Body, class, corpus[Corps, classe, corpus]

Body, class, corpus. The case of heritage studies This text analyzes the construction of heritage collections and the social bodies involved, either because the members of these bodies identify with them (heritage and national body) or because they participate more concretely in their construction, maintenance, conservation, and publicity. First, it focuses on the body of researchers working on the French General Inventory and how they determine, from a statistical perspective, which objects are typical or representative of the past and should be preserved. Secondly, we provide historical depth to this construction of the legacy of traces of the past, following different scales and emphasizing the categorization of things that are the subject of classification clashes, which are all the more intense as minority communities claim heritage sovereignty. Finally, we present our own heritage corpus based on the works of the 1% artistic program in order to distance ourselves from the classifications of the various actors involved in the heritage preservation of these works, each of which has its own logic, while showing the limitations of our sample.