Heritage and Knowledge: Apparatus, Logic and Strategies in the Formation of Heritage

Abstract

Heritage as a category reflects diverse political positions. All heritagisation processes imply the creation of hierarchies, selection, ranking, and categorization of what is worthy or unworthy of being heritage, and all heritage creation involves certain disciplinary processes that confer legitimacy. As a modern invention, heritage was built on two closely-related cornerstones: the distinction between nature and culture and the difference between normalized knowledge and marginal knowledge. As a result, refining processes were applied which became strategies to legitimise political domination. In this paper the constituent process of heritage creation and its links to normative knowledge are analysed, illustrating the various relationships between types of knowledge in the heritagisation process with the case of the Albufera Natural Park in Spain. A particular focus is placed on the processes that affect territories and natural resources, modifying the material conditions of the local population. Beyond giving rise to a mere acceptance of imposed expert knowledge, the analysed dynamics reveal the responsiveness of the local actors, as they make use of this knowledge in the context of a counter-hegemonic discourse.

Las transformaciones silenciosas del régimen patrimonial. Participación y conflictos en torno al patrimonio cultural

“…Los análisis de las herramientas de gubernamentalidad del patrimonio se han dirigido en la última década a los instrumentos que inscriben y regulan los regímenes patrimoniales: inventarios, expedientes y otras tecnologías de las burocracias patrimoniales (Bennett, 2007;Hafstein, 2009;Tauschek, 2015); así como a los mecanismos por los que se legitima el conocimiento experto (De Cesari, 2012;Del Mármol y Santamarina, 2019;Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 2004;Santamarina Campos y Beltrán, 2016).…”

Memory Politics on a Neighborhood Scale: Uses of the Past in the Historic Center and the Periphery of Valencia (Spain)

“…Institutional actions play a decisive role in the cultural and historical production of urban space, moving between the logic of heritagization and commodification (Brumann 2012;Herzfeld 2015). Heritage logics are applied, from hegemonic positions, shaping urban policies that seek to attract capital and a well-off population (Berliner 2010;Mirabal 2009;Mitchell 1998;Santamarina, Mármol, and Beltran 2014). At the same time, memory and past are invoked and mobilized from subaltern positions, engaging with practices of resistance developed by urban social movements (Aricó, Mansilla, and Stanchieri 2016;Fioravanti, 2020;Herzfeld 2015;Mompó 2019;Portelli 2020;Zhang 2006).…”

Culturizar la naturaleza, naturalizar la cultura. La construcción de las narrativas patrimoniales

“…y patrimonializadores 4 . Al decir esto queremos subrayar, por un lado, que el carácter político de las activaciones patrimoniales se desvió hacia el campo científico de tal modo que, al quedar en manos de expertos, estos consiguieron desactivar su potencial carácter conflictivo (Santamarina y Beltran 2016). Y, por otro, les facultó de un esqueleto narrativo que, como veremos a continuación, fue entretejido con el Romanticismo.…”