Understanding Intangible Heritage

Introduction to Intangible Heritage

• In 1972, the World Heritage Convention (WHC) established an understanding of cultural and natural heritage.
• The WHC has major influence on national and international heritage policies.
• The WHC has been criticized as Eurocentric with monumental and aesthetic biases.
• The 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICHC) serves as a counterpoint to the WHC, especially for non-Western heritage.
• The first part of the book traces the history of the Convention of Intangible Heritage.
• The second part examines its utility while exploring intangible heritage.
• Part 1 provides detailed historical and policy insight for understanding the ICHC.
• Part 3 goes beyond the ICHC, exploring the concept of 'intangible heritage' more broadly.
• The ICHC was adopted by UNESCO in October 2003 and enforced on April 20, 2006.
• Part 1 of the volume documents the history of the Convention.
• A contribution from Aikawa-Faure provides an overview of the lengthy negotiation process.
• Skounti explores the tensions between local and global heritage views.
• Hafstein explores debates over the idea of a heritage 'list'.
• Blake identifies the attempt of the new Convention to engage with cultural communities.
• The convention signals the need to broaden and redefine how heritage is defined and understood.
• Logistical issues include human rights abuses, new terminology, and how to measure the value of intangible heritage.
• The practical concerns also derive from perceptions of heritage underpinning UNESCO's practices.
• A Western Authorized Heritage Discourse (AHD) defines heritage as tangible, monumental, grand, 'good', aesthetic, and of universal value.
• The AHD dominates much of UNESCO's heritage policy.
• The ICHC challenges the foundations of UNESCO's concept of heritage.
• There is discomfort from Western countries regarding the new Convention.
• Some Western countries did not see the relevance of the Convention.
• Some countries with Indigenous populations also expressed concerns.
• The ICHC will develop two new lists: ‘List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding’ and ‘Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity’.
• The act of creating a list is a performance of meaning making.
• 'Heritage' is identified and assessed against predefined criteria in this process.
• The issues reveal tensions between philosophical and conceptual constructs for dominant and authorised definitions of heritage.
• These issues are questioning the legitimacy of the idea of 'universal' value used in the WHC to refer to intangible heritage.
• Lobbying for the ICHC has come from a range of non-Western countries.
• Critics maintain that the list tends to privilege colourful and exotic examples of intangible heritage.
• Smith showed the idea of heritage as memory, workplace skills, family histories, oral histories, 'traditions' and so forth was prevalent for people in England.
• The English AHD limits debate about the nature, meaning and consequences of heritage.
• The chapter by Smith and Waterton develops the idea of the English AHD.
• The nature, value and consequences of heritage are fraught, and thus will be resisted.
• At global, national and local levels, heritage is used to define a sense of place.
• The development of international debate about intangible heritage has the potential to rework not only definitions of heritage but global and local senses of place.