Inventorying Intangible Cultural Heritage

Inventorying to ensure identification for safeguarding

The Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage defines intangible cultural heritage as the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge and skills – including the instruments, objects artefacts and cultural spaces associated with them – that communities, groups and individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. This intangible cultural heritage is transmitted from generation to generation and 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.

Intangible cultural heritage takes many forms. The Convention explains that it may be expressed in a number of domains, including but not limited to:

• Oral traditions and expressions including language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage;
• Performing arts;
  

  Bunuba, an Australian Aboriginal language, has no more then 100 speakers left, most of whom are older people. The Bunuba elders try to pass on the ancestral language through telling stories as it was done in the past. - download video
  ©Discovery Communications, Inc.

• Social practices, rituals and festive events;
• Knowledge and practice about nature and the universe;
• Traditional craftsmanship.

It goes without saying that many elements of intangible cultural heritage might belong to one or more of these domains.

The main purposes of the Convention are to safeguard such heritage, to ensure respect for it, to raise awareness about its importance and to provide for international cooperation and assistance in these fields. Countries that ratify the Convention (known as States Parties) take on the obligation to safeguard the intangible cultural heritage present on their territories. At an international level, the Convention establishes two Lists, the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding and the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The goal of these Lists is to call attention to those elements of intangible cultural heritage that are representative of human creativity and cultural diversity and especially those in need of urgent safeguarding.

The Convention focuses on the role of communities and groups in safeguarding intangible cultural heritage. It is concerned with processes and conditions rather than products, placing emphasis on living heritage that is performed by people, often collectively, and communicated through living experience. It deals with heritage that communities themselves deem important, and strives to contribute to the promotion of creativity and diversity, and to the well-being of communities, groups, and society at large.

• Safeguarding without freezing
• Inventories: identifying for safeguarding
• Involvement of tradition bearers and practitioners
• Possible outline for inventorying elements of the intangible cultural heritage

Some examples of ICH inventorying:

• Community-based documentation contributes to the viability of intangible cultural heritage in the Philippines
• A four-year project to record living music and dance traditions in Ethiopia: towards a comprehensive national intangible cultural heritage inventory
• The Bulgarian experience in inventorymaking
• The Brazilian experience in inventorymaking
• The Venezuelan experience in inventorymaking