Intangible Cultural Property Research Articles

A CASE STUDY ON THE PERCEPTION OF THE WŎNHYŎNG (ORIGINAL FORM) OF LOCAL MUSIC IN KOREA

The South Korean government preserves traditional arts at the national, city and provincial levels, through Munhwajae Pohobŏp (Cultural Property Preservation Law), with the aim of preserving the wŏnhyŏng (original form). Specifically, it designates the relevant properties and, for the Intangible Cultural Properties the relevant artists, as “Poyuja (Holder).” However, the government’s intention behind the cultural policy is not often realized in the actual performance context. To address this, I examine how local artists perceive the wŏnhyŏng (original form) in the case of a local art from South Kyŏngsang Province: T’ongyŏng Ogwangdae (Mask Drama of T’ongyŏng). The existing literature on cultural policy in South Korea tends to deal only with the tense relationship between the national government and local artists, focusing more on government acts than on the response of local artists. This research concentrates on illuminating how local artists perceive the original form, in comparison with the investigator(s) for designation. For the Intangible Cultural Properties, the government sets forth as a premise that it can discover “nativeness” in the sector of “folklore” from Korea. In the case of the music of the Mask Drama of T’ongyŏng, the investigators define the original form as the oldest surviving form that, in their perception, has local features. However, the local artists regard it as the original, functionally-intended form, focusing more on “functional intention” that on “physical form.” From this perspective, they show differences from the oldest surviving version in terms of tempo and rhythms. If their essentialism is involved in stronger essentialism, there will be a danger that the governments and the local artists will become estranged and the relationship between them become difficult. To prevent this danger, and to enable them to coexist, I argue that ethnomusicologists might play a positive role as mediators.

Investigative research towards the designation of shamanic village rituals as ‘intangible cultural properties’ of the Seoul Metropolitan Governmen

Investigative research towards the designation of shamanic village rituals as ‘intangible cultural properties’ of the Seoul Metropolitan Governmen

Materials, Skills and Cultural Resources: Onta Folk Art Pottery Revisited

This article looks at a variety of issues surrounding the use of skills and materials in the production of Onta pottery, a style of Japanese mingei, or “folk art,” whose methods of production have now been designated an Important Intangible Cultural Property by the Japanese Government's Agency for Cultural Affairs. It relates how a fall-off in market demand has threatened the continued manufacture of traditional forms, and, as a consequence, the throwing skills that underpin them. It also describes how various external developments, beyond the potters' control, have affected their access to natural glaze materials, before showing the potential consequences these developments have on Onta pottery's designation as a traditional cultural form. Its particular theoretical concern is with the ways in which cultural resources are appropriated by and negotiated among various actors, including the potters themselves, critics, aesthetes, government officials, marketing agents, and consumers.

Perspectives on Korean Music (review)

Reviewed by: Perspectives on Korean Music Yong-Shik Lee (bio) Perspectives on Korean Music, by Keith Howard. Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2006. 2 vols.: 264, 260 pp. Illustrations, music examples, CDs. $99.95 each volume (cloth). Music is a mirror to understand the discourse of identity in Korean society. As in many Third World countries that have experienced rapid Westernization and urbanization, Western music has been the dominating power in Korean society since the beginning of the twentieth century. Yet, Koreans have attempted to find their national identity from traditional culture and music. Although most Koreans prefer Western classical music and Western-style popular music to traditional music, they believe that traditional music has played a key role as the carrier of the "five thousand years" of Korean identity and has to be developed in order to enhance the notion of Koreanness. Traditional music has been the core of the Intangible Cultural Properties system in order to preserve and promote the valuable cultural heritage. At the same time, musicians have attempted to create a new music culture in order to appeal to the tastes of contemporary audiences. In this regard, preserving and creating are double sides of a coin for Korean musicians. Keith Howard seriously explores the double sides of the coin in his comprehensive two-volume publication. The author is one of the first foreign ethnomusicologists [End Page 88] to conduct extensive field research in Korea. His publication, Bands, Songs, and Shamanistic Rituals: Folk Music in Korean Society (1989), based on his fieldwork on Jindo Island, at the southwestern tip of the Korean peninsula and a "Treasure Island," in its literal meaning, or as Howard puts it, "a virtual heritage museum" (p. 1: 101) of Korean folk music, is one of the most comprehensive musical ethnographies of Korean music. In his 1989 study, Howard explores the background and process of Korea's promotion of the Intangible Cultural Properties system and its application to Jindo cultural properties. His interest is not confined to Jindo islanders' music but has expanded to most traditional musical genres from court music to folk music and to newly composed music since the late 1980s. This two-volume study is the result of twenty-five years of research from an outsider's view. Since the late 1960s Korean traditional music has been "recovered" by two oppositional powers. On one hand, the Korean government has promoted traditional music to gain popular recognition of the regime's legitimacy, exploiting the term "nationalism." The aim of such governmental manipulation is to legitimize and increase its authoritative power through the inspiration of people's historical consciousness. The most effective meaning of reviving cultural nationalism was to efface its emergent nature by invoking the past. This process of invoking the past becomes a matter of empowerment in creating national self. The government emphasized the importance of traditional culture and redefined the Confucian ethics that have governed Korean life and ideology for more than six hundred years (Lee 2004: 38–39). The government's exertion in establishing traditional culture resulted in the system of Intangible Cultural Properties, as explored by Howard in his first volume, Preserving Korean Music: Intangible Cultural Properties as Icons of Identity. On the other hand, the minjung (people) movement, which "attempts to heal the nation's wounded history by reconstructing a popular culture common to all" (Choi 1995: 107), aims to revive the traditional culture. Those who oppose state authority have embraced especially folk culture, including folk songs, farmers' band music, masked dances, and shamanic arts, as a counter-hegemonic reaction to elite culture. The recognition of traditional music by the activist was not restricted to a momentary movement. It has resulted in the development of new Korean music as the key role in the discourse of the Korean identity, as examined in Howard's second volume, Creating Korean Music: Tradition, Innovation and the Discourse of Identity. To preserve and to create Korean music are contradictory tasks for Korean musicians, although they are complementary in nature. Most Korean musicologists argue that traditional music should be preserved as its own to exhibit the splendid traditional culture. In fact, maintaining archetypes based on the notion of originality is the...

Heritage Trouble: Recent Work on the Protection of Intangible Cultural Property

A major factor driving contemporary concerns about the fate of intangible cultural property is the rise of the Information Society, which has proven adept at stripping information from the cultural contexts that give it meaning. Efforts to preserve intangible heritage have tended to follow Information Society models by proposing that heritage be inventoried, then removed from the public domain and returned to the exclusive control of its putative creators. This essay reviews recent scholarly work and policy initiatives related to intangible cultural property, with an eye toward identifying their merits and flaws. It argues for a more ecological perspective, one that takes account of the unpredictable quality of information flows as well as the costs of attempting to manage them. Also explored are some of the difficult, unanswered questions about whether all intangible cultural heritage is equally worthy of protection.

Craft Knowledge as an Intangible Cultural Property: A Case Study of Samarkand Tiles and Traditional Potters in Uzbekistan

ABSTRACTReverse engineering past craft technologies involves using the basics of materials science and engineering to a new end: their preservation and continuation. Examples are presented of the glazed tile technologies of Samarkand, Bukhara and other Silk Route cities of Uzbekistan that date from the thirteenth century A.D. but that continue to the present. The UNESCO charter for the preservation of Intangible Cultural Properties has enlightened the goals and results of the research and has linked together archaeological materials research and conservation science in an exciting new partnership.

The Revival of Folksongs in South Korea: The Case of "Tondollari"

Since the 1960s, activities on the South Korean traditional music scene have been increasingly geared to reaching the same objectives. While singing folksongs has generally become an unpopular form of entertainment, those now actively performing them take their art very seriously. They all hope to increase the status and recognition of their art, and many, particularly the male performers, wish to ensure a proper income. The success of some individuals and groups has given them a status that personified their tradition and enables them to reinterpret their art more freely. The A. examines the activities of the Pukch'ong Society that has successfully revived the tradition of the folksong Tondollari by choosing the right stages, propagating anti-Japanese sentiments, and learning from the success of two Kanggangsullae groups that were both appointed Important Intangible Cultural Properties (no. 8) in 1966.

Culture, Autonomy and Djulibinyamurr: Individual and Community in the Construction of Rights to Traditional Designs

The possibility of granting proprietary rights in indigenous intangible cultural property – including artwork, cultural items and, more recently, traditional knowledge – has been and continues to be an area of considerable controversy, and the subject of discussions in various international organisations. It is widely accepted that present intellectual property regimes are structurally inadequate. The author focuses on the particular problem of traditional designs, and seeks to analyse critically the justifications that are advanced for extending existing regimes or introducing a sui generis right: in particular, the protection of ‘cultural integrity». The aim is to elucidate some of the theoretical problems with this rationale, and to extrapolate, from arguments regarding the importance of culture and cultural integrity, to the form and scope of rights that such an argument might require. In particular, the author believes that such a rationale has implications in determining how conflicts between communal and individual interests are to be resolved.

狂言における基本的動作と呼吸パターンの関係 : 大蔵流山本家を事例として

A study was performed to clarify the relationship between basic movements and respiration patterrn in Kyogen, a Japanese traditional performing art. The subjects were three professional Kyogen actors (Oukura-ryu, Yamamoto-ke), with performing careers of 10, 19 and 53 years, respectively. The latter subject had been designated an important intangible cultural property. The subjects were asked to perform four typical Shosa (kata) at three speeds and three Komai-a chain of dance movements. We recorded the respiration curve using a rubber strain gauge placed on the actor's thorax, and observed the relationship between movements and respiration phase, cycle, and ratio of inspiration time to expiration time. The results were as follows:Shosa (kata)Subj.10-year career : Regardless of movement speed, the respiration phases were harmonized, which is a typical feature of sports performance.Subj.53-year carrer : In all shosa, the respiration phases were independent of movements. However the respiration cycle and the ratio of inspiration time to expiration time were proportional to the speed of movement. Subj.19-year career : The subject showed features intermediate between those of the subjects with 10- and 53-year careers. Komai Subjs.with 19-and 53-year careers : The respiration curve was independent of movement, and appeared similar to that during the singing of "Utai" music by Jiutai actors. It was found that the the respiration curves between basic movements and the respiration pattern in Kyogen gradually changed from harmonization to separation, according to the actor's skill. However, during performance of "Utai", the respiration pattern was harmonized with the "Utali" melody.

A Taste for "the Other": Intellectual Complicity in Racializing Practices

L'A. considere le fait que dans leurs representations les intellectuels surprivilegient les indigenes comme une pratique raciste. Commentaire de F. Harrison, K. Narayan, A. Ong, H. Page, A. R. Ramos, J. Ritchie, V. Stolcke, et de M.-R. Trouillot