Inheritances: Possession, Ownership, and Responsibility

Abstract

Inheritance traditionally refers to material possessions passed on from a deceased person to his or her heirs. With the expansion of the related concept of heritage and the emergent cultural practices associated with it, questions of responsibility and ownership arise on a much larger scale of actors. This paper explores the analogies and differences between inheritance and heritage. How do issues of ownership and responsibility differ between a familial and global context? Ownership coupled with expectations of safeguarding is particularly complex when material heritage is expanded to the realm of the intangible. The process inherently furthers the path toward the commodification of cultural expressions ennobled through heritage regimes. Intangible heritage regimes are a contributing factor for treating excerpts of culture as a renewable (albeit fragile) resource. Dediscina se navadno nanasa na materialno lastnino, ki se s pokojnika/pokojnice prenese na njegove/njene dedice. Z razsiritvijo s tem povezanega koncepta dediscine/izrocila in brstecimi kulturnimi praksami, ki so z njim povezane, se spoprijemamo z vprasanji odgovornosti in lastnistva pri razsežnejsi skupini akterjev. Clanek obravnava analogije med dediscino in izrocilom. Kako se razlikujejo problemi lastnistva in odgovornosti na družinski in globalni ravni? Posebej je zapleteno, ko se lastnistvo poveže s pricakovanji za varovanje dediscine in ko se snovno izrocilo razsiri na obmocje nesnovnega. Proces sam po sebi vodi h komodifikaciji kulture, oplemenitene z upravljanjem dediscine. Režimi upravljanja nesnovne dediscine odlocilno prispevajo k obravnavi delov kulture kot prenovljivega, ceprav krhkega vira.