Oriol Beltran

Consuming space, nature and culture: patrimonial discussions in the hyper-modern era.

Abstract This paper reflects on what is called the process of ‘patrimonialization’ of culture and nature currently taking place in the Western mountainous inlands of the Spanish Eastern Pyrenees. Landscapes, as cultural and historical formations, are presently being commodified and connected to global networks of consumption dominated by urban and ‘postmaterialistic’ values. Conservation policies, ski resorts and cultural museums are mushrooming in previously ‘abandoned’ agricultural fields or vacated factories. This shift from agriculture, ranching and industry, to conservation and services marks the connection of the Pyrenean valleys to global modernity and to the hyper-modern era. These processes of transformation have been depicted generally as structural processes of unilateral redefinition of the urban–rural divide: redefinition that results in direct urban appropriation. Rural populations, however, are far from passive subjects of external influences. The analysis of local agency suggests a more complicated picture in which local economic and cultural choices are included as explanatory variables. The story of the connection of these spaces to regional and global networks is not only a story about local dispossession, but also about local ingenuity. The globalization of the economy in the early 1970s disempowered and relegated these areas to the periphery of the economic system. The consolidation of a global modernity articulated around the need to provide leisure has opened a venue for these areas to reconnect themselves to the central networks and to attract large amounts of resources from these urban-dominated economic systems.

Livestock versus "Wild Beasts": Contradictions in the Natural Patrimonialization of the Pyrenees

ABSTRACT. The Pyrenees are becoming an environmental reservoir. The acute human depopulation experienced during the twentieth century and the progressive appropriation of large parts of the mountainous territory by the state in order to implement conservation policies have resulted in the return, via reintroduction or natural regeneration, of bears, wolves, beavers, river otters, marmots, mouflon, feral goats, and deer, among other species. This development, however, has not occurred without social and scientific controversy and leads to questions about territorialization and governmentality. Herders perceive wild animals as unregulated public property subsidized by the work of the local populace. Agriculturalists see their fields trespassed on a daily basis by animals they cannot kill because of their protected status. Ranchers, under extremely strict sanitation regulations, see their animals coming into contact with these unchecked wild populations. The work and living space of the mountain communities has fallen under the jurisdiction of external institutions and constituencies that value conservation and ecotourism above local subsistence.

Heritage and Knowledge: Apparatus, Logic and Strategies in the Formation of Heritage

ABSTRACT Heritage as a category reflects diverse political positions. All heritagisation processes imply the creation of hierarchies, selection, ranking, and categorisation of what is worthy or unworthy of being heritage, and all heritage creation involves certain disciplinary processes that confer legitimacy. As a modern invention, heritage was built on two closely related cornerstones: the distinction between nature and culture and the difference between normalised knowledge and marginal knowledge. As a result, refining processes were applied which became strategies to legitimise political domination. In this paper the constituent process of heritage creation and its links to normative knowledge are analysed, illustrating the various relationships between types of knowledge in the heritagisation process with the case of the Albufera Natural Park in Spain. A particular focus is placed on the processes that affect territories and natural resources, modifying the material conditions of the local population. Beyond giving rise to a mere acceptance of imposed expert knowledge, the analysed dynamics reveal the responsiveness of the local actors, as they make use of this knowledge in the context of a counter-hegemonic discourse.

Los comunales en el Pirineo Central. Idealizando el pasado y reelaborando el presente

The debate around the commons has often been dominated by ideological opinions about their social, economic, environmental, and political implications. Catalan High Pyrenees districts, where historically common property has had a wide territorial presence, provide many arguments to analyze the discussions around common property from a conceptual standpoint. In the context of the changes occurred during the last two centuries, where the mountains have gone from sustaining an agroranching economy, to become a space devoted to tourism and conservation, the commons are interpreted as a central dimension of socio-ecological relations and a factor with high political potential.