Patrimonialities

Abstract

With empirical touchstones from Europe, North America, Africa, Asia and the Pacific, the authors argue that heritage and property represent different approaches to subject formation, produce distinct bodies of expertise, and belong to different rationalities of government in a global patrimonial field: that cultural property is a technology of sovereignty, part of the order of the modern liberal state, but cultural heritage a technology of reformation that cultivates responsible subjects and entangles them in networks of expertise and management. While particular case trajectories may shift back and forth from rights-based claims and resolutions under the sign of cultural property to ethical claims and solutions under the sign of cultural heritage, the authors contend that there is significant analytical purchase to be gained from their distinction. Using a critical, comparative approach, they make the case for a historically grounded and theoretically informed understanding of the difference between the two terms.

Contemporary Challenges to the Regulation of Religions in Europe

“…The notion of Sintra as a sacred place interacts with concepts of heritage, legitimating (secular or sacred) identities by establishing an ownership of the past (Hafstein, 2012;Hafstein & Skrydstrup, 2020). The various actors at stake value heritage in different ways, highlighting the ways in which the multiple religious groups occupy the space (both symbolically and in reality).…”

A Sacred Place, an Enchanted Space: Crisis and Spiritual Elasticity in the Mountain of the Moon

“…Now, Sintra has a double life: crowded with tourists attracted to the splendorous UNESCO site during the day and groups of individuals who embrace various spiritualties by roaming the mountain mostly at night. Sintra is a highly touristic site, where tensions between locals, religious groups, and the management of the UNESCO site abound (Saraiva and De Luca 2021; Cardeira da Silva and Saraiva 2022) and conflicts over the various heritage regimes (Bendix et al 2012;De Cesari 2013;Geismar 2015;Hafstein 2012;Hafstein and Skrydstrup 2020) are continuously present.…”