its attached phenomena, it is essential not to lose sight of its circumstantial nature. One of the most pressing problems in any theoretical reflection on CH is agreeing on what the term cultural heritage refers to. As shown at the beginning of this essay, several conflicting notions of CH exist. Some authors have an idea of CH that may differ somewhat from that of another author, and it is not always easy to precisely ascertain what the term refers to in each case. The original notion of CH, that which developed in 18th- and 19th-century Europe, included material items only, and only those that showcased the apotheosis of the Western cultural canon. After that, a non-axiological notion was developed, one that would include popular cultural expressions lacking academic or artistic pedigree. Along this line, the notion of CH was expanded to include intangible CH items. Further theoretical criticism led to considering the works of nature as cultural heritage, too; at some point, some authors suggested that even the creators of cultural heritage came to be regarded as cultural heritage themselves. The continued expansion of the notion can lead to what could be called panheritage. That is to say, there is a continuum of CHs, with the original notion developed in 18th-century Europe on one end and panheritage on the other; this may make it difficult to understand what CH may mean in a given context. In the last decades, the original CHD has also been challenged by many authors and CH practitioners on the grounds that it is Euro- or Western-centric. As has been found, applying the Western CH discourse and categories to non-Western cultural settings may be very difficult and border on a kind of soft cultural colonialism. This leads to a very interesting situation: the Westernness of the CH discourse is perceived as a problem by those professionals and academics who would want to cast the notion of CH over non-Western cultures. The fact that Western, or Westernized, experts may aim at the same time at applying a Western notion (CH) to the whole world and at not privileging the Western culture over the rest is a curious paradox. The strategy for solving this paradox could have been to create a new, different, more apt notion, one that is not ballasted by the weight of the Enlightened, Western tradition. However, perhaps because the criticism of the Enlightened CHD was developed mainly by Western-trained experts, the good old Western concept of cultural heritage has been retained and is still in use even by those who aspire to transform it into something essentially different. A new, more up-to-date concept, perhaps even adapted from a non-Western language, could have been established instead, but this possibility has not been pushed forward, and maybe not even seriously considered. Rather, the CH experts have adopted a less radical strategy: to retain the original Western concept (cultural heritage) and increasingly widen its boundaries to accommodate more and more cultural expressions from every single culture in the world (and then natural phenomena too, and the CH actors too). Unfortunately, this can only work to some extent. We can keep using the exact old words (“cultural heritage”) to describe increasingly disparate notions (sets of material, tangible objects of exceptional value, sets of popular intangible cultural expressions, the people who sustain them – and then a lake, insect colonies, industrial waste, pollutants, etc.); however, the more the notion of CH is expanded to

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confer it with universal validity, the vaguer and theoretically weaker it becomes. In the long run, this might well be the path to the dissolution of the CH discourse itself. A hyperexpanded CHD may imply, for example, the de-culturation of cultural heritage (as natural items are also considered as such) and also its de-heritagization (as heritage is made to encompass items that cannot be inherited). In other words, if the notion of cultural heritage is to be retained, it needs to be anchored in the Western notion to some extent; if stretched beyond a certain point, the notion of cultural heritage becomes neither cultural nor heritage. Again, this is not to say that this is either good or bad. As suggested previously, CH is a contingent notion and, as such, it needs not to be eternal, just as it might not need to be universal. However, it is important that those who advocate the opposite be aware that a truly universally valid notion of CH could end up having little to do with what the words mean to most people, and that this conceptual metamorphosis could have unexpected consequences for the field. It is yet another beautiful paradox that the CH discourse, which was invented two centuries ago out of the Enlightened belief that it was universally valid, could become obsolete due to the attempt to make it universal.

9.9  Westernness (II) The CH discourse and its attached practices should not be colonial, or rather should be as non-colonial as possible, but the core of the CH discourse is bound to be Western unless it is distorted beyond recognition. The criteria for CH designation can be expanded, but other core tenets of the CHDs remain unquestionably Western, such as, for example, the belief that some cultural expressions are so special as to deserve to be listed aside from the rest; the belief that some cultural expressions are valuable for the society at large; the belief that some cultural expressions belong to the whole society; the belief that some cultural expressions need to be cared for in a special way because of their artistic, scientific, or anthropological value; the belief that some cultural expressions can exist in authentic or non-authentic states; or the belief that some local cultural expressions are valuable for the whole world. Relaxing some of the criteria to ascertain which cultural expressions qualify as CH to allow all types of cultures to have their own cultural heritage will not change the grounding tenets of the CH discourse. In other words, the CH discourse may be tweaked (it can be made ‘less Western’) by relaxing the criteria for CH selection so that it is more usable or more useful in non-Western cultures – and this is a noble goal – but the core ideological tenets of the notion of CH will remain essentially Western if it is to be CH at all. The criticism that a CHD “is Western” should thus be handled with care.

9.10  CH is based on authority The CH discourse is based on authority, and, as in every discipline, in the CH field, some people possess a special authority because of their knowledge and expertise. Therefore, criticizing the CH discourse at large because it is based on authority is moot, as authority is a necessary trait of the CHD.

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Needless to say, authority may or may not be well exerted in the CH field, as in any other field of expertise, but authority does need to be exerted. Decisions need to be made (e.g., what is CH, or how it should be preserved, or which resources to spend on it), and these decisions need to be made by someone. The closest thing to relinquishing any authority would be to leave the CH item alone (not disseminating its heritageness, not including any item in a list, not safeguarding it, etc.), which amounts to doing nothing. This in turn means that no one would benefit from CH (perhaps with the exception of the experts, as CH would thus become a purely academic field, restrained to the experts’ professional and academic literature written and read by a very small group but with no impact on the rest of the people). Of course, this does not necessarily seem like a good idea, as it implies debasing much of the CH raison d’être. CH professionals are not expected to passively observe and study cultural phenomena for purely scholarly reasons. Rather, they are expected to exert some authority – in a respectful and sensitive way. The experts need to listen to the people affected by their decisions, to mind their interests and needs, to persuade them that the CH system is beneficial, and to make CH decisions that are actually beneficial. This may imply the need to relinquish some of the experts’ epistemic authority, but never all of their authority, as this would turn the expert into an irrelevant and inconsequential observer. It is important to realize that CH is created and sustained by experts. It is their – no: our gaze, as I am one of those experts myself – that creates and sustains the field: we, the experts, are the ones who project our views onto other people’s cultural expressions, often making them realize that their cultural expressions have (or could have) a value they were not aware of and gently contributing to the overall benefit of communities. It could be said that the makers or bearers of a cultural expression can only have full authority over it if it is not ascribed with heritageness because when a mere ‘cultural expression’ becomes cultural heritage, some of their original, pristine authority will be shared with CH experts (e.g., officials working in national or international bodies, cultural managers, archaeologists, conservators, or ethnographers). The style and degree to which such authority should be exerted can be – no: must be – rightfully debated, but the existence of such authority is a feature of any CH discourse and all CH practices. The whole CH system is based on this epistemic authority: without it, the field would be transformed into a purely academic discipline

9.11  The role of the experts All the ideas presented earlier may serve to elaborate some very brief ethical reflections. The fact that CH is reckoned as a European invention that is often developed from Western positions means that it needs to be used with caution outside of its original boundaries. Casting a Western concept onto non-Western cultures may be dangerously close to a kind of soft cultural colonialism – or diffusionism, or cultural transfer, if so preferred. CH professionals should be aware that the notion of CH might not be helpful to (or needed by) all the peoples, groups, or communities

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around the world. The need to be sensitive and humble enough to recognize that the notion of CH might not have universal validity can also be extended to the development of CH practices. CH experts will always exert some degree of epistemic authority, but this authority needs to be used in a respectful, sensitive manner. To a great extent, the advice to act respectfully and sensitively is trivial, but in this regard it is important to recall that CH dwells on subjective judgments of values of very different natures: emotional, economic, ideological, religious, national, etc. Even in the cases in which the locals share the very notion of cultural heritage with the experts, their perception of these types of values may conflict with the more scholarly views – it might even be argued that they are likely to conflict, as experts are such because of their having acquired knowledge and developed views that are different from those of laypersons. Thus, the challenge for the CH professional “is to recognize their obligations to a wider public and to participate in a much more diverse set of conversations, rather than merely ‘science’ or ‘preservation’ ” (Kersel and Luke 2015:79). CH professionals, in summary, need to have the ability to acknowledge that they are dealing with items that may have complex sets of meanings and values for different people. This idea may seem straightforward, but failing to reckon with it is, in fact, the reason behind many conflicts that arose throughout the 20th century between locals and CH professionals. The principle of intersubjectivity (Muñoz-Viñas 2003:142ff), that is, the idea that CH emerges, or rather should emerge, from an agreement between affected subjects, may also be helpful here. However, there are two caveats. First, preserving the CH implies an intervention that is done not just for the present agents but other people as well: for their descendants, for those to whom the item is expected to be passed down. The people currently affected by the CH item are, in theory, only some of the agents for whom the CH professionals work. Affected people may or may not be aware of all the implications of preserving or spoiling the item, and thus they cannot be the only decision-makers. Admittedly, the professionals may also be wrong in assuming that the descendants in the future may be interested in keeping, using, or performing a given CH item: the role of ‘future generations’ in the CH decision-making process is unavoidably a source of uncertainty – what present generations should sacrifice for the sake of future spectators is unclear, because it is just not possible to know for sure what they will appreciate most or what will be more useful to them. Because of their training, however, and even if they might be wrong, CH professionals can be expected to know better than the rest. Second, it is important to note that all actors in the CH field, be they experts or laypersons, have some degree of power: the CH field is essentially agonistic, that is, based on more or less subtle power struggles. This is perhaps more easily noticeable in the preservation (or ‘safeguarding’) of ICH. Mindsets and performances are preserved through dealing with people, through persuasion, through training, through manipulation: by making people behave in some particular, CH-aware way. This can only be done if authority is exerted somehow, meaning that authority (or leadership if so preferred) is an inherent trait of ICH preservation. In fact, it is an inherent trait of all other CH-related practices.

172  Notes for a theory of cultural heritage

The idea that CH experts have authority and exert power in the CH field may be interpreted as ‘non-democratic,’ which may not seem right at first glance. However, while exerting authority in any field of knowledge can be a bad thing if done the wrong way, it is by no means necessarily a bad thing. It is rather a given: each field of expertise is based on the existence of people who know the field better than the rest and thus possess greater epistemic authority. For instance, I have no authority in volcanic geology, the physiology of reptiles, or quantum physics. However, I do have some authority in CH theory. In fact, I exert it for a living – this is what I am paid for, and what most people in my working environment expect from me. For instance, I exert authority in my classes by choosing what the students will listen to or what they will read. I am exerting some authority here by sharing some ideas with the reader (or, to put it more bluntly, by telling the reader what to think about a tiny part of the world, as all authors do). The reader, in turn, has the ultimate power to simply ignore these words or stop reading the book: in this regard, and unlike in my classes, the final word is the reader’s, who may switch to another book at any moment. My students do not have that power (they cannot change the teacher or the topic), but they still have their share of power: they can simply not attend my classes. What I mean is that we all have our share of power in some areas: an architect has power when it comes to building a house, while the technician who tells me how to set up my Wi-Fi router has a share of power in another important area – and in fact I will diligently follow his or her instructions to switch the router on and off, to push some buttons in sequence, to download this or that file, or to set this or that IP address. Regarding Wi-Fi routers, the technician and I do not have the same authority, nor can any decision concerning the router be made under the democratic paradigm we (the people living in more or less democratic countries) can luckily apply in other important areas of our lives. Simply put, my vote on how to best set up a Wi-Fi router would not have the same value as the technician’s – just as my vote on which kind of concrete should be used in a skyscraper would not have the same value as that of the architect. Power can indeed be a bad thing if wrongly used, and, unfortunately, we have too many examples of this. However, it can also be a good thing in many cases (for instance, my router works flawlessly), and, furthermore, it is a given in any field of expertise. The CH field is no exception: the responsibility for making the little power the CH experts have a good thing falls to us.

9.12  Authenticity as expectation Authenticity is often mentioned in discussions on CH. Some CH items are perceived as more ‘authentic’ than others, which in turn implies a judgment of value: authentic items are much more valuable than non-authentic ones. However, the meaning of the notion is rarely well understood. There are two important ideas that need to be stressed in this regard. First, no real-world phenomenon or object can exist in a state of falsehood: if it exists, it is necessarily real and authentic. The notion of authenticity as used in the CH world does not describe any inherent trait of a cultural expression but rather whether or not it conforms to the observer’s expectations of what that

Notes for a theory of CH  173

cultural expression should be. If something exists in a state that does not coincide with the observers’ expectations (be they historians, anthropologists, tourists, etc.), it is deemed to be ‘non-authentic.’ However, the actual, existing phenomenon, be it an event or an object is always authentic. It is our pre-conceived belief about the history or provenance of such object or event what can be false. For example, a painting looking like a Mondrian (i.e., a painting that could be expect to have been painted by Mondrian) may be said to be false if it is found to have been painted by anyone else – despite the fact that the painting is indisputably an authentic painting – one in the Mondrian style, to be precise: if it can be called ‘false’ is because it does not fulfil the observer’s expectations. Thus, behind any appeal to ‘authenticity’ always lies an expression of subjective (or intersubjective) belief about what the thing should be: this belief may be more or less widespread, but it is still a belief. Second, when a cultural item is assigned with heritageness, it starts being ‘staged,’ or, in other words, artificially altered and modified. Through the application of CH practices, it effectively deviates from its ‘normal,’ heritageness-free course of evolution, becoming a more or less different thing than it would have been if it were a regular, non-CH cultural expression. Thus, CH implies a degree of fabrication. In other words, recognizing something as CH leads to its entering a realm of special items outside the normal, living cultural environment, because cultural expressions assigned with heritageness are cared for in special, artificial (fabricated) ways. Calling for authenticity as a value in CH items is a potential source of misunderstandings.

9.13  Epilogue. What is CH, then? It is certainly not easy to precisely define what CH is, but there are some features that may help in sketching a portrait of this complex concept, a concept that was invented in 18th- and 19th-century Europe and the rest of the Western world and that was later exported to (or imposed onto, or transferred to, or shared with, or imported by) the rest of the world. The notion is contingent and volatile, but the following five ideas can set the premises for a definition of CH that can be useful and usable – at least nowadays, in the third decade of the 21st century. 1) Heritage items are such because they have been (or at the very least are expected to be) passed down to other people. Thus, they need to be inheritable: objects, datasets, and mindsets are inheritable and represent some of the primary ontologies of CH. In the contemporary CH world, however, ephemeral performances and events (which obviously cannot be passed down to anyone) are also widely recognized as heritage, and so are here. 2) CH is the set of items recognized as cultural heritage at any given moment. CH is not the production process of CH, but the result of said process. CH is not, for example, “the dynamic entanglement of inherently unstable social vectors,” “the metacultural identification of semantically-rich icons,” or “the creation and re-creation of metonymic relationships between cultural phenomena and the community.”2 Rather, it is the consequence of said entanglement of social

174  Notes for a theory of cultural heritage

vectors, identification of icons, or creation of metonymic relationships. These kinds of statements hint at the nature of CH and its premises and mechanisms, but they need to be understood in a loose, rhetorical sense – so as not to commit the post hoc ergo hoc fallacy. 3) These items are selected from among a plethora of cultural expressions. Until the second half of the 20th century, CH included valuable objects representing the best of the Western cultural canon. Then it came to include popular cultural expressions from all over the world. These could be tangible objects, but also mindsets, performances, or datasets – which are usually (though imprecisely) grouped under the umbrella term intangible cultural heritage. 4) The selection of CH items is based on subjective criteria, but this does not mean that the selection is pointless or arbitrary. It is knowledgeable experts who make this selection or who approve the proposals made by different cultural groups or ‘communities.’ (Being human, these experts may make mistakes or misuse their epistemic authority, but such authority is not an intrinsically evil thing. Without such authority, the CH field would vanish or collapse.) 5) The subjective criteria for this selection are related to the semantic (cultural, ideological) values of the item, as well as to other values (economic, religious, political, etc.), which may intertwine in convoluted ways. In general, CH serves to evoke concepts and sentiments (e.g., group-identity, self-esteem, or ideological beliefs) that are considered valuable by the group that creates the item and by the experts who assess its value. Scarcity and risk of disappearance are also relevant factors in CH designation. With this definition, I am adopting a stance that is closer to Wittgenstein than to Humpty Dumpty: this definition challenges the established views to a moderate extent only and does not distort the standard meaning of the words in a forceful way. Still, this exercise is just tentative and is bound to be tweaked, refined, or entirely disregarded by the reader or by other authors. It just represents a step in a staircase – and please note that this metaphor can have two different, opposing interpretations: a step in a staircase may be seen as something that helps us to progress toward a higher position, but also as something that needs to be stepped on and left behind. At the end, which interpretation is preferred by the reader is important to some extent only, as neither of them excludes the other: if this fivepoint definition, or the whole book for that matter, serves to foster further reflections on the topic in whatever sense, then it will have fulfilled its purpose.

Notes 1 “Las relaciones teoría-práctica son mucho más parciales y fragmentarias. . . . La práctica es un conjunto de relevos de un punto teórico a otro, y la teoría, un relevo de una práctica a otra.” 2 These statements are mine. They have been written as an ad hoc argumentative device.

Notes for a theory of CH  175

References Avrami, E., Mason, R. and De la Torre, M. (2000) Values and Heritage Conservation. Research Report. Los Angeles, CA: The Getty Conservation Institute. Cazado Pérez, F.J. (2018) ‘El valor en la conservación-restauración de bienes culturales inmuebles’, Revista Historia y Conservación del Patrimonio Edificado, 1(1), pp. 24–45. De la Torre, M. (2013) ‘Values and heritage conservation’, Heritage  & Society, 6(2), pp. 155–166. Deleuze, G. and Foucault, M. (2012) ‘Un diálogo sobre el poder’, in Un diálogo sobre el poder y otras conversaciones. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, pp. 29–43 Duncan, C. (1995) Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums. New York: Routledge. Kersel, M.M. and Luke, C. (2015) ‘Civil Societies? Heritage Diplomacy and Neo-Imperialism’, in L. Meskell (ed.) Global Heritage: A  Reader. Chichester: Wiley and Sons, pp. 70–93. Labadi, S. (2013) UNESCO, Cultural Heritage, and Outstanding Universal Value. Value-based Analyses of the World Heritage and Intangible Cultural Heritage Conventions. Lanham, MA: Altamira Press. Michalski, S. (1994) ‘Sharing Responsibility for Conservation Decisions.’, in W.E. Krumbein et al. (eds.) Durability and Change. The Science, Responsibility, and Cost of Sustaining Cultural Heritage. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, pp. 241–258. Muñoz-Viñas, S. (2003) Teoría contemporánea de la Restauración. Madrid: Síntesis. Muñoz-Viñas, S. (2005) Contemporary Theory of Conservation. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Pomian, K. (1998) ‘Histoire Culturelle, Histoire Des Sémiophores’, in J.P. Rioux and J.F. Sirinelli (eds.) Pour une histoire culturelle. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, pp. 191–229. Vecco, M. (2019) ‘Value and Values of Cultural Heritage’, in A. Campelo et al. (eds.) Cultural Heritage. London: Routledge, pp. 23–38.

INDEX

Aass, A. 72, 73 acculturation 70 Adarve, A. 139 Africa 22 AHD see authorized heritage discourse Ahmad, Y. xiv Aikawa-Faure, N. 56 Aka polyphonic singing 135 Akagawa, N. 52, 72, 91, 106, 119 Akbaş, M. 108 Alice [from L. Carroll Alice in Wonderland] 159 Alivizatou, M. 22, 25, 28, 36, 41, 50, 62, 105, 123 Alonso Fernández, L. 28, 63, 64 Alonso González, P. 26, 27, 37, 46, 55, 72, 110n3, 123 alteration of the original meanings 165 Alves, S. 35, 135 amatl making 146 Amescua, C. 46, 47, 52, 79, 84, 115, 137, 139 Amish quilt 123 ancient régime 7 Anderson, S. 54 Angkor Wat 122 animal rights 103 anti-democratic CH 89 antiquarian attitude 63 antiquarianism 5, 6 Arantes, A. 64, 102 archaeographia 6 archaeologia 6

Archaeological Heritage management in the Modern World [edited by H. Cleere] 76 archaeophilia 6 Aresti notation system 142 Arizpe, L. 46, 47, 56, 79, 94, 115, 137 Artaria 132 The Art, an Enemy of the People [by R. Taylor] 15 Art as Experience [by J. Dewey] 140 The Art Circle [by G. Dickie] 16 Ashworth, G. J. 45, 61 Asia 22, 51 Asian Civilisation Museum of Singapore 80 Askew, M. 62 assemblée, French revolutionary 7, 8, 11 Association of Critical Heritage Studies 70 Association of Critical Heritage Studies, 2013 Manifesto 70 Athens Charter 21 Atlaal [Arab notion] 84 Australia ICOMOS 21 authenticity: constructivist 116; continuum of 116; dynamic 116; emotional 116; essentialist 116; experiential 116; objective 116; perceived 116; staged 116 authenticity as fiction 118; based on beliefs or expectations 119; as noble disguise for taste 118; as taste or preference 121 authorized heritage discourse 97 Avrami, E. 21, 48, 62, 102, 164 Axiological CH discourse see cultural heritage, axiological discourse Aygen, Z. 5

Index  177

Baer, N. 21 Bagnall, G. 51 Bangstad, T. R. 28, 48, 146 bank note 118 Barthes, R. 13 basket-making xi Baudrillard, F. 15 Baumgarten, A. G. 8 Belsey, C. 121 Bendix, R. F. 26, 49 Berkeley, G. 29, 49, 140, 151 Berliner, D. 49, 103, 123 Big Bang see Heritage Big Bang Biga, B. 56 Bioy Casares, A. 92 Blue Mosque 20 BMW Tate activation of Time 134 Boito, C. 8, 9, 10, 46, 98 Bollmer, G. D. 51, 52, 139, 141, 146 Bonsanti, G. 150 Borges, J. L. 40, 41, 42n3, 92 Borrelli, L. V. 8 Bortolotto, C. 37, 47, 48, 56, 57, 73 Boulad-Ayoub, J. 7, 8, 11, 51 Bourdieu, P. 13, 15, 143 Bowdler, S. 26 Bradbury, R. 133 Braeuchler, B. 141 Brandenburg concerts [by J. S. Bach] 79 Brandi, C. 20, 21, 140 Breitkopf & Härtel 132 Bridge Over Troubled Waters [by P. Simon and A. Garfunkel] 22 British Museum 64 Brown, S. 109 Brulotte, R. I. 61 Brustolon paradox 150 Bryant, L. R. 57 Buckley, K. 71 Bueno, G. 15 Burke, H. 76 Burra Charter 21, 45 Buser, M. 57 Bustos Domecq, H. 92, 96, 110n1 Byrne, D. 72, 76, 77, 81, 93, 101, 123, 152 caffeinated drinks 105 Caillois, R. 69 Cameron, F. 26, 103, 139 Campbell, G. 97 Campelo, A. 52 Carcassone, France 63 Caribbean egalitarian proposal in Paris 2003 91

Cassiodorus 5 Cassirer, E. 29 castle of Pierrefonds 63 Castro-Gómez, S. 14 Caswell, M. 14 Catholic mass 166 Cavaceppi, B. 9, 98 Cazado Pérez, F. J. 164 CD ROM 133 Ceausescu, N. 166 censorship 92 Césaire, A. 69 Chhabra, D. 116 Chiang, M. C. xv, 55, 72, 123 Chinese Wall 164 CH-ization 123, 160 Choay, F. 6 Chomsky, N. 15 Chronis, A. 52, 136, 142 Ciatti, M. 8 Ciphor, M. 14 Clavir, M. 21 Cleere, H. 76, 81 Cochrane, A. 64 Cohen, A. 101 collective memory 141, 146 Collins Dictionary 136 collusion between scholarship and exclusionary politics 89 colonialism 14 colonization of the mind 76, 83 Colonna, A. P. 83 Cominelli, F. 140, 141 common people 105 communities transversal and dynamic 101 community 99, 100, 121; authorization of 101; legitimization of 100 compromising 80, 83, 84 conflict [intra- and inter-communitarian] 101 Connor, A. 50, 54 conservation as cultural heritage practice 64 – 65; as fabrication 123 – 125; as obsession 72 Conti, A. 8 Coskun, M. 78 Craith, M. C. 55 créativité cyclique 140 Creusot-Montceau, ecomuseum of 28 Crime and Punishment [by Dostoievsky, F.] 150 critical heritage studies 26, 55, 64, 70 Crosby, J. 52, 139, 142 cultivated culture 15 cultura circunscrita 15 cultural assimilation 70

178 Index

cultural clash 80, 85 cultural colonialism 70 cultural diffusionism 70 cultural heritage, arbitrary boundaries of 29 cultural heritage, axiological discourse 6 – 13 cultural heritage, canonical version of 139 cultural heritage, circumstantial nature of 168 cultural heritage, civilizing effect of 167 cultural heritage, continuum of definitions 45 cultural heritage, hyper-expanded version of 45, 56, 169 cultural heritage, lack of definition 35–39 cultural heritage, leadership in 171 cultural heritage, non-axiological discourse 13–26 cultural heritage, people-oriented decision-making in 110 cultural heritage, performative effect of 167 cultural heritage, representativeness of 91 cultural heritage, restricted view of 154 cultural heritage as: agonistic field 171; embodied knowledge 52; event 53–54; evidence 106, 124, 165; experience 51; fabrication 121–124, 173; its actors 50–51; knowledge 131; performance 50; process 131; product 147, 152, 173; recognition 51; sensorial experience 51–52, 131; staged 173 cultural heritage definition 173–174 cultural heritage designation: as bottom-up process 109; subjective criteria of 166; as top-down process 99, 109 Cultural Heritage Preservation Act [of South Korea] 55 cultural heritage regime 38 cultural heritage synonym with heritage 45 cultural heritage system 110 cultural influence 70 cultural meaning, doubtful interpretations 102 cultural proselytism 70 cultural transfer 70, 76, 77, 81, 83, 84 cultural transmission, reflexive theory of 103 culture, anthropological sense of 18 culture, essentialist notion of 89 culture as nature 27–29 Cuvier, G. 10 dataset, original 140 datasets as pure information 133 date palm craftsmanship in the Arabian world 150 Day of the Dead in Tzintzunzan 122 Deacon, H. 125, 153

De Cesari, C. 49, 64, 89 Dehio, G. 8, 9, 12, 79 De la Torre, M. 21, 164 Deleuze, G. 159 democratic research 105 democratic societies 110 Derrida, J. 13 Descola, P. 28 DeSilvey, C. 48 Dewey, J. 140, 141 Diablada in the Oruro festival 138 Dickie, G. 16 Dictionnaire raisonné de l’architecture française du XI e au XVI e siècle [by E. Viollet-le-Duc] 9, 63 Di Giovine, M. A. 61 digital datasets 139 digital folklore 139 discourse on the cultural heritage discourse 26–27 Domínguez Rubio, F. 53 Don Quixote 79 Dormaels, M. 40, 62, 150 Dubé, P. 52 Duncan, C. 64, 167 dziedzictwo 136 Easter Island 53 Eco, U. 13, 15 ecomuseum 28 Edwards, P. 8, 9, 98 egalitarian criterion for CH designation 90 Eggert, P. 140, 147 Elche, Spain 137 El cóndor pasa [by P. Simon and A. Garfunkel] 22 El enemigo número one de la censura [by H. Bustos Domecq] 92 El idioma analítico de John Wilkins [by J. L. Borges] 40 embodied heritage 143 embodied knowledge 139, 141 Emerick, K. 70 Enlightenment 5, 6, 13, 14, 74, 77 entropy 140 Epic of Gilgamesh 146 epistemic authority 105, 106 epistemic chain reaction 104 epistemic requisites of the hard-science paradigm 105 epistemic superiority 105 epistemic violence 14 Ethiopian Epiphany 135 ethnographic density 102 Eurocentric parochialisms 72

Index  179

European Charter of the Architectural Heritage 21 Eveling, S. 53, 54 event as a fast object 54 exclusion [and selection] 89, 92 Fahrenheit 451 [by R. Bradbury] 133 Fals-Borda, O. 105 Falser, M. 6, 52, 61, 89, 136, 141 family trip 136 Fichte, J. G. 29 Final Report of the 1993 UNESCO meeting “International Consultation on New Perspectives for UNESCO’s programme the Intangible Cultural Heritage” 99 floppy disk 133 folklorization 98 forgery 118 Formaggio, D. 55 Foucault, M. 159 four-ontology cultural heritage model 143–154, 161–163 Fouseki, K. 82 fragments of the world 108 Franco, F. 141 French Revolution 6–7 Fugue in A major from the Preludes and Fugues Op.87 [by D. Shostakovich] 16 future generations 171 Galileo 42 Gamboni, D. 93, 97 gamelan 79, 80, 151–152, 161 García Cuetos, M. P. 41 García-Esparza, J. A. 85, 116, 151 García Morales, L. 150 Garfunkel, A. 22 Gaskell, I. 50, 150 Geismar, H. 135, 141 General Assembly of the International Council of Museums 64 Giombini, L. 135 Giovannoni, G. 8, 12 Gnecco, C. 104 Gonçalves, A. 153 González-Ruibal, A. 131 González Varas, I. 8 Goodman, N. 94–95 Gotman, A. 136 Graham, B. 62, 107 Grand Canyon 53 Grayling, A. C. 140 Greek civilization 5 Greffe, X. 140, 141

Grégoire, H. 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 46, 51, 71, 79, 98 Groulx, L. 111n5 Grünfeld, M. 116 Guattari, F. 28 Guinea 103 haegeum 146, 161 Hafstein, V. 23, 30n10, 38, 41, 62, 73, 91, 93, 97, 102, 123 Hagia Sophia 152 Hahn, T. 52, 141 Handbuch der Archäologie der Kunst [by K. O. Müller] 63 Haram [Arab notion] 84 hard disk 133 Harker, C. 76 Harrison, R. 50, 51, 54, 57, 75, 146, 147 Harvey, D. C. 4, 45, 46, 48 heated debate [on the designation of ICH items in Paris 2003] 91 Henderson, J. 80 Henle-Urtext 132 Hennessy, K. 61 heritage as the world 29 heritage aura 56, 57 Heritage Big Bang xi, 28, 134 heritage boom 27 heritage documentation 107 heritage, domestication of 73 heritage industry 61 heritage-ification 49 heritage, inheritability of 136–137, 163–164 heritage-isation 104 heritage of the senses 142 heritage regime 26 heritage, sensational 52 heritage system 93 heritagization 49 hermeneutics 99 Herzfeld, M. 49, 64, 89 hi-brow culture 15 History of Six Ideas [by W. Tatarkiewicz] 15 Hodjat, M. 41 Högberg, A. 57 Hølleland 26 Hölling, H. 52, 143 Holtorf, C. 57, 72 horse and camel Ardhah 135 Horsin-Deon, S. 8, 98 Howard, K. 132 human rights 102, 103 Humanes, A. 9 Humpty Dumpty 79, 115, 159–160, 174

180 Index

ICCROM 115 ICH-ization 122 ICOMOS 115 ideology transfer 76 If You Wanna Be My Lover [by the Spice Girls] 15 Inaba, N. 84 indices [in the Peircean sense] 61 Indonesia 79 intangible cultural heritage as constantly recreated 36, 37, 50, 147, 151, 154 intangible cultural heritage as intellectual aberration 37, 40–42 intangible cultural heritage as invasive concept 152 intangible cultural heritage, clear definition of 25, 36, 37, 45 intangible cultural heritage definition in the UNESCO 2003 Convention 25, 37, 50, 151, 154 intangible cultural heritage, hyperexpanded version of 39 intangible cultural heritage, meta-cultural nature of 41 intangible cultural heritage, metaphysical 135, 139 intangible cultural heritage, non-selective register of 91 intangible cultural heritage, physical 133, 135 intangible cultural heritage, physical embodiment of 135 intangible cultural heritage, super-expanded version of 38 Internal Consultation on New Perspectives for UNESCO’s Programme: the Intangible Cultural Heritage 23 International Consultation on the Preservation of Popular Cultural Spaces 24 Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum 132 intersubjectivity 171, 173 inventaire 12 inventory 62, 76, 96, 102 Ise temples 115 Izmit Paper Factory (SEKA) 108 Japan 23, 41, 51, 73, 91, 115, 119 Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs and the Nara Prefecture 115 Jeudy, H. P. 27, 28, 72 Jones, S. 116, 117 Jones-Amin, H. 79 Jordan, J. S. 52, 141

joshiki [Japanese notion] 84 Judo 75 Jullien, F. 38, 77 Juneja, M. 6 K.331 [sonata in A major by W. A. Mozart] 132–134, 150, 152, 161 Kearney, A. 51 Keene, S. 108 Kelekçi, Ö. 108 Keller, J. D. 141 Kenderdine, S. 139 Kerney, A. 73 Kersel, M. M. 70, 120, 171 kintsugi [Japanese notion] 84 Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, B. 28, 39, 41, 51, 53, 57, 141 Knowledge, prescriptive and non-prescriptive 138 knowledge, sensational 141, 155 Koch, G. 49 Kockel, U. 28, 55, 136 Koester, C. P. 8 Kolar, T. 116 Korea 23, 24, 51, 73 koshiki [Japanese notion] 84 Kow Swamp Pleistocene burials 70 Ku, M. 49 Kuhn, T. 26 Kuutma, K. 62, 71, 90, 98 Labadi, S. 164 La condition postmoderne [by F. Lyotard] 13 La distinction. Critique social du jugement [by P. Bourdieu] 15 Lake Victoria 53 Landes de Gascogne, ecomuseum of 28 Laos 103 Larkham, P. J. 45 Lascaux cave 65 Latour, B. 50 Lawson, L. 134 Layton, R. 72 Lenclud, G. 140 Lenzerini, F. 26 Leonardo da Vinci 15 Les mots et les choses. An archéologie des sciences humans [by M. Foucault] 40 Lévi-Strauss, C. 13, 121 Lex Municipii Tarentini 5 Lipp, T. 49, 50, 139, 140, 141, 143 List of Representative ICH 137 listing 38, 40, 41, 65, 98, 102, 114, 167, 172; see also inventory

Index  181

listing as cultural heritage practice 62 living heritage 18, 95, 141 Living Treasure Program [of Japan] 51 Logan, W. S. 13, 51, 52, 55, 71, 93, 97, 141, 153 loss of information 142 low-brow culture 15 Lowenthal, D. xi, 136 Luke, C. 70, 120, 171 Lyotard, F. 13 Machuca, J. A. 56, 57, 99 Machu-Pichu 53, 152 MacLaren, N. 10 Mahdy, H. 84 Majewski, J. 116 Maragatería traditions 123 Marçal, H. 93 Marcos Arévalo, J. 153 Marcus Aurelius 3 marginalization 89 Marrakesh 24 Martin, D. A. 14 Martínez Justicia, M. J. 8 Mary Tricias [in Goodman’s reflection on samples] 94 Marzal, C. 96 Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Heritage 24 materialization 10 materials are authentic 115 Matsuura, K. 25 Mazu beliefs 122 meaning choice 108 meanings 108 Mecca 82 medialization 143 medieval sword 104 Meinong, A. 53 memory as physical movements 146 mentality 52 mentefacts 52, 141 Meskell, L. 76, 147 metonymic process of conceptual transfer 137, 161 Mevlevi Semah Ceremony 123 Mexico DF 122 Michalski, S. 150, 164–165 Michalski’s three-dimensional space 164–165 Michelangelo’s David 52 Miller, P. 5, 6, 63 Misterio de Elche 137 mnemonic aid 133, 137, 161

modest heritage 165 Mohai 53 Mona Lisa [by Leonardo da Vinci] 15 Mondrian, P. 173 Mosque in Córdoba 20 Mount Everest 53 Mozart, W. A. 132 Müller, K. O. 63 multidimensional approach to the ontologies of cultural heritage 132 Munjeri, D. 24, 25, 48 Muñoz-Viñas, S. 9, 19, 28, 65, 84, 116–118, 125, 134, 150, 165, 171 Murphy, C. 38 musealization as cultural heritage practice 63–64 Mustang paradox 150 Nakamoto, T. 80 Nambikwara culture 121 Nara Conference on Authenticity in Relation to the World Heritage Convention 115 Nara Document on Authenticity 77–79, 116 National Gallery of London 108 National Museum of American History 108 National Sczéchényi Libray 132 nature as culture see culture as nature Ndoro, W. 77 neo-classical cultural heritage discourse 35 Nereid Monument 64 newly invented traditions 122 Newton, I. 30n5 Ngambar Arum 80–81 Nihon buyō 52, 135 Norton, B. 100 Notre Dame 63, 117, 118 now-classical cultural heritage discourse 35, 72 object [as opposed to thing] 53 object as process 48 objective criteria 166 object of conservation 165 observable processes of cultural transmission 103 old painting in a cave 104, 152 old religious ritual 104 Oliver, G. 139 Olivier, L. 118 ontological plurality 54 Our creative diversity [UNESCO report] 24 Ousessant, ecomuseum of 28 outstanding universal value 12, 13, 90, 91, 103, 114

182 Index

painting in a cave in Arnhem Land 152 Panayiotopoulos, A. 51, 64, 116 panheritage 56–57, 131, 168 pan-intangibility 153 Panofsky, E. 5 Parthenon xi, 20 Parthenon Museum 50 participatory action research (PAR) 105, 106 Peacock, A. 61 people-friendly cultural heritage decision-making 110 people-oriented cultural heritage decision-making 110 performance as non-inheritable item 136–137, 160–161 Pergoli Campanelli, A. 5 Perkin, C. 99 Pétursdóttir, Þ. 28, 48, 146 Phelan, P. 135, 137 phenomenology 52 Polanyi, M. 52 Poleró y Toledo, V. 98 Pomian, K. 164 Pong [computer game] 150 post-cultural-heritage discourse 84 post hoc ergo hoc fallacy 152, 160, 174 post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy 152 power struggle around CH 166 Pratt, M. L. 123 Preservation as fabrication 123, 125 preservation strategies for each ontological cultural heritage category 163 private meanings 165 processual events 49 processual ontology 48 propriété nationale 7, 51 Pryer, A. 22 psychic processes as physical phenomena 146 pyramids of Egypt 20, 53 Rahman, M.A. 105 Raphael 6 Reason 8, 9 Recommendation on the Safeguarding of Traditional Culture and Folklore 23 re-enactment 50, 65, 125, 135, 165 reggaeton music 105 Rembrandt 146 Renaissance 5 Renaissance building 118 renascences 5 Rennes, France 28 Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity 139 research as cultural heritage practice 62–63

Reynolds, L. 116 Riegl, A. xi, xv, 9, 20, 21, 46, 98 risk of damage 165, 174 rituals of civilization 64 Rivas, R. 139 Rivière, G. H. 28 Rizzo, I. 61 Rodowick, D. N. 146 Romania 166 Roman republic 5 Rome 21 Roth, D. 53 Rothko, M. 39 Rudolff, B. 71 Ruggles, D. F. 51 Rusaliç, D. 42, 52 Ruskin, J. 9 Russell, B. 41 safeguarding 123–124 safeguarding as fabrication 123–125 Saint Jacobs, Canada (Amish village) 123 samples, conventional nature of 94 Samuels, K. L. 93, 97 Sandis, C. 61 Saussure, F. 17 scarcity 165, 174 Schnapp, A. 5 Schneider, R. 61 science 10, 63 scientific meanings of CH 164 scientific paradigm 104 Scruton, R. 15 Secco-Suardo, G. 98 selection [and exclusion] 89, 92, 166–167 semantic devices 167 semantic selection 108 semantic strength 165 semiophores 164 sensescapes 52 Serafi, S. A. 82 sets of rules governing performances as mindsets 137–140 Severo, M. 139, 150 sewing machine 108 Shakespeare, W. 55, 139, 140, 142 Shanks, M. 3, 90, 97, 107 Silberman, N. A. 48 Silverman, H. 51, 141 Simon, P. 22 single ontology cultural heritage model 55, 131, 145, 161 skills 22, 25, 28, 36, 37, 39, 51, 52, 65, 69, 90, 92, 99, 140, 142, 150, 162 Skounti, A. 122

Index  183

slow event 53 Smeets, R. 125 Smith, B. H. 147 Smith, C. 76 Smith, L. 41, 47, 48, 49, 51, 52, 54, 72, 93, 97, 98, 100, 101, 151 Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage 24 Social meanings 164 soft-colonial attitude 85 soft cultural colonialism 76, 168, 170 soft cultural transfer 70, 76, 77, 81, 83 Sontag, S. 15 Southeast Asian Performing Arts Gallery 80 Spice Girls 15 Spon, J. 6 Starry Night [by V. Van Gogh] 53 Steel Rigg, United Kingdom 90 Stefano, M. 25, 38, 41, 47, 98, 141 Stiegler, B. 136 Stovel, H. 106 structuralism 17 stupas 151 Su, J. 116 sustainability 102, 103 Sydney Opera 20 symbolic strength 165 synecdoche 165 tacit knowledge 52 Taj Mahal 13 Talleyrand, C. 8 tanks on display in Normandy 164 tape [as recording placeholder] 133 Tarentum (ancient Roman city) 5 taste 121–122, 125 Tatarkiewicz, W. 15 tautological argument 116 tautology 117 Taylor, J. 72, 135 Taylor, R. 14, 15 theoretical nihilism 55–57, 131 Theseus Parade 119–125 thing (as opposed to object) 53 Thompson, M. 150 thoughts as physical phenomena 147 Tolia-Kelly, D. P. 14 Tonin, P. 83 Toronto 123 Torres Balbás, L. 12 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [by L. Wittgenstein] 142 Tragedy of Intangible Abundance 56 transculturation 70 Trépanier, P. 106

truth, coherence theory of 120 Tschofen, B. 28 Turbine Hall at Tate 134 Turkey 108, 123 Turkish march [of Mozart’s K.331] 132–133 Turnpenny, M. 136 two-ontology cultural heritage model 145 UNESCO 11, 13, 23, 35, 51, 73, 77, 115, 135 UNESCO 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage 11, 12, 21, 26, 28, 45, 72, 114 UNESCO 1982 World Conference on Cultural Policies 17, 23 UNESCO 1982 World Conference on Cultural Policies: Final Report 17–18, 33 UNESCO 1985 Recommendation on the Safeguarding of Traditional Culture and Folklore 23 UNESCO 1993 International Consultation on New Perspectives for UNESCO’s Programme: The Intangible Cultural Heritage 23, 24, 99 UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage 24–26, 35–37, 40, 47, 50, 61, 90, 94, 99, 102, 138, 139, 151, 153 UNESCO-ization 49, 78 UNESCO Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage Convention 114, 115 UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity 140 UNESCO World Heritage List 12, 24, 114, 115 USB stick 133 Valencia CF soccer team 101 Valencia, Spain 100, 140 Van de Vall, R. 16 Van Gogh, V. 53 vandalism 7 Vecco, M. 92, 96, 164 Velázquez, D. 108 Venice Charter 20, 21 Venus at Her Mirror [by D. Velázquez] 108 Vermeer, J. 152 Versailles palace 20 Vienna 21 vinyl record 133

184 Index

Viollet-le-Duc, E. 9, 10, 12, 30n5, 46, 63, 64, 79, 98 Virgen de los Desamparados of Valencia 140 voodoo ritual 166 Wang, N. 116 Waqf [Arab notion] 84 Warsaw 41 washi making 138, 150 Washington, DC 24 Waterton, E. 48, 49, 52, 100, 101 Watson, S. 48, 52, 110n3 wax cylinder 133 Wei, C. 72, 73 Wellington, S. 139 Wells, J. C. 39, 44 The Well-Tempered Klavier [by J. S. Bach] 16 Werner, A. 10 Western cultural prestige 81 Western thought-style 81

Westernness, traces of 83 Whirling Dervishes Dance 123 Whitehead, A. 53 Wijesuriya, G. 77 Williams, R. 18 Winckelmann, J. J. 8, 46 Winter, T. 27, 28, 72 Wittgenstein, L. 12, 142, 159–160, 174 World Conference on Cultural Policies see UNESCO 1982 World Conference on Cultural Policies World Heritage List see UNESCO World Heritage List Yamato Declaration [on Integrated Approaches for Safeguarding Tangible and Intangible Cultural Heritage] 125 Zehbe, K. 93 Zermelo, E. 41