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- Convenors:
-
Simone Frangella
(Institute of Social Sciences - University of Lisbon)
Elsa Peralta (Center for Comparative Studies - Faculty of Arts, University of Lisbon)
- Formats:
- Panels
- Location:
- Sackler A
- Start time:
- 9 June, 2012 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
This panel welcomes papers with an empirical basis that involves the relationship between the field of intangible heritage and the discipline and profession of anthropology. We are interested in questions of conflict, cultural legitimacy and the role of anthropology in the negotiations involved.
Long Abstract:
Since the creation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2003, the concept of heritage underwent a considerable redefinition. The appraisal of immateriality of heritage brings to the fore new power alignments as well as new forms of legitimating which cultural expressions are regarded as value and worth preserving. This new approach encompasses conflicts and ambivalences between what community groups experience as their social life and the political processes that involve the formalisation of this social life as heritage. Our interest is in debating specific contexts in which these problems arise. What are the negotiations involved in the making of the heritage? Who are the social actors that perform the process, from the selection of cultural references to its formalisation? Which are the political agenda and economic interests of these actors, and how they merge or conflict? We also pose broader questions: Can anthropology work as a mediator in these dynamics? How to distinguish in this context the concepts of intangible heritage and culture? What are the challenges for anthropologists that are being called again to "certificate" cultural expressions of these communities? We welcome papers that present research in different empirical contexts which address these questions and offer new insights regarding strategies and tools for the anthropologists to work in this field.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Chiara Bortolotto (EHESS)
Paper short abstract:
Which is the role of anthropologists in the identification of ICH? How do they negotiate their position in participative projects? Through participant observation in inventory-making and capacity building projects I will present some of the challenges that ICH presents for anthropologists.
Paper long abstract:
The Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) represents the most evident shift toward an anthropologisation of heritage in Unesco policies. Anthropologists claim for the acknowledgment of their know-how emphasizing that they are experts on the items to be safeguarded as well as interpreters of the point of view of the communities. As such, they are often involved in the implementation of the Convention at the national level: preparation of nominations, national inventories, and periodic reports. Far from simply implying the application of their anthropological knowledge or ethnographic experience, the new Unesco paradigm entails a radical redefinition of their role in the heritagization process. Which is the place that global policies and local communities assign to the anthropologist in this framework? How does this new role impact on the practice of academic or public anthropology? Does ICH ultimately legitimize anthropological expertise? I will draw on my participation to French inventories of ICH and on my experience in capacity building workshops organized by Unesco in order to present some of the challenges faced by anthropologists in the actual implementation of ICH policies.
Georgiana Gore (University of Clermont Auvergne) Andree Grau (University of Roehampton)
Paper short abstract:
In this paper, we aim to engage in a reflexive analysis of the ways in which our intellectual heritage as anthropologists has influenced our conception and future implementation of an appropriate academic programme for the training of future heritage “managers”.
Paper long abstract:
As anthropologists of dance and members of the Study Group on Ethnochoreology of the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM), an NGO in formal consultative relations with UNESCO, we've found ourselves drawn into engagement with UNESCO's 2003 Convention on Intangible Cultural Heritage despite our many reservations concerning the instrumentalisation of cultural resources, a process implicit in heritage creation. Many of our colleagues have been solicited by the communities with whom they work, to assist in preparing projects to preserve the dances deemed emblematic of cultural identity through inclusion in one of UNESCO's safeguarding lists. Others, experts on traditional dance, have been invited to become members of their national safeguarding committee and to represent their country on one of UNESCO's ICH committees. Our own engagement has, thus far, been to make a successful bid to establish, with some of these more committed colleagues, an international Masters programme designed to train students for the various industries (tourist, heritage) and civil service departments which treat dance and other cognate movement systems (ritual, martial arts) as ICH. In this paper, we aim to engage in a reflexive analysis of the ways in which our intellectual heritage as anthropologists has influenced our conception of an appropriate academic programme and in a prospective analysis as to the means to be deployed to train future heritage "managers". How can we give them the tools to resist hegemonic systems of interpretation and representation so that they may comfortably engage with diverse, even conflicting, expressions of the past?
Miriam Cohn (University of Basel)
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on a PhD-study the paper argues that anthropological research on topics at the margins of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) concept make valuable contributions not only to the investigated subject but also to the theorizing of ICH by challenging and enhancing notions of the convention.
Paper long abstract:
Theatre projects in contexts of migration might not be considered in a study on Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). Even though they technically belong to the category of "performing arts" as listed by the UNESCO, other aspects of the convention - especially the rootedness in a community for several generations and the suggested interaction with the environment - make the appearance of migrant cultural expressions on an ICH list unlikely. However, the implementation process in Switzerland, which has started in 2008 with the ratification of the convention, so far has included discussions of migrant cultural expressions. This result implies that ICH is discussed in a more differentiated way as expected.
Indeed, the investigation of migrant theatre projects in Basel, Switzerland under the perspective of ICH furthers several insights: The research reveals the complexity of terms such as "community" and challenges notions of rooted locality and smooth continuity of transmission. It also shows the existence of multiple discourses on "culture" and traditions, in which discourses on migration/integration, ICH but also art appear sometimes converging, sometimes diverging. The different values that are attributed to these discourses in turn give insights in the logics surrounding the creation of an ICH inventory.
Therefore, anthropological research plays an important role in refining concepts belonging to the ICH-convention and by this can attribute to the theorizing of heritage. The investigation of issues at the margins of the ICH-convention can help to enhance concepts and to gain a deeper understanding which discourses influence the creation of an inventory.
Maria Iancu (University College London)
Paper short abstract:
The paper exposes the disputed issues and the negotiation processes, related to the preservation of the material and intangible heritage of the Merry Cemetery in Romania. I argue that the paper’s foreign public and my non-political, neutral expertise were crucial points to make my opinion heard.
Paper long abstract:
The paper explores the processes through which the local power agents in Sapanta, Romania work for the preservation of the Merry's Cemetery heritage. This site is an eccentric graveyard, where the crosses are painted in vivid colours and the epitaphs consist of humourous verses. Despite being an obvious site of material culture, I argue that it bases its continuity on intangible heritage, such as the skills, the familial transmission of knowledge and as an alternative source of pride and authority, largely identifiable with the community's identity.
Through my research in the site, I identified several power agents, including the priest, the factions of artisans and the laymen, to whom the tradition of funerary crosses is enforced.
These actors continously negotiate among divergent views for the preservation of heritage. The paper proves that the national and centralist authorities were little succesful in imposing their strategies of restoring and preserving the heritage; nevertheless, external approval was always sought and esteemed.
Legitimating myself as neutral researcher and of foreign-training, I sought to impartially expose the current needs of the community and the manner in which skills have evolved and adapted. My work reveals that much source of conflict stemmed from economic interests; hence by a resolution upon the inheritance rights, including the rights over the local "blue tone", the heritage would fit better with the present interests of the community. Subsequently, my written analysis was demanded for reference in the official publications of the heritage site.
Michele Fontefrancesco (University of Gastronomic Sciences)
Paper short abstract:
Focusing on the case of jewellery making in Valenza and the recent institution of a geographic indication brands, i point out that the role of anthropology is to shed light and problematize the process of commodification and typization of the locale that a market-oriented definition of intangible heritage entails.
Paper long abstract:
Geographic indication brands [GIs] are fundamentally connected to a rhetoric of authenticity that highlights the existence and certifies the genuineness of a unique local intangible heritage. In this paper, I take in consideration the development and implementation of a GI for local jewellery production in Valenza, Italy. In so doing, I highlight the process that brought to the definition of such heritage, the jeweller's craftsmanship, and show the actors (State, local government, and goldsmith professional organizations) and actions that this process involved: from localizing the heritage to defining it. Drawing on the work of Heller (2007), I point out that this process of definition of intangible heritage enforced technoscientific quality standard, instituted in the regulations of the brand, over techne-oriented understanding of production that may exist on the local level, in order to achieve the demand of the global market. In so doing, I point out that such brands resulted into crafting local heritage and impose it over the local community. In my paper, thus, I emphasize that the role of anthropology is to shed light and problematize the process of commodification and typization of the locale that such a market-oriented definition of intangible heritage entails.
Margaret Bullen (University of the Basque Country, Donostia-San Sebastián)
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses the process initiated by the municipal government and taken up by the local Basque community to change a tradition perceived by some to be racist and politically incorrect. It looks at the role of the anthropologist in the sensitive process of interfering with a people's cultural heritage.
Paper long abstract:
Following a series of criticisms aimed at the figure of a Moor captured in battle and brought back by the triumphant troops, acted out in the annual parade and play which marks the high point of the local summer festival, the townsfolk of Antzuola (Gipuzkoa, Basque Country) had decided it was time for change. The decision corresponded with a general sense of unease with the military style parade which accompanies the play in a town where many people have resisted inscription into the Spanish army over the years and which votes on the whole in favour of the Basque nationalist Left. Anti-military feelings and a concern with accusations of racism at the way the "Moor" was depicted mingled with the desire to defend an age-old Basque tradition and the fear that it would die out if the young people did not identify with it. This led to the initiative of the cultural councilor and the parade's organizers to request an anthropological and historical study to sound out the history of the parade itself and people's feelings about it.
This paper discusses this process and the implications for the application of anthropological theory on the invention of history and tradition to a community initiative to transform, modernize and make more acceptable their intangible cultural heritage. The discovery that history, like tradition, is constructed by its makers and thus susceptible to change, was a liberating force in enabling people to contemplate modifying aspects of the tradition thereto considered in essentialist terms as untouchable.
Maria Jesús Pena Castro (Universidad de Salamanca)
Paper short abstract:
Timor Leste is living a rapid social and economic change which is bringing into question the role, scope and significance of the traditional practices. In this context different actors propose contrasting definitions of “Cultura”. This paper describes the process of negotiation between contrasting discourses, the changes in the meaning of the traditional heritage and the achievement of a new social consensus.
Paper long abstract:
Timor Leste is living a rapid social change: urban migration, embeddedment in a monetary economy and the blurring of the traditional lineage system.
Emically the concept "Cultura" or "Lia" involves, among other things, practices, rituals and a complex system of values and interchanges, mediating the relation between entitities; namely spirits, ancestors, kin groups, authorities and every social actors. As such, this Intangible Heritage structures society, economy and life.
Social and economic changesare challenging traditional cultural practices and bring into question the legitimacy of the power of ritual authorities, since the increasing use of money in the ritual exchanges raises a conflict with the emerging urban middle class. To deal with this conflict,the different social actors negotiate the redefinition of Cultura and its role in modern life.
The negotiation of the significance, meaning and uses of traditional "Lia" heritage has come across different stages. Different discourses fulfilled the aims of different agendas and interests: from the Catholic Church, to the State and International Institutions, the traditional authorities or the emerging middle classes. The negotiation is producing new contents and scopes for this Heritage, reformulating its role in the changing society.
This paper analyses this process and the new trends in the negotiation, which includes voices from the expertise knowledge, allowing the achievement ofa new balance that brings a redefinition of this cultural heritage in the contemporary society. From this perspective, the final purpose of this dialectical process of discursive negotiationswould be the integration between the new social conditions and the enrooted Worldview thattakes into custody the legitimacy of the social system.
Elsa Peralta (Center for Comparative Studies - Faculty of Arts, University of Lisbon)
Paper short abstract:
A short presentation of The International Journal of Intangible Heritage will be welcome in the last session of the Panel.
Paper long abstract:
The International Journal of Intangible Heritage (IJIH) is a refereed academic and professional English language journal dedicated to the promotion of the understanding of all aspects of intangible heritage, and the communication of research and examples of good professional practice. It was first published in 2006 in response to the rapidly growing interest in intangible heritage, particularly following the widespread ratification by States in all parts of the world of UNESCO's 2003 International Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.
The Journal is published as an annual volume, typically of between 120 and 160 pages with full colour illustrations, in both print (2000 copies) and free PDF download formats. Proposals for contributions to future volumes of the Journal are actively sought from professionals and specialists across the world. Main papers are normally between 4,000 and 8,000 words in length with short papers, reports and reviews of up to 3,000 words. Papers must be submitted in English and authors are responsible for their translation. Papers can be submitted at any time, though only those received by or before 15th December each year can be refereed in time for the annual early February meeting of the full Editorial Board and, if accepted, included in the next annual volume which will be published in May of the same year. Submission of your article is only available via the official website: http://www.ijih.org