Parallel to the cataloguing work, which turned out to be non-cohesive and varied from case to case, the network coordinating committee also organized a series of public events in 2010 aimed at documenting and demonstrating the high level of ongoing participation that local institutions and, above all, the “heritage communi-ties” involved had in the project. In some cases these events were organized in collaboration with the Italian Pro Loco associations29, in other cases they were part of the broader sphere of national cultural policy. Several conventions, for instance, were organized in the individual cities, and one in the central headquarters of the Rome city government; there was collaboration with the project Abbraccia l’Italia – Antichi saperi e nuovi linguaggi (Embrace Italy – Old Knowledge and New Languages) that was aimed at spreading, at the national level, “a message promoting social inclusion through culture and activating a deep awareness among local communi-ties” (Patrimonio Culturale Immateriale 2012) about the valorization of their intan-gible heritage. According to the same article: “This project currently represents, in
28 See Lombardi Satriani (1973) for a discussion of the Italian debate in that period about popular tradition and the concept of “folklore” which was linked to a process of developing and commercial-izing local areas that involved a redefinition of popular culture.
29 Pro Loco are associations connected to individual Italian municipalities that carry out activities related to various touristic, social, cultural, and sport-related spheres.
Italy, the only functional response to what should be achieved under the UNESCO guidelines: safeguarding, archiving and spreading the intangible cultural heritage forms of nations around the world” (Patrimonio Culturale Immateriale 2012).
In contrast to the original intentions of the network coordinators, however, these events received only sporadic and irregular participation by the entirety of the various “heritage communities:” Mainly the carriers of the heritage, but also to some extent, civil society, experts, the intangible heritage commission, et cetera.
The following is an extract from one of the many articles published in local Nolan newspapers about the network nomination project; though the project was still in an initial phase, the atmosphere surrounding its realization is already clear:
UNESCO puts its seal on the Gigli
[…] Unity makes strength, it is known, and the locally rooted and recog-nized traditions of the individual events suddenly come together, erasing the geographic distance separating the cities. Not even the competition with the Palio of Siena and the Mediterranean Diet, potential adversaries in the race for recognition, is able to frighten the network – on the contrary, it on-ly raises the stakes. (Napolitano 2010)
Here we see the idea of a union among different cities that is also fueled by “com-petition with” the other cities running in the race for intangible heritage nomina-tion in Italy, thus exacerbating some conflictual elements among the groups of local actors involved. However, this competition broke out even during the course of the individual feasts in 2010, parts of which I observed firsthand. An exemplary illustration is the case of the Nolan cullatori, the Gigli carriers, during their visit to Viterbo to see the facchini feast of Santa Rosa. The Nolan carriers displayed a great deal of antagonism toward the porters of that solitary votive machine that, in their opinion, was not in any way comparable to their eight Gigli. Various informal dis-cussions conducted during this visit to Viterbo reminded me of similar issues I had read about in the newspapers the year before about the Ceraioli of Gubbio who, for various reasons, actually ended up withdrawing from the network and presenting their own separate nomination.
An episode that occurred in Nola on April 1, 2011 is also emblematic. One of the most widely read of local Nolan newspapers literally “invented” a replica of a letter from the Cultural Heritage Ministry publicly announcing that the Gigli had won out over the other nominations. The letter, intended by the editors as an April Fool’s Joke, succeeded magnificently; it produced an uproar among institutional actors, who feared the project would collapse due to this false piece of news, as if it might have drawn the suspicion of the hypothetical local “overseers” governing the UNESCO nomination process. The administration responded to this joke through a back-and-forth with the newspaper, which took the opportunity to
at-tack the political work of the office that was carrying the nomination forward.
There was already an idea that UNESCO was “checking” on the localities present-ing the nomination due to the constant presence in recent years of a Mexican UNESCO representative sent by the network coordinators. This representative was invited to watch the network feasts in their respective cities and, in view of his presence, the communities were urged to put on a “healthy” and “positive” edition of the ritual, almost as if to suggest that each heritage form was faultless, tidy, con-ducted in accordance with local rules, and perfectly managed. A local article pub-lished online in connection with the edition of the Gigli feast reads:
[…] the illustrious Mexican World Heritage representative present in Nola during the feast days warns us of the importance of an honest and essential collaboration and dialogue among the political institutions and all the other local entities, with no one excluded. The danger is the inevitable manipula-tion of a process that, if it were to risk the distormanipula-tion of its authentic nature through the construction of an empty touristic display, would lose sight of its own aim: “The construction of a lasting peace through the sharing of unifying values,” according to the canons laid out by UNESCO. (Autiero 2010)
Even before the emergence of the UNESCO project, the network counted on an idea of shared values and dialogue among the different localities; from 2010 on-wards, in the wake of UNESCO discourses, the network claimed to enjoy an in-tense and lasting relationship among the various “communities.” However, my ethnographic observation revealed that this relationship was not as linear as it was represented to be in local newspapers and in the public speeches organized to illus-trate the work of the coordinating network, work that pursued aims different from those established through the rhetoric surrounding the nomination.
Intangible heritage thus becomes a construct with a broader scope than local identity. The network nomination project presented itself as a “bottom-up” pro-cess arising from the “communities” and, in some cases, even tried to improve the community’s level of “literacy” in the UNESCO values of dialogue and multicul-turalism. It failed to take into account, however, the competitive and conflictual energy, both internally and externally oriented, that is a primary characteristic of the local contexts involved and which often represents the animating essence of intangible heritage forms that are as contradictory, dynamic and complex as the cultures they represent. In addition, it is possible that an attempt to demonstrate at all costs that internal conflict (which is not always as destructive as it is represented to be) has been ironed out, might actually serve to reduce the intensity of the very sense of belonging and pride in culture and values that renders intangible heritage so unique.
According to the nomination agents’ calculated interpretation of UNESCO rhetoric, the element of conflict was opposed on the grounds that it would
ob-struct dialogue among diverse cultures; however, in the case I observed, it was clear that conflict could be exacerbated by the very processes of patrimonialization carried out according to UNESCO logics. The numerous human-powered ma-chine feasts excluded from the network (the Sicilian ones, for instance), or the abovementioned case of the Ceri of Gubbio and other feasts that were not able or willing to enter the network (such as the Misteri of Campobasso or the Carro of Ponticelli) are all examples of how UNESCO theory and local practice often fol-low tracks that are seemingly parallel but not entirely the same.
However, if we focus on the translation of the UNESCO regime at the state level in Italy, my analysis suggests that the adaptation of this logic involved a great deal of “simulated” grass-roots interest in the network nomination; indeed, the actors promoting it are institutionalizing a practice of patrimonialization that owes more to the logics of Italian administrative and academic spheres than it does to the logics of UNESCO heritage.
An additional example emerged during one of the meetings I had with some of the “carriers” from the cities involved, which took place at the Gigli feast in Nola in 2010. On the website of the La Contea Nolana (the Nolan County) association, which internally oversaw the nomination for the city of Nola, interesting captions accompanied several of the photos. A caption reading “you can’t do it alone” ac-companied an image of a small group of carriers attempting to lift a Giglio off the ground, followed by the caption “but together we can do it” referring to the same scene but involving a larger number of carriers, from multiple cities (La Contea Nolana n.d.). This example shows how the carrying of the Giglio (and metaphori-cally also the UNESCO recognition project) can only take place through a com-mon effort by all parties involved, as if the heritage form might become such only by being “shared30.” In the network case, the union of cities creates intangible heritage according to a UNESCO logic. However, at the local level the content of heritage remains likely distinct, dynamic, conflictual, processual, variable, and often even, we might say, self-referential and completely localistic, as the case of the Nolan cullatori and their “Gigli-based” criticisms of the facchini from Viterbo illus-trates so well.
4 Conclusions
In view of the data I analyzed, I tried to present some concluding remarks on the distortion of the reading of Italian UNESCO Convention and its consequences.
Conflict in the sphere of intangible heritage is inevitably endogenous and nec-essary, as long-term ethnographic fieldwork in local Italian contexts thoroughly demonstrates; nonetheless, there is often a tendency in public discourses and rep-resentations of the processes of constructing nomination dossiers to eliminate
30 See Sassen (2002) for an interesting take on this issue.
conflict in order to conform to what might be defined as the “spirit of the conven-tion.” In doing so, however, we may risk thoroughly distorting the local meaning and vitality of the heritage forms to be valorized, according to a centralist and co-ercively harmonious approach dictated by the effort to achieve the aspired-to in-ternational recognition.
An article recently published in Nolan newspapers shows even more clearly how the logic of international or national “heritage” recognition is considered to be an essential value for the local context, the clear outgrowth of a specifically Italian tendency to strategically use local territories and their traditions at the level of local and supra-local politics.
With Minister Brambilla, the Gigli Feast Becomes “Italian Heritage”
“For an expression of the ability to promote tourism and national image as well as valorize local history and culture through a perspective suited to con-temporary times.”
In the words of Minister of Tourism Michela Vittoria Brambilla this morning, this was the motivation for recognizing the Nolan Gigli Feast as
“Italian Heritage” as part of the public presentation of the project by the same name.
This is an important “mark” of recognition, granted to 34 municipalities that represent just as many prestigious celebrations (including cities twinned with Nola, such as Sassari and Viterbo, with their respective Candelieri and Macchina di Santa Rosa); it is reserved for examples of national excellence that contribute to valorizing the image of Italy and consequently generating tour-istic flows.
As Minster Brambilla declared, “Italy has a unique and extraordinary heritage. Our country has always been a guiding light in the world thanks to its history, tradition, art, culture, creativity, and style. These forms of excel-lence constitute an enormous resource that only Italy holds. This is why I wished to create a new and prestigious mark: “Italian Heritage” symbolizes the recognition that I will grant every year to these wonderful specimens which have concretely stepped forward to take on the role of representing our country to the world and which will enjoy special visibility, especially abroad, as a result of their ability to generate positive effects on both na-tional touristic flows and the appeal of Italy and our brand, Made in Italy […]. (Il meridiano on line 2011)
Is institutionalized patrimonialization, therefore, really necessary or does it, in some cases, become nothing more than a manipulation of community-based pas-sions on behalf of various subjects both inside and outside given territorial con-texts? And as for the communities, are they aware of these complex and ever more frenetic activities that often impact on the actors themselves as they pursue the
illusion that the recognition they so yearn for will resolve all the problems of a complex territory? During my web-based ethnography on the Nolan Gigli feast, which I carried out parallel to the field research, I came across multiple statements by and debates involving feast practitioners in recent years; they have spoken out to oppose the feast’s endogenous tendency to reproduce clientelistic or politically defective logics, as if it were a mirror image of the local system. In some cases, these criticisms represented the UNESCO stamp as a possible means of liberating the city and its feast from a provincial and defective logic31.
In this interesting and complex frame constituted by systems of power, an-thropologists must continue to monitor patrimonialization processes and their implications through daily, close-grained ethnographic research in the local areas involved in these processes. In addition to carrying out documentary-style cata-loguing, let us not forget to critically address the political strategies connected to the local sites and their affect on the individuals. These local actors are the carriers of the specific traditions that are defined from the outside as “heritage,” but which should be recognized and prized in any case on the basis of their value, a value attached to them by local communities but constructively and critically “mediated”
with the outside. As De Varine warns us, nature and culture die rapidly when they are made into the objects of appropriation and codification by specialists who do not belong to the local population; when they belong to the population and consti-tute its heritage, however, they live and thrive32.
5 References
Arduini, Marcello (2000): Aspetti antropologici in alcune azioni rituali del culto di Santa Rosa. In S. Rosa, tradizione e culto. Atti della seconda giornata di studio 10 settembre 1999: “La città, la macchina, il rito. I nuovi supporti.” Silvio Cappelli, ed. Pp. 111–124. Manziana: Vecchiarelli Editore.
Autiero, Annamaria (2010): I Gigli di Nola e l’Unesco. In dialogo XXV (7), September: 21.
http://www.diocesinola.it/web/files/07.pdf <accessed July 4, 2012>
Avella, Leonardo (1993): La festa dei gigli. Nola: Scala.
Ballacchino, Katia (2008): Il Giglio di Nola a New York. Uno sguardo etnografico sulla festa e i suoi protagonisti. Altreitalie. Revista Internazionale di studi sulle migrazioni italiane nel mondo 36–37: 275–289.
– ed. (2009): La Festa. Dinamiche socio-culturali e patrimonio immateriale.
Antropologia e Patrimonio, 1. Nola: L’arcael’arco.
31In relation to this point, see the numerous discussions posted in the guest section of a Nolan paranza’s website, which for years has been collecting the most significant debates about the city of Nola’s social life and its Gigli feast. See http://www.fantasticteam.it/PRIMAPAGINA.htm <accessed July 4, 2012>.
32See De Varine 2005.
– (2011): Embodying devotion, embodying passion. The Italian tradition of La Festa dei Gigli” in Nola. In Encounters of body and soul in contemporary religiosity. Anthropological reflections. Anna Fedele and Ruy Llera Blanes, eds.
Pp. 43–66. Oxford, New York: Berghahn Books.
– (in Press): Towers of Memory: Images and Visual Community Symbols between Italy and the United States. In Sabato Rodia’s Towers in Watts: Art, Migrations, Development. Luisa Del Giudice, ed. New York: Fordham University Press.
Bendix, Regina, and Valdimar Hafstein, eds. (2009): Culture and Property.
Ethnologia Europaea 39(2).
Bindi, Letizia (2009): Volatili misteri. Festa e città a Campobasso e altre divagazioni immateriali. Rome: Armando.
Brigaglia, Manlio, and Sandro Ruju, eds. (2008): Sassari: Gremi e candelieri. Sassari:
Delfino.
Bortolotto, Chiara, ed. (2008): Il patrimonio immateriale secondo l’UNESCO:
analisi e prospettive. Rome: Istituto poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato.
Cau, Paolo, and Marcello Saba (2008): I candelieri, Sassari: Composita.
Campanelli, Ricardo, and Angelo Mereu, eds. (2006): I candelieri: una festa lunga 500 anni. Sassari: Edizioni R&R.
De Varine, Hugues (2005): Le radici del futuro. Il patrimonio culturale al servizio dello sviluppo locale. Daniele Jallà, trans. Bologna: CLUEB.
D’Uva, Francesco (2010): I Gigli di Nola e l'UNESCO. Il patrimonio culturale immateriale tra politiche internazionali e realtà territoriali. Nola: Extra Moenia.
Fantastic Team (2006): La festa dei Gigli di Nola diventa marchio registrato.
http://lnx.fantasticteam.it/newsgigli/view.php?id=45 <accessed July 4, 2012>
Ferraro, Domenico (1987): La Varia di Palmi. Palmi: Edizioni Metauro.
Galluccio, Teresa, and Francesco Lo Vecchio (2000): La Varia. Storia e tradizione.
Palmi: Rem Edizioni.
GIGLIOLA di D'Apuzzo Stefania (2012): Il Giglio Nolano. Sapori e Tradizioni della Pasta Campana: il Giglio di Nola.
http://www.giglionolano.it/it/formati/ilgiglionolano-pasta <accessed July 11, 2012>
Grillea, Elisabetta (1990): La Varia di Palmi. In Folklore della Calabria:
Volume I – Rivista di tradizioni popolari diretta da A. Basile – Soc.
Calabrese di Etnografia e Folklore. Palmi: Nuove Edizioni Barbaro.
Istituto centrale per il catalogo e la documentazione (2006): Scheda BDI, Beni demoetnoantropologici immateriali, seconda parte. Roma: ICCD.
http://www.iccd.beniculturali.it/getFile.php?id=353 <accessed July 11, 2012>
La Contea Nolana – Libera Associazione Culturale e di Volontariato (n.d.): Le Città delle Macchine da Festa ed il rionoscimento.
http://lnx.conteanolana.it/Riconoscimento%20UNESCO.htm <accessed July 4, 2012>
Lacquaniti, Luigi (1957): La Varia di Palmi. Palermo: Tipografia G.
Lave, Jean (1988): Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics and Culture in Everyday Life. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lave, Jean, and Etienne Wenger (1991): Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lombardi Satriani, Luigi Maria (1973): Folklore e profitto. Tecniche di distruzione di una cultura. Rimini: Guaraldi Editore,.
Luiu, Antonio, ed. (2007): Suoni e visioni dei candelieri di Sassari. Soprintendenza B.A.P.P.S.A.E per le province di Sassari e Nuoro.
Manganelli, Franco (1973): La festa infelice. Napoli: LER.
Marino, Filippo (2000 [1977]): Le feste patronali palmesi e il culto della Sacra Lettera Mariana. Gioia Tauro: Tauroprint.
Matsura, Koichiro (2002): Preface. In Cultural Diversity: Common Heritage, Plural Identities. UNESCO, ed. Pp. 3–5. Paris: United Nations.
Il meridiano on line (2011): La festa dei Gigli di Nola diventa “Patrimonio d’Italia”
con il Ministro Brambilla. Il meridiano on line, July 28.
http://www.ilmeridiano.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&i d=4837:la-festa-dei-gigli-di-nola-diventa-patrimonio-ditalia-con-il-ministro-brambilla&catid=76:primo-piano&Itemid=551 <accessed July 4, 2012>
Napolitano, Autilia (2010): Sui Gigli il sigillo dell’Unesco. Il Nolano.it, III (74).
http://www.ilnolano.it/index.php?page=0&news=9802&cat=2 <accessed July 4, 2012>
Palumbo, Berardino (1998): L’UNESCO e il campanile. Riflessioni antropologiche sulle politiche di patrimonializzazione osservate da un luogo della Sicilia orientale. Èupolis 21/22: 118-125.
– (2001): Campo intellettuale, potere e identità tra contesti locali, ‘pensiero
– (2001): Campo intellettuale, potere e identità tra contesti locali, ‘pensiero