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- Convenors:
-
Laurent Fournier
(University Cote d'Azur)
Sylvie Grenet (French Ministry of Culture)
- Stream:
- Heritage
- Location:
- D5
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 24 June, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Zagreb
Short Abstract:
Since 2003, several countries have launched inventories of their intangible cultural heritage. This panel wants to consider these inventories and their actual increase in a critical and a comparative manner.
Long Abstract:
In all the countries which have signed the 2003 UNESCO convention for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage, inventories have become necessary to know better the cultural elements which could potentially claim for the intangible cultural heritage label. Since 2003, several countries have tried to inventory intangible cultural heritage in different ways, in most of the cases without following the same methods. In some cases, the inventories of intangible cultural heritage use the traditional methods of ethnology and folklore. In other cases the inventories try to involve the political actors, the cultural institutions or the communities concerned by the inventoried cultural elements. This panel wants to consider inventories and their actual increase in a critical and a comparative manner. To this aim, three different questions will be put forwards. First, what does it mean to use inventories in the field of intangible cultural heritage? Isn't the inventory of intangible cultural heritage a utopia? Second, how do the different countries inventory their intangible cultural heritages and how can they be compared on such a ground? Third, is the inventory of intangible cultural heritage different from other inventories, for instance in historical monuments, in archaeology or in museums? Case studies or more theoretical reflections are welcome to answer these different questions.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 24 June, 2015, -Paper short abstract:
The aim of this paper is, through the presentation of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) inventory of the Ministry of Culture, to explore the role of the communities in the definition of the notion of heritage
Paper long abstract:
For a long time, heritage in France, and most particularly the anthroplogical heritage, was designated by specialists, whose main task was to define a subject, grounding themselves on the principle that since the people were an active part in the process, they could not define it. Things began to change with the ICH inventory that was initiated in France, in application of the UNESCO convention on ICH that France ratified in 2003. UNESCO stated that the heritage should be designated by the populations themselves, therefore enhancing a utopic world, where the communities would participate with the State authorities in the definition of heritage. Seeing the conflicts that had appeared, more particularly, on the definition of tangible heritage in France, this utopia appeared as something that could never be achieved. This paper aims at describing the interactions between the communities and State Authorities and how the principle of inventorying, a utopia in itself, finally led to a hitherto non conflicting, and to this date quite unique, situation.
Paper short abstract:
Heritage is constructed at state level through lists and inventories – what of the scientific (archaeological) community, and what of public involvement?
Paper long abstract:
Designation and listing are among the first steps in the construction of heritage. Such inventories have proved necessary for its mobilisation by the state apparatus since the early nineteenth century, as part of the governance of things in the context of capitalist modernity. More complex and even divergent are the roles of inventories with regard to the emerging archaeological sciences on the one hand, and the (gradually ascending) attempts to garner public involvement in the protection and valorisation of archaeological heritage on the other. In addressing these issues, my aim in this paper is to point at some possible point of contacts or gaps between administrative procedures and practical appropriations of heritage, a matter which should be relevant also for immaterial heritage.
Paper short abstract:
An example in a small country in the south of France including an important ethnological and anthropological heritage. A necessary inclusion of those heritages in the general inventory of the country for the tourism development and the local involvement to realize it.
Paper long abstract:
The transfer of the general inventory of cultural heritage in the regional councils and local communities in 2007 generated à new tool of acculturation and identity for the tourism.
In a local heritage mission in the south of France,it was necessary to include ethnological and anthropological heritages in the general inventory of the country in relation with furthers projects of tourim development and to obtain different labels.
The heritage inventory is directly connected with the strategical development of the country, and that was not the case before 2007.
This new utilisation of cultural heritage inventory needs new methods, new tools, new partnerships.
The difficulty was the intangible cultural heritage cataloging.
To collect the informations concerning that heritage (food and culinary heritage, vineyards, or bullsfight...) it was necessary to create new methods.
New scientific partnerships of cultural institutions or universities, new technic tools (videos,records...) .
the involvement of the population was also very important and an official heritage commission was created by the country in 2008, to help the heritage mission.
After 6 years of activities,18 labels and 3 important projects realized, using the ethnological and anthropological heritage, it's possible to present some concrete examples showing how the differents stakeholders, partners and inhabitants of the country had participated to the heritage mission and how they received particulary the intangible cultural heritage.
Paper short abstract:
Should there exist same format of inventories at the regional level? Is it necessary to distinguish between traditional folk and traditional urban culture? What is the role of professional institutions in the process of preservation of the ICH ?
Paper long abstract:
The Czech Republic has started to create a national inventory of the intangible cultural heritage at the same time, when negotiation on the Convention 2003 was in process. Most of the criteria of the Representative List of the ICH thus also appeared on the national inventory, which has been until today the only inventory of the ICH in the Czech Republic. As it gradually added various elements, it raises a number of questions that relate to the inventory of living traditions.
The extent and diversity of the ICH confront us with the question whether for its better inventories should exist same format of lists (according to uniformed criteria) at the regional level, when we know that the conditions of each country i.e. in the European region are different, as well as safeguarding measures of the ICH.
There is also another question linked to this - in the Czech Republic, it is distinguished between the traditional folk culture, which is examined by ethnologists and folklorists, and traditional urban culture, which is dealt mainly by historians and museum keepers. How can be these areas of the ICH affected in the inventory of the elements?
One of the more general topics, which the Czech Republic poses, is also the question of the contribution of professional institutions, especially universities, with regard to the safeguarding of the ICH. Should they primarily document the development of the ICH without any intervention or should they be actively involved in the process of maintaining and safeguarding the ICH?
Paper short abstract:
The paper summarizes the principles of the development of the national inventories and the networks serving the implementation of the ICH Convention in Hungary. Networks were created to assist the identification and documentation of the ICH elements as well as to facilitate promotion and access.
Paper long abstract:
In accordance with the aims of UNESCO, obligations of States Parties to the convention include identifying and inventorying elements of such heritage within their territories. In Hungary, two inventories serve this cause, the National Inventory of ICH in Hungary and the National Register of Best Safeguarding Practices in Hungary.
The procedure and guidelines for nomination are similar to those of inscription on the UNESCO lists. In preparing the nomination, the wide-scale involvement of experts, local NGOs and relevant groups is greatly encouraged. Nomination materials shall be prepared by the bearer community itself.
In order to identify, document and develop a system of local safeguarding and preservation of heritage elements, as well as to facilitate their promotion, transmission and access, the cooperation and efforts of local experts is crucial.
The involvement and active participation of competent experts in a wide range of fields is essential for implementing and achieving the diverse tasks regarding the safeguarding and preservation of intangible cultural heritage elements.
The realization of tasks locally are facilitated by County Rapporteurs who are in direct contact with the designated coordinating body responsible for implementing safeguarding tasks nationally.
Volunatry experts contribute to and participate in the realization of specific tasks according to his or her own localization, field and area of expertise.
Besides the networks of experts a Circle of Communities Consciously Safeguarding Heritage (TÖKK) was also founded for the bearer communites of the National Inventory to exchange ideas and experiences regarding the safeguarding of their heritage elements.
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses interpretations, categorisations and inventories of "sevdalinka", an oral lyric tradition of Bosnia and one the country's most important examples of intangible cultural heritage.
Paper long abstract:
Sevdalinka represents traditional oral lyric poetry, a celebrated form of love song, which came into existence in urban places in a broader region of the Balkans as a fusion of the existing lyrical forms and Islamic and influences. The term sevdalinka for this kind of songs became widely accepted only at the end of the 19th century. Before that, this oral lyrical tradition was usually called sevdalija. Both terms, sevdalinka and sevdalija, have their roots in the Arabic word sawdā, which via the Turkish language was adopted in the languages of some Balkan peoples in the version as sevdah, meaning love, desire, longing... In today's context, sevdalinka is most often understood as Bosnian (or more precisely, Bosniak) indigenous traditional love song.
As an important part of the Bosnian intangible cultural heritage, ethnologists, ethnomusicologists, folklorists and other social researchers have often used sevdalinka as a source and medium through which to explore various social, historical and cultural traditions in Bosnia. This paper will firstly provide a historical summary of the records, inventories and research interests in this oral lyrical genre and then offer an overview of the lexicographic and literary categorisations of sevdalinka as a specific love folk song. Finally, by analysing themes and motifs found in sevdalinkas, the paper will discuss a number of scholarly examples from manuscripts published in late 19th and early 20th century in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Paper short abstract:
The aim of this paper is to present and analyze the impact of UNESCO’s 2003 Convention on Intangible Heritage on the semantic evolution of the notions of cultural heritage and cultural inventorying practices
Paper long abstract:
The aim of this paper is to present and analyze the impact of UNESCO's 2003 Convention on Intangible Heritage on the semantic evolution of the notions of cultural heritage and cultural inventorying practices. Based on the century long Hellenic Folklore Research Centre, Academy of Athens experience we will focus on studying its influence on national-international postmodern inventories and representative lists.
Paper short abstract:
The inventory-making of Samba de Roda seems to fixate something that is highly dynamic and flexible, while excluding many of its fundamental aspects as well as reducing and defining the way it shall be practiced, as examples from ethnographic fieldwork in 2010 and 2014 show.
Paper long abstract:
The Samba de Roda from Recôncavo da Bahia, Brazil, was nominated Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2005. This presupposed the inventory-making of the music and dance tradition in a book with a CD and led to its institutionalization: a samba association was founded in which samba groups must be registered for being recognized as such and a center of reference with a museum was created, among other implementations. What does it imply to circumscribe something intangible, a dynamic practice, a process and not a product, into geographical, historical and terminological boundaries? Some examples from fieldwork in Bahia in 2010 and 2014 show that inventory-making, which intends to map and thereby represent an expression form, fixates something that is highly dynamic and flexible, while excluding many of its fundamental aspects - sometimes very arbitrarily - as well as reducing and defining the way it shall be practiced. Such paradoxes correspond well to the difference pointed out by Connerton (1989) between "inscribing" and "incorporating practices" followed by Taylor (2003) in the dichotomy "archive" vs. "repertoire". It seems that the archive, the documentation, the inventory, i.e. the institutionalized knowledge about a practice ends up shaping its repertoire.
Paper short abstract:
The ICH inventory in Aquitaine ( France ) started in 2008, we can now wear a reflective view of its development, receiving and positioning of local institutions and academic research.
Paper long abstract:
The inventory of living practices, intengible cultural heritage (ICH), began in Aquitaine (France) in 2008, it was jointly led and promoted by a university laboratory and the regional development agency of Occitan, a language of France. After six years of work we can now observe the regional territory, what took place the diffusion of the "intangible cultural heritage" notion, how groups and individuals, practices holders if are seized. Even so, these groups do not develop ex nihilo their practices in the area, the transmission of expressions and knowledge has long been considered by local authorities, elected officials and heritage institutions. We will ask the same question of the reception and processing of the concept of ICH by such entities. This questioning leading us to another field, that of governance or shared governance in the transmission, recognition or constraints that apply to the practices. So how to design an inventory of intangible cultural heritage that is moving, constantly seeking harmony with the society that carries it. This formal approach, apparently contradictory, leads the researcher to reconsider its analysis regularly opens a field of experience sharing between practitioners, local political structures and the world of research.