Maria Fernanda Escallón, PhD

Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology

University of Oregon

How is it that ostensibly progressive, inclusive, and community-driven policies can end up replicating––rather than dismantling––inequality and segregation? Based on my recently published book “Becoming Heritage: Recognition, Exclusion, and the Politics of Black Cultural Heritage in Colombia” (Cambridge, 2023) in this talk, I examine how the UNESCO heritage declaration of the Afro-Colombian cultural practices of San Basilio de Palenque exacerbated different forms of socio-economic and epistemological exclusion among ethno-racial minorities. I show how academic training, research, and language provided a new narrative authority over heritage matters to some individuals over others and established a new hierarchy of knowledge within the community. The declaration offered a path of upward mobility for a few individuals and greater visibility for the town’s cultural practices. Yet, it also highlighted how the framework used to claim heritage recognition entrenched hierarchical distinctions among locals based on their relationship to academic expertise. In this process, the idea of expert and expertise changed, marginalizing community members with less formal academic training and empowering a different class of leadership.