Paper short abstract:

On the basis of thick ethnographic descriptions of ritual performances in North India, I will discuss hegemonic power structures and global hierarchies of knowledge and link processes of heritagization of ritual performances to important discussions related to the politics of "intangible heritage".

Paper long abstract:

The proposed paper will discuss processes of negotiations within hegemonic power structures and global hierarchies of knowledge as played out in the context of heritage discourses. I will combine a thick ethnographic description of ritual performances in the Garhwal Himalayas, North India with more theoretical reflections on ritual dynamics, intangible heritage and various imaginations and desires connected to modernity. I will refer my work on the heritagization of ritual performances to the important discussions on marginalization, heritage, art and modernity in local and global contexts. These ideas will be illustrated by ethnographic data on the local deities, Jakh, Chandikah and Nanda Devi as well as the praxis of intangible heritage in the state of Uttarakhand. The ritual transfers I have witnessed over the past decade and researched are, I argue, direct results of historical processes, which produced categories such as folk art and folklore. At the same time ritual practices are also, on a different level, involved in the production and consolidation of caste hierarchies and discrimination based upon them.