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The article presents the passage, in the field of “arts and popular traditions” and/or of the “ethnological inheritance”, of the concept of “popular culture” to the label of “oral and immaterial inheritance” or of “alive treasure”. Approaching at the same time disciplinary and institutional dimensions, it invites to question these notional passages as well in their historical inscription as in their definitional complexity and ambiguity or in their scientific and political implications. Being inspired primarily by the institutional situation of the French Community of Belgium, the reports and the questions can, mutatis mutandis, find a reflexive echo broader.