Abstract

This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.

In this paper I compare the theory and the practice of heritage highlighting the gap which separates ideas underpinning the intangible cultural heritage normative definition (via the text of the Unesco Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage) and in the broad discourse of the institution (the “esprit de laconvention”) from concrete application of heritage policies to “traditional culture” made by local actors. I focus on how the idea of “property” is dealt with in both contexts and consider the role that the spatial location in a territory plays in this regard. The establishment of a system of “geographical indicators” for handcrafts, the heritagization and monumentalization of a special kind of clay whistle in southern Italy is taken as an example to demonstrate how local heritage policies address issues of property – territory and intangible heritage.

Keywords

territory, Unesco, intangible cultural heritage, property, community

Publisher Notes

• This article was previously published by Museum Tusculanum Press.