Transcending the Dichotomy around the (In)Material Heritage: An Approach from Local Ecological Knowledge on the Use of Plants

Authors

  • Juan Martín Dabezies Centro Universitario de la Región Este, Universidad de la República. Rincón esquina Florencio Sánchez. Rocha

Abstract

The crisis of modernity has generated a search for alternatives to modern forms of relationship between humans and their environment. It has also generated a series of refl ections on cultural heritage, giving it an increasingly more important to local knowledge. Th is article presents a work of valorization of the cultural heritage based on cultural familiarization and estrangement. For this were documented and divulged the knowledge associated with the local management of the palm Butia capitata (Southeastern Uruguay), as part of a heritage education program that operated on the basis of experimental archeology. We discuss the need to deconstruct the heritage values that transcend its materiality, by implementing forms of cultural valorization that articulate past with present otherness.    

Keywords:

Ecological Knowledge, Local Knowledge, Heritage, Valorization