Heritage Regimes and the State ed. by Regina F. Bendix, Aditya Eggert, Arnika Peselmann (review)

Critical heritage studies is experiencing explosive growth, spurred by an upsurge in government initiatives brought about by the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Heritage Regimes and the State analyzes intangible and material heritage engagement by supranational, national, provincial, and local governments. All of the 17 case studies critically examine community impact and local stakeholder involvement. Many of the contributors are advisors to governments inventorying heritage assets as well as scholars critically analyzing these initiatives.

Heritage Regimes and the State opens new vistas for understanding governmentality in heritage affairs. It reveals a wide variety in interrelationships within and among government entities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the private sector, and individuals. Relationships with communities may involve conflict, collaboration, negotiation, resistance, or outright rejection of local participation in government heritage projects.

Local agency in new national heritage initiatives remains limited in France. Laurent-Sébastien Fournier notes that despite regional political decentralization, national heritage authorities hold fast to centralized control of heritage programs and maintain elitist biases. The insistence of NGOs “that cultural heritage can help the identification and . . . valorization of local communities” is seen as “highly problematic” in a nation where “art forms are legitimated through their ability to encapsulate universal values” (p. 330). Nevertheless, UNESCO community participation requirements mean that local stakeholder involvement is expected.

Many French heritage authorities and scholars are sharply critical of community involvement in documentation. Chiara Bortolotto, who created inventory forms as a consultant, states that while “advocacy activists” see “bottom-up” approaches to heritage safeguarding as a “triumph of cultural democracy,” most academics and heritage professionals scorn it as a “dangerous hyper-relativistic and populist instrument” (p. 269). Such “pseudoscientific” work has been denigrated as “wild ethnology” (p. 276). In France, interaction with communities is delegated to partner research centers. Intangible cultural heritage (ICH) stakeholder participation consists of community members providing information to researchers, who decide what is to be included according to scientific criteria rather than local interests. Participation comes about through providing communities with the research findings of scholars, and heightening their awareness of traditions.

Jean-Louis Tornatore’s account of the nomination process for the French gastronomic meal to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity renders a top-down approach driven by political interests and scholars. Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France at the time, championed the nomination as recognizing the “best food culture in the world” (p. 353), corresponding to a French view of heritage as unique and excellent, rather than typical or representative. In making an academic case for the nomination, a consulting scholar emphasized the social practice of shared meals and traditional knowledge associated with their preparation.

While French compagnons (journeymen craftspersons) have maintained their own concept of heritage and preserved artifacts since the early nineteenth century, attaining UNESCO recognition required assistance from an academic. After their first—bottom-up—attempt for nomination was rejected, both the Ministry of Culture and the compagnons turned to companage scholar Nicolas Adell to describe customs, transmission practices, traditional knowledge, and “sense of identity and continuity” (p. 192). Adell acted as a culture broker, meeting with heritage authorities and bringing together compagnon groups that had not previously collaborated with one another. In contrast with other contributors, he discusses an advocacy role, although the term “advocacy” is not used. The apparent lack of advocacy by most other writers in this volume contrasts with American public folklore, where advocacy is intrinsic to professional practice.

While the French central government controls nominations, once they are successful, communities are left on their own to employ the designation. Fournier examines the diverse impacts of designation upon four communities practicing the processional giants and dragons tradition. Designation has brought tangible benefits, along with cynicism about the lack of national government funding and changes in a tradition now performed to new audiences. In...