Making heritage: the materialization of the state and the expediency of music. The case of cuarteto característico in Córdoba, Argentina

Abstract

The group of actions performed by the provincial and municipal State of Córdoba in relation to some sonorities of popular tone can be understood as part of the new agreed valueset upon Culture and new ways in which to manage it. In Argentina, like other places in the world, symbolic goods were transformed into important resources for social, economic, and political growth. The actions of the State extended in different spheres of social life, even in those considered intimate, while at the same time privatizing public spaces (Sabsay, 2011). In this context, the cultural policies will be analyzed as part of new government technologies where certain uses and symbolic goods are transformed into a resource. Power not only suppresses but also produces and makes it desirable to recognize itself in aspecific cultural identity. The whole process of (trans)formation of popular sonorities into emblem and heritage in a specific territory has a certain local character and its analysis will allow us to describe, in a micro scale, the mutation of the strategic position of Culture with relation to state practices and changes in forms of govern mentality (Foucault, 1999). Through the analysis of heritagisation cuarteto we can observe how State was (re)produced in Córdoba. Some of the questions this article tries to answer are: Who and in what ways did they create heritage? How was the State materialized in that process?