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Heritage hands and tastes of the pandemic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2021

Megan Tracy
Megan Tracy*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, United States Email: tracy2me@jmu.edu
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Abstract

The revitalization of fermentation projects during COVID-19 raises questions about the preservation of the pandemic’s material and ephemeral effects – a topic that heritage policy is well equipped to engage. These activities also emphasize the necessity of engaging with heritage practices as a kind of care, encompassing both methods of safekeeping and practices of empathy. In addition, heritage ferments prove “good to think” around themes of loss and preservation, the interpretation of novel viruses through traditional food practices, and the coupling of heritage to microbes. Connecting microbes with heritage allows us to consider points of overlap: as bearers of patrimony with cultural and material lineages, as central to heritage tastes, and as open to geographical indications or other protections to further a kind of microbial resource management. Despite the pandemic’s devastating impact, consideration of heritage ferments points to both emancipatory and constraining outcomes for our post-pandemic future.

Keywords

fermentationpandemicsmicrobial terroirheritage food practices
Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Cultural Property , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , November 2020 , pp. 481 - 488
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International Cultural Property Society

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