Popular music as living heritage : theoretical and practical challenges explored through the case of Slovenian folk pop

Majsova, Natalija (author), Šepetavc, Jasmina (author)

Produced, distributed, and consumed in a de-territorialised way, modern popular music presents a set of challenges to cultural heritage policies which largely rely on spatial frameworks, as needs for the preservation of local, regional, or national cultural heritage are typically highlighted. Moreover, certain popular music genres dating back to the mid-20$^{th}$ century are both representations and re-inventions of local and ‘folk’ or ‘traditional’ music and have become a part of many living heritage practices. Slovenian folk-pop (FP) music is a case in point: a modern genre in terms of history and production conditions, nationally registered as intangible cultural heritage. This article offers an analysis of how FP music is integrated into authorised heritage discourse in Slovenia, foregrounding the results of extensive interviews with 14 heritage gatekeepers, such as organisers of FP festivals and curators of thematic museums. The article discusses how operational definitions of FP as heritage, used by various gatekeepers that operate locally, regionally, and internationally deviate from the definition provided in the national intangible heritage register. The analysis traces how discourses about national and cultural identity get intertwined with music and establishes that gatekeepers’ understandings of culture as either territorialised or dynamic significantly impact their heritage activities.

• Language: English
• Keywords: folk-pop music, living heritage, heritage gatekeepers, cultural identity, hybridity
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2023
• Number of pages: Str. 1283–1298
• Numbering: Vol. 29, no. 12
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-152598
• UDC: 784.66(497.4):316.7
• ISSN on article: 1352-7258
• DOI: 10.1080/13527258.2023.2250759
• COBISS.SI-ID: 162641923
• Publication date in RUL: 30.11.2023

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: IJHS. International journal of heritage studies
• Shortened title: IJHS, Int. j. herit. stud.
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• ISSN: 1352-7258
• COBISS.SI-ID: 682517

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: kulturna identiteta, zabavna glasba, slovenska narodnozabavna glasba, kulturna dediščina, Slovenija

Projects

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: J6-2582
• Name: Slovenska narodnozabavna glasba kot politika: percepcije, recepcije in identitete