Patrimonio, pueblos originarios y prácticas del secreto

Abstract

here is no doubt about the relevance that heritage is acquiring in recent decades. Numerous studies characterize this period as a boom, inflation or heritage abuse and a great number of social scientists have been debating about it. In general, what have been legitimized these policies is the moral mandate of transmission, persistence through time against oblivion and disappearance; combined, in recent decades, with the recognition of diversity. These mandates, positively valued, overshadow the politicity behind these heritage policies, its affects-effects, tensions and the debate about the limits of the patrimonial. In this sense, without ceasing to reflect on what heritage does with cultural expressions of indigenous daily life, knowledge and worldviews, we propose to concentrate on rethinking the reverse path, that is, what those indigenous manifestations and worldviews do with heritage. In fact, through some ethnographic examples derived from our field work with the Mbyá Guaraní and Mapuche people, we discuss the complex and heterogeneous role that indigenous secrecy practices play in the processes of heritagization.