Il ritorno della tradizione. Feste, propaganda e diritti culturali in un contesto dell’Italia centrale

The essay delivers an ethnography that was conducted in Abruzzo also through social networks to explore a new form of “rituality” which is inspired by the practices documented by ethnologists in the Twentieth century according to sometimes essentializing perspectives. This recent and impressive “return”, “graft” or “revival” of traditions has been credited by its inventors as a "philological study", carried out with the scientific shield of cultural anthropology, but it completely bypasses the analytical procedure of cultural anthropology. In fact, it builds idyllic scenes of the past, staging the rhetoric of the roots, resurrecting the romantic metaphors of folklore, circumscribing identity in an exclusive way. By distorting the anthropological perspective and excluding the true anthropologists from this work, this traditionalist revival is validated as "high cultural activity" and becomes the expression of a “multiculturalism” which declares cultural impermeability and carries ethnic racism in a propagandistic way. The essay focuses on the ethnographer’s dialogue with a cultural association engaged in the traditionalist revival which originated, in Abruzzo, a real neo-Bourbon movement, inspired by sovereignty and close to ultraright’s policies. The essay concludes that the tools of intangible cultural heritage could be applied to balance those ultraright's policies through anti-racist and peaceful educational programs based on heritage (UNESCO Convention 2003; Faro Convention).