Resumen de Pensar a Wirikuta. El patrimonio desde el conflicto

Irene Alvarez, Maria Teresa Rodríguez

• Wirikuta is a sacred territory for the ethnic population named huicholes, and it is located in the state of San Luis Potosí, in the north part of Mexico. Since 2011, the Front of Defense of Wirikuta Tamatsima Wahaa (FDWTW) fought for the recognition of Wirikuta as World Cultural and Natural Heritage given by The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Facing the petitions of the FDWTW, the National Comision for the Developmente of Indigenous Peoples (CDI) nominated Wirikuta as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

  This event caused criticism due to the fact that the nomination did not consider the relation between territory and the practices associated with it. In this article we intend to review this controversy, as we believe that the positions of the FDWTW and the CDI can be traced in order to reveal different ways of understanding heritage and its functions.