Patrimonial Citizenship

Abstract

In this article, I present the concept of ‘patrimonial citizenship’- based on my trajectory as an anthropologist working in the field of cultural heritage, articulating a conceptual repertoire with the field experiences, accumulated in my academic research well as the production of technical reports required by authorities managing patrimonial policies. I revisit James Holston’s notion of insurgent citizenship and dialogue with anthropological approaches to cultural management. The notion of patrimonial citizenship is inspired by the concepts of insurgency and agency. In my analysis, the myth of the nation and its operability in affirming the hegemony of national culture are thought through the lens of cultural patrimony. I associate this with the idea of social action, or praxis, in which the adhesion or the resistance to and the negation of totalizing patrimonial policies frames the action of social and ethnic collectives modulated between the myth and anti-myth of the nation.