Symbols in Action: Identity and Cultural Heritage. The Case of the Department of Tafí del Valle, Tucumán, Argentina

Abstract

The concept of Cultural Heritage was conceived as a state tool for cultural management (Endere, 2000). This implies that the state institution monopolizes rights over the totality of cultural assets it considers representative.

As a tool of the state symbolic system, the selection of an object from a potentially broad list implies an intellectual operation aimed at hegemonizing identity discourse (Prats, 2004). In this way, the objects elevated to the category of cultural heritage synthesize an identity project that brings into play all the institutions of the State in order to carry out a forced process of integration intended to homogenize the population within a national culture.

In this paper, we propose to analyze the process that extends from the selection of the element activated as heritage to its inclusion in the symbolic system that gives it meaning. How is an object selected? What relationship does political selection have with social recognition? How is meaning granted to the activated object? Toward whom is heritage discourse directed?

In order to fulfill our objectives, we will focus on the analysis of the heritage activations carried out in the Department of Tafí del Valle, province of Tucumán, among them the Park of the Menhirs, the reconstruction of the Ruins of Quilmes, and the creation of La Banda Museum.