Paper short abstract:

We consider the concept of a "return to ethnology" - a strategic abandonment of cultural-critical constructivism, typical of anthropology and critical heritage studies, in order to develop stakeholder-friendly intangible cultural heritage safeguarding in Western Balkan reconciliation processes.

Paper long abstract:

We present the findings of our ongoing research on how to apply anthropology in the Western Balkans in the processes of establishing lasting peace. Our fieldwork among heritage professionals and minorities’ representatives showed that efforts to incorporate social sciences and humanities into programs aimed at fostering intercultural dialogue, reconciliation, and peace have overlooked an increasingly important factor: the unacceptability of scholarly analysis of heritage by the bearers themselves. Anthropology, with its default critique of heritage as always already an oppressive construct, while critically and didactically fruitful, lacks the ability to fit into international reconciliation policies, especially in the flagship doctrine of conflict management through use of heritage as a developmental tool. If we manage to apply the model of stakeholder-inclusion based on social authority of ethnology, which majority of the populations concerned found trustworthy heritage keeper, we believe that cultural critique goals can be met without academically provoked stakeholder antagonism. We see our efforts as contributing to the development of a novel approach we are developing and propose to the SIEF for further consideration and debate - heritage diplomacy - as part of the search for the role of ethnology and folkloristics in contemporary political processes. We believe that our research can be useful and inspiring to colleagues throughout Europe, but also on a global scale, given that intangible cultural heritage - of which ethnology and folkloristics are parent disciplines - is gradually becoming recognized as an important political resource in the management of ethnic and religious conflicts.