Heritage governance under conditions of ontological plurality: discipline, authority, and the care of cultural belongings

Abstract

Some museum controversies exceed the cultural interpretation of collections. They arise when the practices in dispute enact different entities: an archaeological piece may simultaneously participate in relationships that constitute it as an ancestor, a living being, a ceremonial presence, or collective patrimony. Such situations concern the authority to decide its care, circulation, and fate. This article proposes the concept of heritage governance under conditions of ontological plurality to examine how that authority is distributed. The framework is developed through a reconsideration of heritage discipline and two cases: the newenke kura at the Mapuche Museum of Cañete and the Zuni Ahayu:da. Both show how museum protocols, collective belonging, individual possession, ceremonial know­ledge, and professional conservation generate different capacities to act. The analysis defines criteria of affected standing, mandate, competence, purpose, proportionality, reversibility, and review. Ontological plurality is treated as a situated condition of particular controversies and practices whose existence must be established empirically. This precaution prevents Indigenous identity from becoming a guarantee of either a shared ontology or legitimate representation. Heritage discipline remains a useful critical category because it reveals the classifications and procedures that stabilize cultural belongings; governance provides a framework for justifying, distributing, and review­ing the authority exercised over them.