This article discusses the
ways in which conservationist and restorationist policies of historical
areas are defined in Latin American cities, specifically in Guayaquil
and Quito. At the same time, these particular cases are compared
with what happens in European cities such as Barcelona. According
to the text, the discussion about Heritage policies has become,
more and more, an experts’ affair concerned with the application
of models; whereas the majority of social agents affected by those
policies have been excluded from the discussions (the article takes
as an example the case of the Bricklayers Guild of Quito). Secondly,
the article shows the relationship between Heritage, show business
and globalisation of culture. In the context of a growing process
of hybridisation, Heritage policies contribute to reinvent the mechanisms
of distinction and separation between High Culture and Folklore,
and to try out news forms of cultural extirpation.
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