Em busca de associações perdidas? Notas sobre híbridos, simetria e romantismo nas políticas de salvaguarda de bens culturais imateriais no Brasil

Abstract

This article discusses narratives of characterization of intangible cultural goods produced and irradiated by the National Historical and Artistic Heritage Institute (IPHAN). Inspired by actor-network theory, we argue that the object of the policies of registration and safeguarding of immaterial goods are hybrids made up of heterogeneous associations of humans and nonhumans. The juxtaposition between different domains of action and the agency of
ontologically distinct actors in the conformation of intangible cultural assets registered as national patrimony is positivated in the narratives that describe them. Such phenomena, as well as the apprehension of immaterial goods as the product of singular historical trajectories
and indicators of traditions that sustain collective identities, are interpreted as indices of a certain romanticism. Only when renamed as tradition, produced from complex correlations, does the colonial legacy figure as an actuator in the configuration of the recognized goods and is thus the object of safeguarding. In the limit, these policies are aimed at safeguarding pre-modern forms of action and interaction on the world.