01339nas a2200109   4500000000100000008004100001100002600042245015600068490001000224520098100234022001401215       2018                            d1 aYeshica Serrano Riobo00aAmong the Policies of Intangible Cultural Heritage: the vallenato and the ancestral knowledge of the Arhuaco people of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta0 v21-223 aThis article focuses on the conflicts surrounding two important intangible cultural heritage declarations in the Colombian Caribbean, which impact on the political and cultural processes of the Arhuaco people: firstly, the  Traditional Vallenato music of the Greater Magdalena region  which was inscribed on the UNESCO list as in need of urgent safeguarding in 2015; and, secondly, the inclusion of the Ancestral Knowledge System of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta on Colombia s national-level representative list of intangible cultural heritage in 2017. These two declarations take the form of legal and political mechanisms aimed at protecting and promoting these practices and cultural expressions. But, at the same time, they also constitute complex and subtle forms of ethnic and generational exclusion that hinder the processes by which both Arhuaco ancestral knowledge and traditional Vallenato music of the Colombian Caribbean are strengthened, acquired and promoted.  a1697-0101