Slovenian Folk-Pop Music as Intangible Cultural Heritage: A Critical Analysis of the Discourses and Practices of Heritage Gatekeepers in Slovenia and Slovenian Diasporas

Based on thirteen interviews with foreign, national, regional, and local folk-pop museum and festival representatives, the article unpacks in what ways these heritage gatekeepers understand folk-pop music as heritage. The authors further analyze to what extent the definitions of popular-music genres as cultural heritage in the diasporas and Slovenia coincide or differ. The analysis shows that the gatekeepers’ understanding of folk-pop as heritage tends to be broader than their heritage activities indicate. Moreover, stakeholders’ assessments of the impact of Slovenian diasporas abroad and foreign influences on Slovenian culture significantly affect their understanding of folk-pop as heritage.
Keywords: folk-pop music, heritage gatekeepers, hybridity, Slovenians abroad, Slovenia

Slovenian folk-pop music, a 20th-century popular-music genre capitalizing on various references to folk music and folk tradition, has been registered as intangible heritage in Slovenia’s Register of the Intangible Cultural Heritage since 2017 as an “important element of Slovenian identity.” Slovenian Public Opinion survey results (2021) also suggest that folk-pop is one of the most popular genres nationwide, and ethnographic studies testify to its significance to Slovenian diasporas worldwide. However, national heritage policies do not actively address the genre, and it is primarily local and commercial stakeholders, such as folk-pop-themed museums and festivals, that preserve, disseminate, and frame it as heritage. These organizations act as gatekeepers that frame practice-based understandings of Slovenian folk-pop music as cultural heritage and therefore contribute to authorized heritage discourse on this genre.
This article offers a qualitative critical discourse analysis of thirteen extensive interviews with these heritage gatekeepers conducted in 2022. The interviews, available in the Slovenian Social Science Data Archive (ADP), were analyzed using qualitative research data software. The responses were coded and compared to identify how different gatekeepers understand folk-pop music as heritage, implement this in their gatekeeping activities, and to what extent Slovenian folk-pop music is understood as a territorialized or a hybrid phenomenon.
Results: While all stakeholders tend to support the definition of folk-pop music as a vibrant phenomenon open to different influences that can modernize, this theoretical definition does not align with their pragmatic and strategic framings of Slovenian folk-pop. On this level, apart from the Slovenian Ethnographic Museum, museums in Slovenia focus on promoting specific local folk-pop celebrities, in great contrast to Cleveland’s National Cleveland-Style Polka Hall of Fame and Museum that stipulates mutual influences between different music styles and performers. Folk-pop festivals scale this distinction up to the level of different sounds and traditions. In Slovenia, piano-accordion-based festivals contrast with the more inclusive and diverse festivals that understand the folk-pop tradition as a mix of piano-accordion- and diatonic-accordion-based traditions. Diasporic festivals, such as those in Cleveland and Italy’s San Floriano del Collio, are even more inclusive, focused more on promoting national and local identification than specifying micro-differences. Moreover, stakeholders’ understandings of the relationship between Slovenia and Slovenian diasporas abroad affect their approaches to heritage.