What is "intangible cultural heritage"? and why does it have 3 million,700 thousand references on Google?
The phrase: "patrimonio cultural inmaterial" has 3,750,000 references.
This week I received a GMail message:
Dear María, 670 new papers that match the query "Patrimonio cultural inmaterial" have been added to Academia since you last searched for it.
I have already quite a few papers on this topic copied onto a hard drive file; I have read fifty or more academic papers; as a craftswomens cooperative, we would like to understand what these professionals are talking about.
The writing strikes me as quite opaque and stylized; written for specialized readers.
This is obviously taking up a lot of the time and attention of academic social anthopologists; so we checked to see if "Intangible Cultural Heritage" were a buzz-word in academic/government circles of the USA, as well. Turns out it is: this phrase has almost 4 Google million references.
The papers I have read are turgid and tedious to plow through. None of them have any economic content, in other words the ideas are NOT related to how a culture creator could generate income. In the present economic crisis which began decades ago, anything else is just so much bla-bla-bla.
Maybe the authors are smarter than us and the important points they make are over our heads?
It comes back around to my question: what is "Intangible Cultural Heritage" supposed to mean?
What does the indicated phrase REALLY mean, if there is a difference. Where did this come from?
Is there anything in this that could me meaningful or useful to the Mexican artisans like us?
Solution 1:
UNESCO's definition seems fairly clear. Intangible cultural heritage is that subset of cultural heritage which does not have a tangible, physical aspect. Specific locations, buildings, statues, and products of a culture are tangible cultural heritage, while traditional knowledge and performance are intangible.
A famous tree which is the site of an annual festival in the mythical town of Grumbletwock would be tangible cultural heritage.
The traditional dance performed at the festival each night would be intangible cultural heritage. Both are part of the cultural heritage, it's just that one is a physical location valued by that culture, the other is a practice or knowledge valued by that culture.
The purpose of the term intangible cultural heritage is to emphasize that protecting a culture's heritage involves more than just protecting the physical objects and locations. If you want to preserve the cultural heritage of a group or society, you need to value the knowledge and performances of that society, not just the physical objects it produces.
Solution 2:
From the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (text in other languages)
For the purposes of this Convention,
The “intangible cultural heritage” means the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. This intangible cultural heritage, transmitted from generation to generation, is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature and their history, and provides them with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity. For the purposes of this Convention, consideration will be given solely to such intangible cultural heritage as is compatible with existing international human rights instruments, as well as with the requirements of mutual respect among communities, groups and individuals, and of sustainable development.
The “intangible cultural heritage”, as defined in paragraph 1 above, is manifested inter alia in the following domains:
(a) oral traditions and expressions, including language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage;
(b) performing arts;
(c) social practices, rituals and festive events;
(d) knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe;
(e) traditional craftsmanship.
To summarize, "intangible cultural heritage" (ICH) refers to knowledge, skills, beliefs, and practices that are traditional (passed down between generations within a culture). "Intangible" means it isn't a physical object. So for example clothing that is hundreds of years old might not be ICH, but the skill of making it might be ICH, or a dance involving the clothing might be ICH. The clothing itself might be ICH, but only because it's associated with the dance.
For another example in your field, Artisanal talavera of Puebla and Tlaxcala (Mexico) and ceramics of Talavera de la Reina and El Puente del Arzobispo (Spain) making process is recognized by UNESCO in their "Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity".
This doesn't mean that something has to be recognized by UNESCO to be considered ICH. Different organizations may use slightly different definitions of ICH. If you are doing something official like applying for grants that go to preserve ICH, you would need to know the exact definition the group you are working with uses.
Solution 3:
First they decided to protect the cultural heritage of mankind. There is an UN treaty on this. To protect the heritage that, they had to decide what counts as cultural heritage. Take a 150-year-old mineshaft -- scrap iron or a historical monument? When such a site is endangered, there is an outcry, which may or may not help ...
In 2008 they decided to protect intangible heritage, that is heritage not associated with a specific site. Getting some cultural practice onto the list again helps to raise awareness if it is endangered.
For what you want to do, you need a specialist lawyer.