Perspectives of the cultural heritage of the Ancash region: the MERASA consortium and the potential for dissemination of knowledge in post-conflict environments

Abstract

In this article I ask what the MERASA (Mesa Redonda de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia de Ancash) consortium can do to promote the Ancash heritage to the public in the region. This issue concerns the interpretation of heritage and history, in both a public forum and an educational arena, by researchers and academics working in various disciplines of the social and natural sciences. The situation of tangible and intangible heritage resources in emerging societies undergoing recent and rapid growth is almost always precarious. While heritage is an important issue, it nevertheless takes last priority in regard to
the ‘benefits’ that industry or other activities in society supposedly provide. Usually the latter endeavors produce only monetary gains to the detriment of other issues. In other words, the continuation of productive activities, i.e. the sources of the most urgently needed resources for the national interest, takes precedence over the needs of the many resource-rich, but fragile, heritage goods (monuments or folk traditions), which are another crucial part of the national interest. Thus, when natural and cultural heritage are being increasingly besieged on an ever-growing scale, few solutions of coexistence are devised to balance the twin needs of cultural preservation and mineral exploitation; this is a necessary combination for the ongoing process of nation-building, in a broad context, and for regional governance, on a more dynamic and feasible scale. The MERASA consortium could create a livelier context for the promotion of heritage resources in the public forums of Ancash.