Redefining Heritage: The Foliada as a Space of Biopolitical Dissent in Galicia (NW Iberian Peninsula)
Xulia FeixooAbstract
On 16 March 2018, the Galician government launched a procedure to declare traditional Galician dance an Asset of Cultural Interest. The initiative sparked a wave of responses from the practising community, who questioned the legitimacy of folkloric associations as institutional representatives of living tradition. This moment of ontological agitation resulted in numerous counterclaims and the eventual withdrawal of the proposal. Drawing on this conflict, the article explores foliadas in contemporary Galicia as spaces of biopolitical dissent, where embodied knowledge, improvisation, and collective care resist normative frameworks of heritage and cultural representation.