Social resilience and intangible cultural heritage: a mutually fertilizing potential seen in a case study in Mexico

Abstract

This chapter looks at the relationship between social resilience and Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) in a local setting, positing that each nurtures the other and that they constitute important pillars for sustainable, long-term, and context-coherent peace. Specifically, the chapter seeks to explore the way in which cultural heritage renews itself through the centrality of social resilience, which is conceptualized systemically as a process and explored in a case study of the Mojiganga festival in the state of Morelos in Mexico. A significant ICH practice becomes a social resilience pillar of the social system, as it enables the system to reconfigure its internal coherence and sense of identity (to be), mediate change (to continue), and develop (to grow) with endless potential. At the same time, however, this process of social resilience provides feedback and reconfigures ICH.