Heritage Regimes and the Camino de Santiago: Gaps and Logics

Abstract

The route to Santiago de Compostela was proclaimed the first European Cultural Itinerary by the Council of Europe in 1987 and in 1993 it was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Nevertheless, not all the routes are part of this designation, only what is known as "the French Camino". The other routes, including the route that reaches the coast in Galicia, the Camino to Fisterra are not in the List. The institutional actors which are part of the management of the Camino are the regional governments of Aragón, Navarra, La Rioja, Castilla y León and Galicia. In addition, The Jacobean Council include representatives from these governments, from the main cities along the route and the Spanish Ministry of Culture. Other social actors, such as the Friends of the Camino Associations, are excluded from the Jacobean Council. This article concentrates on two aspects: (1) the mechanisms developed by these actors to include other routes in the UNESCO nomination; and (2) the heritagization processes “or the heritage formation processes” that are being developed in the camino to Fisterra and how the logic of the market and the logic of the politics of identity are at play in this case study.