The intangible cultural heritage and anthropologist's contribution: perception shcemes and some practices

Abstract

The aim of this article is to review the main legal devices and normative instruments that regulate the policy of valuing and promoting of the in-tangible cultural heritage by  Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional – IPHAN, in order to identify the main categories by which it was sought to print an anthropological orientation, as well as to reflect on the potentialities, limits, and tensions implied in the transposition of the theoretical-conceptual framework of this discipline. The identification of these categories of thought aimed to serve as a substrate for the analysis of the discourses of anthropologists in the elaboration of dossiers that techni-cally instruct the processes of registration as cultural patrimony of Brazil, in order to understand the implications of the variations observed in their uses in terms of positions, particularly with regard to the meanings attributed to the differences in our social actuality.