Safeguarding Of Intangible Cultural Heritage Research Articles

At the Limits of Cultural Heritage Rights? The Glasgow Bajuni Campaign and the UK Immigration System: A Case Study

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.

Intangible Cultural Heritage. Produced by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). 2003-2018. In English, French, and Spanish.

Produced by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). 2003-2018. In English, French, and Spanish. URL: https:/ /ich. unesco.org/ UNESCO's 2003 Convention for the Urgent Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage articulates the contemporary value and relevance oflntangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). It offers a framework to help current and prospective States Parties understand the dynamics of, and measures that may be taken to support, ICH. The Convention was a landmark in the evolution of international policies relating to cultural expression and diversity, building on the 2001 UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity and later informing the development of the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. Through its website Intangible Cultural Heritage, UNESCO provides extensive information and resources relating to the 2003 Convention.

IDEE I ZAŁOŻENIA KONWENCJI O OCHRONIE DZIEDZICTWA KULTURALNEGO I NATURALNEGO I ICH REALIZACJA W POLSCE Z PERSPEKTYWY POLSKIEGO KOMITETU DO SPRAW UNESCO

Over the years, the implementation of the Convention in Poland has revealed a number of issues related to protection of heritage in line with the patterns worked out at the UNESCO forum, and resulting from the incomplete adaptation of our legal system for the protection of historic monuments and sites, insufficient public awareness and the difficulty of incorporating historical sites into modern economic development strategies. The Polish UNESCO Committee addressed the above issues with a series of papers accompanying conferences participated in by a wide range of experts, decision-makers and local government activists at various levels. Observations concerning the application of the 1972 Convention, in particular with regard to legal protection of the world heritage sites in Poland, and the need to implement the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, and the 2011 UNESCO Recommendations on the Historical Urban Landscape, have convinced the Committee to review Polish legislation in terms of protection of heritage from the perspective of the UNESCO normative acts ratified by Poland. In 2014, we published a study on “Why and how to protect the cultural heritage ina modern way,” edited by the then-Chairman of the Polish UNESCO Committee, profesor Andrzej Rottermund. The paper presented a wide range of conditions for application of the existing legal provisions and expected changes, provided by various institutions and experts in the field of protection of tangible and intangible heritage and respect for cultural diversity. The need to developa new comprehensive law regulating protection of cultural heritage in Poland and taking into account the provisions of the UNESCO Convention was emphasised. What is particularly grave in application of the principles of the 1972 Convention is the lack of appropriate tools for managing world heritage sites. This includes, in particular: lack of legislation that would effectively protect the borderlines of the properties being inscribed and their buffer zones, view corridors and panoramas of sites of great historical significance. The lack of proper inclusion of local communities in the heritage management processes is a significant issue, according to the message of the 2005 Faro Council of Europe Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society.Article entitled “The Social Dimension of the Cultural and Natural Landscape”, issued in 2015, discusses issues concerning immediate vicinity of properties of great historical significance. It is stated that landscape is an integral entity consisting of natural elements and cultural heritage, which is understood as both tangible and intangible heritage. Consideration should be given to how notions occurring at the UNESCO forum evolved. Particular attention should be also paid to shifting from the concept of a historic monument to the concept of heritage, and the concept of historic monument protection to the concept of heritage management. It is also important to take into account the need for sustainable protection of the natural and cultural values of landscapes, both urban and rural.

Re-Imagine

Re-Imagine

Safeguarding intangible cultural heritage in an ethnic theme park setting – the case of Binglanggu in Hainan Province, China

Since 2003, safeguarding intangible cultural heritage (ICH) has become a priority of China’s cultural heritage safeguarding policies at all levels. Despite this, academic research has paid limited attention to the safeguarding of ICH in a theme park setting. This paper examines the opportunities and challenges of safeguarding ICH in an ethnic theme park in China. It investigates how the Binglanggu theme park in Hainan aims to contribute to the safeguarding of Li minority heritage. The study is based on qualitative data consisting of interviews with Li minority members working at Binglanggu, the Vice-Manager of the theme park and interviews with heritage and tourism experts in Hainan, as well as observation at the theme park. The findings indicate that, when concentrating on certain ICH expressions that align with the state’s ethnic minority narrative, the theme park makes an important contribution to the research and documentation of Li minority heritage. However, the park struggles to transmit ICH expressions to the younger generations. The research concludes that essential criteria to contribute to the safeguarding of ICH are to include the ethnic minority group in the safeguarding process, for example by employing them in management positions, and to concentrate more strongly on education and transmission.

Mapping the Potential Interactions between UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage Regime and World Trade Law

The 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (CSICH) was not intended to have legal repercussions in international trade. Nevertheless, ICH may interact with trade regulation under various scenarios. The CSICH “Representative List” inscribes numerous ICH elements with real and potential international commercial aspects, and consequent trade law implications. These emergent trade law-ICH regime dynamics require not only some critical reflection (e.g., is safeguarding of ICH ultimately dependent on commodification or at least in some cases significantly prone to commercial capture?), but also doctrinal legal analysis. This article undertakes a survey of many plausible ICH-trade interactions (generally excluding intellectual property issues), providing an analytical framework with reference to a series of case-sketches of selected CSICH inscriptions such as Kimjang, Beer Culture in Belgium and Yoga. These and other cases may indeed raise issues under world trade law, including GATT, GATS, TBT/SPS, and subsidies regulation. Trade law may have underestimated the significance of ICH as a growing field. At the same time, ICH law may be developing without thinking through how it is impacted by commercial interests and international trade law.

THE CITY’S INTANGIBLE HERITAGE. MUSEALISATION, PROTECTION, EDUCATION, M. KWIECIŃSKA (ED.), THE HISTORICAL MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF CRACOW 2016, 327 PP., ILL.

The 2016 publication The city’s intangible heritage. Musealisation, protection, education sums up an interdisciplinary conference organised by the Historical Museum of the City of Cracow. The book is of particular interest in terms of acknowledging the role of Polish museology in implementing the provisions of the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage. Its novelty in terms of previous similar elaborations results from tackling the city’s aspect of this heritage. There still does not appear to be enough works on the diversity of the cultural areas mentioned in the Convention’s recommendations. It is imperative to expand research beyond the most frequently analysed culture of the countryside, as the city’s heritage is a valuable and diverse aspect of human activity. In recent years it has been particularly prone to fragmentation and degradation because of the dynamics of urban processes, social and economic changes and migrations of peoples. Both the authors of the publication, and the participants in the conference – museum professionals, museologists, heritage interpreters both from Poland and abroad – deal with questions concerning the aspects of identity and the city’s audiosphere, the safeguarding of its intangible heritage, musealisation and depositaries, as well as education.

LOS SABERES POPULARES SOBRE LAS TECNOLOGÍAS COMUNITARIAS DE PESCA. ESTUDIO DE CASO EN LA COMUNIDAD CASTILLO DE JAGUA

The need to safeguard the intangible cultural heritage of our communities is of paramount importance in these times of globalization. Hence the urgency of carrying out measures aimed at guaranteeing the viability of this heritage by identifying, documenting, researching, preserving, protecting, promoting and valuing it in its various aspects, as set out in the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2003. The present work assesses the popular knowledge about the community fishing technologies of the Castillo de Jagua community from a sociocultural perspective, where they analyze the interrelations that are generated between these, socio-cultural practices and the traditional knowledge of the members of the community, to constitute these, expressions of the traditional popular culture.

Museums, Dance, and the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage: “Events of Practice” – A New Strategy for Museums?

Museums, Dance, and the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage: “Events of Practice” – A New Strategy for Museums?

Intangible Cultural Heritage Legislation in Asia: In Search for the Spirit of the 2003 UNESCO Convention

Safeguarding intangible cultural heritage took international momentum in 2003, the year in which UNESCO adopted the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH Convention). The consensus reached within UNESCO was to create a framework convention inspiring state parties to develop a national legislation to safeguard intangible cultural heritage. State parties are given the freedom to design this legislation according to their needs and capacities. Despite the freedom given by the ICH Convention, state parties may want to consider certain limits. The ICH Convention has an international dimension, providing benefits to the state parties, be it in the form of international awareness raising of their intangible cultural heritage or financial contributions to the safeguarding of their intangible cultural heritage. If state parties would like to enjoy these benefits, following the spirit of the ICH Convention is a must. The adoption of the ICH Convention was especially supported in Asia, a region in which intangible cultural heritage tends to be more prominent than its tangible equivalent. It should thus not come as a surprise that the ICH Convention spurred legislative initiatives all over Asia. Some Asian countries, like the Philippines, amended their heritage laws to reflect the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage. Other Asian countries, like Laos and Vietnam, adopted holistic heritage laws, reflecting both the protection of tangible heritage and the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage. Still some other Asian countries, like Thailand, created specific intangible cultural heritage laws. There are also Asian countries, such as Cambodia, that have not taken a legislative approach. Based upon the findings of a research projects conducted by IRCI and Kyushu University, this paper investigates to what extent Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam have endorsed the spirit of the ICH Convention.

Intangible cultural heritage communities in the network of the Skanzen Hungarian Open Air Museum

In Hungary, the professional coordinator of the execution of the 2003 UNESCO convention about the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage is the Skanzen Hungarian Open Air Museum, celebrating its 50th birthday this year. During its existence, the institution has formed an extensive community and professional network and has become a knowledge center concerning the protection of cultural heritage. The establishment of the Directorate of Intangible Cultural Heritage at the Museum is closely connected to the topic, as it constructed its own national networks based on this background. With respect to the philosophy of the Skanzen, together with the sponsoring cultural ministry, the Directorate created a heritage protection mechanism that focuses on communities retaining and maintaining their identity as a cultural practice, actively engaging them in the unfolding and registration of their intangible cultural heritage. At the same time, it pays attention to continuous communication and options for exchanging experiences. The Hungarian model, which is internationally acknowledged, is exactly ten years old, since Hungary joined the convention in 2006.

A decade of implementation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage

In this article, Cécile Duvelle presents the main points of the evaluation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage undertaken by UNESCO a decade after its adoption in 2003. She discusses the achievements as well as the pitfalls of the Convention. Drawing on a survey involving State Parties as well as many non-state stakeholders including NGOs, representatives of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) bearer organizations, and academics, the authors of the evaluation report consider the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage to be a highly relevant international legal instrument, both in terms of its consistency with national and local priorities and with the needs of the concerned communities, groups and individuals. The Convention has broadened the more traditional view of heritage to include anthropological and sociological points of view. It also introduced a number of important concepts related to ICH, such as the understanding that the community is the real bearer of ICH and that this heritage is defined in terms of the community; the notion that culture is living and evolving as it is transmitted from one generation to another; and the concept of safeguarding as a measure aimed at ensuring the viability of ICH. The Convention introduced new terminology and definitions that have since gained global prominence, supplanting older concepts. The article provides an in-depth discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the practice of listing ICH elements, of the promises and shortcomings of community participation, of the challenges of intellectual property and cultural diversity to ICH, of the necessary collaboration in the administration of the different UNESCO heritage conventions, and of the ways intangible cultural heritage can contribute to sustainable development, to conflict resolution and to human rights. The author concludes by commenting the recommendations of the evaluation report.

Intangible Culture on Inland Seas, from Hudson Bay to Canadian Heritage

The author of this article examines the ways in which theConvention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritageconsiders the protection of aboriginal languages and provides a case study of the challenges of the preservation of the Cree language in Canada. For Indigenous people, in Canada as elsewhere, questions arise about who speaks for whom; many of their constituents may not identify with the major political organizations that represent their interests to governments and are recognized by government agencies; and other structural and logistical barriers also arise. The paper takes a look at the richness of Aboriginal history around Hudson Bay as held in language and stories, and then discusses the many challenges that a Hudson Bay Cree storyteller, Louis Bird, and his collaborators faced in pursuing an oral history project funded by a Canadian governmental agency with its own parameters and priorities.

Intangible Heritage in France

In this article, Dominique Poulot provides a historical overview of the notion of intangible cultural heritage and its relationship to museum studies in France. He brings the study up to the present day to examine the current impact of intangible cultural heritage on the museums. Since 2006, when France signed the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, intangible cultural heritage has emerged as an issue of current concern. In the museum world, various institutional intermediaries are being used in order to educate curators about intangible heritage, by way of ICOM France, for example. At the same time, the Mission du patrimoine ethnologique (Ethnological Heritage Mission, or MPE) has initiated a collective reflection concerning the new categories and new framework of activities for intangible cultural heritage issues only very recently considered “ethnological” in nature. Hence intangible heritage would seem to be on the agenda of various state administration bodies according to a top-down process characteristic of the centralized tradition of French museum and heritage organizations. The situation has apparently become even more propitious in this regard since a certain number of recent events have served to highlight the fact that the opposition between the notion of ever-changing social space dear to anthropologists and the enclosure of objects conserved at the museum dear to tangible-culture specialists has become a thing of the past.

U.S. Consideration of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention

UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, voted overwhelmingly at the biennial meeting of its General Conference in Paris on October 17, 2003 to adopt a new internationalConvention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. That Convention became international law on April 30, 2006. By the end of 2006 it had been ratified or accepted by 68 countries; today, that number is approaching universal acceptance with more than 160 nations having acceded to the convention. At the 2003 session, some 120 nation-members voted for the convention; more registered their support subsequently. No one voted against it; only a handful of nations abstained – Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States among them. Within some of those nations, debate over whether to ratify the treaty continues. In this paper, the author considers the convention and unofficially examines the U.S. government position with regard to why support for it was withheld in 2003, how deliberations have proceeded since then, and whether or not the U.S. might ultimately accept the treaty.

Bottleneck and Countermeasures for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage

Bottleneck and Countermeasures for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage

Beyond Binarism: Exploring a Model of Living Cultural Heritage for Dance

This essay, inspired by the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, explores meanings and definitions of the term ‘cultural heritage’ as it may be applied to dance. UNESCO's effort to include many different types of human expressions in its lists is commendable and an important attempt to safeguard the aspects of the world's cultural heritage. However, the binary oppositions of ‘tangible’/’intangible’, frequently used to describe material and immaterial elements of culture and heritage create a false dichotomy. This label is particularly problematic for dance, given its complex, multi-dimensional nature in which intangible and tangible elements are indissolubly linked. Instead, we suggest an alternative perspective of ‘living cultural heritage’ which is informed by three post-dualist conceptions contained within Giddens' Structuration theory (structure-agency), Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology (mind-body) and Bourdieu's theory of cultural practice (field-practice-habitus). This essay introduces the idea of a living cultural heritage by using the above post-dualist concepts as a stepping stone towards a more inclusive and fluid model of heritage. In this model, the cultural, embodied, practical, spatial, temporal and artefactual elements of cultural heritage are retained as each contributes to an emergent process of exchange and dialogue resulting in cultural heritage.

Replicating Elite Dominance in Intangible Cultural Heritage Safeguarding: The Role of Local Government–Scholar Networks in China

Abstract:Since “intangible cultural heritage” (ICH) became the new focal point in the global heritage discourse, governments and scholars in many countries have begun to promote this new form of “immaterial” culture. The People’s Republic of China has been one of the most active state parties implementing the new scheme and adapting it to domestic discourses and practices. Policies formulated at the national level have become increasingly malleable to the interests of local government-scholar networks. By conducting a comparative case study of two provinces, this article aims to identify the role of local elite networks in the domestic implementation of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, focusing on the incentives of scholars and officials to participate in ICH policy networks. It finds that the implementation of the Convention has not removed the power asymmetry between elite and popular actors but, instead, has fostered an elite-driven policy approach shaped by symbiotic, mutually legitimizing government–scholar networks.

Gauging Music Vitality and Viability: Three Cases from Cambodia

Over a decade ago, UNESCO's Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage professed that “the processes of globalization and social transformation” along with “the phenomenon of intolerance” were giving rise to “grave threats of deterioration, disappearance and destruction of the intangible cultural heritage” of the world (2003a). The Convention represented an international acknowledgement of the precarious predicament of many cultural expressions across the world, from languages, music, and dance traditions to worldviews and traditional environmental knowledge. While ethnomusicologists have been engaging for many decades with preservation and protection mechanisms for musical traditions, particularly those of ethnic and minority peoples, the 2003 Convention (and the suite of subsequent UNESCO and UN treaties around culture and heritage) provided further impetus for ethnomusicological engagement in safeguarding and sustainability work. Theoretical and applied research in this area has grown significantly in the last ten to fifteen years on topics ranging from music and tourism (e.g., Connell and Gibson 2005), music as heritage (e.g., Howard 2006), music and cultural rights (e.g., Weintraub and Yung 2009), and music revivals (e.g., Bithell and Hill 2014), to activist or community-oriented approaches to music sustainability (e.g., Pettan and Titon 2015; Schippers and Grant 2016).

Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Republic of Macedonia

In this article we examine the way local, national, and regional politics affect the policies and practices of “intangible cultural heritage” (ICH)—a notion derived from the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage—in two detailed case studies from the Republic of Macedonia. While our conclusions are particular to our case studies, we hope that researchers in other national settings will find them useful for describing and analysing their own situations. We begin with a discussion of heritagization and recontextualization, which are inherent in ICH safeguarding processes. Next, we provide background on the external contestation of a distinct Macedonian ethnic and national identity, and the ways that UNESCO ICH safeguarding processes have been perceived and applied in Macedonia. Against that backdrop, we then describe and analyse two contrasting cases of ICH—the social dance “Kopackata” and the Galicnik Wedding—both of which illustrate how the cultural heritage concept itself can sometimes be used for national, commercial, and political ends.