THE CULTURALIZATION OF NATURE, THE NATURALIZATION OF CULTURE. THE CONTRUCTION OF HERITAGE NARRATIVE

Abstract

The aim of this article is to be a theoretical reflection on the processes of institutionalization and normalization of cultural, intangible and natural heritage. From our perspective, these three heritage domains were born and developed within the same socio-political context, relying on similar instruments and agencies. Nonetheless, there is a significant reversal in discursive terms throughout its building and authentication processes. Whereas in the cultural heritage domain we attend to the culturalization of nature, within the intangible and natural heritage domains we witness a naturalization of culture. This reversal, reflected in differentiated practices and fictions, allows us to inquire about the logics displayed by the so-called authorized heritage discourse. Through them, we can understand how the patrimonial processes have been formed over the last two centuries. Our proposal goes on to consider, in the first place, that the different patrimonies have acted as instruments of sweetened domination, by confining, coding and assigning differentiated fields covered by disciplinary matters. And secondly, that this hierarchical heritage dissection allows us to understand how global geopatrimonial policies have been formed, through powerful specialized institutions, producers of metacultural topographies.