Between Rootedness and Openness: Multimodel Heritage Practices in Estonia

Abstract (English)

Can heritage be rooted while open at the same time? This paper brings forward music heritage practices in Estonia and explores the possibility of a heritage approach that recognises while not restricting it from its “rootedness”.
 
With the rise of critical heritage studies, it’s been increasingly acknowledged among heritage scholars that heritage is not a thing (Smith 2006), that it is inherently fluid, dissonant, constantly being re-interpreted, reinvented and reconstructed for various political, social, cultural, economic purposes. Current global heritage notion and practice are profoundly shaped by a paradigm that is first found upon western-European values, then promoted and adopted around the world under by international bodies such as UNESCO. This paradigm leads to, on the one hand, recognition and restitution of heritage that tend to fix it to a selected past, certain versions, meanings and standards, tie it exclusively to a place and (mainly national) community. On the other, it encourages new technologies and (particularly economic) usages of heritage for its preservation, protection and promotion with a more secured continuity, a wider public attention, and a better transmission to the future. This contradictory setting in the paradigm itself probes negotiable, contesting boundaries, scales, relations (Harvey 2015) on the ways heritage are being understood, managed, and practiced. But does acknowledge of roots, ancestral ownership, or authorised standards necessarily mean an inevitable deny of heritage to be openly accessible, interpretable and practicable?
 
This paper then looks into music heritage practices in Estonia and shows how three practitioner groups approach heritage differently, each with their own ways of practicing, interests, ideals, and aspirations for heritage and their community futures and yet, collectively, contributing to a dynamic music-scape and sustaining ecology for Estonian traditional music. Analysing how these three models inner-relate, influence and motivate each other, I explore a heritage restitution possibility in which heritage recognition and open participation, collective management across communities could co-exist hand in hand and lead towards promising heritage futures. While recognition of rootedness could riskily attract wider and differentiating practices from "the others", allowing tradition to be more freely and openly accessed, re-interpreted, reinvented could also thrive the rooted tradition to a more vibrating future.