The Embarrassment of Heritage Alienability

Abstract

UNESCO defines intangible cultural heritage (ICH), in contrast to conservation-oriented models, as “living” and as playing a dynamic role in contemporary society, thus bringing to the fore a controversial entanglement with the market. On the basis of multilevel and multipositioned participant observation of the ICH global governance apparatus, I focus on displays of embarrassment (and preventive prudishness) triggered by this entanglement among actors with normative agency in the implementation of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the ICH. In shedding light on their disorientation vis-à-vis the intrinsic commercial dimension of cultural practices recognized as ICH, I highlight the role of affects and emotions in UNESCO’s lifeworld. Distress triggered by the violation of assimilated cultural codes defining heritage as inalienable reveals the cultural intimacy that binds a transnational epistemic community of heritage professionals. Challenging UNESCO’s polished self-representation as a dispassionate, rational bureaucracy, I consider the major international clearing house for heritage policies as a social world with its own affective life. I argue that these affects have a performative influence on the practice of heritage making, despite official, rationalizing narratives such as that of “good” versus “bad” commercialization.

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