Paper short abstract:

The ambivalence of "national" versus "local" in Triglav national park (Slovenia) will be presented in two contexts, related to the issue of preserving the traditional agricultural landscape and to the one of preserving hunting as a traditional spatial praxis.

Paper long abstract:

The paper will highlight some of the contested issues regarding cultural and natural heritage preservation in the case of Trenta valley in the Triglav national park (Slovenia) - the largest, the oldest, and the most important protected area in Slovenia. The institutionalization of the only Slovenian national park has been obviously grounded on the conception of its role of the instrument for preserving heritage of great importance for the national community and the newly born nation-state. Looking discursively, the institutionalization of the TNP was partly based on the Slovenian Alpine "mythology" and idealization of the Alpine "way of live". Under the veil of unquestionable concept of national heritage, this idealization is implicitly present also in many contemporary scientific and political debates about the new law of the TNP that is to be adopted in Slovenia. These "national" conceptions are rarely confronted to the heritage as seen from the point of view of people that are existentially tied to the landscape being "nationalized". In the case of Trenta local community, the notion of heritage is being constantly renegotiated, and in many cases opposed to the heritage as conceived by diverse national institutions. The ambivalence of "national" versus "local" point of view will be presented in two contexts, related to the issue of preserving the traditional agricultural landscape and to the one of preserving hunting as a traditional spatial praxis par excellence. The interpretation of these examples will be based on ethnographic fieldwork data collected over last five years in the region.