Multi-Ontological Dissonance and Intangible Cultural Heritage Safeguarding Practices

Over the last two decades, the contradictions embedded in the safeguarding practices of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) have attracted specific analyses. In addition, it has become common to polarise the positioning and roles of scholars, together with their dilemmas: the scholars who examine and criticise ICH regimes from the outside, as opposed to those who participate in ICH safeguarding practices, adopting a critical academic perspective. This article adopts a different approach and proposes the concept of "multi-ontological dissonance". The term refers to the simultaneous ICH ontologies that have been applied by different actors involved in ICH heritage regimes and that underlie the safeguarding instruments themselves. We analyse three levels of conflicting ontologies: those found in various ICH models and concepts adopted by a single researcher/specialist; those existing among different ICH researchers/specialists; and lastly, the dissonances between the ontologies of the safeguarding instruments and those of the researchers who use them. Examples are provided of the multi-ontological dissonance that exists in safeguarding practices in Spain.

Intangible Cultural Heritage. Multiontologies. Dissonance. Patios de Cordova. Spain.