Anthropological Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage

Anthropological Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage

Author: Lourdes Arizpe

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-06-04

Total Pages: 151

ISBN-13: 3319008552

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A decade after the approval of the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), the concept has gained wide acceptance at the local, national and international levels. Communities are recognizing and celebrating their Intangible Heritage; governments are devoting important efforts to the construction of national inventories; and anthropologists and professionals from different disciplines are forming a new field of study. The ten chapters of this book include the peer-reviewed papers of the First Planning Meeting of the International Social Science Council’s Commission on Research on ICH, which was held at the Centro Regional de Investigaciones Multidisciplinarias (UNAM) in Cuernavaca, Mexico in 2012. The papers are based on fieldwork and direct involvement in assessing and reconceptualizing the outcomes of the UNESCO Convention. The report in Appendix 1 highlights the main points raised during the sessions.


Anthropological Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage

Anthropological Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage

Author: Prof. Dr. Lourdes Arizpe Universidad Nacional Autonoma

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2013-06-08

Total Pages: 145

ISBN-13: 9783319008561

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A decade after the approval of the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), the concept has gained wide acceptance at the local, national and international levels. Communities are recognizing and celebrating their Intangible Heritage; governments are devoting important efforts to the construction of national inventories; and anthropologists and professionals from different disciplines are forming a new field of study. The ten chapters of this book include the peer-reviewed papers of the First Planning Meeting of the International Social Science Council’s Commission on Research on ICH, which was held at the Centro Regional de Investigaciones Multidisciplinarias (UNAM) in Cuernavaca, Mexico in 2012. The papers are based on fieldwork and direct involvement in assessing and reconceptualizing the outcomes of the UNESCO Convention. The report in Appendix 1 highlights the main points raised during the sessions.


The Intangible Elements of Culture in Ethnoarchaeological Research

The Intangible Elements of Culture in Ethnoarchaeological Research

Author: Stefano Biagetti

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-06-02

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 3319231537

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This volume focuses on the intangible elements of human cultures, whose relevance in the study of archaeology has often been claimed but rarely practiced. In this book, the authors successfully show how the adoption of ethnoarchaeological perspectives on non-material aspects of cultures can support the development of methodologies aimed at refining the archaeological interpretation of ancient items, technologies, rituals, settlements and even landscape. The volume includes a series of new approaches that can foster the dialogue between archaeology and anthropology in the domain of the intangible knowledge of rural and urban communities. The role of ethnoarchaeology in the study of the intangible heritage is so far largely underexplored, and there is a considerable lack of ethnoarchaeological studies explicitly focused on the less tangible evidence of present and past societies. Fresh case studies will revitalize the theoretical debate around ethnoarchaeology and its applicability in the archaeological and heritage research in the new millennium. Over the past decade, ‘intangible’ has become a key word in anthropological research and in heritage management. Archaeological theories and methods regarding the explorations of the meaning and the significance of artifacts, resources, and settlement patterns are increasingly focusing on non-material evidence. Due to its peculiar characteristics, ethnoarchaeology can effectively foster the development of the study of the intangible cultural heritage of living societies, and highlight its relevance to the study of those of the past.


Rooted Cosmopolitanism, Heritage and the Question of Belonging

Rooted Cosmopolitanism, Heritage and the Question of Belonging

Author: Lennart Wouter Kruijer

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-03-21

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 1003861830

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This book explores the analytical and practical value of the notion of "rooted cosmopolitanism" for the field of cultural heritage. Many concepts of present-day heritage discourses - such as World Heritage, local heritage practices, or indigenous heritage - tend to elide the complex interplay between the local and the global - entanglements that are investigated as "glocalisation" in Globalisation Studies. However, no human group ever creates more than a part of its heritage by itself. This book explores an exciting new alternative in scholarly (critical) heritage discourse, the notion of rooted cosmopolitanism, a way of making manifestations of globalised phenomena comprehensible and relevant at local levels. It develops a critical perspective on heritage and heritage practices, bringing together a highly varied yet conceptually focused set of stimulating contributions by senior and emerging scholars working on the heritage of localities across the globe. A contextualising introduction is followed by three strongly theoretical and methodological chapters which complement the second part of the book, six concrete, empirical chapters written in "response" to the more theoretical chapters. Two final reflective conclusions bring together these different levels of analysis. This book will appeal primarily to archaeologists, anthropologists, heritage professionals, and museum curators who are ready to be confronted with innovative and exciting new approaches to the complexities of cultural heritage in a globalising world.


UNESCO on the Ground

UNESCO on the Ground

Author: Michael Dylan Foster

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2015-10-12

Total Pages: 189

ISBN-13: 0253019532

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For nearly 70 years, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has played a crucial role in developing policies and recommendations for dealing with intangible cultural heritage. What has been the effect of such sweeping global policies on those actually affected by them? How connected is UNESCO with what is happening every day, on the ground, in local communities? Drawing upon six communities ranging across three continents—from India, South Korea, Malawi, Japan, Macedonia and China—and focusing on festival, ritual, and dance, this volume illuminates the complexities and challenges faced by those who find themselves drawn, in different ways, into UNESCO's orbit. Some struggle to incorporate UNESCO recognition into their own local understanding of tradition; others cope with the fallout of a failed intangible cultural heritage nomination. By exploring locally, by looking outward from the inside, the essays show how a normative policy such as UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage policy can take on specific associations and inflections. A number of the key questions and themes emerge across the case studies and three accompanying commentaries: issues of terminology; power struggles between local, national and international stakeholders; the value of international recognition; and what forces shape selection processes. With examples from around the world, and a balance of local experiences with broader perspectives, this volume provides a unique comparative approach to timely questions of tradition and change in a rapidly globalizing world.


Mobilizing Heritage

Mobilizing Heritage

Author: Kathryn L. Samuels

Publisher: University Press of Florida

Published: 2018-04-02

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 0813052181

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"Compelling, energizing, and foundational. Opens up an anthropological orientation, one which is welcome and exhilarating. Lafrenz Samuels's equally significant introduction of the transnational as a new orientation in heritage studies offers an escape route from the conception of heritage as monopolized by the nation-state."--Denis Byrne, author of Counterheritage: Critical Perspectives on Heritage Conservation in Asia Mapping out emerging areas for global cultural heritage, this book provides an anthropological perspective on the growing field of heritage studies. Kathryn Lafrenz Samuels adopts a dual focus--looking back on the anthropological foundations for cultural heritage research while looking forward to areas of practice that reach beyond national borders: economic development, climate action, democratic practice, heritage rights, and global justice. Working around the traditional authority of the nation-state and intergovernmental treaty-based organizations such as UNESCO, these issues characterize heritage activity in transnational networks. Lafrenz Samuels argues that transnational heritage involves an important shift from a paradigm of preservation to a paradigm of development. Responding to this expanding developmental sensibility, she positions cultural heritage as a persuasive tool for transformative action, capable of mobilizing and shaping social change. She shows how anthropological approaches help support the persuasive power of heritage in the transnational sphere.


Edible Identities: Food as Cultural Heritage

Edible Identities: Food as Cultural Heritage

Author: Ronda L. Brulotte

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-29

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 1317145992

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Food - its cultivation, preparation and communal consumption - has long been considered a form of cultural heritage. A dynamic, living product, food creates social bonds as it simultaneously marks off and maintains cultural difference. In bringing together anthropologists, historians and other scholars of food and heritage, this volume closely examines the ways in which the cultivation, preparation, and consumption of food is used to create identity claims of 'cultural heritage' on local, regional, national and international scales. Contributors explore a range of themes, including how food is used to mark insiders and outsiders within an ethnic group; how the same food's meanings change within a particular society based on class, gender or taste; and how traditions are 'invented' for the revitalization of a community during periods of cultural pressure. Featuring case studies from Europe, Asia and the Americas, this timely volume also addresses the complex processes of classifying, designating, and valorizing food as 'terroir,' 'slow food,' or as intangible cultural heritage through UNESCO. By effectively analyzing food and foodways through the perspectives of critical heritage studies, this collection productively brings two overlapping but frequently separate theoretical frameworks into conversation.


Ritual, Heritage and Identity

Ritual, Heritage and Identity

Author: Christiane Brosius

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2020-11-29

Total Pages: 327

ISBN-13: 1000087239

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This book explores the importance of ritual and ritual theory to discourses of authenticity and originality, thereby deepening our insight into concepts of cultural heritage, identity and nation in a globalised world. The volume is the first interdisciplinary attempt to understand the significance of rituals and related performative traditions in the creation of grounded cultural identities, ‘home’ and heritage as geographically experienceable locations. It assembles perspectives from social and cultural anthropology, performance studies, education and arts that can deal with the politics of revitalisation and preservation of ritualised traditions. While some chapters in this book emphasise on the ritualisation of cultural heritage by concentrating on power relations and politics, as well as actual processes of identification, especially for marginalised ethnic groups or migrant communities, others explore how rituals as intangible heritage are strategically employed by different groups all over the world to make their claims public and to improve and negotiate their position on a local, national or global platform. This book recognises ritualised performances as transnational and cross-cultural phenomena, which are not only tied to and defined via national territories and identities but which also demand new theoretical and methodological approaches towards the discussion of rituals and heritage.


Intangible Heritage Embodied

Intangible Heritage Embodied

Author: D. Fairchild Ruggles

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2009-06-12

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 1441900721

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Archaeological research has long focused on studying tangible artifacts to build a picture of the cultures it examines. Equally important to understanding a culture, however, are the intangible elements that become part of its heritage. In 2003, UNESCO adopted a convention specifically to protect intangible heritage, including the following: oral traditions and expressions, including language; performing arts (such as traditional music, dance, and theater); social practices, rituals, and festive events; knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe; and traditional craftsmanship. Since this convention was adopted, scholars and preservationists have struggled with how to best approach intangible heritage. This volume specifically focuses on embodied intangible heritage, or the human body as a vehicle for memory, movement, and sound. The contributors to this work examine ritual and artistic movement, theater, music, oral literature, as well as the role of the internet in cultural transmission. Globalization and particularly the internet, has a complex effect on the transmission of intangible heritage: while music, dance, and other expressions are now shared easily, the performances often lack context and may be shared with a group that does not fully understand what they are seeing or hearing. This volume draws on case studies from around the world to examine the problems and possibilities of implementing the new UNESCO convention. The findings in this volume will be vital to both professionals and academics in anthropology, archaeology, history, museum studies, architecture, and anyone else who deals with issues of cultural heritage and preservation.