Arqueología pública y cartografías participativas: institucionalidad y resignificaciones locales del patrimonio arqueológico del Sígsig, Ecuador (2022-2024)

Abstract

The objective of the article is to identify the perceptions, meanings, and resignifications that the inhabitants of Sígsig canton, Azuay province (Ecuador), assign to archaeological heritage. It also attempts to explain how these ways of understanding and using such heritage come into conflict and friction when managed exclusively within a legal and institutional framework. To analyze the ambiguities arising from the dichotomy between public management and the local populations’ uses and meanings of heritage, this study employs the theoretical frameworks of public archaeology and the methodological approach of participatory cartographies. By analyzing national and local heritage regulations and conducting interviews and mappings with actors from the educational, political, and general society sectors, it is suggested that institutional management views heritage as an identity, historical, and economic resource through tourism. Additionally, this management is characterized by a fiscalizing, regulatory, and sanctioning logic, while the inhabitants understand, incorporate, and use archaeological objects and vestiges in their daily lives. This usage fosters a direct connection with oral traditions, intangible aspects, and, above all, with nature. Thus, frictions were identified between the social and political uses of heritage, which regularly involve themes such as gold, mining, and water, within a framework of collective imaginaries and discourses.