Interculturality as a reflection on the heterogeneous dimension of immaterial cultural heritage

Abstract

Interculturality is assumed as a continuous process that regardless of the situations of interaction between different cultures, there is implicit a spontaneous process of cultural negotiation resulting from communication, recreating cultural traditions without distorting the feeling of original identity, thus coinciding with what is proposed by Austin (2004). From this perspective, the complex social fabric present in the intangible cultural heritage is understood and, in this way, strengthens the arguments against those purist perspectives, which are characterized because they do not admit the heterogeneous and changing dimension of culture in the urban regions where we live. The objective of the present essay was to provide the foundations that strengthen the appreciation of the heterogeneity of the cultural fact. Intangible cultural heritage is a system of representations, uses, expressions, knowledge, techniques, artifacts and cultural spaces transmitted from generation to generation, established by UNESCO in the 2003 Paris convention. Therefore, a theoretical journey through the precept of culture to the postulate of interculturality to smooth out the polysemic interpretation present in the identity of peoples. The issue of interculturality is of interest to education on intangible cultural heritage, as it is necessary to reflect on social changes and how human creativity manages to take on these challenges without undermining its identity.