Abstract
Abstract:In 2003, the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (UNESCO ICH Convention) formalized provision for forms of heritage not solely rooted in the material world. This expanded the scope and accessibility of cultural heritage rights for communities and groups. To much commentary and critique, the United Kingdom (UK) infamously decided not to ratify the UNESCO ICH Convention. This article examines the implications of the UK’s decision not to ratify the Convention for the cultural heritage and human rights of an asylum-seeking group in Glasgow, Scotland, namely, the Glasgow Bajuni campaigners, members of a minority Somali clan. Based on participatory ethnographic fieldwork with the group and analysis of their asylum cases, this article makes two observations: first, that the UK’s absence from the Convention establishes a precedent in which other state actors (that is, immigration authorities) are emboldened to advance skepticism over matters involving intangible cultural heritage and, second, that despite this, limitations in current provisions in the UNESCO ICH Convention would provide the group with little additional protection than they currently have. Developing these observations, we critique current UK approaches to intangible cultural heritage as complicit in the maintenance of hierarchies and the border. Finally, we consider the extent to which the current provisions of the UNESCO ICH Convention might be improved to include migrant and asylum-seeking groups.
Highlights
In recent decades, the relationship between cultural heritage and human rights has become a focus of discussion
Intangible cultural heritage was formally recognized in the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (UNESCO ICH Convention)
A key question, is to what extent does the United Kingdom (UK) government’s refusal to ratify the UNESCO ICH Convention impact the Glasgow Bajuni campaigners’ asylum cases? Is the denial of both their asylum applications and their intangible cultural heritage a result of the fact that intangible cultural heritage does not have the protection of the UNESCO ICH Convention? Or is the reverse the case: does the UK’s status outside the Convention not have an impact upon matters of intangible cultural heritage? These questions are of relevance in the specifics of the UK context; because they interrogate the effectiveness of the Convention, they have a wider scope
Summary
In Nafiz’s case, the judge’s approach to the relationship between intangible cultural heritage and identity was damaging enough to result in a final judgement against his asylum claim. In Faaruq’s case, his experience of Bajuni cultural heritage is doubted because it relies upon memory, local knowledge, and storytelling In both cases, the type of evidence that the Bajuni campaigners sought to provide—and the way in which they attempted to provide it—was closely related to the performance of their intangible cultural heritage. The type of evidence that the Bajuni campaigners sought to provide—and the way in which they attempted to provide it—was closely related to the performance of their intangible cultural heritage Because this “evidence” was informed by the type of qualities frequently associated with intangible cultural heritage—individual experience, embodied performance, changeable parameters—it did not fit within the immigration court’s definition of “evidence” and, was not seen as “evidence” at all. Not bound by the UNESCO ICH Convention—and, without alternative, robust intangible cultural heritagespecific provisions—the current “authorized discourses” of the UK encouraged the judge to treat the Bajuni campaigners’ cases according to the rather fixed and inflexible definitions of cultural expression—an approach that failed to respond to the nuance of the campaigners’ cases and for which the campaigners suffered
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call