UNESCO’s heritage politics in the context of the geopolitics of global coloniality: the emergence of new meanings of heritage interculturality in Andalusia.

Abstract

The objective of the present work is to analyse international historical-cultural heritage policies from the perspective of the coloniality of power/knowledge. This involves confronting the close links between discourses and representations of diversity in the nation-state and the identification and management of global and local heritage. The emergence of the idea of intangible heritage at the local level and UNESCO´s Intangible Cultural Heritage List prompt a rethinking of the debate of materiality vs. immateriality that dominates the representations of ‘East’ and ‘West’; a redefinition of the geopolitical notions of centre and periphery, which were formulated in terms of Eurocentrism and Asiacentrism. We aim, therefore, to question whether today we are truly witnessing a change in traditional heritage policies, or simply a struggle between two opposed forms of coloniality. In contrast with the institutional discourse, the interculturality discourses which are being encouraged by local social movements stress the emergence of new constructions based on the experience of cultural diversity and multiculturality; these new approaches are based on the recognition of the symbolic and identitary value of Andalusian memory of elements of historical heritage which have been degraded by colonial modernity.