Food incursions into global heritage: Peruvian cuisine's slippery road to UNESCO

The first nomination file was instructed by the Division of Intangible Heritage of theMinistry of Culture. It mobilised its research staff, formed by anthropologists, andnamed one external researcher as the head of writing team, an anthropology professorfrom the Universidad Católica del Perú. Her appointment raised controversy amongprominent cooks and food scholars, who considered themselves more qualified tocomplete the task. The complaints did not produce results: despite not having previousresearch experience on food cultures, the professor was confirmed in her role due toformer collaborations with UNESCO in matters of cultural heritage nominations.Yet, when the Ministry called for her expertise, she was not particularly willing toaccept the task. As she explained to me, she would have preferred not to be involved ‘inthe making of a technical dossier [which] would unavoidably culminate in an inventionof traditions’.4The broad scope of the element to be inscribed (Peru’s national cuisine),the vagueness of the notion of ‘communities’within UNESCO’s participatoryapproach (Hertz 2015) and the subsequent difficulties in providing written proof ofthe involvement of these communities as heritage practitioners and tradition bearers,a mandatory requirement for inclusion in the ICH List, were challenges that justifiedher worries. The very question was ‘how many signatures shall we collect and fromwhom?’, revealing a concern regarding heritage ownership. The professor finallyaccepted the Ministry’s proposal but, as she affirmed, she still had serious reservationsabout building national culinary heritage from scratch.With the aim of dispelling every form of ethical malaise, the writing team sought tointroduce depth and complexity into the candidature’s statements. Several pages wereproduced to reflect both the dimension of the commonality of Peruvian cuisine andits role in the production of categories, hierarchies and social distinctions. In otherwords, this nomination file was an academic document that, beyond highlighting theshared meaning within the country’s existing foodways (Andean cosmology, foodrituals and food knowledge transmission patterns), also raised issues of power and he-gemony, mechanisms at the root of social relations in societies with colonial histories.The main ideas in the first version of the dossier suggest a search for balance be-tween the valorisation strategies of Peruvian cuisine and the preservation of traditionalfeatures of local food cultures.5Indeed, the document stresses the need to promote ‘tra-ditional Peruvian food’in accordance with the interests of the custodians of traditionaland indigenous knowledge, namely, Andean and Amazonian peasants –however, noparticular community was mentioned as the main heritage practitioner: the strategyto justify community participation consisted only in asking regional governments,Peru’s Ecological Peasants Association and members of the food productive chain tosign supportive documentation for the candidature [...] References: -Matta, R. (2016). Food Incursions into Global heritage: Peruvian Cuisine’s slippery Road to UNESCO. Social Anthropology, 24(3), 338-352. https://doi.org/10.1111/1469-8676.12300