Conflicts of Identity, Conservation, and Cultural Heritage Meaning Management: Reading through ICOMOS Charters

This book "Constructing Intangible Heritage" gathers a set of articles organised in four chapters, under the thematic of intangible heritage: - Towards the immateriality of heritage; - Conceptualizing intangible heritage; - Intangible heritage and cultural manifestations; - The museology of intangible heritage

Affordances of Historic Urban Landscapes: an Ecological Understanding of Human Interaction with the Past

Heritage has been defined differently in European contexts. Despite differences, a common challenge for historic urban landscape management is the integration of tangible and intangible heritage. Integration demands an active view of perception and human-landscape interaction where intangible values are linked to specific places and meanings are attached to particular cultural practices and socio-spatial organisation. Tangible and intangible values can be examined as part of a system of affordances (potentialities) a place, artefact or cultural practice has to offer. This paper discusses how an ‘affordance analysis’ may serve as a useful tool for the management of historic urban landscapes

無形文化遺産保護における国際的枠組みの形成2

The movement toward the formation of an international framework for the protection of intangible cultural heritage appears to have developed rapidly since the start of this century. Significant among this movement are the execution of the UNESCO program for the “Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity” and the adoption and effectuation of the “Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage” that advanced along with it. Thus, it may be said that the first step toward the formation of a fundamental international framework for the protection of intangible cultural heritage was started, some 30 years after the adoption of the World Heritage Convention targeted at tangible cultural heritage. However, even though the Convention has been adopted, much remains unknown with regard to concrete ways for its application. In fact, presently discussions are being held as to the actual action plans based on the principles set forth in the Convention. In this paper, the author reports some important sessions of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in this year, and attempts to analyze the issues that are anticipated to arise in the process of such discussions

What to Conserve? Heritage, Memory, and Management of Meanings

This Paper explores and criticizes different theories and perceptions concerning ‘cultural heritage’ to explore the definitions of ‘heritage’ throughout history, and questions how the conflicts in considering and identifying ‘heritage’ might have affected the approaches to its conservation. In such process, the paper investigates the relation between ‘place’ and ‘memory’ and how place has been always the medium through which history was written, resulting in two inseparable faces, tangible and the intangible, forming the two-faced coin of ‘cultural heritage’. This research assists understanding the complex construct of heritage places; stressing the growing awareness of intangible heritage’s importance, which represents a remarkable turn in heritage conservation realm in the twenty-first century, and emphasizing the notion of heritage as a coefficient of society, which is understood through experience, learnt through performance, and represented through ‘activities’ formed in the present maintaining and developing the identity of place and preserving its spirit, rather than a past oriented vision that tends to ‘pickle’ images from the past in a picturesque manner that is only tourism-oriented

無形文化遺産保護における国際的枠組みの形成

The movement toward the formation of an international framework for the protection of intangible cultural heritage appears to have developed rapidly since the start of this century. Significant among this movement are the execution of the UNESCO program for the “Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity” and the adoption and effectuation of the “Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage” that advanced along with it. Thus, it may be said that the first step toward the formation of a fundamental international framework for the protection of intangible cultural heritage was started, some 30 years after the adoption of the World Heritage Convention targeted at tangible cultural heritage. However, even though the Convention has been adopted, much remains unknown with regard to concrete ways for its application. In fact, presently discussions are being held as to the actual action plans based on the principles set forth in the Convention. In this paper, the author reviews the history and present condition of the protection of intangible cultural heritage and attempts to analyze the issues that are anticipated to arise in the process of such discussions

Proyecto de agroturismo en la comarca de Terra de Lemos (Galicia)

The Project for the Recovery of Galician Intangible Cultural Heritage known as Ronsel Project intends to promote the reassesment and conservation of Galician Intangible Cultural Heritage or Patrimonio cultural inmaterial (PCI). The richness and complexity of heritage derived from a greatvariety of cultural and social expressions calls for the establishment of a wide action plan that proves capable of achieving the following basic goals: identification, documentation, research, protection, promotion, transmission and socialization of Intangible Cultural Heritage. The Ronsel Project, departs from the principle that it is possible to identify strategies of economic development based on the traditional knowledge and practices that allow for innovative ways of administering, thus contributing to guarantee the sustainable growth of the community and the conservation of its natural and socialenvironment. The following article presents the activities financed by the INCITE program, thus offering a first assessment on designing tourism products based on intangible cultural heritage

Heritage entrepreneurship. Agency-driven promotion of the Mediterranean diet in Spain.

This article explores the role of the agency in the social process that constitutes cultural heritage. By introducing the concept of heritage entrepreneurship to explain the conversion of cultural elements into heritage, we discuss the case of the Mediterranean diet (MD) in Spain. We explore the role of an expert NGO in the recent inclusion of the MD in the UNESCO Representative List of the intangible cultural heritage of Humanity. Empirical evidence is presented for two basic patterns of heritage entrepreneurship, namely the construction and promotion of cultural heritage. First, we show how the community-heritage narrative is constructed in the official nomination file of the MD. Second, we analyse how businesses, governments and researchers constitute a specific heritage entrepreneur. We argue that the promotion of the MD as cultural heritage makes ordinary food different, both qualitatively (healthy and sustainable) and culturally (Mediterranean and traditional). We then look at the specific political, economic and scientific value of such a difference and its uses in Spain

The Intangible Legacy of the Indonesian Bajo

The Sama-Bajau, or Bajo diaspora, extends from the southern Philippines and Sabah (Malaysian Borneo) to the eastern part of Indonesia. The Indonesian Bajo, now scattered along the coasts of Sulawesi (Celebes) and East Kalimantan, the Eastern Lesser Sunda Islands and Maluku, were once mostly nomadic fishermen of the sea or ocean freight carriers. Today, the Bajo are almost all fishermen and settled. Their former and present ways of life made them favour intangible forms of culture: it is impossible to transport bulky artefacts when moving frequently by boat, or when living in stilt houses, very close to the sea or on a reef. It is therefore an intangible legacy that is the essence of the Bajo\u27s culture. Sandro healers have a vast range of expertise that allows them to protect and heal people when they suffer from natural or supernatural diseases. On the other hand, music and especially oral literature are very rich. In addition to song and the pantun poetry contests, the most prestigious genre is the iko-iko, long epic songs that the Bajo consider to be historical rather than fictional narratives. The Bajo\u27s intangible heritage is fragile, since it is based on oral transmission. In this article, I give a description of this heritage, dividing it into two areas: the knowledge that allows them to “protect and heal” on the one hand, and to “distract and relax”, on the other