Cultural letter: Childhoods, heritage and intercultural dialogues in Latin America

Abstract

This article presents the results of the Carta Cultural project, a participatory cultural management experience that explores how Latin American children exercise their right to symbolic representation through visual language. The aim was to analyze children’s sentipensares in diverse contexts (Real de Catorce, Sahuayo, La Plata, and Medellín), recognizing them as co-authors of memory and cultural heritage. The methodology was based on graphic workshops and an epistolary exchange of drawings, using a collaborative and visual autoethnography approach. The sample included children and adolescents from Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia, who produced more than 60 illustrated letters. Iconological analysis (Panofsky) identified four dimensions: territory, time, objects, and imagination. The results show how children represent both ritual and traditional elements (religious patrons, dances, typical foods) and contemporary issues (migration, drug trafficking, popular culture). The letters reveal that graphic representation is a political act of memory, resistance, and testimony, as well as a sensitive language for intercultural dialogue. The main conclusion is that children, by representing their environment, reinvent living heritage from their own perspectives, demanding recognition as cultural agents and key actors in cultural management.