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Paper short abstract

Focusing on Slovakia, this research examines the UNESCO nomination of transhumance as both living heritage and a representation of disappearing rural life. It explores how values of nature are attached to pastoral practices, and how herders’ knowledge is translated or silenced.

Paper long abstract

This research examines the multinational nomination of Transhumance – the seasonal droving of livestock to UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, with a particular focus on Slovakia. It investigates how Slovak pastoral communities participate in this inscription process and how their knowledge, values, and concerns are recognised or marginalised in negotiations with institutional bodies. While the 2003 UNESCO Convention on Intangible Cultural Heritage highlights the importance of community involvement, heritage nominations remain ultimately controlled by state parties, producing power asymmetries. Slovakia’s role in the wider multinational nomination further complicates the dynamics of representation, as national agendas intersect within a single heritage-making process.

Transhumance, a practice deeply tied to agrarian cycles, seasonal rhythms, and cohabitation with non-human actors, is often represented as a “lost” or endangered way of rural life. These representations carry powerful normative and emotional connotations, evoking ideals of authenticity, tradition, and proximity to nature, even as they risk essentialising or romanticising rural livelihoods. By analysing how pastoralists’ lived knowledge of land, animals, and ecology is translated or silenced within bureaucratic frameworks, the research asks what values are mobilised, and by whom, in the inscription process.

Drawing on participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis, the study applies Miranda Fricker’s (2007) concept of epistemic injustice to explore how authority is negotiated across local, national, and international levels. It argues for moving beyond tokenistic participation towards equitable engagement with local epistemologies, opening space for more grounded and just ways of imagining rural futures.