Portugal’s 2008 ratification of UNESCO’s 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) inaugurated a wave of inscriptions that now structure the National Inventory (NIICH), the central instrument of ICH safeguarding in Portugal. Yet how inventory practices and implementation of safeguarding measures have affected the communities responsible for the practices’ transmission remains understudied. This article opens the conceptual-scoping phase of a doctoral thesis addressing that gap, through an interpretive analysis of two patrimonialization processes in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (LMA): Kola San Jon and Marchas Populares de Lisboa. The approach is qualitative and interpretive. National and international legal instruments frame how the inscription and revision dossiers prepared for the NIICH are read, namely for their stated motivations, the threats to continuity identified, and the safeguarding measures proposed. The threat-action gap is operationalized as the analytical lens. Findings reveal misalignment: while threats are largely territorial - touristification, demographic shifts, demolition risk and land tenure insecurity -safeguarding measures remain confined to the cultural domain. This stresses the need for cross-sectoral policies and for the articulation of ICH safeguarding with territorial management instruments and local development strategies.

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