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In the context of the pandemic of SARS-CoV-2, Catalan museums, like many others, were forced to close. Hence the need to deal with a crisis that challenges the meaning of their own existence as institutions at the service of society and open to the public. The project "Memories of a pandemic" arises from this historic juncture with the aim of materializing the experiences of our society at a critical moment such as the one we are currently living. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Castells (human towers) are, amongst intangible cultural heritage elements, one of the most incompatible with a pandemic context, because it involves a large number of participants in extreme physical proximity. Moreover, when the time for a progressive return to activity arrived, the colles (teams) had to face dilemmas that questioned a key element in their speech. Thus, the idea that castells are open to everyone's participation has clashed against limits imposed by the authorities with health criteria, causing controversy and contradictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Covid-19 has profoundly affected the festivities, compromising their social rhythm and continuity. The article examines the different strategies followed in the festive sphere in Catalonia, from the first confinement to the present day. We analyze the reactions, debates and conflicts that originated in five major "acts": from street party to screen; resilience and reinvention; resistance and social response and, finally, the slow return to "normality". It concludes with a reflection on the festive transformations, the problems of cultural policies with the intangible cultural heritage and its future sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a critical analysis of UNESCO heritagization procedures in a postcolonial setting. Drawing on the case of the Zafimaniry of Madagascar, the research highlights the capacity of heritage to mobilize dynamics of appropriation and control, connecting the interests of different spheres - political, economic, cultural, touristic - and legitimizing the infusion of global regimes of value into local practices and meanings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Festival continues to be one of the strategies used by the community to define and reaffirm the relationships around which it is organised; because of this they are permeable and mutable containers, despite the false appearance of invariability, of contents that enable us to understand the interpretative structure that governs the community that replays it. It is in this sense a total social fact. Following the description of the celebration of the pilgrimage to the hermitage of Sant Roc (Paüls) on the 16th August, we identify the units of analysis of the ritual as a total social fact and we determine the lines of work needed to identify the intangible heritage. This proposal is the result of fieldwork carried out between 2015 and 2016 in IPCITE (Terres de l'Ebre Intangible Culture Inventory). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to present the general attributes of the Register of Good Practices for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage by contrasting the attributions from the critical heritage studies line, and the 2003 Convention text with the observed results. It is estimated that the programmes, projects, and activities contained in the Register are an effective safeguarding mechanism, and because they are designed from a local perspective, they can contribute to sustainable development, and promote new forms of participation in contemporary societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lately, castells, or human towers, have been strengthened as a symbol of the Catalan identity in parallel to them being raised to heritage status, attaining the highest official distinction as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity as recognised by UNESCO. Because of this, there must be a stable place to permanently exhibit this pastime: the Museu Casteller de Catalunya, in Valls. The article reviews the history of the museum (conceived more than half a century ago) as well as its inclusion in the heritage status process of castells and the urban regeneration involved in it being situated in the old quarter in Valls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines strategies for protecting intangible cultural heritage assets in Catalonia, addressing the nature of the collective and/or group sense of intangible heritage; it holds that the regulatory framework which oversees industrial and intellectual property is not suitable for safeguarding these assets from possible use and appropriation by third parties; and it proposes components for a regulatory reform that introduces the concept of non-appropriability of popular and/ or traditional practices, representations, expressions, and knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is about the Gallifa factories located in Les Masies de Voltregà and the model of factory and industrial colony they assume, as well as their role in the industrialisation process of the Voltreganès area (Catalonia). The article explains the links these factories had with the area's textile past, their relationship with the area's resources, the morphology of the industrial colony they make up and how they have affected the new ways of life and the socio-economic transformations of the area in which they are located. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]