Cultural Heritage Policies: The Menhirs of Tafí

Abstract

Official cultural policies concerning archaeological heritage in the province of Tucumán are the subject of this paper, which takes “the Menhirs of the Tafí Valley” as a case study.

This inquiry takes the 1960s as its starting point, since it was during this period that actions concerning these cultural assets were initiated by the Provincial and National States, as well as by groups made up of local residents and scholars of the subject.

I then focus on three significant moments: first, the creation of the “Park of the Menhirs” on Loma de la Angostura during the last military dictatorship, by order of the then governor, General Domingo Bussi, in 1977; second, the moment when, at the initiative of inhabitants of El Mollar, the Executive Branch ordered the transfer of these pieces, an action carried out in March 2002; and third, the situation of these assets under the current government administration, which began at the end of 2003.

The completion of the transfer and the subsequent preservation of the pieces constitute a personal experience for me, as Director of Historical and Anthropological Heritage of the Province from 1999 to 2004, when I served as Coordinator of the Commission created within the Secretariat of Culture to carry out the relocation of these stelae and their subsequent preservation. This situation allowed me to observe the tensions and divergences generated within the field of heritage by the different ideological positions of the social actors involved.

The proposal is to put into practice an authentic democracy concerning heritage, a practice that should be promoted by the State through cultural policies centered on respect for cultural plurality and aimed at making these assets socially accessible.