ParticiPat: Exploring the Impact of Participatory Governance in the Heritage Field

This Directions piece presents the project ParticiPat: Patrimonio y participación social: propuesta metodológica y revisión crítica (ParticiPat: Heritage and Social Participation: Methodological Proposal and Critical Review). ParticiPat is a multidisciplinary and multisituated research project involving fourteen researchers from different disciplines and institutions that aims to analyze critically the ubiquitous buzzwords and practices of participation—as well as its key institutions and actors—affecting heritage management in Spain, Portugal, or Mexico. This article advances preliminary results derived from the authors’ case study of a natural park and biosphere reserve in Spain. In doing so, it contributes to the anthropological examination of what has recently been described by different authors as the emergence of a new form of governance based on discourses and practices of participation.

Ethnography. Anthropology of policy. Natural and cultural heritage. Participation.