Paper short abstract:

This presentation examines the role of emotion and affect in the heritagization process of a particular Galician textile craft. I analyze how affects are produced, put in circulation and attached to different agents in affective economies of heritage.

Paper long abstract:

Affections and emotions are not usually taken into account when talking, managing and researching about heritage, which is displayed as a dispassionate issue (Thrift, 2004). Grand narratives on identity, nation, economic profitability and tourism development are flooding heritage practices. Both Authorized Hetitage Discourses and Heritage Regimes (Smith, 2006, Bendix et al., 2012) are politically silencing other relevant elements such as affects and emotions that, however, come always into play when people are (dis)identified, (dis)affected and (not) interacting with heritage. Affective labor and production of value through emotion are also silenced common practices in heritage construction and contemporary political activity (Hardt, 1999, Marazzi, 2011).

Based on the feminist theory of the Affective Economies (Ahmed, 2004) I apply it to my research on the patrimonialization of textile crafts made by Galician women. This presentation analyzes the stake of affect through all the heritagization process, how affects are put in circulation and attached to different bodies