A carte scoperte. Considerazioni a posteriori su un percorso di ricerca a rischio di patrimonializzazione

Over the last decade, the analysis of the processes of heritage construction (“patrimonialization”) has taken on an increasingly central position in the national and international anthropological debate. In this paper I reconstruct my personal twentyyears old research program in such a field of study, showing its beginnings and analyzing its subsequent outcomes. The goals of such a retrospective reading are manifold. First of all I want to make the point of my reflections, setting them in the contemporary debate and showing some of their future developments. Secondly I try to lead the reader into the construction process of interpretative frameworks and of field “data” processing. Finally I hope to be able to neutralize the risk of “patrimonialization” (locking up and freezing process in/like heritage) that, even in a research context, works and assumptions, that at their beginnings have had some intent (if not capacity) to be innovative, can suffer.