Heritage, ethics, identity

The notion of intangible cultural heritage adopted by UNESCO has extended the concept of heritage as a whole. It has produced, or even strengthened, a double turning point in the cultural policies of the countries that signed the 2003 Convention: a spatial turning point on one hand (where the places of crystallisation of this type of heritage play an important role due to its intangibility) and a moral turning point on the other. The author starts with a historical and ethnographic study of the complex heritage of initiatory groups of travelling workers who form a compagnonnage, a sort of guild, and develops the concept of "equitable heritage". More specifically, this notion undergoes another mutation, which leads one to think that a "good life" is a life steeped in heritage.