Abstract

PENA LORA, Marianela Rosa. A Cultural Challenge Today: The Preservation of American Popular Storytelling. Desafíos [online]. 2014, vol.26, n.2, pp.217-236. ISSN 0124-4035.  https://doi.org/10.12804/desafios26.02.2014.08.

The author discusses the existing relationship between the traditions and the expressions in the area of intangible cultural heritage, and popular storytelling as one of its forms. In particular, the article analyzes the arguments in terms of the affiliation of popular storytelling to literature and oral traditions, determining the general characteristics and differences of the two genres. In doing so, it establishes the fundaments of the genesis and background of popular storytelling with regard to those genres. The analysis of the situation of impoverishment and decline of oral literature in Latin America, in view of the process of diffusion of cultural forms and models stemming from national and international centers of economic power as the fundamental cause, has also affected popular storytelling. In addition, the article - based on the importance of this situation for the process of cultural identity - shows the need for the preservation of popular storytelling as a major cultural challenge in the current age. This leads to the claim that the links between these processes are cultural and social. Cultural because of the intrinsic nature and belonging of both processes to the sphere of culture; social because of the fact that there is a direct relationship between one and the other in terms of the existing socio-economic structures.

Keywords : Intangible cultural heritage; popular storytelling; oral literature; oral tradition; popular storyteller.

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