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

Abstract

In the last two decades, in an effort to democratize and counteract the elitist vision of the heritage institutions linked to the project of modernity, there has been a “participatory turn” in heritage policies. This article analyzes the silent transformations in which this participatory turn in heritage management occurs, as well as the systemic and symbolic violence of the heritage regime. To do so, two dimensions are analyzed: (1) the legal technologies in which this shift has been reflected, such as the incorporation of the requirement of participation in norms, conventions and other patrimonial legal apparatuses, particularly in the case of Spain; and (2) the conflictive basis of the participatory turn through an example from the ParticiPAT project. In the first dimension, the UNESCO Intangible Cutural Heritage Convention of 2003, the Convention of the Council of Europe of 2005 (known as the Faro Convention) or the UNESCO Recommendations on Historic Urban Landscapes of 2011 stand out among the main legal bodies that have introduced this turn. In the second dimen-sion, a specific conflict is analyzed: the polemic that arose as a result of painting the Church of Our Lady of the Areas in Fisterra (Galicia, Spain) and the request for participation in decision-making by the associations in the area. The analysis of these two dimensions is based on three concepts: patrimonial regime, François Jullien’s silent transformations and John Galtung’s types of violence.