LA ESPADA DE LA INDEPENDENCIA: AGENCIA DE LOS OBJETOS, MATERIALIDAD Y RECURSOS POLÍTICOS EN EL PROCESO DE PATRIMONIALIZACIÓN ENTRE LOS MAPOYO (VENEZUELA)

The dynamics reigning on cultural heritage’s activation processes are strongly imbued in the specificities of national contexts. In the case of Venezuela, where has been handled by Bolivarian discourse in the past two decades, it is remarkable the use, as a political resource, of a sword that the "country's founding father”, Simon Bolivar, would have delivered to Mapoyo as a reward for their participation in the War of Independence in the early nineteenth century. We argue that the symbolic capital associated with the commemoration of this event, with the materiality of the sword showing its authenticity, has influenced the cultural heritage recognition of Mapoyo, and the granting of his territorial ownership. We emphasize both the agency established by the sword, as the performance of Mapoyo to use of this "scarce resource” to advance their interests in the context of the government's inclusion in legitimating account of his ideological project.