The First Intensive Researchers Meeting on Communities andthe 2003 Convention:“Documentation of Intangible Cultural Heritage asa Tool for Community’s Safeguarding Activities”

FINAL REPORT

IRCI
3–4 March 2012
Tokyo, Japan
Organised byInternational Research Centre for Intangible Cultural
Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)The First Intensive Researchers Meeting on Communities andthe 2003 Convention:“Documentation of Intangible Cultural Heritage asa Tool for Community’s Safeguarding Activities”

FINAL REPORT

3–4 March 2012
Tokyo, Japan
Organised byInternational Research Centre for Intangible Cultural
Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Published byInternational Research Centre for Intangible Cultural
Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)
c/o Sakai City Museum, 2 cho Mozusekiun-cho,
Sakai-ku, Sakai-city, Osaka 590-0602,
Japan
d-dunescoc2c@unesco-c2jp.jp
Editorial Design by Yasuyuki Uzawa
Printed by Bigaku-Shuppan, JULY 2012

© International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural
Heritage In the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI), 2012

All photographs on the cover page are part of the Archives and Community Partnership project of the Archives
and Research Centre for Ethnomusicology, American Institute of Indan Studies (ARCE). Copyright ARCE.

Table of Contents

1. Foreword ...................................................................................................................... 6
2. Proceedings ................................................................................................................. 8
3. Experts’ paper
Research and Documentation as tools for sustaining ICH: Archives andCommunity Partnership – A case study from India Shubha Chaudhuri ........................... 18
Examples of community-based ICH transmission and practice needs being met byresearch and documentation projects Harriet Deacon ...................................................... 28
Community Participation in the Documentation Process and the Convention for
Safeguarding the ICH Toshiyuki Kono ................................................................................... 32
A brief overview of approaches to engaging younger generations with their Cultural Heritage,
through audiovisual productions Metje Postma ................................................................ 34
All Heritage is Intangible: a case study from Castleford, West Yorkshire, England
Laurajane Smith .................................................................................................................... 49
The Guidelines for Ethical Research in Indigenous Studies at the Australian Institute of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Luke Taylor ................................................ 55
Documentation for Practitioners Gopal Venu ......................................................................... 60
Communities and documentation in Indonesian safeguarding policies Wim van Zanten ....... 63

Annexes
Annex I: IRCI’s pilot project by Misako Ohnuki .................................................................... 72
Annex II: General Information ................................................................................................. 74
Annex III: List of Participants ................................................................................................... 76
Annex IV: Programme ............................................................................................................... 78
Annex V: Text of the “Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage” ...... 80

Documentation of ICH as a tool for community safeguarding activities

1. Foreword

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

1. Foreword

The Asian and the Pacific region is rich in a variety of intangible cultural heritage including
performing arts, traditional music, drama and other forms of cultural expression. Due to therapid social changes taking place in many parts of the region, however, a significant part of thisrich intangible heritage is on the verge of extinction.
Over the years, many researchers (including anthropologists, musicologists and others) as wellas broadcasting companies have been documenting intangible cultural heritage for various
purposes. The UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage
has now brought into the spotlight the crucial role of the communities concerned, the bearers
and transmitters, in safeguarding their ICH through continued practice and transmission. The
Convention emphasizes the importance of ensuring the active participation of the communities,groups and individuals concerned in all activities concerning their ICH (Article 15), including
research and documentation as safeguarding activities (Article 2.3). The Convention encourages
States Parties to foster the development of ‘research methodologies, with a view to effective
safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage, in particular the intangible cultural heritage indanger’ (Article 13(c)). There are not enough examples of documentation projects where theneeds of the communities concerned have been taken into account in project design, in which
the research has been done by or with the active involvement and consent of the communities
concerned, and where community members have been able to access and use project data
for safeguarding purposes. In line with the Convention, it is our urgent task to foster thedevelopment of research methodologies and guidelines to help ensure that research activities
contribute to safeguarding, especially for ICH on the verge of extinction.
Given this background, the International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage
in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI), the UNESCO Category II Centre established in Japan in
2011, decided to organize a meeting with researchers from around the world who are actively
involved in community-based documentation with the aim of safeguarding. The meeting aimed
at sharing good practices, and to facilitate discussion of documentation approaches that may be
used by communities as a tool for the safeguarding of their ICH.
The researchers developed a framework for “Guidelines for ICH documentation as a tool forcommunity safeguarding” which might be a first step towards practical approaches in the Asiaand the Pacific regions in the future.

Misako Ohnuki
Deputy Director
IRCI

6

Documentation of ICH as a tool for community safeguarding activities

2. Proceedings2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

2. Proceedings
Opening and introduction
Mr Toshiyuki Kono, chairperson of the meeting, Professor of Law at Kyushu University(Japan), opened the meeting, and participants and observers introduced themselves. Ms Misako
Ohnuki, Deputy Director of the International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage
in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI), thanked everyone for coming and explained the role of
IRCI and its mission in particular in relation to Article 15 of the Convention on ‘community
participation’. She added that this was to be the first of several meetings in a series focused on
documentation as a tool for community safeguarding activities (for more details please refer toher paper in the Annex).
Mr Kono explained how the work of the meeting relates to UNESCO’s Convention for the
Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (hereafter, the Convention). Article 15of the Convention strongly encourages the participation of relevant communities, groups
and individuals in the safeguarding of their intangible cultural heritage (ICH). Community
participation and consent is required for the elaboration of nominations to the Lists of theConvention and the elaboration and implementation of safeguarding measures (see thecriteria for inscription: OD 1 U4, OD 2 R4). Community participation is also required for theidentification and definition of elements of their ICH (Article 11b), which is necessary in thecompilation of inventories.
Although the Convention and its Operational Directives (ODs) thus encourage and evenrequire community participation in various activities relating to the safeguarding of their ICH,
there has not been sufficient discussion on how to enable broader community participation in
documentation of their ICH so that this can contribute to its safeguarding. The meeting has
been convened to discuss this issue.

Presentations: Session 1
Mr Wim van Zanten, of the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology
at Leiden University (the Netherlands), gave a presentation on biases in the documentationof ICH in Indonesian nomination files for Anklung, a musical tradition, and Batik, a fabricdyeing method. He noted that the quality of many of the videos provided in nomination files ispoor, and where this is the case the awareness-raising function of the lists cannot be properly
achieved. He also discussed some broader ethical issues in community-based research,
including informed consent and the archiving and use of research materials.
Ms Laurajane Smith, Professor at the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at theAustralian National University in Canberra (Australia), argued that all heritage (including
built heritage) is intangible if we view heritage as a cultural process, or performance, thatreferences the past and constructs social values and identity. She discussed the way in which
82012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

the Castleford Heritage Trust documented and ‘performed’ their heritage as part of a project tobuild community spirit within a former coal-mining village in the UK. The work done by theTrust has been largely unrecognized in the UK where built heritage is the focus of governmentfunded heritage activities.
Mr Luke Taylor, Deputy Principal at AIATSIS (the Australian Institute of Aboriginal andTorres Strait Islander Studies) in Canberra, discussed their guidelines for ethical research inindigenous studies. AIATSIS is required by law to respect the sensitivities of Aboriginal andTorres Strait Islander views in access to and management of the data held in their archives.
Their general guidelines provide a basis for ethical community-based documentation and theuse of these materials; specific research protocols and consents need to be developed for eachproject, incorporating community understandings of rights and permissions.

Discussion: Session 2
The discussion in this session focused on who can and does document ICH for what reasons.
ICH documentation projects are sometimes conducted by communities themselves, but canalso be supported by state officials, researchers and documentation experts. Where outside
agencies are involved, relationships between community members and outside researchers
have to be negotiated and agreed to ensure that projects are sustainable, contribute to ICH
safeguarding, and address community needs. These negotiations should be transparent, andmay take some time.
Community members who are practitioners, patrons and audiences may have different uses
for the documentation. It is important to provide opportunities for a diversity of views to be
expressed. Documentation experts, state officials, and researchers may have differing goals andneeds from each other, and from community members. Possible uses for the documentation
should be identified at the beginning of the process, although it may not be possible to identify
all potential uses upfront.
The documentation process is not objective. The state, researchers and heritage professionals
may have an interest in privileging specific ways of representing heritage. Researchers often
wish to explore a specific hypothesis unrelated to safeguarding needs. Documentation projects,
and relationships between communities and outside agencies, are affected by this broader
political context. The same, or an older, politics of documentation may be expressed in thehistorical archive. Specific access agreements may need to be negotiated to release existingarchival material.

Presentations: Session 3
Ms Shubha Chaudhuri, Associate Director General at the Archives and Research Centre forEthnomusicology at the American Institute of Indian Studies in New Delhi (India), presented acase study of an archives and community partnership project undertaken by her institution. The
project started by identifying community needs, looking at different models of dissemination
9

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)and rights management and at the possibilities for extending economic benefits beyond
traditional patronage. Archiving was done in consultation with community members and copiesof all recordings were provided to participant performers, with rights to use or sell them, as
appropriate.
Mr Gopal Venu, Director of Natana Kairali in Kerala (India) and performer of Khutiyattam,
discussed the possible utility of documentation for practitioners of Indian performing arts.
A research-led documentation process could not, and should not, be allowed to replace theguru-disciple transmission process that revealed the secrets of the performing art in a very
personal way. New forms of documentation can be useful but should only be used in specificcircumstances. Where possible, traditional forms of documentation should be used instead.
Ms Metje Postma, Lecturer at the Institute for Cultural Anthropology and Development
Sociology at Leiden University (the Netherlands), focused on the use of audiovisual (AV)documentation as a tool in ICH safeguarding and the importance of training community
members in AV documentation. She suggested using multiple methods and channels for
documentation. Different genres and styles of AV documentation could be used for different
purposes, and accessed via different platforms. She emphasized the importance of representing
the ICH within its social context.

Discussion: Session 4
The discussion in this session focused on the question of who documents what, for what
reasons, and how the information can be accessed and used for safeguarding. There may be
many bearers of ICH besides performers – patrons of performing arts within a community areoften also tradition bearers who could be involved in documentation projects. It is important todocument all the social practices that contribute to the transmission and enactment of an ICH
element, not just the performance or representation of it.
It is essential to discuss the likely outcomes of a documentation project (e.g. reaction to anduse of different documentation genres by different audiences) when negotiating informed
consent within a community. After the project, sustained, transparent and appropriate
community access to documentation should be ensured. The language and form in which the
documentation is stored is critical to ensuring community access. Access could be enabledthrough data distribution mechanisms (such as the provision of CDs to individuals or groups),
at local community documentation centres, or archival institutions. Access to the data should
be managed in accordance with customary restrictions on access to the ICH element, andthe use and rights agreements negotiated with the communities concerned. The management
and monitoring of digital archives presents specific problems that need to be negotiated. It is
important to maintain the connection between community members and the documentationarchive.

10

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)Introduction of pilot documentation project in the Kurokawa community
Ms Ohnuki introduced the ‘Ohgi-sai documentation project’, which has just started on a trial
basis, documenting a sacred festival in the Kurokawa community in Japan.
She mentioned that there is a growing demand from local communities to make video
recordings about their ICH, to promote transmission of their ICH and to raise awarenessabout it. Population decline and socio-economic problems are affecting the social fabric ofcommunities in many cases. Through her research activities Ms Ohnuki discovered that such
communities often lack the know-how and human resources to undertake documentation
projects.
Ms Ohnuki has been discussing with the Kurokawa community how IRCI could assist themin documenting their ICH in such a way as to contribute to its transmission and safeguarding.
As a first step, IRCI assisted by producing a short video of the Ohgi-sai Festival taken on 2nd
February 2012 in cooperation with the community. The film was made by Mr Jun Shimizu.
The film was shown to participants in the meeting. Mr Endo, a participant from the Kurokawa
Community, gave a brief introduction to the festival during the film presentation. Ms Ohnuki
said that this case study would contribute to the development of practical guidelines for
documentation in the Asia-Pacific region. For more information about this project please referto Ms. Ohnuki’s paper in the Annex.

Developing guidelines
Participants discussed current problems and requirements when documenting ICH as a tool
for safeguarding. There are a number of existing guidelines that could be used to address someof these needs, but none focus specifically on documenting ICH as a tool for safeguarding.
New ICH documentation guidelines for safeguarding would need to bring together appropriate
existing guidelines and additional guidance for use by community members, state officials,
NGOs, researchers and documentation experts (for instance AV documentation experts, legal
experts, ethnographers etc.).
Participants developed a framework of issues to be covered that could be used to develop suchguidelines.

Closing
Ms. Ohnuki gave a final address, mentioning that this expert meeting is one of the prioritized
programmes in IRCI’s medium term programme for 2012–2015, as adopted in the Governing
Board Meeting. She said that the Centre would like to continue discussion of the issues raisedin this meeting in two subsequent meetings attended if possible by the same experts. A practicalproject, such as the Kurokawa Documentation Project, would be implemented alongsidethese meetings. Finally, Ms. Ohnuki thanked all the experts for their great contribution to thisintensive meeting.
11

3. Experts’ paper

Shubha Chaudhuri
Harriet Deacon
Toshiyuki Kono
Metje Postma
Laurajane Smith
Luke Taylor
Gopal Venu
Wim van Zanten

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Research and Documentation as tools for sustaining ICH:
Archives and Community Partnership – A case study from India
Shubha Chaudhuri
American Institute of Indian Studies

An aspect of safeguarding that finds mention in the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the
Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, but often neglected if not ignored, in discussion
and discourse, if not practice, is that of documentation and research.
According to the convention, research and documentation have a role in safeguarding in thefollowing areas:--

capacity building among community members to support the documentation process;mobilizing existing documentation and audiovisual recordings for revitalization
projects
helping the communities concerned manage an archive of information about their
ICH;
encouraging people to document ICH elements associated with their communities, forexample by interviewing practitioners and tradition bearers, and to disseminate theresulting information;
helping the communities concerned have access to existing archived information
about their ICH that has been compiled by others.

As scholars and institutions worldwide debate issues of globalisation, there is a movement
among ethnomusicologists, anthropologists and other social scientists of focussing on the“local” in practice, perceptions and theories. There are also research initiatives that are basedon a bottom up approach. All of these, underline the direction the Convention is taking
with increasing emphasis on the community, nebulous as the definitions of it are, and thepractitioners.
We find, however that the concept of safeguarding is most often linked to economic models
of sustainability, and the emphasis on nominations is perhaps the most visible if not popular
aspect of implementing the convention, bringing with it the necessity of creating national
inventories. However research, documentation and archiving are not irrelevant in this process
and can play an important role, and one that needs examination and discussion.
I would like to discuss here a limited perspective and a case study – not one encompassing all
domains of intangible cultural heritage, from that of an ethnomusicology archive in India.
Among the agents of change are those who work for “safeguarding and preservation” cultural
traditions – are archives and centres of documentation that function on the regional andnational levels, who speak for the “dying cultures” and attempt to protect them. The process of18

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

documentation and archiving itself is also an intervention in these traditions, often placing value
on “authenticity” and tacitly giving credibility and support to the communities they document
and the materials they record and preserve. In doing so we as archives also take on the role ofcustodians not only of the tapes and recordings, but become in some way spokespersons for thecultures we seek to safeguard.
The project that I intend to discuss here, carried out by the Archives and Research Centre forEthnomusicology in India supported by the Ford Foundation was in the nature of a pilot toattempt a model by which we aimed to reverse some of these trends by involving musicians andcommunities in the process of documentation and archiving as partners and not “informants”
where they guided the process. However it can also be seen that many aspects of this project doconnect with the community involvement as laid out in the Convention.
(To provide a short introduction, the Archives and Research Centre for Ethnomusicologyof the American Institute of Indian Studies (ARCE henceforth) was established in India in
1982 with a view to consolidating audio visual recordings related to Indian music and thestudy of ethnomusicology in India in a centralised location. This also included bringing to
India collections which had been housed in archives in other parts of the world. The archival
collections consists mainly of recordings voluntarily deposited, supported by commercial
recordings and a library and serves as a research resource and research centre.)
The project “sites” were in Western Rajasthan and Goa. These are both states in Western
India with musical traditions that are known, and where music is a large part of the image thatis projected through tourism. However musician communities remain largely marginalised.
Another factor for the choice of these communities lies in the social and cultural background. In
Rajasthan the focus was on communities of hereditary professional musicians – the Manganiars
and Langas who have an active and alive traditional patronage system. The Manganiars are
Muslim and have Hindu patrons and thus sing of Hindu deities, and participate musically in thelife cycle ceremonies of their patrons. In Goa, the long history of Portuguese colonisation andconversion has led to an intermingling of Christian and Hindu cultures, which is thus reflected
through the music. In Goa the focus was on the community of the Gavdas, held to be theoriginal inhabitants of Goa, parts of whom converted to Christianity, and some of these werereconverted to Hinduism around the 1920s. Thus the approach in Goa was carrying out casestudies of villages of the Christian and Hindu Gavdas and the Nava Hindu Gavdas. In addition,
the Goa project also included the genre called Mando, of the elite but now fairly marginalised
Roman Catholic community. It included documentation of the traditional form as well as its
current practice in competitions and festivals.

The Concerns that led up to the project
The project was the outcome of examining our role as archives – a space where scholars,
users, practitioners and performers all connect. The nature of the archive as a space meant forscholarly research was changing in our perceptions as we involved ourselves in field research1
and attempts to link performance and research2.
19

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Documentation and research as intervention
An awareness that these processes are interventions, however well-intentioned they may be led
to an attempt to have the community and practitioners lead the documentation process, with theknowledge however that this may in turn raise issues leading to further research.

Changes in patronage
Among the most significant factors that can be perceived as risks and threats to music andperformance as part of ICH are the changes, and in some cases the loss of traditional patronage.
Patrons and traditional audiences know the repertoire and its intricacies and thus have an
important role in safeguarding.

Shrinking traditional repertoire
As more and more practitioners perform on the urban stage, their knowledge of traditional
repertoire does not need to be as extensive and thus it has been noticed that the younger
generation tends to have a smaller repertoire.

Inadequate rights management
As an archive and part of the institutional network in India, it was observed that many
institutions did not have rights management policies in place, which hampers attempts at
dissemination, even when it is desired. Performers are also thus not always aware or confidentof their rights.
Though India has performers right and provisions such as fair dealing in its Copyright Act,
there is low awareness of rights issues.

Decontextualisation – traditional practices to art form, practitioners as artists,
ritual to “item”.
In an effort to promote and safeguard ICH, many traditional forms are being promoted on
the stage and in performances aimed at tourist audiences. This has provided financial supportand success to genres which are meant for entertainment by professionals, but genres that arepart of rituals and participatory in nature not only lose their context and meaning. These also
typically do not succeed on the stage as they have little entertainment value out of the context
of community participation. It thus in the long run can further erode a tradition.
There is also no attempt at providing contextual information to tourist audiences or to support
such practices in the area where they exist and can be supported locally.

1 The Rajasthan Atlas Project. Publication Neuman, Daniel, Shubha Chaudhuri with Komal Kothari. Bards,
Ballads and Boundaries : An ethnographic atlas of music traditions of West Rajasthan. 2005. Seagull Books.
2 Remembered Rhythms. A festival of diaspora and the music of India touring groups of threediasporic communities to seven cities around India with an ethnomusicologist, a seminar on
the issues of how music is related to the issue of diaspora and a CD series. Shubha Chaudhuri
and Anthony Seeger ed. Remembered Rhythms: Essays in music and diaspora. Seagull Books.

20

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Role of State Competitions
Many states in India have started holding competitions to promote “folk culture”. These often
lead to attempts to add features to enhance performance, and to creating stage performances outof ritual practices. In many cases, the performance of these, get limited to only the competition
having no relevance or opportunity of practice outside the competitions.

Cultures as monoliths
India like many other countries has a wide range of traditions, religions, cults, and languages
which create an active and vital fabric of culture. There is a great diversity even within areasand communities which is complex and defies generalisation. It was felt that this complexity
and granularity was being overlooked and simplified in the public perception which needed to
be challenged.

The Archives and Community Partnership Project : Aims and Objectives
Evolution of the archival space
Through this project we saw the change of archive as a scholarly academic space, to one thatstepped out to involve the community and performers in the archiving process, and help createand sustain other archival collections.
Archiving with the community, bottom up documentation,
The aim of this project was to work and consult with the communities, asking them what theywould like to archive of their traditions, instead of eliciting repertoire to support research
agendas. It was also decided that copies of all recordings made as part of this project would be
provided to the performers/community, and support movements for local archive.

Changing profile of users – performers and communities
In the last decade ARCE had several instances of performers wanting copies of theirperformances or events that they knew were in the archives. Several collectors also had asked
ARCE to provide letters for performers and communities to validate the fact that the collections
were in an archives in India to which the performers/communities would have access.
This project thus attempted to extend the user profile from researchers and academic use toperformers and communities. ARCE has had a history of enabling performer access throughits policies and agreements.

Rise of technology in rural areas
A project such as this would have not been meaningful if affordable digital technology had
not made inroads into rural India. Most villages today have not only access to recording
technologies, but as many were requesting copies, it was clear that musicians were open tousing recordings to teach and preserve their traditions.
More than any other, the mobile phones have made inroads into rural India which has enableda range of people to use digital technology.
21

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Attempt at different models of dissemination /transmission
As all collections in ARCE are taken in under agreements that stipulate access, it has notalways been possible to disseminate recordings freely. Therefore the aim of this project wasto create a body of recordings with performer permissions so that they could be disseminatedacross a range of \ platforms.
These included use of broadcasting, the internet, publishing CDs, and using the mobile
platform.
This has resulted in a CD Series based on archival recordings of musicians considered “iconic”
by the community – “Master Musicians from the Archives”, a radio program on community
radio, and an Android mobile application to support the CD series.
Each CD will be produced with detailed documentation, attempting to reach the global andlocal audiences. Texts and translations of the songs will also be included so as to help in
learning and transmission 35% of the CDs are being given to the performers and community to
be sold according to their wishes.
ARCE collaborated with Rupayan Sansthan1, a regional archive and research centre in
Rajasthan to hold training camps for Manganiar children, involving senior musicians who hadparticipated actively in the documentation process.
Another means of empowering musicians, contextualizing and recognizing the music has been
through a website www.music-community.in which contains a directory of musicians with
their specialty and contact information, photographs, audio and video clips.
Recordings have been and are in the process of being made available on the Smithsonian
Globalsound platform where advance royalties were paid.

Need for the archive to take a proactive role in rights management
Sharing Recordings Rights and Revenue
An archive based on voluntarily deposit from collectors, researchers and performers andprovides access to these constituencies as well is very well situated to take a proactive rolein rights management, dealing with rights of practitioners, researchers, the archives, as wellas access policies. It was felt that this project would provide an opportunity to elicit issuesof rights and ownership from practitioners and communities, instead of applying top down
measures relying only on the law and an understanding of ethical and moral rights framed byresearchers.
The performers and communities were given copies of all recordings over which they havecomplete rights and gives them the freedom to use them as they please, commercially orotherwise, with no obligations to ARCE. However ARCE would not make commercial use of
the materials without negotiation and agreement.
22

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

Share recordings, rights and revenue
Elicit rights perceptions with musician communities
Involve NGOs and commercial agencies in the area
Identify non financial parameters for inclusion in agreements
Create a scale of payments based on kinds of use
Formulate oral agreements as well as written agreements
Create terms for sharing rights with archives
Assure performer and community access

Capacity building on the local level
A project that relied on recording as means of documentation and research for the communities
involved would be useful only if members of the communities were involved in the process.
To this end, training workshops and internships were provided so that all recording was doneby local documentation teams comprising of local institutions as well as members of thecommunity.

Create economic models to extend gains beyond traditional patronage
An aspect of this initiative was also to attempt to develop some economic models anddissemination strategies. This would not only provide some financial support, but also be done
to reinforce traditions and accord respect and recognition. There was also needed to understandthe nature of traditional patronage and its current status. The respect and recognition areimportant aspects as musician communities are largely marginalized especially in the areas thatwere under the ambit of this project.

Community archives
There was an intention to support existing community archives or assist in creating them. Thishas succeeded with support to an archive of the Manganiar Lok Sangeet Sansthan, providing
equipment and training as well guidance and mentoring.

Why community? from a research viewpoint
Though community involvement in stressed in the 2003 Convention and supports the conceptof working through the community, on a purely research and documentation basis, some of thefactors for choosing this approach was based on the following factors:

Ethnographic literature
Ethnographic literature in India, historically uses the caste and tribes, and linguistic groups –hence community as a basis and thus pointed the way by providing historical background.

Hereditary professional and roles related to music and other forms of ICH in India
Many musical traditions and other forms of ICH are based on hereditary roles linked tocommunity and relationships between communities. Examples of the Rajasthan communities
described earlier are an example where Manganiars have Rajputs as patrons, or Langas havethe community called Sindhi Sipahi as patrons.
23

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)The practice of music in every day life is also largely defined by community, according to
ethnographic literature, and the project provided an opportunity to investigate this further.

Ownership of musical traditions
From prior knowledge of field work and literature surveys, it appeared that the traditional senseof ownership around musical and performance traditions were also based on community.

Questions:Though the project managed to meet most of its goals and objectives, some questions needed
to be asked.

To what extent was the community involved? To what extent was this an intervention
from ARCE?
This was a mixed experience, ranging from a strong concern that the community needed
to document to cooperating to not feeling the they were willing to cooperate need for
documentation and safeguarding. In this case, one has to question the role played by ARCE –as to what extent it was an intervention that was beneficial and helped towards safeguarding.
It is perhaps difficult to gauge this in a short time to see what the long term implications are.
There is a reinforcement and encouragement when the community feels there is interest fromoutside the community.
It is not easy to gauge to what extent the effect lasts, or when it would start being felt, of ashort term project such as three years of active involvement.
We also faced the issue of dealing with a community who is not interested in the process of
documenting their ICH, or who do not wish to go further with it. Though continuing to work
there would have been of interest for purposes of research, we had to move away from theprocess of documentation once the community did not express an interest though they werewilling to cooperate for our sake. That is a hard decision but one that has to be negotiated oncethe decision is taken that it is a community led project.

Challenges and Lessons learned
Implications of exposure to research and researchers
There was an appreciable difference in the participation with the research and documentation
process from communities who had been exposed to researchers in the past. There was anunderstanding of the benefits that such a process can provide, and recognition of the use ofrecordings for teaching their children. For instance, as the project progressed, musicians asked
for copies of the interviews and discussions as well so as to be able to recall the issues at a later
date. The reaction of those who had not been exposed to research was more varied ranging
from curiosity and bewilderment to cooperation, but did not lead to active leadership in thelimited experience of this project. However the community archive initiative came from acommunity – the Manganiars who have been researched and recorded and have been exposed24

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

to archives. This provided the incentive for a young musician to begin a systematic collection
and the desire to conduct research on his own community.
Similarly, a young Gavda student of sociology worked on her own community and grew to bea research assistant on the project.

Community as a unit for research and documentation
There were many challenges in working with a community led initiative. The many complexities
of identifying representation/leadership has been much discussed and debated and remains animportant issue. Representation of a community for purposes of ICH can and tend to be very
different from the administrative or political. They are not always easy to figure out to an
outsider. Space also has to be made within the research to accommodate varying perspectives,shared traditions and ownership and the fact that there are likely to be groups and subgroups
within communities, which challenge the already complex notion of a community.

Perceptions of rights and ownership
There is also the Individual vs. Community perspective in many places, and as far as rights areconcerned, the intersection of individual and community rights and ownership is a complex
and sometimes contradictory one.
We also faced difficulties in obtaining signed permissions in certain cases, where people were
not comfortable with signing – especially for what may be considered community rather than
individual performances.

Need for long term involvement for “Community led” initiatives
The many layers and complexities of dealing with communities as a basis for researchand documentation demands long term involvement. Glib assertions of building trust andrelationships cannot be achieved over a few weeks and months. Thus it is important to empowerand build capacity within a community if the aim is safeguarding.

Learning about consensus and roles
Building consensus about the practices and performances and the complexities of traditionalroles is demanding and not always transparent to the outsider.

Research Implications
Though a project aimed at community based documentation, it is perhaps useful to also look at
the issues that emerged from the viewpoint of an ethnomusicology research project.

Definition of genres by community and practitioners based on context and purpose
Approaching documentation from the perspective of the community and practitioners, revealed
the various ways in which are genres are conceptualized, and also provided an insight into what
factors or features are considered important and critical within the community.

25

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)How repertoire identifies a community
Music and performance genres are certainly an important part of the identity of a community
The issue of community repertoire is complex and needs more than superficial attention, as
repertoire is sometimes highly specific to a community, is shared totally or partially, carries
ownership issues in some cases, and not in others. In discussing repertoire to be recorded by
the communities, this issue often provided a direction.

Rights perceptions of communities
There are rights which are ceremonial or ritual, that may or may not extend to the stage, there
are rights linked to payments as well as those that may be acceptable as individual. With theurban stage emerging as a growing platform, and recordings being sold, this is an aspect that isundergoing great change, as performance and practice move out of the traditional contexts.

Pluralism in practice: syncretic practices as negotiation
As the project Archives and Community Partnership was dealing with pluralistic and syncretic
traditions it provided an opportunity to understand these practices on the ground and to what
extent they reveal the way these manifest in daily practice. What is considered pluralistic isoften rooted in the history of conversion, and of how communities negotiate co existence ofreligious and cultural differences.

Impact of tourism
This is an aspect that could not fully be investigated within this project as it involves an
independent study. However though the impact of tourism cannot be under estimated, the local
and daily practice of music and related ICH seems to be in parallel with tourism and its related
performances. There is an awareness in communities about the compromises made for tourist
performances and that it does not affect the practice within the tradition.

Outcomes Quandaries & Conclusions
Many aspects of this project have met with some success, in the documentation with
community involvement, collaboration and guidance. We had limited success in capacity
building in the communities. However there was sufficient reason to believe that the very
process of documentation and research does reinforce the belief and conviction in communities
to practice their ICH. The fact that it is considered worth researching does encourage, but theprocess of being involved in the documentation process brings back memories, raises issues tobe discussed and even can open the way to new directions.
To be effective as a tool for safeguarding, research initiatives need to connect with performancein terms of providing appropriate fora, and connect to issues of sustainability. Research anddocumentation also have the potential to provide directions here which are not only based on
financial parameters of safeguarding but based on an understanding of the cultural and social
factors and to creating safeguarding within and by the community.
As the globalized and urban stage is becoming a reality, and its influencing an erosion of26

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

traditional forms of ICH, researchers can have a role in contextualization of such forms, andparticipate in raising awareness and sensitizing of audiences, so that public performance need
not result in the lowering of artistic and cultural integrity.

*This was part of a project supported by the India Foundation for the Arts through a grant to Rupayan Sansthan.

27

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Examples of community-based ICH transmission and practiceneeds being met by research and documentation projects
Harriet Deacon 1
The Archival Platform

Overview
The Intangible Heritage Convention requires States Parties to ‘identify and define’ the ICH
present in their territories ‘with the participation of communities, groups and relevant NGOs’(Article 11b). This is part of the process of inventorying the ICH in their territories ‘to ensure
identification with a view to safeguarding’ (Article 12.1). The Convention strongly recommends
community participation in all safeguarding activities (Article 15). The Intergovernmental
Committee commented at the 2011 Bali meeting on the general lack of information aboutcommunity participation in ICH inventorying in the periodic reports submitted to theCommittee by States Parties. There are relatively few documented projects, even outside theambit of inventorying under the Convention, in which community members set the agenda forformal research or documentation of their ICH, or indeed use these materials.
The best test of a research and documentation process that meets community ICH safeguardingneeds would be the use of these materials for further ICH practice, transmission andsafeguarding by community members. Community involvement in documentation would ofcourse help to encourage later community use because of increased investment in and tailoringof the resource.
The most successful community-research partnerships have a community-driven motivation
for involvement (heritage perceived to be at risk, or in need of revitalization); community
representation at an early stage of project design; strong community involvement in
implementation and dedicated community liaisons (see Brazilian examples below). New
digital AV technologies have made documentation of cultural practice cheaper and moreaccessible to non-academics. Such projects may require external skills and funding. Where
communities concerned partner with research agencies, they require flexibility and openness
from their research partners to ensure that the research agenda addresses their needs. Formal
documentation projects are becoming more open to the use of community-generated data andmore open to providing public access to it.
Externally-driven or funded documentation projects are not always used by the communities
concerned (or by others) for safeguarding purposes. This is more likely where these projects
do not meet local needs or there is a history of mistrust between the state, researchers andcommunities. It is not always easy for any stakeholder to determine the boundaries ofcommunities of practice, or their needs in terms of ICH safeguarding. Community needs
1 Thanks to Rieks Smeets for his comments.

28

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

are especially difficult to define or negotiate where there are strong divisions and hierarchies
within the group, echoed or reinforced by ICH practices.
To meet community needs, projects may need to involve different kinds of documentation
than required by an inventorying project or academic research. Where normal transmission
modes are considered to be working well, no external support is needed. And where support isneeded, documentation and research may not be the best way to aid practice and transmission.
Communities may wish to document their own data without reference to formal processes. ICH
safeguarding is also not always the main concern of communities associated with the element,
especially in developing countries – specific ICH transmission and practice needs have to beaddressed as part of a broader development project.
Some examples are given below to illustrate community use of documentation projects for
safeguarding.

Indios on line (Brazil)
This online community documentation project in Brazil was initiated by an NGO calledThydêwá in 2000, and aimed at sharing experiences, strengthening cultural awareness withinseven indigenous communities and improving community members’ sense of citizenship andquality of life.
What is interesting about the website (which is in Spanish) is that it is mainly designed forcommunity members to use it to learn and comment about their ICH practices, past and present,
as well as to develop AV and computer skills. This is what makes it different from projects
collecting or documenting material for research purposes – which may or may not be usedby community members as well (such as Digital Himalaya http://www.digitalhimalaya.com/
overview.php).
http://www.indiosonline.net/

Documentation by the Maasai (Kenya)
WIPO’s Creative Heritage Project helps indigenous communities to document and preserve
their own cultural traditions while simultaneously managing their intellectual property
interests.
WIPO provided the Maasai community with digital equipment to record its own traditions andcreative expressions. The program allows the community to create its own intellectual property
in the form of photographs, sound recordings and community databases. WIPO’s Director of
Traditional Knowledge Division, Wend Wendland says “The project has empowered the Maasai
to seize control over the recording of their own histories, their own stories. The program turns
indigenous custodians of their knowledge systems into intellectual property owners. It makes
them stakeholders so they can benefit from the system.” The training program is offered by
WIPO in partnership with the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and the29

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University in the United States of America. The
National Museums of Kenya also participated in the program.
This project is part of WIPO’s Creative Heritage Project, which is developing an integrated setof practical resources and guidelines for cultural institutions such as museums and indigenous
communities on managing intellectual property options when digitizing intangible cultural
heritage.
It’s not clear whether community members are using the AV materials for ICH transmission
and practice since the main aim of the project is IP related. However, if community members
don’t see their cultural resources as threatened in any way and normal transmission modes arefunctioning well, there would be no need to use the AV materials to promote transmission. In
addition, many rural households may not have electricity or the equipment to access the AV
materials. One of the reasons for community participation seems to be income generation,
which is understandable: ‘Their music may be an important source of income and the Maasai
themselves, John says, must be the ones who benefit from profits made from their culture.’(transcript from the video on the website).
http://www.wipo.int/portal/en/wipo_untv_maasai.html!Khwa ttu – transmission, tourism (South Africa)
In some communities, the chain of cultural transmission between young and old has beenbroken; apprenticeship-style training is reintroduced in a semi-formal way. The Working
Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa (WIMSA) voiced the concern of San
communities throughout the region to learn more about their history, to practice their traditions
and to promote their culture and languages. They wanted to use tourism as an engine forcommunity development–culturally and economically. Consequently, in 1998, WIMSA wasassisted by the South African San Institute (SASI – a San support organisation working on
documenting indigenous languages) in setting up a tourism and training project, focusing on
general education, income generation, culture, and heritage. In 1999, the !Khwa ttu site waspurchased and a project set up with a mandate to:• ‘Restore and display San heritage, culture, folklore, visual arts, cosmology and••languages
Educate the general public about the world of the San
Provide training to the San in literacy, entrepreneurship, tourism, health issues, community development, craft production/marketing and gender awareness.’

This project is not designed specifically for community use in ICH revitalization. It plans to
do some documentation (although this is not available online) and seems to have trained a few
community members as tourist guides in animal tracking, plant use and other traditional San
skills. This model could be extended in other circumstances to include broader community
practice and transmission of the ICH being documented, but this would probably need to befocused on skills that have current utility for community members such as plant harvesting in30

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

the wild and medicinal use.
http://www.khwattu.org/

Two Scottish oral history documentation projects (UK)
These projects are funded because they are about language, but may also be a vehicle ofstorytelling revitalization etc. in the community. A culture and heritage project run by the
Columba Centre on the island Seanchas Ìle in the Inner Hebrides at Ionad Chaluim ChilleÌle, which started in 2005, produced a book and website (not currently online) comprised oftranscripts from Gaelic speaking islanders who talk about their experiences of growing up
on the island, the tales they were brought up with, and proverbs. It was a three-year project
to collect, record and preserve the heritage connected with Islay’s land, language and culture.
‘The aim is to encourage the continuation of Gaelic among all ages of Islay’s population andraise the profile of Gaelic both on Islay and throughout Scotland. Gaelic culture and inheritanceof the island is perceived as of importance not only to the people of the island, but also in theframework of Scottish history as a whole.’ 2 The project was part of a broader promotion of the
Gaelic language in Scotland, so it is not clear whether it was sufficiently rooted in the needs ofthe community to be used by them after external funding ceased.
http://www.ile.ac.uk/
http://tairis-cr.blogspot.com/2009/01/archive-seanchas-ile-donald-meek.html
http://blog.islayinfo.com/article.php/seanchas-ile-website‘Tobar an Dualchais (Kist o Riches in Scots) is a similar project to digitise, catalogue anddisseminate Gaelic and Scots sound recordings online. The objective is to preserve a vast
heritage of stories, poetry, music and factual information as a unique record of Scotland’scultural and linguistic heritage. Online access to the recordings will also ensure that they arewidely available for educational and personal use.’ 3
http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/dualchas/

2 Màiri Robertson Àite Dachaidh: Re-connecting People with Place – Island Landscapes and Intangible
Heritage, International Journal of Heritage Studies Vol. 15, Nos. 2–3, March–May 2009, pp. 153–162; DOI:
10.1080/13527250902890639
3 Màiri Robertson Àite Dachaidh: Re-connecting People with Place – Island Landscapes and Intangible
Heritage.

31

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Community Participation in the Documentation Process andthe Convention for Safeguarding the ICH
Toshiyuki Kono
Kyushu University

Negotiations in the drafting process of the UNESCO Convention for safeguarding the ICH(The Convention) were not easy. Since the legal protection of ICH was unknown to mostof the participating countries, both the scope and scheme of the to-be-born instrument wereheavily debated during the one-year negotiation process. However there was one issue thatwas not questioned by the negotiators, namely the importance of ensuring the participation of
the relevant communities in safeguarding ICH. Each ICH belongs to a particular community.
Although it is a State Party’s obligation to take appropriate measures for safeguarding under
the Convention, such a community – as the bearer of particular ICH – should also be involvedin the process of safeguarding. A State promises to fulfill obligations under the Convention, but
the fact that the real stakeholder is the community should not be forgotten. The community is
the principal, while the State acts as its agent. This specificity of the ICH had been constantly
repeated and confirmed throughout the drafting process. Hence Article 15 of the Convention
states as follows:

Article 15 – Participation of communities, groups and individuals
Within the framework of its safeguarding activities of the intangible cultural heritage, eachState Party shall endeavour to ensure the widest possible participation of communities, groups
and, where appropriate, individuals that create, maintain and transmit such heritage, and to
involve them actively in its management.
The scope of this provision, i.e. which relevant community should participate, seems unclear
from its language. If language in a particular legal instrument is unclear, it should be clarified
taking other provisions of the Convention into consideration. This makes the interpretationof the instrument consistent. Taking this approach, paragraph 7 of the Preamble1 emphasizes
the importance of the community’s role in various aspects of the ICH, i.e. “production,
safeguarding, maintenance and recreation”. These illustrate almost all dimensions of the ICH.
If one of them does not operate properly, then ICH might be placed in a precarious situation.
When we pay attention to the main part of the Convention, Art.1, paragraph 1, second sentence
confirms the role of the community for recreation.2 The most important provision in my view is

1 “Recognizing that communities, in particular indigenous communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals,
play an important role in the production, safeguarding, maintenance and recreation of the intangible cultural
heritage, thus helping to enrich cultural diversity and human creativity”
2 Art.1, paragraph 1, 2nd sentence: “This intangible cultural heritage, transmitted from generation to generation,is constantlyrecreated by communities and groups”.

32

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Art.11 (b) that expressly requests the community’s participation in identifying ICH.3 Since thisprovision contains the only obligation of the State Party imposed by a “shall” sentence in theConvention. It is significant that this “shall” sentence requires community participation.
If community participation is required by the Convention, it should be understood in the sameline as these provisions. We could conclude that the community should be active in various
aspects of the ICH.
Hence the scope of Art.15 should not be interpreted narrowly. Rather, it should be read asencouraging and promoting a communities’ proactive involvement. Technically speaking, thisprovision should be read together with Paragraph 7 of the Preamble, so that it covers almost all
aspects of the ICH.
On the operational level, however there is no relevant rule in the Operational Directives toimplement Art.15. It is left undecided how and in what ways communities should be involved.
It should be clarified in each aspect of the ICH based on research.
The most appropriate starting point would be one of safeguarding measures, since thesafeguarding is the core of the operational level. Safeguarding in the Convention is verybroadly defined 4 and “documentation” is a part of safeguarding. Documentation has beena traditional measure applied to the ICH by researchers. The UNESCO Recommendationon the Safeguarding of Traditional Culture and Folklore5 adopted in 1989 was designed tooffer appropriate methods and manners of documentation to the international community.
But it did not contain clear guidance on how to involve relevant communities in the processof documentation. Hence, it perfectly makes sense to take up documentation of the ICH as
an objective of research and to arrange various meetings. If the relevant communities are
directly involved in such meetings and direct communications between researchers and such
communities take place, this would be an innovation for the research of the ICH. Outcome andmethod should be widely shared with other researchers.

3 Art.11: Each State Party shall:							(b) among the safeguarding measures referred to in Article 2, paragraph 3, identify and define the various
elements of the intangible cultural heritage present in its territory, with the participation of communities,groups and relevant nongovernmental organizations.
4 Art. 2, aliena 3, “Safeguarding” means measures aimed at ensuring the viability of the intangible cultural
heritage, including the identification, documentation, research, preservation, protection, promotion,enhancement, transmission, particularly through formal and non-formal education, as well as the revitalizationof the various aspects of such heritage.
5 http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13141&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html(last visited on May 29, 2012)33

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

A brief overview of approaches to engaging younger generations
with their Cultural Heritage, through audiovisual productions
Metje Postma
Leiden University

ABSTRACT: The question we have posed ourselves today is: How can audiovisual documents
be of use to safeguard and transmit cultural practices ?
I will argue that one of the main reasons of stagnation of cultural practices can be foundin the gap in knowledge that occurs through processes of modernisation and globalisationof the youth, carried especially by institutional education and social media. Therefore, if
a community or group of practitioners makes a request for preservation, simply producing
descriptive ‘audiovisual documents’ will not be sufficient. To interest the younger generations,or to transmit knowledge to them, audio-visual mediation strategies should be extended tomodes that are adjusted to the specific sphere of interest and needs, of that group. Not in steadof the necessary extensive and systematic recording of those practices, but in addition to them.
In this paper I discuss examples of both ethnographic film projects that aim at safeguarding theperformance and knowledge involved in cultural practices and different genres and documentary
film styles that one could apply to produce more engaging films and other media productions.
Here we can think of a narrative documentary, an educational project including games, on
DVD and /or website, the use of social media, or even a fiction-film as a participatory project,
in order to engage younger generations.

Introduction
Although, in the frame of the 2003 Convention for the preservation of ICH, UNESCO has
always been an advocate of Audio Visual documentation of Cultural practices (from now
on called: Cultural records), little discussion seems to have taken place on how audiovisual
documentation can and should be performed in order to achieve its various aims. If we accept
that Safeguarding, Transmission & Visibility are the three main aims of using AV media in ICH
projects, different recording and production-strategies should be applied to meet each of theseends within the specific context in which the project is to be implemented.
In line with this omission, little attention is also given to capacity building of local filmmakers
that can assure sustainability of prolonged documentation of ICH. Simply handing over acamera is not sufficient to train local persons in how to document their practices. Purpose
related training of local filmmakers is a prerequisite to ensure continuous documentation.
Creative approaches to making and using such records that can be used for transmitting
knowledge to a generally disinterested youth is the challenge for a community that seeks topreserve its cultural practices (ICH).

34

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

one of the aims of the meeting in Tokyo was to come up with a list of good practices that could
serve as an example for how cultural records and other modes of audiovisual mediations ofcultural practices could be made. And what examples are there that have proven successful
to raise the interest of the youth for the cultural practices that their community would liketo preserve. Although traditional means of transmission should be preserved where possible,
practices of transmission that include AV Documentation, are often a necessity, as thosespecialists that could teach the younger generations are getting older and may pass away. A
more well thought through plan, launched at the beginning of an ICH-preservation project,
could eventually enable the production of film material that can be used for both safeguarding
and transmission in a more organic way.

Film genres, and he three aims (SVT) and modes of audiovisual recording
By distinguishing the three main purposes of AV-documentation for the preservation of ICH:
Safeguarding, Visibility and Transmission, I intend to make clear that each of these aims may
require another audiovisual approach.
We can distinguish three main genres of films that could be applied for these different
purposes and Social media as platform and new medium of production as a fourth category.
1. Documentaries1 (falling in the category of realism)• a. Expository Film of Video (Educative /informative (led by commentary)• b. Participatory Observational Cinema• c. Participatory Video
2. Artistic/Poetic approach to social worlds• Aesthetic interpretation (Form over Content)• Imagination (whose Imagination)
3. Fiction films• Imaginary worlds or mythical stories.
• Dramatized ‘real events’.
4. Social Media• Creating new platforms for (re) negotiating identity• Educational use• Production of films and images by the members of the community.
Audiovisual productions need, to a certain extend, be adjusted to its users, or to an intended
audience, in terms of presupposed knowledge and style. Different audiences can be reachedthrough different kinds, forms and modes of audiovisual representation and different genres offilmmaking can engage an audience in different ways. We should therefore not automaticallyassume that audio-visual productions should only entail documentaries. Different genres(documentary/fiction/art) can be applied. In the case of addressing younger generations,dramatized films may appeal more to them than realist documentaries. We may here think of
1 For further reading into these different styles one can read texts by Eric Barnauw 1974, Bill Nichols 2002 or
Michael Rabiger 2009.

35

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

the enormous influence of films in which Bruce Lee performed, in the 70’s, on the popularity of
Korean, Chinese and Japanese traditions of Kung Fu, Karate and other martial arts. Although
in most cases such popularizing effect may not be desirable, it does show the power of making
local traditions more visible. In each genre we can also think of different modes or styles offilmmaking that may be distinguished by how they address or engage the audience and/or
convey their message.
Documentary approaches & and cultural records for safeguarding cultural practices
belong to the genre of realist representations, that aim at representing social worlds andpractices as accurate as possible.

Safeguarding
Making audiovisual documents (‘cultural records’) for safeguarding cultural practices, entails
meticulous recording of as many aspects of that practice, that are considered relevant anddefining, as possible. Anthropologist-filmmakers have since the 1950’s developed and applied
guidelines for approaches to recording diverse forms of cultural practices like: material
techniques (skills & processes) body techniques (like setting tattoos, dance, or body careetc) and ritual and social practices (ceremonies, rituals, social interactions, performancesetc.)2 Making such records, can only be done in close cooperation with (a) local specialist(s)who possess(es) sufficient cultural/ethnographic knowledge to can make the record valuable.
Knowing the events to be recorded, and being well acquainted with the involved practitioners,
is the starting point for making a cultural record that can be of value to the community. This
includes knowledge of the specific local social context and the people, their personal lives
and stories. Good relations are essential to build up mutual trust, and for engaging with theperformers beyond their performance. To depict cultural practices as a way of life, and notjust as a separate event, cultural records need to expose cultural knowledge as belonging
to individual persons, and not as a product that can be isolated from those who embody it.
Embodiment entails (intellectual and corporeal) ownership, either by individuals or by a family,group or community. How to deal with such ‘property’ needs to be extensively negotiated anddecided, even before a project is started.
In order to make cultural records valuable, it is necessary, if possible, to portray theperformances of cultural practices in the social context where they occur, as opposed to directed
and performed performances. This we call the paradigm of ‘realism’. However, globalizationand modernization may have migrated traditions far beyond the borders of the place of origin.
In the end it is the performers and ‘owners’ who decide what is the appropriate location for
performance.

Cultural Records
Characteristic for Cultural records is, that the choreography and chronology of the events
determine the narrative structure of the film (Event driven, linguistic approach) Ethnographic
2 Claudine de France 1983, Jean Rouch, Timothy Asch & Patsy Asch 1976, Dauer 1982, Heider 1976, vanden Hoek, Nijland 2006, Shresta, Nijland and Platenkamp 2006, Taylor and Barbash 1999, Crawford 2006.
Also see added paper by Postma and Husmann 2009 for a brief historical overview.

36

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

film developed since the 50’s as part of the ‘salvage anthropology’ idea (Mead 1976) aimed
at ‘conserving’ the rapidly ‘disappearing cultures’ of the earth. Culture seen as ‘product, as
expression that could be recorded, was the starting point. Later the view of culture as ‘product’shifted to a more actor oriented approach, when the importance of processes of individual agency
and embodiment of socio-cultural practices and patterns of thought, became more prominent
in anthropological approaches to social realities. When recording, one should determine if
actors or events should be central (for instance when recording embodied knowledge, sensory
knowledge or oral history), or both. Digital media make it possible to produce different kindsof records that represent a different focus on a specific practice.3)
In the case that actual cultural practices are no longer performed, but the (embodied) knowledge
is still available, reconstruction of practices on film, can and has been considered. (Robert
Flaherty: Nanook of the North 1923, Asen Balikci: Netsilik Eskimo’s series 1966, Ian Dunlop:
Desert People 1967 etc.) Archival footage has also been used to revive cultural practices as wasdone by Native American communities in North America. (see also Loretta Fowler 1987)
In the context of contemporary community based preservation projects, the different applications
and purposes of the recordings should be discussed with the community, in order to understandboth the purpose of the recordings and to know what is going to happen and to find the best
possible cinematographic interpretation. Framing, perspective and camera-movements should
be well informed and represent well informed decisions. In the context of the preservation of
ICH projects that are supported by UNESCO, resulting records should not be seen as academic
data, but as sources for the community to preserve their practices in the way they need them toserve as sources for preservation and transmission.
Also other use can be made of such records, like I have once encountered Mexican
local artists who sought inspiration in the pre-Columbian cultural capital of their community.
Essential is that these records be made accessible for the community through for instancespecial arrangements with archives, through limited access to websites, etc. for different users.
We are just at the beginning of the digital revolution. But it is clear that issues of ownership,consent of publication, protection of secret knowledge and socially restricted visibility, shouldbe negotiated in advance, and taken along in decisions on how these records could be madeaccessible for the local community and (if at all) for the outside world.
In case not all knowledge can be made public, different versions of a documentary
could be made as was done by Marsha Berman’s Sing Sing Tumbuan (1989/1995). (http://
www.hawaii.edu/oceanic/film/filmdb/1895.html) The documentary was recorded on requestof the Boroi and Kaian communities in Madang Province in cooperation with the Papua New
Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery of which 3 versions were produced, 2 in Pidginand one in English, together with an educational booklet. As a result of the film, the younger
generation became interested in its own rituals again, and in the touristic interest in theircultural performances and the resulting income that it generated which re-kindled the tradition
3 https://www.youtube.com/analytics/#r=views,dt=nm,fs=15369,fe=15398,fr=UN001,fi=v-39P22OByqDI,
rpm=l,rpd=5,ha=bz8_ay8CH3U.

37

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)of Mask dances, although not always in the full ritual and sacred setting that it was originallyheld in.
Training local filmmakers to make their own cultural records, has been done in many different
contexts. Participatory Video/Indigenous media projects are often implemented with a politicalintention, and are often aimed more at empowerment than meticulous documentation of cultural
practices. Well known project is that of the Kayapo that was led by Terence Turner.Anotherfamous project that was designed to support Amazonian Indians to document their own culture
was the ‘Video in the Villages’ project (http://www.der.org/films/ashaninka-villages.html) by
the Ashanika community in the Amazonian rainforest, that that begun in 1987 and ran for 14
years. Patricia Aufderheide (2000) points out different applications for participatory video
projects: ‘to make accessible to Indians, the vision, the production and the manipulation of
their image’ and through the project: ‘getting to know other groups, fostering comparisons of
their traditions. (Aufderheide 2000:281) A handbook for training and doing participatory video
projects can be found on the website of the Oxford based organization: InsightShare (http://
insightshare.org/resources/pv-handbook)In the discussions amongst the participants in the meeting in Tokyo, it was brought up thateven if previous (ethnographic or other) films have been made by outsiders/specialists in local
communities, those records were often not returned to the community, or vanished as the resultof unfit local conditions for keeping such records in situ. This lack of returning cultural records
to the community that is the subject of a film, can be perceived as theft of Cultural Capital incolonial and postcolonial settings and is reason for negotiating very clear guidelines and rules
for cooperation with external film teams and ethnographers. The positive side of such past
film projects, is that these cultural records from the past, are often well preserved in archives
across the world. Most archives will be committed to repatriation of such records. UNESCO
could play a major role in supporting a project in which all those archives would be listed andmade accessible in an overarching digital catalogue. Many of those archives have now become
accessible through digital databases, but there is no system that allows to search exactly which
records exist of what communities, and where they can be found.
The historic dimension that such records may provide, when they are brought back to thecommunity, could be of great use in the process of recollection, preservation and communicationof cultural practices and makes it possible to visualize the dynamics of cultural change.

Visibility
An important application of audio-visual media in projects for the preservation of cultural
heritage is to make these practices visible within the community and the outside world.
Visualization is often seen as an acknowledgement and valorization of local traditions,which may enhance a sense of pride and belonging. In order to have an impact, audiovisual
productions made for an audience, should however be constructed as independent productions
that have a narrative structure and a restricted length, unlike cultural records that may me aslong as 10 to 20 hours. By raising awareness of such traditions, public interest can be raised
and support can more easily be found to preserve and possibly continue the practices, locally,38

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)and even outside the local context. Through the production of an appropriate mode of film for alarger audience, the perception of these practices can be changed.

1. Documentary
We consider documentaries as ‘stand alone’ feature length audiovisual productions that are
intended to convey a realist portrayal of a social world, to inform and engage an audience.
The documentary is organized by a narrative structure, usually consisting of a certain
dramatic storyline that is taken from the depicted reality. Different styles of filming engage
the viewer differently with persons that are filmed. Anthropologist-filmmakers have adopted
certain conventions for making different kinds of documentaries, but in all cases an extensive
knowledge of and acquaintance with the community is seen as a prerequisite. As in UNESCO
projects the desire to preserve local traditions is the starting point, extensive negotiation withall stakeholders and different interest-groups is the prerequisite of each project. It is obviousthat most of the time, communities may be divided and different persons may have different(opposed) ideas and interests in relation to the preservation of their heritage. Negotiating theseinterests will also stretch to which and how traditions will be depicted, and whose knowledge
and skills will be portrayed. Involvement of local persons in how their practices and life isrepresented may lead to a more performative way of portrayal, as most people would prefer tobe seen in a certain way.
It should be noted also that recording local practices always affects the awareness andperformance of these practices and may often also change its future performance.
a. Expository documentary film genres are usually made for educational purposes, and are
more intended to inform, the viewer about a certain tradition or practice, than to enable him
or her to ‘experience’ the practice. We may say that this genre of documentary should be seen
as a tool for transmitting knowledge about local traditions etc. even though they also makethese practices more visible. This genre is mostly applied by TV channels like Discovery andNational Geographic, and heavily rely on the added explanatory commentary.
b. (Participatory) Observational Cinema, is most common in ethnographic filmmaking,and aims at an observational and/or experiential approach of social realities, to enable theengagement of the viewer, with the depicted persons living their lives in existing social
contexts., without directing them. This style of cinema employs the presence and knowledge ofthe (ethnographic) filmmaker to enable the viewer to engage with the depicted persons throughthe relationship between filmmaker and the persons that are filmed. The ‘participatory’ aspectconsists of maintaining presence as a filmmaker and/or a dialogical form of engagement also
during filming, where the depicted persons social reality normally converse with the filmmaker
during the recording, or act without paying attention to him or her. But the presence andinfluence of the filmmaker on how persons act is not denied. Observational documentaries
focus usually on actors performing events, and the film is (if necessary) structured by the logic
of events or follows an analytical thread (as compared to research-films). In other words, theobservational Cinema documentary intends to convey a social reality, and not only describe
events and activities.
In this genre different ways of telling a ‘story ‘may be applied, like an explorative39

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

approach where the search for and the process of getting to know the tradition may structure
the film like in Wim Wenders’ documentary where Ry Cooder, an American musican looks forthe last musicians of a Cuban musical tradition, that resulted in the documentary : Buena Vista
Social Club (199 (http://www.pbs.org/buenavista/music/ry_cooder_bio.html) & (http://youtu.
be/Gc6HFT_3zqQ/ This film resulted in a great revival for this genre of music and songs, andthe recuperation and fame of the singers.
A recent Observational film-project (De Houtman: Wendy van Wilgenburg (2011). portrays theknowledge and skills of a young carpenter who is specialized in reconstructing windmills. The
surplus of the film is that the carpenter and the organization who gave the order to reconstruct
the windmill, differ in their views on how to perceive authenticity, and the development of thisconflict comes across clearly in the portrayal of the reconstruction process.
However as this genre is by far the most popular amongst ethnographic filmmakers
nowadays, we could present a long list of examples, some of which are given in the filmography
below.
c. Participatory Video is a genre of filmmaking where local people are trained to document
their own reality and cultural practices. This approach demands field training or professional
training of community-members, and or the involvement of local researchers, that may workwith community members. Institutional involvement through local cultural centers or museums
may be needed to guarantee the necessary equipment, storage and archival of filmed footage
and the sustainability of a documentation project. Eventually this approach is most preferred toempower the local community and enable self representation and the control of the image thatis brought out in the open. In practice such projects may rely heavily on a few individuals who
have the interest and endurance to develop their skills and commit their time to such a projectand on available sources of income to sustain the project. Decisions of what and who to depict,and ownership and accessibility of the filmed practices will also need to be considered in thecontext of UNESCO projects.

2. Artistic/Poetic
Approach to negotiate forms of identity, by making artistic interpretations of local traditions
may be a good way of connecting traditional pratices to present day concerns and modes ofrepresentation. Local arists are the obvious ‘translators’ of tradition to modernity, who may
negotiate their own local identity in new ways, making use of traditional forms. Especially in
margisnalised communities, the decolonisation of imagination, may only be possible throughreconnecting to traditional forms, to find forms that.

Transmission
Often the generation gap between parents and children widens when children are the first
generation to attend nationally homogenized schools, which may cause ‘shame’ of identityand distancing from it. Most of the time, local ways and traditions and local language insuch schools is discouraged or even punished. Interest in one’s roots, usually re-occurs in thesecond generation of school-goers, at a later age. The world of their grandparents may start40

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

to draw children’s attention. At that time, traditions may have already faded, or are at theedge of being lost. Therefore video/film projects could be employed as a way of encouraging
such new engagement by the youth in local traditional cultural practices. However, engaging
with cultural practices has to be made interesting and attractive again. Transferring local
knowledge through AV documents to a younger generation, requires a sensitivity to how the
local youth could be enticed to be interested and to learn about their cultural heritage: how toteach such knowledge and skills to younger generations of different ages. Preferably however,audiovisual media could be used to educate children about their heritage at an earlier age byintegrating practical classes in which they can learn the skills and knowledge by practice, if
possible, and through viewing audiovisual productions, that are made for children. Similar
projects have been developed for education in knowledge about tangible heritage, for instancein England (http://www.4culture.org/apply/heritageeducation/index.htm) and Indonesia (http://
www.culturalheritageconnections.org/wiki/Heritage_Education_for_schools_in_Indonesia)
but strengthening local communities and their cultures may have a political dimension that canmake it less obvious for national educational institutions, to support such projects. Besides,
cultural practices need to me embodied and often require long term training (like dance, music
and other forms of performance) that demand time and devotion, and personal coaching.
Audiovisual media should therefore be principally used to interest younger generations in theirheritage again, and cannot replace such direct interaction with knowledgeable teachers.
In order to interest the youth, it could be that new learning environments and forms ofrepresentation have to be created to bridge the gap between experiential worlds of older andnew generations. This is not to say, again, that for those already interested, traditional methodsof transmission could not also be employed.

3. Fiction Film
A documentary or even a fiction film project canboth be a reason for and a process of transmitting of
cultural practices (film as podium.) Starting of fromcreative projects that are both important as practiceof safeguarding and recollection, and as participatory
process, one could think of such feature length films
as the community based production: Atarajuat, the fastrunner (2001, 161 min), by Zacharias Kunuk (http://
www.isuma.tv/hi/en/atanarjuat/filmmaking-inuit-style),
who is himself a member of the community. (http://
www.isuma.tv/hi/en/isuma-productions/atanarjuat-thefast-runner). Of this film, the production process itself
was also a social and an educational project. Archival
films and photographs and oral history were used toconstruct the narrative. A local myth tells the story. For
it to be made, many forms of ‘lost’ cultural practices
and performances were reconstructed. It was supported by the National Film Board of Canada’s
Aboriginal Filmmaking Program. (https://files.nyu.edu/fg4/public/pdfs/Ginsburg%20-%20
Atanarjuat.pdf )41

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Another example: Ten Canoes, the prize winning fiction
film by Rolf de Heer (http://www.creativespirits.info/
resources/movies/ten-canoes) not only made the Yolgnu
and their stories visible, but the project has over the years
been extended into a diverse program of applied audiovisual productions, educational programs and educative
websites in the Yolgnu language (www.12canoes.com.
au) paid by the success of the fiction film. This film ismade by the Australian filmmaker Rolf de Heer, witha community of Yolgnu people in Arnhem land, and isbased on the story of a myth, mixed with a present day
story. The project is extensively described in the 2005
documentary: The Balanda And The Bark Canoes (52min.)
The project shows how a multi-media and multipurpose approach may follow up a successful film that
reignited the interest of the youth in their own cultural heritage. Following the 10 canoes
filmproject, the director organized eleven canoes and another 7 ‘Canoe projects’, that exposedand stimulated the reappraisal of Yolgnu culture amongst the youth and publicly.
11 Canoes was a project in 2004/5 that taught older teens from Ramingining how toshoot, record and edit video. It enabled them to make their own mini-documentaries
and to record the cultural renewal that was taking place as a consequence of the 10
Canoes project.
http://www.creativespirits.info/resources/movies/ten-canoes#ixzz1q1o19axX
Faye Ginsburg describes different other Aboriginal Media Projects in her article Aboriginal
Media and the Australian Imaginary (1999). (https://files.nyu.edu/fg4/public/pdfs/Ginsburg%20-%20Aboriginal%20Media%20and%20the%20Australian%20Imaginary.pdf)

4. Social MediaThe canoe project already gives an example of how new popular social media may create
contemporary ‘cool’ platforms that can be used to renegotiate identity. The internet also offers
the possibility for a community or for families or individuals to create one’s own archive online.
Social Media like Facebook and Youtube are in and of themselves participatory platforms, andare often considered ‘cool’ modes of communication for the youth.
In an article on the BBC website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17081573),
it is mentioned that the internet will be the rescue of many languages that are at the verge ofextinction. Through the internet audio-visual documents can easily be shared, create new, more
appealing, contexts of transmission, address younger generations and may even create newcommunities of interest (who identify with this particular form). Social Media like Facebook
and Youtube are in and of themselves participatory platforms, and are often considered ‘cool’42

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

modes of communication for the youth. Clips of my own research material that I had recordedwith the Sudanese Rashaayda Bedouin, and posted on Youtube, to share with the community;
a sequence on women dancing for instance, http://youtu.be/39P22OByqDI, was viewed bymore then 35.000 and almost 10.000 people watched men’s sword-dances (http://youtu.be/ljpaOpNBvVI)
Youtube-statistics show that the interest comes especially from younger generations in
Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries4. These dances, especially of women, were already lost in
Saudi Arabia where the tribe originated from. Through Youtube communication developed withmembers of different Rashaayda communities and other Arab youth in Diaspora and in different
Arab countries. Some of these clips were even remixed (http://youtu.be/t7YwBn2zioY). A newspace for negotiating cultural identity is thus created. Many such eaxmples can be found.
Research into strategies of audiovisual documentation, could include an exploration of whereto post audio-visual records in spaces that are used by the groups that should carry traditions
further, to make them aware of their heritage.
In my experience a multipurpose and multimedia project could be a good option to bothserve documentation purposes and explore how the recording process can also be part of apreservation-process. A multi-purpose approach could consist of making different productions
for different audiences and purposes, or like the examples noted above, to produce a (fiction)
film in which the youth participates, and from there develop other projects. The youth will be
the first to create sites, and upload its own recordings, images and other files on such sites.

EthicsAn outline for ethical guidelines has been developed by the participants of the meeting,but needs further discussion and testing when applied to concrete projects. More extensive
ethical guidelines can be copied from anthropological filmmakers (Timothy Asch 1992, David
MacDougall 2002) and have recently also been published at the Survival International website(http://assets.survivalinternational.org/documents/632/ethical-practice-when-filming-tribalpeoples-17-54pm.p)
In short those guidelines can be summarized as:• Make high quality representative records, in agreement with the specialists.
• Do no harm
• Share benefits• Make clear agreements about conditions for distribution• Negotiate with community about ownership & use:
• If necessary, make different versions for different audiences,• Arrange archiving in well maintained and accessible archives• Arrange ways of using the material for education
4 a brief overview of developments in ethnographic filmmaking can be found in the added article” Ethnographic
Film by Husmann and Postma 2009The article was written for the 16th IUAES Congress in Kunming in
2010

43

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)• Train and equip local community members in filmmaking (continuity and•empowerment
and provide infrastructure for filmmaking like: equipment, training, archiving,sustainability.

Readinglist
Asch, Timothy (1972) ‘Making ethnographic film for teaching and research.’ Newsletter, American
Anthropological Association, Program in Ethnographic Film (PIEF) 3(2): 6–10, Winter.
Asch, Timothy and Patsy Asch (1982) ‘Collaboration in ethnographic filming’ Canberra Anthropologist 5(1):8–36.
Asch, Timothy, Patsy Asch and Linda O’Connor (1985) Jero Tapakan: Balinese healer, An ethnographic film
monograph. Cambridge University Press.
Asch, Timothy (1988) ‘Collaboration in ethnographic filmmaking: A personal view.’ In: Jack Rollwagen (ed.),Anthropological filmmaking, pp. 1–29. Chur (Harwood): Academic Publishers.
Asch, Timothy and Patsy Asch (1988) ‘Film in anthropological research.’ In: Paul Hockings and Yasuhiro Omori(eds.), Cinematographic theory and new dimensions in ethnographic film, pp. 165–189. Osaka: National
Museum of Ethnology.
Asch, Timothy (1992) ‘The ethics of ethnographic film-making.’ In: Peter Ian Crawford and David Turton (eds.),
Film as ethnography, pp. 196–204. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Asch, Timothy and Patsy Asch (1995) ‘Film in ethnographic research.’ In: Paul Hockings (ed.), Principles ofvisual anthropology, pp. 335–362. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. [Second revised edition, original
1975.]
Balikci, Asen (1995) ‘Reconstructing cultures on film.’ In: Paul Hockings (ed.), Principles of visual anthropology,
pp. 181–192. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. [Second revised edition, original 1975.]
Banks, Marcus (1992) ‘Which films are the ethnographic films?’ In: Peter I. Crawford and David Turton (eds.),
Film as ethnography, pp. 116–129. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Barbash, Ilisa and Lucien Taylor (1997) Cross-cultural filmmaking: A handbook for making documentary andethnographic films and videos. Berkely and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Barbash, I., David D. MacDougall, L. Taylor and J. MacDougall (1996) ‘Reframing ethnographic film: A‘Conversation’ with David MacDougall and Judith MacDougall.’ American Anthropologist 98(2):371–387.
Bateson, Gregory and Margaret Mead (1942) Balinese character: Photographic analysis. New York: New York
Academy of Sciences.
Bishop, John (with Naomi Bishop) (1998) Making Himalayan herders. Amsterdam: Beeld voor Beeld Festival
Catalogue.
Bishop, John (2002) ‘The camera as choreographer in documentary and ethnographic film.’ In: Judy Mitoma(ed.), Envisioning dance on film and video, pp. 246–250: Routledge.
Bryson, Ian (2007) ‘Visual anthropology: The AIATSIS contribution.’ In: B. Engelbrecht (ed.), Memories of theorigins of ethnographic film, pp. 295–305. Frankfurt am Main ; New York : Peter Lang, 2007
Bunster, Ximena (1975) ‘Talking pictures: Field method and visual mode.’ Signs 3(1): 278–293. [Women andNational Development: The Complexities of Change, Autumn, 1977.]
Carpenter, Edmund (1974) Oh what a blow that phantom gave me! New York: Bantam Books.
Collier, John and Malcolm Collier (1996) Visual anthropology: Photography as a research method. Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico. [F. Miksa, first edition, 1967.]
Connor, Linda H. (1988) ‘Third eye: Some reflections on collaboration for ethnographic film.’ In: Jack Rollwagen(ed.), Anthropological filmmaking, pp. 97–110. Chur (Harwood): Academic Publishers.
Crawford, Peter (1992) ‘Film as discourse: The invention of anthropological realities.’ In: Peter Crawford andDavid Turton (eds.), Film as ethnography, pp. 66–84. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Dauer, Alfons (1980) Zur Syntagmatik des ethnografischen Dokumentarsfilms. Föhrenau: Stiglmayr.
De Brigard, Emilie (1995, original 1973) ‘The history of ethnographic film.’ In: Paul Hockings (ed.), Principlesof visual anthropology, pp. 13–43.Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

44

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Decker, Christof (2007) ‘Richard Leacock and the origins of direct cinema: Re-assessing the idea of an‘uncontrolled cinema’.’ In: B. Engelbrecht (ed.), Memories of the origins of ethnographic film, pp. 31–47.
Frankfurt am Main ; New York : Peter Lang, 2007
Dickey, Sara (1993) Cinema and the urban poor in South India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dunlop, Ian (1975) ‘Dunlop replies to Rouch.’ Studies in the Anthropology of Visual Communication Spring2(1): 62.
Dunlop, Ian (1983) ‘Ethnographic film making in Australia: The first 70 years (1898–1968).’ Studies in Visual
Communication 9(1): 11–18.
Eaton, Mick (1985) ‘The production of cinematic reality.’ In: Anthropology : Reality, cinema : The films of Jean
Rouch, pp. 40–53. London: British Film Institute.
Elder, Sarah (2007) ‘Pulling focus: Timothy Asch between filmmaking and pedagogy.’ In: B. Engelbrecht (ed.),Memories of the origins of ethnographic film, pp. 95–119. Frankfurt am Main ; New York : Peter Lang,2007
El Guindi, Fadwa (2004) Visual anthropology: Essential method and theory. Walnut Creek, Ca.: Altamira Press.
Engelbrecht, Beate (ed.) (2007) Memories of the origins of ethnographic film. Frankfurt/M: Peter Lang.
Faris, James (1972) Nuba personal art. London: Duckworth.
Feld, Steven (ed.) (2003) Ciné-ethnography: Jean Rouch. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.
Flaherty, Robert (1922) ‘How I filmed ‘Nanook of the Nort’,’ In: World’s work, pp. 632–640. [Also available on
the internet: http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/astro.temple.edu/~ruby/wava/Flaherty/ filmed.html]
France de, Claudine (1982) Cinema et anthropologie. Paris: Maison des Sciences de l’Homme.
Gerbrands, Adriaan A. (1971) ‘Etno-cinematografisch onderzoek bij de Kilenge.’ Registratie 3: 27–34.
Grimshaw, Anna (2001) The ethnographer’s eye: Ways of seeing in anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Grimshaw, Anna and Amanda Ravetz (eds.) (2005) Visualizing anthropology: Experimenting with image-based
ethnography. Bristol and Portland: Intellect Ltd.
Hastrup, Kirsten (1992) ‘Anthropological visions: Some notes on visual and textual Authority.’ In: Crawford,
Peter and David Turton (eds.), Film as ethnography. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Heider, Karl (1976) Ethnographic film. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. [New revised edition in 2006.]
Heider, Karl (1991) Indonesian cinema. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
Henley, Paul (1996) ‘The promise of ethnographic film.’ Visual Anthropology 13: 206–226.
Henley, Paul (2004, in press) ‘Spirit-possession, witchcraft and the absent presence of Islam: Re-viewing lesMaîtres Fous.’ Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute.
Henley, Paul (2006) ‘Narrative: The guilty secret of ethnographic film.’ In: Metje Postma and Peter Crawford(eds.), Reflecting visual ethnography: Using the camera in anthropological research, pp. 376–402. Aarhus:Intervention Press.
Heusch de, Luc (1962) Cinéma et sciences socials: Panorama du film ethnographique et sociologique, Rapports
et documents de sciences socials. Paris: UNESCO.
Hockings, Paul (ed.) (1995) Principles of visual anthropology. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. [Second
revised edition, original 1975]
Hockings, Paul (2007) ‘Asen Balikci Films Nanook.’ In: B. Engelbrecht (ed.), Memories of the origins of
ethnographic film, Frankfurt am Main ; New York : Peter Lang, 2007 pp. 247–257.
Husmann, Rolf (2007) ‘Post-war ethnographic filmmaking in Germany: Peter Fuchs, the IWF and theEncyclopedia
Cinematographica.’ In: B. Engelbrecht (ed.), Memories of the origins of ethnographic film, Frankfurt am
Main ; New York : Peter Lang, 2007 pp. 383–395.
Kapfer, R., W. Petermann and R. Thoms (eds.) (1989) Rituale von Leben und Tod: Robert Gardner und seine
Filme. Munich: Trickster.
Krebs, Stephanie (1995) ‘The elicitation technique.’ In: Paul Hockings (ed.), Principles of visual anthropology,
pp. 283–302. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. [Second revised edition, original1975.
Loizos, Peter (1992) ‘Admissible evidence? Film in Anthropology.’ In: Peter Crawford and David Turton (eds.),
Film as ethnography, pp. 50–65. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Loizos, Peter (1993) Innovation in ethnographic film. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Lomax, Alan (1973) ‘Urgent anthropology: Cinema, science and culture renewal.’ In: Current Anthropology 14:
474–481.

45

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Lomax, Alan (1975) ‘Audiovisual tools for the analysis of culture style.’ In: Paul Hockings (ed.), Principles ofvisual anthropology, pp. 303–324. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Maaker de, Erik (2000) ‘Integrating ethnographic research and filmmaking: Video elicitation for a performanceoriented analysis of the Teyyam ritual.’ Visual Anthropology 13: 185–197.
Maaker de, Erik (2006) ‘Recording, constructing and reviewing Teyyam: The annual visit of the God
Vishnumurti.’ In: Metje Postma and Peter Crawford (eds.), Reflecting visual ethnography: Using thecamera in anthropological research, pp. 103–118. Aarhus: Intervention Press.
MacDougall, David (1995) ‘Beyond observational cinema.’ In: Paul Hockings (ed.), Principles of visual
anthropology, pp. 115–132. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. [Second revised edition, original 1975]
MacDougall, David (1998) Transcultural cinema. New Jersey (Princeton University Press).
MacDougall, David (1998a) ‘The fate of the cinema subject.’ In: Lucien Taylor, Transcultural cinema, pp.
25–60. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
MacDougall, David (1998b) ‘Visual anthropology and the ways of knowing.’ In: Lucien Taylor, Transcultural
cinema, pp. 61–92. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
MacDougall, David (1998c) ‘Whose story is it?’ In: Lucien Taylor, Transcultural cinema, pp. 150–164. New
Jersey: Princeton University Press. [First appearance in: Crawford, Peter and Simonsen (1994) and in L.
Taylor (ed.) 1994, Visualizing theory: Selected essays from V.A.R. 1990–1994. New York: Routledge.]
MacDougall, David (2001) ‘Renewing ethnographic film: Is digital video changing the genre?’ Anthropology
Today 17(3): 15–21.
MacDougall, David (2006a) ‘Voice and vision.’ In: MacDougall, David The corporeal image, film, ethnography
and the sense, pp. 32–64. New Jersey: Princeton University.
MacDougall, David (2006b) ‘The visual in anthropology.’ In MacDougall, David The corporeal image, film,
ethnography and the senses, pp. 213–226. New Jersey: Princeton University.
MacDougall, David (2006c) ‘New principles of visual anthropology.’ In: MacDougall, David The corporeal
image, film, ethnography and the senses, pp. 264–274 New Jersey: Princeton University.
MacDougall, David (2006d) ‘Social aesthetics.’ Visual Anthropology Review 15(1): 3–20, 1999. [Also in:
MacDougall, David, The corporeal image, film, ethnography and the senses, pp. 94–119. New Jersey:
Princeton University.
MacDougall, David (2006e) ‘Doon School reconsidered.’ In: MacDougall, David, The corporeal image, film,
ethnography and the senses, pp. 120–144. New Jersey: Princeton University.
MacDougall, David (2007) ‘Colin Young: Ethnographic film and the film culture of the 1960s.’ In: B. Engelbrecht(ed.), Memories of the origins of ethnographic film, pp. 123–131 Frankfurt am Main ; New York : Peter
Lang, 2007
MacLuhan, Marshall and Quentin Fiore (1967) The medium is the massage: An inventory of effects. Bantam
Books [Reissued by Gingko Press, 2001.]
Marshall, John (1984) ‘Filming and learning.’ In: The cinema of John Marshall, Special Edition of Visual
Anthropology, Vol. 17 n0.2, Gordon and Breach Publishers, 1993
Mead, Margaret (1995) ‘Visual anthropology in a discipline of words.’ In: Paul Hockings (ed.), Principles ofvisual anthropology, pp. 3–12. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. [Second revised edition, original
1975.]
Mitchell, William J.T. (1994) Picture theory: Essays on visual and verbal representation. Chicago and London:
University of Chicago Press.
Nichols, Bill (1981) Ideology and the image: Social representations in the cinema and other media. Bloomington:
Indiana Press.
Nichols, Bill (1991) Representing reality: Issues and concepts in documentary. Bloomington: Indiana Press.
Nichols, Bill (1994) ‘The ethnographer’s tale.’ In: Lucien Taylor (ed.), Visualizing theory, pp. 60–83. New York:
Routledge.
Nichols, Bill (2001) Introduction to documentary. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Nijland, Dirk (2006) ‘Film and non-verbal expressions of culture amongst the Tobelo.’ In: Metje Postma andPeter Crawford (eds.), Reflecting visual ethnography: Using the camera in anthropological research, pp.
52–77. Aarhus: Intervention Press.
Ong, Walter (1982) Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. London and New York: Routledge.
Ong, Walter (1991) ‘The shifting sensorium.’ In: David Howes (ed.), The varieties of sensory experience, pp.

46

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

47–60. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Pink, Sarah (2006a) Doing ethnography: Images, media and representation in research. London: Sage.
Pink, Sarah (2006b) The future of visual anthropology: Engaging the senses. London: Sage.
Postma, Metje (2006) ‘From description to narrative: What’s left of ethnography?’ In: Metje Postma and Peter
Crawford (eds.), Reflecting visual ethnography: Using the camera in anthropological research, pp. 319–
357. Aarhus: Intervention Press.
Prins, Harald and John Bishop (2001–02) ‘Edmund Carpenter: Explorations in media and anthropology.’ Visual
Anthropology Review 17(2): 110–140.
Ragazzi, Rossella (2005) Walking on uneven path: The transcultural experience of migrant children in France
and Ireland. [Unpublished PhD thesis.]
Ragazzi, Rossella (2006) ‘Memory, resistance and speaking the ‘self’.’ In: Metje Postma and Peter Crawford(eds.), Reflecting visual ethnography: Using the camera in anthropological research, pp. 186–210. Aarhus:Intervention Press.
Rollwagen, Jack (ed.) (1988) Anthropological filmmaking. New York: Chur, Harwood.
Rouch, Jean (1975) ‘The camera and man.’ In: Paul Hockings (ed.), Principles of visual anthropology, pp. 83–­102. The Hague: Mouton.
Ruby, Jay (1975) ‘Is an ethnographic film a filmic ethnography?’ Studies in the Anthropology of Visual
Communication 2(2) Fall 1975: 104–111.
Ruby, Jay (1980) ‘Exposing yourself: Reflexivity, anthropology and film.’ Semiotica 3(1–2): 153–179.
Ruby, Jay (1991) ‘Speaking for, speaking about, speaking with, or speaking alongside: An anthropological anddocumentary dilemma.’ Visual Anthropology Review 7(2): 49–66.
Ruby, Jay (ed.) (1993) The cinema of John Marshall. New York: Chur, Harwood.
Ruby, Jay (2005) ‘The last 20 years of visual anthropology: A critical review.’ Visual Studies 20(2) 2005:
159–170.
Said, Edward (1978/1994) Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.
Sorenson, E. Richard and Allison Jablonko (1995) ‘Research filming of naturally occurring phenomena: Basicstrategies.’ In: Paul Hockings (ed.), Principles of visual anthropology, pp. 147–159. Berlin/New York:
Mouton de Gruyter. [Second revised edition, original 1975.]
Stoller, Paul (1992) The cinematic griot: The ethnography of Jean Rouch. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Sullivan, Gerald (2007) ‘Recording social interaction: Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson’s Contribution
to visual anthropology in ethnographic context.’ In: B. Engelbrecht (ed.), Memories of the origins of
ethnographic film, Frankfurt am Main ; New York : Peter Lang, 2007, pp. 59–69.
Trinh Minh-ha (1989) Woman, native, other. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Turner, Terence (1990) ‘Visual media, cultural politics, and anthropological practice: Some implications ofrecent uses of film and video among the Kayapo of Brazil.’ In: C.V.A. Review, Spring: 8–13.
Worth, Sol and John Adair (1997) Through Navajo eyes. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. [Revised
edition, original 1972.]
Young, Colin (1995) ‘Observational cinema.’ In: Paul Hockings (ed.), Principles of visual anthropology, pp. 99–­
114. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. [Second revised edition, original1975.]

Filmography
Anderson, Robin and Bob Connoly (1983) First contact, 54 min.
Asch, Timothy (1969) The feast, 29 min. (distributed by Documentary Educational Resources, Watertown, MA).
Asch, Timothy (1974) Magical death, 29 min. (distributed by Documentary Educational Resources, Watertown,
MA).
Asch, Timothy (1975) The ax fight, 30 min. (distributed by Documentary Educational Resources, Watertown,
MA).
Asch, Timothy (1979) A Balinese trance séance, 47 min. (distributed by Documentary Educational Resources,
Watertown, MA).
Balikci, Asen (1963–68) The Netsilik film series (distributed by the National Film Board of Canada).
Bishop, John and Naomi Bishop (1997) Himalayan herders, 76 min.
Connolly, Bob and Robin Anderson (1983) First contact, 54 min.

47

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Crawford, Peter, I. and Jens Pinholt (2002) Alfred Melotu: The death of a paramount chief, 45 min.
Drew, Robert (1960) Primary, 60 min. (camera: R. Leacock).
Dunlop, Ian (1966) Desert people, 51 min.
Dunlop, Ian (1991–1992) Baruya Muka archival, 13 hours 24 min.
Flaherty, Robert (1922) Nanook of the North, 79 min.
Flaherty, Robert (1926) Moana, 85 min.
Flaherty, Robert (1934) Man of Aran, 76 min.
Gardner, Robert (1964) Dead birds, 84 min. (distributed by Documentary Educational Resources, Watertown,
MA).
Gardner, Robert (1973) Rivers of sand, 83 min.
Gardner, Robert (1986) Forest of bliss, 90 min. (distributed by Documentary Educational Resources, Watertown,MA).
Haddon, Alfred, C. (1898) Aboriginals from Torres Strait. 4 ‘films’: 50 sec. 1 min. 19 sec., 25 sec. and 1 min
Kildea (1983) Celso and Cora, 103 min.
Laird, Charles (2004) Through these eyes, 57 min. (distributed by National Film Board of Canada).
Llewellyn Davies, Melissa and Chris Curling (1985) The women’s Olamal: The organisation of a Maasai fertility
ceremony, 115 min.
MacDougall, David (2000 ff.) Doon school chronicles, 143 min.
MacDougall, David and Judith, 1991 Photo Wallahs, 60 min
MacDougall, David and Judith MacDougall (1974) To live with herds, 70 min.
Marshall, John (1957) The hunters, 72 min. (distributed by Documentary Educational Resources, Watertown,
MA).
Marshall, John (1980) N!ai: the story of a !Kung woman, 59 min. (distributed by Documentary Educational
Resources, Watertown, MA).
Marshall, John (2001) A Kalahari family, a five-part-series, 360 min. (distributed by Documentary Educational
Resources, Watertown, MA).
Mead, Margaret and Gregory Bateson (1952) Trance and dance in Bali, 24 min.
Meyknecht, Steef (2000) Boarded up, 110 min.
Longinotto, Kim and Ziba Mir-Hosseini (1998) Divorce Iranian style, 80 min.
Makepeace, Anne (2000) Coming to light: Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indians.
Nijland D. and J. Platenkamp (1985) Tobelo marriage, 108 min.
Pöch, Rudolf (1908) Bushman speaks into the phonograph, 3 min. (distributed by IWF Knowledge and Media
Göttingen, film no. E 2909).
Postma, Metje (1998) Of men and mares, 90 min.
Ragazzi, Rossella (2000) La memoire dure, 82 min.
Regnault (1895) La potterie Ouolove, 2 min.
Rong-Li (2004) Culture show, 36 min. (distributed by IWF Knowledge and Media Göttingen, film no. C
12415).
Rouch, Jean (1955) (released in 1957) Les maitres fous, 36 min.
Rouch, Jean (1967) (shot in 1954) Jaguar, 91 min.
Rouch, Jean (1958) Moi, un noir, 70 min.
Rouch, Jean and Edgar Morin (1960) Chronique d’un été, 90 min.
Rouch, Jean and Marleine Dieterlen (1972) Funérailles a Bongo: le vieil Anaï, 73 min.
Sandall, Roger (1969) Camels and the Pitjantjara, 59 min.
Spencer, Baldwin (and Frank Gillen) (1901) Dance of kangaroos, 10 min.
Tosi, Virgilio (1993) The origins of scientific cinematography: Early applications, 28 min. (distributed by IWF
Knowledge and Media Göttingen, film no. D 1847).
Wendl, Tobias (1998) Future remembrance: Photography and image arts in Ghana, 54 min. (distributed by IWF
Knowledge and Media Göttingen, film no. D 2005)

48

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)All Heritage is Intangible: a case study from Castleford, 			
West Yorkshire, England
Laurajane Smith
The Australian National University

The first thing I need to note is that there is no such thing as heritage. Heritage is somethingvital and alive. It is a moment of action, not something frozen in material form. It is a culturalprocess concerned with making the present meaningful and providing individuals, societies
and communities with a sense of place.
In some ways, this idea of heritage finds synergy with the UNESCO definition of intangible
heritage, but only partially. Whether you are dealing with a heritage site, such as a European
Castle or the Monuments of Ancient Kyoto, or an archaeological site such as Stonehenge, Troy
or Olympia or with intangible heritage such as music, dance, story telling and so forth you aredealing with a moment or process of cultural creation of meaning and sense of place.
Heritage is more usefully understood as a subjective political negotiation of identity, placeand memory. All heritage is intangible, in so far that heritage is a moment or a process of re/constructing cultural and social values and meanings. It is a process, or indeed a performance,
in which we identify the values and cultural and social meanings that help us make sense of thepresent, our identities and sense of physical and social place.
Thus heritage sites and intangible heritage events are, as Raphael Samuel (1994) argues,‘theatres of memory’ at which moments of remembering and commemorating are made into
moments of heritage making. In this heritage making ideas about place, self and other are recreated and reformed in terms of the cultural, social or political needs of the present.
Ethnographic work, between 2003 and 2009, with a working class community in Castleford,
West Yorkshire, England has attempted to explore and illustrate the above arguments.
Castleford, West Yorkshire, is a self-identified working class town suffering fromdeindustrialisation, and is now the focus of urban and economic regeneration. It had beena tight knit community centred on the coal mining industry, however, loss of identity andself-assurance followed both deindustrialization and the 1984–5 miners strike which saw theeventual closer of the coal mines in and around Castleford.
The stress and trauma of Strike cannot be stressed enough, the conservative government at
the time not only intended to break the unions, but also the very communities from which
the unions were based. Castleford remains one of the poorest towns along any measure of
economic variables you care to use in England, high unemployment rates and high rates ofyouth leaving the area to look for work are key issues identified by many in the community.

49

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Figure 1: The Market Hall usedduring the 2003 Festival for an art
exhibition.
©L. Smith.

In 1999, the community was concerned that heritage was being lost, by which they meant work
place knowledge, community spirit, the music and clog dancing associated with the mines andso forth, but also the very fact that younger people were moving away due to the lack of not
only economic opportunity but due to a lack of community.
The Castleford Heritage Trust (CHT) was formed from local community members, andthis is an important point: it is not a government or expert body but an organic community
organization. It initially organized to save the market hall, not simply for its material value, butrather so that the hall could be used as a community meeting place, art gallery and museum. A
new clock was commissioned in 1999 and put in place to mark the millennium. It was a newclock – physical authenticity was not an issue, but rather what was important was the functionof the clock as a symbol of the market as a meeting place.
To safeguard community heritage the CHT embarked on a number of innovate strategies,
including oral history recording, and digitally archiving photographic and other records. The
also trust embarked on a program to re-enliven community heritage and spirit. This consisted of:- Educational programmes for schools- Drop in centre and gallery where the community could meet and display art, undertake
poetry reading, dance performances etc. Art, poetry and music are significant aspects of Castleford’s mining community culture – out of which came the artist Henry
Moore.
- Working with local environmental groups to conserve open green space and nature
reserves.
- Commissioned and supported community art projects- Developed heritage trails around the town.
They have also raised money and oversaw the building of a new foot-bridge across the town’sriver. This has not only joined both sides of the town more effectively, it has become a meeting
place where people congregate not only to watch the river and fish but also to gossip and passon news. The town sees this not simply as developing the town’s infrastructure, but preserving
heritage in the form of community networking and interaction. The bridge has become a site ofheritage as it is helping to create and strengthen sense of place, identity and community spritand networking.
50

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Figure 2: Footbridge, Castelford,
2010.
©L. Smith.

The CHT also hold a heritage festival each year in July at which a range of events take place,including pottery making and painting, exhibitions on coal mining, rag rug making, maypole dances, a parade and so on. The festival is not just about safeguarding the communities
intangible heritage it is also about making heritage. It is about making memories for children
and providing opportunities for town elders to remember. It is about signalling community
pride. Above all, it is about creating and recreating binding social networks – it is a momentof heritage making as much as it is about signalling the importance of the communities
past:
Important as it is showing everyone what it means to belong to a community – what’s
past and what’s present. (CF49, female, 40–60, storeperson)
Opportunity for different groups in Castleford to get involved in one annual project.
Gives children something to remember whey they get older. Memory jogger for older
people. (CF7, male, 40–60, laboratory technician)Not too sure – it may be a case of producing heritage and creating something now...
(CF17, male, 30–40, council officer – our emphasis)
That we are proud of our heritage and want to celebrate it. We are building for the
future. (CF64)
The CHT have also developed a web site (see it at http://www.castlefordheritagetrust.org.
uk/). This not only advertises community heritage events it also provides a point of contact,much like the drop in centre and the bridge. It is an example where new media is being used tocreate a virtual community that strengthens the actually Castleford community. User generated
content also means that the Trust and the broader community work to define what is or is notimportant in terms of community heritage and knowledge and that knowledge becomes readily
available throughout the community to use as it sees fit.
Castleford, despite the ravages of de-industrialization and associated unemployment, isasserting an identity for itself and recreating the social networks that were lost following thetrauma of the miner’s strike and long-term unemployment. It is both safeguarding its intangible51

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

heritage, but at the very same time creating and recreating new forms of heritage and newforms of memory and the social networks that they underpin.
However, the work being done in Castleford goes unrecognized within England. They are
doing what they are doing largely without help from central government and heritage agencies
because Castleford officially has no heritage.
As the 1950s architectural heritage survey of England concluded:
What can the architectural recorder say about Castleford? There does not seem to be asingle building in the centre of the town, which would justify mention.
Pevsner [1959] 1986, The Buildings of England: Yorkshire: The West Riding, page,
158.
The UK is not a signatory to the 2003 Convention and does not officially recognize ICH:
Interviewee: The UK has not said that it will ratify that convention [ICHC, 2003] andI think it will be quite a long time before it does.
Interviewer: What are the reasons for that?
Interviewee: It is just difficult to see how you could apply a convention of that sort in
the UK context...it is not relevant...it just does not fit with the UK approach...I think
it would be very difficult to bring in a convention that says we are actually going tolist this sort of stuff and protect it. What are the obvious examples you come up with?
Morris Dancing? As intangible heritage and so on? (Interview 1, English Heritage, 4thJuly 2005, quoted in Smith and Waterton 2009:297)
And:Interviewee: Intangibles are relevant to every country – the intangibles ARE heritage...
that is what heritage is. We have trouble communicating this idea to Western countries
who want to see things in a different way. We have trouble with England, who resist
very strongly this way of thinking. They are stuck in their own mindset.
(Interview 5, UNESCO, The Intangible Heritage Section, Paris, 12th January 2006,
quoted in Smith and Waterton 2009: 299)
England does not officially recognize ICH because it makes no sense to the official anddominant understanding of heritage employed by government and heritage agencies in thatcountry.
The naturalized way of seeing heritage in England is framed by what I have called the
Authorized Heritage Discoruse (AHD). This discourse developed in the nineteenth century
out of European wider architectural and archaeological debates to save material things as theinheritable material culture from the past and has become embedded in contemporary English
52

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

heritage legislation and policy. Indeed, the western AHD is very much embedded in the World
Heritage Convention.
The AHD has no conceptual room for the idea of ICH and thus Castleford is continually told
they have no heritage and thus often fail to get funding and other support to save their ICH.
Although the AHD is the dominant professional discourse that underpins government policy,
legislation and practices in the UK it is not one necessarily entirely shared by Western nonexpert populations. Certainly, it is not shared by many residents of Castleford. I have also
undertaken a survey of people in England in which I asked people to define heritage. Although
43% offered definitions that fall within the AHD, that is either nominating material things suchas archaeological sites or saw the act of preserving such things as heritage (14% material and
29% act of preservation), approx 21% nonetheless nominated definitions that reflect what we
may call ICH, such as family history, music, traditions etc. (13% identity, 20% history/past).
People were also more likely to nominate ICH if they were either working class or from an
ethnic minority.

Conclusion
Several implications and lessons can be drawn from this research and the situation in
Castleford. First, that the AHD constrains the ability of western countries and western heritage
professionals, and those in England in particular, in seeing and comprehending the existenceof ICH, despite the fact that it is a concept understood by many non-experts and sociallyexcluded people. Secondly, the existence of the AHD has significant consequences for nonexpert communities, particularly sub-altern communities, such as Castleford, concerned tosafeguard their heritage. It has material consequences in terms of lack of resources afforded
to them, but also in the lack of recognition given to the legitimacy of their sense of place andcommunity identity.
Thirdly, Castleford reveals that safeguarding ICH must come from, and be driven by, community
agendas and needs. Heritage, whether intangible or material, cannot be ‘saved’ unless it isused, and made meaningful, in the context of contemporary needs and aspirations. If heritage
is not being used it is not heritage, it ceases to have meaning or value. Finally, Castleford also
illustrates the potential of new media in not only storing and disseminating information, butalso in providing new uses for heritage. User generated content allows communities to define
what is or is not important heritage and what that heritage means to them. The Castleford website is as much involved in safeguarding and producing heritage as other, more traditional,
methods.

References and further reading
Samuel, R. (1994) Theatres of Memory. Volume 1: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture. London: Verso.
Smith, L. (2006) Uses of Heritage. London: Routledge.
Smith, L. and G. Campbell (2011) Don’t mourn organize: Heritage, recognition and memory in Castleford,
West Yorkshire. In L. Smith, P. Shackel and G. Campbell, (eds) Heritage, Labour and the Working Class,53

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

London: Routledge.
Smith, L. and E. Waterton (2009) ‘The envy of the world?’: Intangible heritage in England. In L. Smith and N.
Akagawa (eds) Intangible Heritage, London: Routledge.

54

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)The Guidelines for Ethical Research in Indigenous Studies
at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Studies
Luke Taylor
Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS)

The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) is an
Australian Statutory Authority with its own legislation. The organisation is legally independentof the national government although the budget is supplied by government. The statutory
authority model allows government to receive independent research advice on Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander matters, and allows for the Institute to remain separate from party
political policy formulations. The organisation is controlled by a Council of nine members:
four of whom are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander members appointed by the Minister of
Science; there is a Torres Strait Islander member appointed by the Minister; and four othermembers appointed by the AIATSIS research membership.
This legislation ensures Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander control of the organisation
although the staff of approximately 130 people are both Indigenous and non-Indigenous.
The AIATSIS legislation requires the organisation to respect Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander wishes in respect to the deposit of sensitive intangible heritage collection materials.
For example if a community decides that a collection should be held under ‘restricted access’
the organisation is required by law not to disclose that material to those who do not havepermission supplied by the Indigenous community concerned.
AIATSIS was created in 1964 and now has almost a 50 year history of recording intangible
cultural heritage in the form of oral history, song, ceremony, and dance in print, tape, film,
videotape, photographic and digital media. The organisation was developed to facilitate
research of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander matters and became a central repository
for research collections. In this fifty year period the collections have also grown to become
extremely important for Indigenous people who wish to recover aspects of their intangible
cultural heritage. Copying of collection materials is now a central part of our operations and theorganisation is rushing to digitise its collections to facilitate this access.
The organisation publishes a key document Guidelines for Ethical Research in Indigenous
Studies. This document makes reference to the recent United Nations Declaration of Rights ofIndigenous Peoples and the UNESCO (2003) Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible
Cultural Heritage. In essence, although Australia has not ratified the UNESCO Convention,
this Guidelines document requires researchers who work for AIATSIS to abide by its centralprinciples. In particular the document upholds the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
peoples to provide their informed consent for a research project and to retain rights to theintangible cultural heritage recorded through the research process.
55

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)AIATSIS employs research staff and it provides grant funds to other researchers. Anyone
working for the organisation must abide by the Guidelines document. The AIATSIS Council takeadvice from a Research Committee and a separate Ethics Committee in relation to determining
the excellence of a research project. The Ethics Committee reviews grant applications to ensurethat the proposals recognise the Guidelines. In particular they look to see if:• There is a signed agreement in place between the researchers and the Indigenous
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

community;
Plain English descriptions of project have been supplied to the community;
There is provision for events to explain the results of research to the community;
There is recognition of Indigenous knowledge holders in the project as researchers orin a substantive advisory capacity;That there will be checks with the community on material to be published;
Arrangements are in place for performers to give permission for recordings to be madeand to be provided information about the purposes for the recordings;
Arrangements are in place that recognise the ongoing rights of intangible property
owners once the research materials are archived within AIATSIS;
Arrangements are in place for dealing with intangible cultural heritage in respect topossible commercialisation, and;Australian copyright and moral rights laws are adhered to.

The format of these arrangements may vary between different projects. The Guidelines do notproscribe particular arrangements but do identify essential principals in the formulation of agood project.
Over time the effect of the introduction of these Guidelines has seen the development ofmuch better working relations between researchers and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
people. AIATSIS has been at the forefront in modelling best practice, and through its grants
processes, has encouraged universities to adhere to more appropriate ethical practice. Multiple
professional bodies, most Australian universities, government agencies and a number ofinternational agencies including WIPO, the International Association of Sound Archivists andthe Canadian Research Ethics Boards now refer researchers to our documentation for advice inrespect to the ethics of working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
In relation to its collections AIATSIS does not require transfer of ownership of intangible
cultural heritage materials on receiving collections. The organisation is occasionally treatedmore like a ‘keeping place’. Upon deposit of collections, AIATSIS records the appropriate
level of access for the material that the community determines. For example some collections
are received on the basis that they remain secret only to senior community custodians. The
names of individuals or community organisations which retain rights in the material are also
recorded. AIATSIS maintains a unique system of graded access and use conditions which allow
the organisation to achieve a balance between community control of materials and the accessneeds of researchers and the broader Australian community.

56

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)AIATSIS publishes its catalogue and the access and use restrictions regarding collections
on the web. If researchers wish to access materials, AIATSIS asks that they first obtain thepermission of the rights holders. However for some materials there is completely open accessbestowed by the community. In this instance the users would be required to abide by Australian
copyright and moral rights laws. Under Australian copyright law the recorder of intangible
cultural heritage owns the copyright. However, a feature of the operation of the Guidelines isthat AIATSIS is seeing research contracts or protocol documents being developed that restore
ownership of copyright to Indigenous participants in recognition that copyright laws can cut
across Indigenous rights to control cultural property; for example contracts can be developedthat transfer the copyright from the recorder back to the community, or create opportunities
for the sharing of copyright. This is now an area of considerable creativity as researchers andcommunities try to give form to more equitable working arrangements.
As an example of such working arrangements I would cite the protocol documents developed by
the successful Australian Research Council Linkage grant funded project “Deepening Histories
of Place: Exploring Indigenous Landscapes of National and International Significance”. Thisis a project that includes multiple research partners, government agencies and commercial
interests including: The Australian National University; Sydney University; Australian Instituteof Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies; National Film and Sound Archive; Ronin
Films; Director of National Parks, Federal Department of Environment; Office of Environmentand Heritage New South Wales; and Northern Territory Government. The research locations
include key Australian national parks: Uluru; Kakadu; and Blue Mountains. The research
will provide more detailed understanding of the Indigenous cultural and historical importanceof these locales than is currently available to park visitors and provide the research in easily
accessible formats. So the products of the research will include detailed PhD level research,records of cultural heritage in a variety of multi-media formats, publications, and ultimately
downloadable interpretative products that may be used by tourists in enriching their visit.
The development of specific project guidelines to structure ethical research relationships
through a protocol document between Indigenous knowledge holders, researchers and thecultural institutions involved in the project is also seen as a major product. It is also hopedthat the protocols will be used as a model by other researchers working on other projects indeveloping their relationships with Indigenous communities. For this reason the protocols will
be published on the web. The Deepening Histories of Place Protocols were developed by the
project team in association with Indigenous lawyer Terri Janke who has extensive backgroundin the drafting of such agreements in Australia.
The primary aim of the protocols is to protect Indigenous people’s rights to control theircultural and intellectual property or ICIP according to their cultural laws. These rights areat present only partially protected under Australian Intellectual Property, or IP, black letterlaw. The rules and framework of relationships that the protocols provides, and are required
to be adhered to by all the project partners, help meet the gap in protection represented by thedistinction between ICIP and IP.

57

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)The protocols document explains these different concepts for the participants and assists
in identifying the multilayered interrelationships of ICIP and IP that accrue as researchers
work with Indigenous people and start to produce research materials for public consumption.
Similarly the protocols addresses the issue of the archiving of the final research materials andpossible new uses of these materials in subsequent research.
In keeping with the principle of informed consent, the document attempts to achieve a balance
between Plain English and legally robust language. In recognition that the different participants
enter into the project with different motivations, and to assist in negotiations around thesedifferent motivations, the protocol strives for a balance between ensuring Indigenous control
and structuring the processes of providing consent and payment for publication and productionof multimedia products for a broad audience. The protocols will work in conjunction with a setof five clearance forms and there is a checklist that advises researchers when these consents are
required.
The five clearance forms comprise:• Community clearance – for researching or filming on Indigenous country – signed by••••a representative community organisation with broad responsibility for representing
Indigenous interests in a particular region, usually a land council;
Individual clearance form – for an individual to clear filming, photography or soundrecordings, the effect of this form is to return copyright to the performer whilst providing the researcher with a licence to use the material for the project;
Individual (under 18) clearance form – signed by parent or guardian;
Copyright clearance form – signed by copyright owner under Australian copyrightlaw;
Archival material clearance form – to be used where relevant archival materials havebeen found and to ensure Indigenous agreement to use such material in the Deepening
Histories project – signed by the representative community organisation.

It is hoped that, taken together with the AIATSIS Guidelines for Ethical Research in Indigenous
Studies, this material provides an insight into the process of negotiating research agreementsin the Australian context. None of these materials are meant to be proscriptive or simply
transferrable to other research projects, rather, they provide an example of the kinds of issues
that can be addressed in negotiations around a project. Such negotiations are meant to occur
in a free manner and this means that the ultimate form of research agreements or protocols
will depend upon the interests of the parties involved and the cultural and historical context inwhich the negotiations take place.

Further Reading
Guidelines for Ethical Research in Australian Indigenous Studies,
http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/research/ethical.html
Hudson, Emily. 2006. Cultural Institutions, Law and Indigenous Konowledge: A Legal Primer on the Managementof Australian Indigenous Collections. University of Melbourne, IPRIA.

58

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

http://www.ipria.org/publications/books/cul-inst.html
Torsen, Molly and Jane Anderson. 2010. Intellectual Property and the Safeguarding of Traditional Cultures:
Legal Issues and Practical Options for Museums, Libraries and Archives. WIPO. (see p.69 re AIATSIS).
http://www.wipo.int/tk/en/publications/1023.pdf
Deepening Histories of Place
http://acih.anu.edu.au/research/project/deepening-histories-place59

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Documentation for Practitioners
Gopal Venu
Director, Natana Kairali
Performer of Khutiyattam

Indian performing art traditions can broadly be classified into three categories: Margi orClassical, Desi or Folk, and Anushthanam or Ritualistic. If we examine the history of all
our art forms, we will understand that their artistic value was maintained through regular
practice, stage performance, research and documentation. There are hundreds of palm leaf
manuscripts that are the proof to the detailed research that has gone into every concept thatconcern different arts. These studies were done jointly by the practitioners, and those scholars
who had a thorough knowledge of the subject. This is the background of the way in which ourforms had survived up until the first decade of the twentieth century. Perhaps it can be claimed
that the largest of such a collection is found in India. Without any hesitations it can be said that
one of the great wonders of the world of theatre and dance is Bharata’s Natya Sastra(The great
treatise on dramaturgy in Sanskrit by Sage Bharata, written at some time between 2nd Century
B.C. and 2nd Century A.D). Though the treatises on Natya composed prior to Bharata are notavailable to us, it may be said that our serious attempts to analyse and study theatre and danceand document such an endeavour has a history as old as Indian civilization. Following the footsteps of the Natya Sastra, in Sanskrit and other regional languages many treatises were written
about theatre and dance. In all these works we will be able to find elaborations on dance styles
and concepts that were in vogue in those times. When we read these works closely we will findthat these treatises were composed by those who had practical knowledge in these styles or
the practitioners themselves. Those manuals composed by the practitioners, often restrict theircirculation with in their community and were considered to be the most sacred knowledge andtherefore the secrecy was maintained. It also has to be added here that our ancestors wrote indetail what they were convinced was endemic and rare knowledge essential for the sustenanceand growth of the art. This was their gift to the future generations.
There were significant changes by the middle of the twentieth century in the way art was
sustained. Especially as part of the family or Gurukula (teacher – disciple learning system)
tradition. Once institutions were established in order to teach traditional dance and other art
forms, the training period was considerably shortened. In the new system, only a small part of
the knowledge can be imparted therefore many rare aspects of the art form could be wiped off
the face of the earth for the simple reason that, they are not properly inscribed any where. They
have been sustained only through oral traditions.
For the past three decades I have been associated with the activities to preserve rare andtraditional knowledge which is oral, difficult to comprehend and intangible since it is stored in
the recesses of the human mind. Several authentic documentations in visual, aural have been
prepared in collaboration with the national cultural institutes in India such as Sangeet NatakAkademi (National Akademi of Music, Dance and Drama), Indira Gandhi National Centre for
the Arts etc. The details of two of the most important documentations are given below:
60

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

1) The Sangeet Natak Akademi has documented the legendary maestro of Kutiyattam
Guru Ammannur Madhava Chakyar who passed away in 2008. From 1979 onwards
his performances interviews and demonstrations have been documented on several occasions. One of the rarest of their collection is a 13 hours filming of Asokavanikankam
play which had not been performed for a very long time. This was performed in 1982
at the Koodalmanikyam temple in Irinjalakuda.
2) The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) Delhi, in collaboration with
Natanakairali (Research and Performing Centre for the Traditional Arts), Irinjalakuda,
Kerala, organized a unique festival of Pavakathakali along with a workshop, bringing
back the art form its village trails where it once thrived. From the native village of thepuppeteers the ten days journey with workshops and performances have been fully
documented in 2011.
Such documentations helped to revive art forms as the interest shown and the process of
documentation itself brings the art forms in focus and is exposed to media persons and ispreserved safely. But most of the documentations in fact are used by outside experts such as
researchers and the media for their own purposes. So far there are no dissemination national
policies developed in India for making copies available to the ICH successors. This is a serious
issue to be discussed because it is a very essential tool for the succession and vitalization. Now
we have to discuss also the ways and means for the artistes to prepare their own documentationand shall try to keep as simple as possible so that its utilization will be fully served because
they are aware of the material available and the portions covered in the documentation. We
have already experimented to develop our own documentation. The artistes can themselves
decide what are the portions to be documented. The documented material in our context serve
mainly as resource for the creative work.
The mudras or hand gestures in theatre and dance of India are a complete means ofcommunication like spoken language. Sometimes it is possible to express more powerfullysome emotions through mudras rather than with spoken language. One of the most refinedmeans of expression in Kutiyattam (Sanskrit theatre) Kathakali (classical dance drama)
and Mohiniyattam (classical dance of women) is the use of mudras or hand gestures. In my
humble way I tried to create a system of inscription to notate this language of gesticulationand could record around 2000 hand gestures of Kutiyattam, Kathakali and Mohiniyattam andto publish in several volumes. What gives me satisfaction and happiness is that this work has
unexpectedly come closer to ordinary people. Dance students in Kerala and elsewhere, as wellas connoisseurs use my notations as handy ready reference.
The author
Gopal Venu is a performer, teacher and scholar of Kutiyattam and a senior disciple of Guru Ammannur Madhava
Chakyar. He is also the founder of Natanakairali (Research and Performing Centre for Traditional Arts) andco-founder of Ammannur Chachu Chakyar Smaraka Gurukulam (Training Centre for Kootiyattam). His major
contributions are his adaptations of Mahakavi Kalidasa’s plays Abhijnana Sakuntalam and Vikramorvaseeyam
and Bhasa’s play Urubhangam and Dutavakyam for Kutiyattam. He has authored 14 books on the performing
arts of Kerala, including Production of a play in kutiyattam (1989), In to the World of Kootiyattam, Kathakali
Kutiyattam and other Performing Arts (2005) and Language of Kathakali.

61

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Venu has notated the hand gestures of classical theatre and dance forms such as Kutiyattam, Kathakali and
Mohiniyattam and has published several volumes of mudras.
Venu is also a visiting Master Teacher of Kutiyattam at the National School of Drama in Delhi as well as
ITI (Intercultural Theatre Institute) in Singapore. Venu has been selected for several honours and awards,
which include “Kerala Sahitya Academy Award”, “ Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Academy Award”,“Kerala
Kalamandalam(Deemed University for Arts and Culture) Award”, Painkulam Rama Chakyar Smaraka
Puraskaram(2009) and the prestigious “Nikkei Asia Prize for culture”(Japan)2007. He is also a General Council
Member of the Sangeet Natak Akademi, the national academy of performing arts and the Kulapathy of theAmmannur Chachu Chakyar Smaraka Gurukulam and the Chairman of Natanakairali(Research and Performing
Centre for the Traditional arts).

62

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Communities and documentation in Indonesian safeguarding
policies
Wim van Zanten
Leiden University

Introduction
A very crucial component of safeguarding intangible cultural heritage (ICH) is the transmissionof knowledge and skills. Documentation can play an important role in this, but it should not bea purpose in itself. In this presentation I shall discuss Indonesian policies towards safeguarding.
In particular I shall look how the Indonesian government operated within the context of the2003 UNESCO convention for the safeguarding of living culture.
The 2003 convention includes three international lists:
1. List of ICH in need of urgent safeguarding (USL);
2. Representative list of the ICH of humanity (RL);
3. Programmes, projects and activities for the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage
considered to best reflect the principles and objectives of the Convention (BP).
From an international perspective Indonesia has been rather successful in the 2003 convention:
all its nominations for these international lists have been accepted. I shall discuss the enlisted
Indonesian batik and angklung in more detail. On the whole, Indonesian communities are
involved in the safeguarding process. However, it may be that there is too much focus oncommercial aspects, such as patents and tourism, and this causes some problems with the
involvement of minorities.
I shall argue that documentation can be an important means for safeguarding, but only if it
respects the relationship between a community and their living culture (ICH). This can only beachieved if the community is seriously involved in the process of documentation.

1. The power to define; communities
In the 1972 UNESCO ‘World Heritage convention’ the task for ‘protection’ of the world
cultural and natural heritage was entirely entrusted to the state members. Communities were
not mentioned. The UNESCO Recommendation (1989) recognizes the relation between living
culture and communities but the possible role of communities in safeguarding was not yet
mentioned. This changed with the 2003 convention, in which the role of the communities wasconsidered to be very important.
First, the 2003 convention is about ICH ‘... that communities, groups, and, in some cases,
individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage.’ (article 2). Further, ‘Within theframework of its safeguarding activities of the intangible cultural heritage, each State Party
shall endeavour to ensure the widest possible participation of communities, groups and, where632012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

appropriate, individuals that create, maintain and transmit such heritage, and to involve them
actively in its management.’ (article 15).
This emphasis on the active role of communities is very interesting, because state parties ratify
conventions and not communities. The convention text clearly formulates that in safeguarding
the essential question is what the living culture means to the community. This means thatthe decision process should not be influenced by value judgments of government officials.
Safeguarding is about establishing proper conditions for continuity of production and recreation in communities. This should take place in the context of ‘mutual respect amongcommunities’ as the convention is only concerned with ICH ‘as is compatible with existing
international human rights instruments, as well as with the requirements of mutual respectamong communities, groups and individuals, and of sustainable development.’ (article 2,
definitions).
One of the possible safeguarding measures is documentation (articles 2, 13). It is very importantto pay attention to the quality of the documentation. Documentation of ICH is a representationof a community. We should not underestimate presenting an appropriate representation of
a community. I shall especially look at the documentation that is used in an international
context (such as used for the lists – RL and USL – and the Best Practices). It is easy to saythat ‘grass-root’-level NGOs should be involved in the documentation and other safeguarding
measures, but it is more difficult to achieve this, and it seems that in several cases it was noteven attempted.

2. Cultural policies in Indonesia
Cultural policies have always had the attention of the Indonesians. In the beginning of 1945
multicultural Indonesia prepared itself for political independence of Japan and the Netherlands.
Indonesians set up a committee to look into all kinds of issues, including the cultural ones:‘what kinds of knowledge and what values should be taught in the schools, what social,
spiritual, and artistic traditions should be supported by the government – in short, whatsort of people should Indonesians strive to become?’ (Yampolsky 1995: 701).
In the 1945 constitution the relation between the regional and the national level are mentioned.
The question was: what is ‘national culture’? The constitution mentiones that ‘Earlier andindigenous cultures as represented by the local cultures all over Indonesia are a definite part ofnational culture’, and that ‘existing values, basic conceptions and convictions found throughout
Indonesia provide additional impetus to the development of national culture.’
On this basis, Indonesia’s cultural policy in 1985 may be said to consist of, among other things,
the‘preservation of what are considered to be the “highlights” of local cultures. [...]
Preservation and protection of the spiritual cultural heritage is likewise included in
the field of traditional music, dance and other arts and crafts, which when no longer
relevant to modern Indonesian life will be documented for the sake of scientific642012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

study and research, and if still considered important will be taught in both formal andinformal education.’ (Soebadio 1985: 18–19).
Haryati Soebadio, director-general of culture from 1983 to 1987, also writes:‘In short, Indonesia’s cultural policy should aim at enhancing development througha dynamic type of national culture – a culture that is able to cope and agree with thespecific needs of a country in the process of development and which also has a strong
personal identity, able to withstand negative external influence as well as internal
conflicts as a result of development. At the same time, it should be able to recognize
and absorb positive influence and change in both the material and the spiritual sense.’(Soebadio 1985: 12).
In 2003, the Indonesian minister for Culture and Tourism, I Gde Ardika, formulated why weshould safeguard our heritage in a foreword to a book Intangible Cultural Heritage: The issue
in Indonesia today (Edi Sedyawati, ed., 2003). The minister wanted a better balance between
the spiritual and the material:‘the world population seems already for a long time hit by the illness of imbalance
between the attitudes towards material and spiritual matters.’
He also remarked:‘the developed countries that at the end became rich countries in a material sense
contributed greatly to this situation of imbalance, because the life style of their citizens
that was oriented towards the material became a model or a parameter for the successin life.’
The Indonesian minister pointed out that in the international world ‘development’ was notmeasured by cultural richness, but by material things like the per capita income. The paradigm
about human life had changed from human beings that were social and loved each other tohuman beings in competition with each other and who saw the others as rivals that had to bebeaten. According to the minister, the world family was no longer attached by ‘threads of love’,
but by competition. Indonesia was one of the countries that had suffered from this paradigm
change (Ardika 2003: xix–xxi).

3. Indonesia and the 2003 UNESCO convention
Indonesia ratified (‘accepted’) the 2003 convention on 15 October 2007. It has been modest
in nominating items for the international lists and on the whole the nomination files are of
reasonable quality, although these contain a few incorrect statements. Each of the six Indonesiannominations was inscribed in one of the international lists. The Wayang puppet theater and theIndonesian Kris had been a Masterpiece before. I shall discuss the two inscriptions in 2009
(batik) and the one in 2010 (angklung) in more detail.

65

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Year
2008

Item

Inscribed on

The wayang puppet theatre (2003 Masterpiece)

Representative List

The Indonesian kris (2005 Masterpiece)

Representative List

Indonesian batik

Representative List

Education and training in Indonesian batik...

Best Practices

2010

Indonesian angklung

Representative List

2011

Saman danceUrgent Safeguarding List

2009

Batik
Batik is a technique to decorate cloth (traditionally cotton) by putting hot wax onto the clothand then dying the non-waxed parts of the cloth in a colour bath. This process of waxing partsand dying the other parts of the cloth is repeated for each colour that is applied. There are twomain techniques of applying the wax by hand: by drawing with a ‘pen’ connected to a small
wax container (canting; this produces batik tulis, ‘written’ batik) or by stamp (cap).
Batik is still important in Javanese, Sundanese, Balinese and several other communities
in Indonesia. Batik is daily dress, but also official dress at receptions, visits to music andtheatre performances, weddings, etc. ‘Overall, batik culture [...] is still healthy and visible
in Indonesia’, it says in the nomination file. However, this hand-production process is verylabour-intensive and the largest threat is competition from factory-made printed cloths that aremuch cheaper to produce.
The 7-minute film about batik on the UNESCO site ends with the poetic text (6:09–6:31):‘In the beginning there was a dot. Then time passed. The dots evolved into an artworkin the form of a decorated textile. Only those who possess great diligence and extreme
patience will come to peace with time, creating a work of high artistic sensibility.’This text indicates the importance of feeling the ‘correct’ flow of time according to Indonesianand Javanese culture that can only be achieved by patience and diligence. This culturally
correct flow of time is something missing in examples of ICH items put on the international
lists by other countries.1

1 In a presentation at Kyushu University, Fukuoka, on 8 January 2012, I mentioned the video film about Tangothat is on the Representative List (Argentina and Uruguay, 2009) as a film that violates this respect for thecultural flow of time. The UNESCO films are supposed to aim at encouraging ‘dialogue which respects
cultural diversity’. Hence the unity of time and place is important, because we have to look at living culturethat is meaningful to a particular cultural community. This requires an anthropological approach to thefilming. This restricts the film makers’ artistic freedom in producing anything they feel appropriate. Scholars
should more systematically investigate and critically comment on these materials used for visibility andawareness raising purposes on the UNESCO site.

66

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)In the smaller communities the knowledge of making batik is often still largely transferredin an oral and non-formal way. However, the process of making batik has also been well
documented, already for a long time by several individuals and communities.
The Indonesian nomination of batik for the RL is also interesting, because it was accompanied
by a nomination for the list of Best Practices (also enlisted in 2009): ‘Education and training inIndonesian Batik intangible cultural heritage for elementary, junior, senior, vocational schooland polytechnic students, in collaboration with the Batik Museum in Pekalongan’.
This programme aims to bring ‘batik culture [...] into formal educational institutions such as
elementary, junior, senior, vocational schools and polytechnics, without changing the traditional
oral methods of instruction.’ The main objectives of the programme are: ‘to increase theawareness and appreciation of the cultural heritage of Indonesian batik, including its history,
cultural values and traditional skills.’(nomination file, p.3). Staff of the Batik Museum andschool teachers will be trained and help ‘batik craftspersons’ to pass on the knowledge and skills
to the pupils of the different schools. Sponsors were sought among batik producers and also thecity government of Pekalongan was asked for support. This process will regularly be evaluated.
The combination of the available objects and documentation in the Batik Museum and thetransmission of knowledge in a new, formal way seems to be a very good solution for raisingawareness for and the visibility of batik.

Angklung
Angklung, a set of shaken bamboos, was proposed by the Indonesian government and inscribedon the Representative List in 2010. In the nomination text file 2 and film on the UNESCO
site the emphasis is very much on the diatonic 3 angklung as developed since around 1938 by
Daeng Soetigna and practiced in the Saung Angklung Udjo. This is a group of well-known
performers and makers of angklung instruments in Bandung that regularly performs forIndonesian and foreign tourists. The group also makes and sells angklung sets for primary andsecondary schools, institutes for higher education, etc. Like the batik nomination, this angklung
nomination is also strong, because there is a clear process of transmission of knowledge aimed
at pupils in the formal schooling system.
However, the Indonesian government also very much emphasized possible economic profits
and tried to counteract the property claims by neighbouring Malaysia on items of living
culture occurring in both countries, including angklung and batik. On 8 August 2008 theIndonesian Minister for Cooperations and Small and Medium-sized Businesses, Suryadharma
Ali, remarked: “... just yesterday I asked the Saung Angklung Udjo and it appeared that their
2 One example of a clearly wrong statement in the nomination file is (p.5): ‘angka means pitch/tone’. Angka
means cipher in Indonesian and Sundanese. I suppose this mistake comes from the fact that in the early
1920s Machyar Kusumadinata developed a notation system for Sundanese music that used ciphers (angka) torepresent notes.
3 That is, tuned according to the Western system.

67

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

product has not yet a patent. However, it seems that many small and medium-sized businesses
have products of quality and originality.” (Pikiran Rakyat 2008). The focus on ownership
was repeated by Tjetjep Suparman, Director General for Cultural Values, Arts and Film: ‘The
diversity of Indonesian’s culture must be preserved and safeguarded, particularly in order toprevent allegation of the culture as other countries’ asset.’ (Practical Handbook 2010:7). Let
us hope that the Indonesian government will not over-commercialize angklung, something thathas been warned against several times in the context of the 2003 convention.
This nomination mentions, but gives further little attention to, older forms of angklung thathave existed in West Java for several centuries and are still being practiced by minority groups,
like the Baduy. In the film on the UNESCO site (from 3:37–4:04), it says that a Baduy groupis playing angklung. However, this ‘Baduy’ angklung group was not filmed in their village
Kanekes (for instance, because in Kanekes there are no concrete floors on which people dance),
but presumably in Rangkasbitung. The men of this ‘Baduy’ angklung group are wearing
slippers, sandals and long trousers, all things that are forbidden to Baduy men (van Zanten
1995:519, 2004:126).4 Hence it seems very unlikely that the filmed group that is also shown on
the first slide on the UNESCO site are Baduy people.
During my fieldwork in 1993 and 2003 I had noted that the local government in Rangkasbitungcollected Baduy instruments and trained non-Baduy people to play these instruments in
Rangkasbitung, that is, in a region where no Baduy live. This was considered the best way
of safeguarding Baduy living culture, according to a local official from Rangkasbitung in
1993 (Van Zanten 2004:143). It seems that what I had noted in 1993 and 2003 was still being
continued in 2009–10. These policies are similar to what Czermac, Delanghe and Weng
(2003:3) remark for colonial times: ‘Historically, “cultural preservation” was one of the tasks
of colonizers and others from the West who collected cultural artifacts and brought them backto be studied and exhibited in European museums.’
Moreover, in the UNESCO film the pictures of men planting rice in wet rice fields (sawah),just before the Baduy angklung is shown, suggest a wrong association, as the Baduy are only
allowed to use dry rice fields (huma). These dry rice fields are an essential part of their religious
belief system. The Baduy may only play angklung for three months during the rice planting
season. This is correctly said in the film, but in the book given to participants of the Committee
meeting in Bali, November 2011, it says that ‘The Baduy Kanekes of South Banten also plays[sic] the angklung at time of cropping or yielding paddy fields.’ (The Intangible 2010:50).
It seems that with this nomination for the Representative List the Indonesian government did
not ‘endeavour to ensure the widest possible participation’ of the Baduy. The Baduy haveapparently not been involved in this part of the nomination process. However, this is a very
important condition according to article 15 of the 2003 convention.
4 These days there are several films on YouTube with Baduy in which it is very clear that they walk barefoot,even if they go to visit high officials, like during the Seba ceremony in May 2011; see <http://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=jqQizBLpbd4>.

68

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

4. Documentation for and by communities
Documenting intangible cultural heritage is not the same as passing on the repertoire of aperforming art or knowledge about the making of batik.
However, documentation could
1. enhance visibility inside and outside the community concerned;
2. be used for analysis and support the process of transmission.
Also for the visibility purposes, it is important to have good quality documentation thatfaithfully reflects what a particular item of living culture means to a community. This meansthat also in the details the documentation should be of good quality, which is not always
the case. Some nomination files are very poor and not fair and respectful to the community
concerned. It is time that scholars and NGOs are allowed to become more involved in the 2003
convention. There should also be a discussion on how files published on the UNESCO site
could be improved, if these show serious shortcomings. Bad documentation will damage thecommunity, the convention and UNESCO.
It would be ideal, if communities could document their own living culture and make it available
in a documentation centre. However, documentation work is also not easy and requires special
skills. For some groups, like the Baduy, it is even forbidden to write or use cameras. Elsewhere
I have explained how complicated ‘prior informed consent’ is in the case of the Baduy (vanZanten 2009). A close cooperation between communities, NGOs, individual researchersand governments seems the best solution for achieving better technical and ethnographic
documentation.

References
Ardika, I Gde (2003), ‘Sambutan I Gde Ardika, Menteri Kebudayaan dan Pariwisata Republik Indonesia’[Address by I Gde Ardika, minister of culture and tourism Republic of Indonesia], in Edi Sedyawati(ed.) Warisan budaya takbenda: Masalah kini di Indonesia [Intangible Cultural Heritage: The issue inIndonesia today.], pp. xix–xxv. Depok: Pusat Penelitian Kemasyarakatan dan Budaya, Lembaga Penelitian
Universitas Indonesia.
Czermac, Karin, Philippen Delanghe and Wei Weng, (2003), ‘Preserving intangible cultural heritage in Indonesia;
A pilot project on oral tradition and language preservation’, (8 pp), Jakarta: UNESCO. http://www.sil.org/
asia/ldc/parallel_papers/unesco_jakarta.pdf [last accessed 25 Febr 2012].
Pikiran Rakyat, 8 August 2008, newspaper article ‘Produk UKM yang dipatenkan masih sedikit’. http://www.
pikiran-rakyat.com/node/75074. [last accessed 25 Febr 2012].
Practical Handbook (2010), Practical Handbook for Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Indonesia.
Jakarta: Ministry of Culture and Tourism and UNESCO Office, Jakarta. See also: http://unesdoc.unesco.
org/images/0018/001869/186978m.pdf [last accessed 25 Febr 2012].
Recommendation (1989), Recommendation on the safeguarding of traditional culture and folklore, by theGeneral Assembly of UNESCO, 15 November 1989.
http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13141&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html[Last accessed 28 February 2012.]
Soebadio, Haryati (1985), Cultural Policy in Indonesia. Paris: UNESCO. Available on UNESCO website: http://
unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0006/000630/063036eo.pdf [last accessed 25 Febr 2012].
The Intangible (2010 [or 2011?]), The Intangible Cultural Heritage of Indonesia. Jakarta: Directorate General692012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

for Cultural Values, Arts and Film, Ministry of Culture and Tourism Republic of Indonesia.
UNESCO (1972), Convention concerning the protection of the world cultural and natural heritage. [16 november
1972.] Paris: UNESCO. <http://whc.unesco.org/archive/convention-en.pdf>, last accessed 31 January
2012.
UNESCO (2003), Convention for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage. [17 October 2003.] Paris:
UNESCO. <http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?lg=en&pg=00006>, last accessed 31 January
2012.
Yampolsky, Philip (1995), ‘Forces for change in the regional performing arts of Indonesia,’ Bijdragen tot deTaal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 151: 700–725.
Zanten, Wim van (1995), ‘Aspects of Baduy music in its sociocultural context, with special reference to singing
and angklung’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 151:516–44.
Zanten, Wim van (2004), ‘Les tentations des ascètes : Patrimoine culturel immatériel des Baduy dans le Banten
du sud (Indonésie)’, dans Jean Duvignaud et Chérif Chaznadar (eds), Le patrimoine culturel immatériel;
Les enjeux, les problématiques, les pratiques, pp. 124–150. Paris: Babel/ Maison des Cultures du Monde.
Zanten, Wim van (2009), ‘Prior informed consent: Experiences with ethnomusicology recordings’, in Toshiyuki
KONO, Intangible cultural heritage and intellectual property: Communities, cultural diversity andsustainable development, pp. 283–308. Antwerp – Oxford – Portland: Intersentia.

70Annexes

Annex I: IRCI’s pilot project by Misako Ohnuki
Annex II: General Information
Annex III: List of Participants
Annex IV: Programme
Annex V: Text of the “Convention for the Safeguarding ofIntangible Cultural Heritage”

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Annex II: General Information

Backgrounds:
To date, video records and photographs are one of the significant tools for the communities in
the process of safeguarding intangible cultural heritage on the verge of extinction. However, inmost of the State Parties of the 2003 Convention, 89 % of which are developing countries, thoserecords, if at all available, have been produced and used by outside experts such as researchers
and the media for their own purposes, without reference to the community. Accordingly, there
are few actual case-studies in which the needs of those passing on a practice are reflectedin the conduct when recording an item of intangible cultural heritage, or that the recorded“contents” are shared between the recorders and the ICH successors (i.e. the subject of thevideo recording), and “utilized” as a tool for the succession and vitalization of the intangible
cultural heritage. Therefore the C2C in Japan decided to have an intensive meeting to share
current information on research activities in the State Parties and non-State Parties, and to havediscussion in particular in line with the Article 15 of the 2003 Convention “Participation ofcommunities, groups and individuals”.
Objectives:
1) Sharing some good practices and on-going practices on documenting community’s
intangible cultural heritage
2) Discussion on approaches for documenting intangible cultural heritage that may be
used by communities as a tool for the safeguarding of their ICH
3) Discussion on the urgent needs and priorities in the communities
4) Recommendation on the international cooperation planned as C2 Centre’s future projectin relation to the Article 15 of the Convention
Dates: 3–4 March 2012
Venue: Sunshine City Conference Room4
Hotel: Prince Hotel Sunshine City
http://www.princehotels.com/en/
Add: 1-5, Higashi-Ikebukuro 3-chome, Toshima-ku, Tokyo, 170-8440 Japan
Phone: +81-3-3988-1111★

you will be picked up at the airport by the travel agent and guide to the Limousine Bus Station.

Schedule: as attached
Expected outcomes:- Some proposals to be shared in “The First Biennial Meeting of the Forum of ICHResearchers” planned in June 2012.
- Publishing of shared experience reports (observers are also requested to submit reports
on good practices)742012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Organiser: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the
Asia-Pacific Region (UNESCO Category II Centre in Japan)
Participants: as attached
Contact:

Ohnuki Misako,
Deputy Director,
International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage
in the Asia-Pacific Region (UNESCO Category II Centre in Japan)
c/o Sakai City Museum,
2-cho Mozusekiun-cho, Sakai-ku,
Sakai City, Osaka, 590-0802 Japan
Tel:+81-72-275-8050
Fax:+81-72-275-8151
Mobile: 81-(0)80-1371-7778
Email: misaikoohnuki@gmail.com

75

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Annex III: List of Participants

Experts:
Ms. Shubha Chaudhuri		
Associate Director General,		Archives and Research Centre for Ethnomusicology,		American Institute of Indian Studies
Ms. Harriet Jane Deacon		
Correspondent
		
The Archival Platform South Africa
Mr. Kono Toshiyuki
		Professor of Faculty of Law,		
Kyushu University, Japan
		
President of the third session of the General Assembly of		the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage		
Research Subject
Ms. Metje Postma		Lecturer,		Institute Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology		Leiden University
		
Research Subject
Ms. Laurajane Smith		
Research Academic		
School of Archaeology and Anthropology		Australian National University
Mr. Luke Taylor
		
Deputy Principal,
		Australian Institute of Aboriginal and		
Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS)
Mr. Gopal Venu
		
Director, Natana Kairali
		(Research and Performing Centre for Traditional Arts)		
Performer of Khutiyattam

76

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Mr. Wim van Zanten		
Guest staff member		Department of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology		Leiden University		Experts on the 2003 Convention
Ms. Ohnuki Misako		Deputy Director,		International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage
		in the Asia-Pacific Region (UNESCO Category II Centre in Japan)

Observers:
Mr. Endo Shigekazu		Practitioner,		
Kurokawa Noh		
Ohgi-Kaikan
Mr. Maruyama Hiroshi		Assistant Researcher		Department of Music & Literature		Tokyo University of the Arts
Mr. Otsuka Hideaki				Nagahama Hikiyama Cultural Association
Practitioner

Mr. Ruben Pauwels
		Assistant Professor
		
Kyushu University
Mr. Shimizu Jun		Film producer
		
New York University

77

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Annex IV: Programme
Day1: 3 March, Saturday 2012
09:00 – 09:15

Opening and Introduction of Participants

09:15 – 09:30
		Introduction of Programme and Expected Outcomes
Misako Ohnuki

09:30 – 10:00
				

Keynote Speech “2003 Convention and Community’s Participationfor Safeguarding ICH”
Mr. Kono Toshiyuki

10:00 – 11:00
		
		
		

Session 1: Presentation by 3 Experts (15–20 minutes each)
Mr. Wim Van Zanten
Ms. Laurajane Smith
Mr. Luke Tayor

11:00 – 12:00

Session 2: Q&A and Discussion

12:00 – 13:00

Lunch

13:00 – 14:00
		
		
		

Session 3: Presentation by 3 Experts (15–20 minutes each)
Ms. Shubha Chaudhuri
Mr. Gopal Venu
Ms. Metje Postma

14:00 – 15:00

Session 4: Q&A and Discussion

15:00 – 15:30

Coffee Break

15:30 – 17:00
		Group work I “identification the problem and needs on documentation
as a tool for community’s ICH safeguarding”

782012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)Day 2: 4 March, Sunday 2012
09:00 – 09:15

Summary of the Day1 session

09:15 – 11:00

Group work II on problem solving and recommendations

11:00 – 12:00

Session 5: Other topics

12:00 – 13:00

Lunch

13:00 – 14:30

Summary of Day 1 and 2

14:30 – 15:00

Closing*Venue: Sunshine City Conference Room4792012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Annex V: Text of the “Convention for the Safeguardingof Intangible Cultural Heritage”

Paris, 17 October 2003

CONVENTION FOR THE SAFEGUARDING
OF THE INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE
The General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
hereinafter referred to as UNESCO, meeting in Paris, from 29 September to 17 October 2003,
at its 32nd session,
Referring to existing international human rights instruments, in particular to the Universal
Declaration on Human Rights of 1948, the International Covenant on Economic, Social andCultural Rights of 1966, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966,
Considering the importance of the intangible cultural heritage as a mainspring of cultural
diversity and a guarantee of sustainable development, as underscored in the UNESCO
Recommendation on the Safeguarding of Traditional Culture and Folklore of 1989, in the
UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity of 2001, and in the Istanbul Declarationof 2002 adopted by the Third Round Table of Ministers of Culture,
Considering the deep-seated interdependence between the intangible cultural heritage and thetangible cultural and natural heritage,
Recognizing that the processes of globalization and social transformation, alongside theconditions they create for renewed dialogue among communities, also give rise, as does thephenomenon of intolerance, to grave threats of deterioration, disappearance and destruction of
the intangible cultural heritage, in particular owing to a lack of resources for safeguarding such
heritage,
Being aware of the universal will and the common concern to safeguard the intangible cultural
heritage of humanity,
Recognizing that communities, in particular indigenous communities, groups and, in somecases, individuals, play an important role in the production, safeguarding, maintenance andrecreation of the intangible cultural heritage, thus helping to enrich cultural diversity andhuman creativity,
Noting the far-reaching impact of the activities of UNESCO in establishing normative
instruments for the protection of the cultural heritage, in particular the Convention for theProtection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage of 1972,
Noting further that no binding multilateral instrument as yet exists for the safeguarding of theintangible cultural heritage,
Considering that existing international agreements, recommendations and resolutions
concerning the cultural and natural heritage need to be effectively enriched and supplemented
by means of new provisions relating to the intangible cultural heritage,80

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Considering the need to build greater awareness, especially among the younger generations, ofthe importance of the intangible cultural heritage and of its safeguarding,Considering that the international community should contribute, together with the States
Parties to this Convention, to the safeguarding of such heritage in a spirit of cooperation andmutual assistance,
Recalling UNESCO’s programmes relating to the intangible cultural heritage, in particular the
Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity,
Considering the invaluable role of the intangible cultural heritage as a factor in bringing humanbeings closer together and ensuring exchange and understanding among them,
Adopts this Convention on this seventeenth day of October 2003.

I. General provisions
Article 1 – Purposes of the Convention
The purposes of this Convention are:(a)to safeguard the intangible cultural heritage;(b)

to ensure respect for the intangible cultural heritage of the communities, groups andindividuals concerned;(c)to raise awareness at the local, national and international levels of the importance of
the intangible cultural heritage, and of ensuring mutual appreciation thereof;(d)to provide for international cooperation and assistance.

Article 2 – Definitions
For the purposes of this Convention,
1. The “intangible cultural heritage” means the practices, representations, expressions,knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associatedtherewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of theircultural heritage. This intangible cultural heritage, transmitted from generation to generation,is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, theirinteraction with nature and their history, and provides them with a sense of identity andcontinuity, thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity. For the purposesof 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 therequirements of mutual respect among communities, groups and individuals, and of sustainable
development.
2. The “intangible cultural heritage”, as defined in paragraph 1 above, is manifested inter alia
in the following domains:812012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)(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.

3. “Safeguarding” means measures aimed at ensuring the viability of the intangible cultural
heritage, including the identification, documentation, research, preservation, protection,
promotion, enhancement, transmission, particularly through formal and non-formal education,
as well as the revitalization of the various aspects of such heritage.
4. “States Parties” means States which are bound by this Convention and among which thisConvention is in force.
5. This Convention applies mutatis mutandis to the territories referred to in Article 33 whichbecome Parties to this Convention in accordance with the conditions set out in that Article. To
that extent the expression “States Parties” also refers to such territories.

Article 3 – Relationship to other international instruments
Nothing in this Convention may be interpreted as:(a)altering the status or diminishing the level of protection under the 1972 Convention
concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage of World
Heritage properties with which an item of the intangible cultural heritage is directly
associated; or(b) affecting the rights and obligations of States Parties deriving from any international
instrument relating to intellectual property rights or to the use of biological andecological resources to which they are parties.

II. Organs of the Convention
Article 4 – General Assembly of the States Parties
1. A General Assembly of the States Parties is hereby established, hereinafter referred to as“the General Assembly”. The General Assembly is the sovereign body of this Convention.
2. The General Assembly shall meet in ordinary session every two years. It may meet in
extraordinary session if it so decides or at the request either of the Intergovernmental Committee
for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage or of at least one-third of the States
Parties.
3.

82

The General Assembly shall adopt its own Rules of Procedure.

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Article 5 – Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguardingof the Intangible Cultural Heritage
1. An Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage,
hereinafter referred to as “the Committee”, is hereby established within UNESCO. It shall becomposed of representatives of 18 States Parties, elected by the States Parties meeting in
General Assembly, once this Convention enters into force in accordance with Article 34.
2. The number of States Members of the Committee shall be increased to 24 once the numberof the States Parties to the Convention reaches 50.

Article 6 – Election and terms of office of States Members of the Committee
1. The election of States Members of the Committee shall obey the principles of equitable
geographical representation and rotation.
2.
States Members of the Committee shall be elected for a term of four years by States
Parties to the Convention meeting in General Assembly.
3. However, the term of office of half of the States Members of the Committee elected at thefirst election is limited to two years. These States shall be chosen by lot at the first election.
4. Every two years, the General Assembly shall renew half of the States Members of theCommittee.
5.

It shall also elect as many States Members of the Committee as required to fill vacancies.

6.

A State Member of the Committee may not be elected for two consecutive terms.

7. States Members of the Committee shall choose as their representatives persons who are
qualified in the various fields of the intangible cultural heritage.

Article 7 – Functions of the Committee
Without prejudice to other prerogatives granted to it by this Convention, the functions of theCommittee shall be to:(a)promote the objectives of the Convention, and to encourage and monitor the
implementation thereof;(b)

provide guidance on best practices and make recommendations on measures for thesafeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage;(c)

prepare and submit to the General Assembly for approval a draft plan for the use of
the resources of the Fund, in accordance with Article 25;(d)seek means of increasing its resources, and to take the necessary measures to this end,in accordance with Article 25;(e)prepare and submit to the General Assembly for approval operational directives forthe implementation of this Convention;
83

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)(f)examine, in accordance with Article 29, the reports submitted by States Parties, and tosummarize them for the General Assembly;(g)examine requests submitted by States Parties, and to decide thereon, in accordancewith objective selection criteria to be established by the Committee and approved by
the General Assembly for:(i)

inscription on the lists and proposals mentioned under Articles 16, 17 and 18;(ii) the granting of international assistance in accordance with Article 22.

Article 8 – Working methods of the Committee
1. The Committee shall be answerable to the General Assembly. It shall report to it on all its
activities and decisions.
2. The Committee shall adopt its own Rules of Procedure by a two-thirds majority of its
Members.
3. The Committee may establish, on a temporary basis, whatever ad hoc consultative bodies
it deems necessary to carry out its task.
4. The Committee may invite to its meetings any public or private bodies, as well as private
persons, with recognized competence in the various fields of the intangible cultural heritage, inorder to consult them on specific matters.

Article 9 – Accreditation of advisory organizations
1. The Committee shall propose to the General Assembly the accreditation of nongovernmentalorganizations with recognized competence in the field of the intangible cultural heritage to act
in an advisory capacity to the Committee.
2. The Committee shall also propose to the General Assembly the criteria for and modalities
of such accreditation.

Article 10 – The Secretariat
1.

The Committee shall be assisted by the UNESCO Secretariat.

2. The Secretariat shall prepare the documentation of the General Assembly and of theCommittee, as well as the draft agenda of their meetings, and shall ensure the implementationof their decisions.

III. Safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage at the national level
Article 11 – Role of States Parties
Each State Party shall:(a)84take the necessary measures to ensure the safeguarding of the intangible cultural

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

heritage present in its territory;(b)among the safeguarding measures referred to in Article 2, paragraph 3, identify anddefine the various elements of the intangible cultural heritage present in its territory,
with the participation of communities, groups and relevant nongovernmentalorganizations.

Article 12 – Inventories
1. To ensure identification with a view to safeguarding, each State Party shall draw up, in amanner geared to its own situation, one or more inventories of the intangible cultural heritage
present in its territory. These inventories shall be regularly updated.
2. When each State Party periodically submits its report to the Committee, in accordancewith Article 29, it shall provide relevant information on such inventories.

Article 13 – Other measures for safeguarding
To ensure the safeguarding, development and promotion of the intangible cultural heritage
present in its territory, each State Party shall endeavour to:(a)adopt a general policy aimed at promoting the function of the intangible cultural
heritage in society, and at integrating the safeguarding of such heritage into planning
programmes;(b)

designate or establish one or more competent bodies for the safeguarding of theintangible cultural heritage present in its territory;(c)foster scientific, technical and artistic studies, as well as research methodologies, witha view to effective safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage, in particular theintangible cultural heritage in danger;(d)adopt appropriate legal, technical, administrative and financial measures aimed at:(i)fostering the creation or strengthening of institutions for training in the
management of the intangible cultural heritage and the transmission of such
heritage through forums and spaces intended for the performance or expression
thereof;(ii) ensuring access to the intangible cultural heritage while respecting customary
practices governing access to specific aspects of such heritage;(iii) establishing documentation institutions for the intangible cultural heritage
and facilitating access to them.

Article 14 – Education, awareness-raising and capacity-building
Each State Party shall endeavour, by all appropriate means, to:(a)ensure recognition of, respect for, and enhancement of the intangible cultural heritage
in society, in particular through:85

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)(i)

educational, awareness-raising and information programmes, aimed at thegeneral public, in particular young people;(ii) specific educational and training programmes within the communities and groups
concerned;(iii) capacity-building activities for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural
heritage, in particular management and scientific research; and(iv) non-formal means of transmitting knowledge;(b)keep the public informed of the dangers threatening such heritage, and of the activities
carried out in pursuance of this Convention;(c)promote education for the protection of natural spaces and places of memory whose
existence is necessary for expressing the intangible cultural heritage.

Article 15 – Participation of communities, groups and individuals
Within the framework of its safeguarding activities of the intangible cultural heritage, eachState Party shall endeavour to ensure the widest possible participation of communities, groups
and, where appropriate, individuals that create, maintain and transmit such heritage, and to
involve them actively in its management.

IV. Safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage at the international level
Article 16 – Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity
1. In order to ensure better visibility of the intangible cultural heritage and awareness of
its significance, and to encourage dialogue which respects cultural diversity, the Committee,
upon the proposal of the States Parties concerned, shall establish, keep up to date and publish a
Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
2. The Committee shall draw up and submit to the General Assembly for approval the criteria
for the establishment, updating and publication of this Representative List.

Article 17 – List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding
1. With a view to taking appropriate safeguarding measures, the Committee shall establish,
keep up to date and publish a List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent
Safeguarding, and shall inscribe such heritage on the List at the request of the State Party
concerned.
2. The Committee shall draw up and submit to the General Assembly for approval the criteria
for the establishment, updating and publication of this List.
3. In cases of extreme urgency – the objective criteria of which shall be approved by theGeneral Assembly upon the proposal of the Committee – the Committee may inscribe an itemof the heritage concerned on the List mentioned in paragraph 1, in consultation with the State
Party concerned.
86

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Article 18 – Programmes, projects and activities for the safeguardingof the intangible cultural heritage
1. On the basis of proposals submitted by States Parties, and in accordance with criteria tobe defined by the Committee and approved by the General Assembly, the Committee shallperiodically select and promote national, subregional and regional programmes, projects andactivities for the safeguarding of the heritage which it considers best reflect the principles andobjectives of this Convention, taking into account the special needs of developing countries.
2. To this end, it shall receive, examine and approve requests for international assistancefrom States Parties for the preparation of such proposals.
3. The Committee shall accompany the implementation of such projects, programmes andactivities by disseminating best practices using means to be determined by it.

V. International cooperation and assistance
Article 19 – Cooperation
1. For the purposes of this Convention, international cooperation includes, inter alia, theexchange of information and experience, joint initiatives, and the establishment of a mechanism
of assistance to States Parties in their efforts to safeguard the intangible cultural heritage.
2. Without prejudice to the provisions of their national legislation and customary law andpractices, the States Parties recognize that the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage is ofgeneral interest to humanity, and to that end undertake to cooperate at the bilateral, subregional,
regional and international levels.

Article 20 – Purposes of international assistanceInternational assistance may be granted for the following purposes:(a)the safeguarding of the heritage inscribed on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritagein Need of Urgent Safeguarding;(b)

the preparation of inventories in the sense of Articles 11 and 12;(c)support for programmes, projects and activities carried out at the national, subregionaland regional levels aimed at the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage;(d)any other purpose the Committee may deem necessary.

Article 21 – Forms of international assistance
The assistance granted by the Committee to a State Party shall be governed by the operational
directives foreseen in Article 7 and by the agreement referred to in Article 24, and may takethe following forms:(a)studies concerning various aspects of safeguarding;87

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)(b)

the provision of experts and practitioners;(c)the training of all necessary staff;(d)the elaboration of standard-setting and other measures;(e)the creation and operation of infrastructures;(f)the supply of equipment and know-how;(g)other forms of financial and technical assistance, including, where appropriate, thegranting of low-interest loans and donations.

Article 22 – Conditions governing international assistance
1. The Committee shall establish the procedure for examining requests for international
assistance, and shall specify what information shall be included in the requests, such as themeasures envisaged and the interventions required, together with an assessment of their cost.
2.

In emergencies, requests for assistance shall be examined by the Committee as a matter of priority.

3. In order to reach a decision, the Committee shall undertake such studies and consultations
as it deems necessary.

Article 23 – Requests for international assistance
1. Each State Party may submit to the Committee a request for international assistance forthe safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage present in its territory.
2.

Such a request may also be jointly submitted by two or more States Parties.

3. The request shall include the information stipulated in Article 22, paragraph 1, together
with the necessary documentation.

Article 24 – Role of beneficiary States Parties
1. In conformity with the provisions of this Convention, the international assistance granted
shall be regulated by means of an agreement between the beneficiary State Party and theCommittee.
2. As a general rule, the beneficiary State Party shall, within the limits of its resources, sharethe cost of the safeguarding measures for which international assistance is provided.
3. The beneficiary State Party shall submit to the Committee a report on the use made of theassistance provided for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage.

88

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)VI. Intangible Cultural Heritage Fund
Article 25 – Nature and resources of the Fund
1. A “Fund for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage”, hereinafter referred toas “the Fund”, is hereby established.
2. The Fund shall consist of funds-in-trust established in accordance with the Financial
Regulations of UNESCO.
3.

The resources of the Fund shall consist of:(a)contributions made by States Parties;(b)

funds appropriated for this purpose by the General Conference of UNESCO;(c)contributions, gifts or bequests which may be made by:(i)other States;(ii) organizations and programmes of the United Nations system, particularly theUnited Nations Development Programme, as well as other internationalorganizations,(iii) public or private bodies or individuals;(d)any interest due on the resources of the Fund;(e)funds raised through collections, and receipts from events organized for the benefit of
the Fund;(f)

any other resources authorized by the Fund’s regulations, to be drawn up by theCommittee.

4. The use of resources by the Committee shall be decided on the basis of guidelines laid
down by the General Assembly.
5. The Committee may accept contributions and other forms of assistance for general andspecific purposes relating to specific projects, provided that those projects have been approvedby the Committee.
6. No political, economic or other conditions which are incompatible with the objectives ofthis Convention may be attached to contributions made to the Fund.

Article 26 – Contributions of States Parties to the Fund
1. Without prejudice to any supplementary voluntary contribution, the States Parties to thisConvention undertake to pay into the Fund, at least every two years, a contribution, the amountof which, in the form of a uniform percentage applicable to all States, shall be determined by
the General Assembly. This decision of the General Assembly shall be taken by a majorityof the States Parties present and voting which have not made the declaration referred to in89

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

paragraph 2 of this Article. In no case shall the contribution of the State Party exceed 1% of its
contribution to the regular budget of UNESCO.
2. However, each State referred to in Article 32 or in Article 33 of this Convention may
declare, at the time of the deposit of its instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval oraccession, that it shall not be bound by the provisions of paragraph 1 of this Article.
3. A State Party to this Convention which has made the declaration referred to in paragraph
2 of this Article shall endeavour to withdraw the said declaration by notifying the DirectorGeneral of UNESCO. However, the withdrawal of the declaration shall not take effect inregard to the contribution due by the State until the date on which the subsequent session of theGeneral Assembly opens.
4. In order to enable the Committee to plan its operations effectively, the contributions ofStates Parties to this Convention which have made the declaration referred to in paragraph 2 ofthis Article shall be paid on a regular basis, at least every two years, and should be as close as
possible to the contributions they would have owed if they had been bound by the provisions ofparagraph 1 of this Article.
5. Any State Party to this Convention which is in arrears with the payment of its compulsory
or voluntary contribution for the current year and the calendar year immediately preceding it
shall not be eligible as a Member of the Committee; this provision shall not apply to the firstelection. The term of office of any such State which is already a Member of the Committee
shall come to an end at the time of the elections provided for in Article 6 of this Convention.

Article 27 – Voluntary supplementary contributions to the Fund
States Parties wishing to provide voluntary contributions in addition to those foreseen under
Article 26 shall inform the Committee, as soon as possible, so as to enable it to plan its
operations accordingly.

Article 28 – International fund-raising campaigns
The States Parties shall, insofar as is possible, lend their support to international fund-raising
campaigns organized for the benefit of the Fund under the auspices of UNESCO.

VII. Reports
Article 29 – Reports by the States Parties
The States Parties shall submit to the Committee, observing the forms and periodicity to be
defined by the Committee, reports on the legislative, regulatory and other measures taken for
the implementation of this Convention.

Article 30 – Reports by the Committee
1. On the basis of its activities and the reports by States Parties referred to in Article 29, theCommittee shall submit a report to the General Assembly at each of its sessions.
2.

90

The report shall be brought to the attention of the General Conference of UNESCO.

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)VIII. Transitional clause
Article 31 – Relationship to the Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral andIntangible Heritage of Humanity
1. The Committee shall incorporate in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural
Heritage of Humanity the items proclaimed “Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritageof Humanity” before the entry into force of this Convention.
2. The incorporation of these items in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural
Heritage of Humanity shall in no way prejudge the criteria for future inscriptions decided uponin accordance with Article 16, paragraph 2.
3.

No further Proclamation will be made after the entry into force of this Convention.

IX. Final clauses
Article 32 – Ratification, acceptance or approval
1. This Convention shall be subject to ratification, acceptance or approval by States Membersof UNESCO in accordance with their respective constitutional procedures.
2. The instruments of ratification, acceptance or approval shall be deposited with the DirectorGeneral of UNESCO.

Article 33 – Accession
1. This Convention shall be open to accession by all States not Members of UNESCO thatare invited by the General Conference of UNESCO to accede to it.
2. This Convention shall also be open to accession by territories which enjoy full internal selfgovernment recognized as such by the United Nations, but have not attained full independencein accordance with General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV), and which have competence overthe matters governed by this Convention, including the competence to enter into treaties inrespect of such matters.
3.

The instrument of accession shall be deposited with the Director-General of UNESCO.

Article 34 – Entry into force
This Convention shall enter into force three months after the date of the deposit of the thirtieth
instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, but only with respect to thoseStates that have deposited their respective instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval,or accession on or before that date. It shall enter into force with respect to any other State
Party three months after the deposit of its instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval oraccession.

91

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

Article 35 – Federal or non-unitary constitutional systems
The following provisions shall apply to States Parties which have a federal or non-unitary
constitutional system:(a)with regard to the provisions of this Convention, the implementation of which comesunder the legal jurisdiction of the federal or central legislative power, the obligationsof the federal or central government shall be the same as for those States Parties which
are not federal States;(b)with regard to the provisions of this Convention, the implementation of which comesunder the jurisdiction of individual constituent States, countries, provinces or cantons
which are not obliged by the constitutional system of the federation to take legislative
measures, the federal government shall inform the competent authorities of such
States, countries, provinces or cantons of the said provisions, with its recommendation
for their adoption.

Article 36 – Denunciation
1.

Each State Party may denounce this Convention.

2. The denunciation shall be notified by an instrument in writing, deposited with the DirectorGeneral of UNESCO.
3. The denunciation shall take effect twelve months after the receipt of the instrument ofdenunciation. It shall in no way affect the financial obligations of the denouncing State Party
until the date on which the withdrawal takes effect.

Article 37 – Depositary functions
The Director-General of UNESCO, as the Depositary of this Convention, shall inform theStates Members of the Organization, the States not Members of the Organization referred to in
Article 33, as well as the United Nations, of the deposit of all the instruments of ratification,
acceptance, approval or accession provided for in Articles 32 and 33, and of the denunciations
provided for in Article 36.

Article 38 – Amendments
1. A State Party may, by written communication addressed to the Director-General, propose
amendments to this Convention. The Director-General shall circulate such communication to
all States Parties. If, within six months from the date of the circulation of the communication,
not less than one half of the States Parties reply favourably to the request, the Director-Generalshall present such proposal to the next session of the General Assembly for discussion andpossible adoption.
2. Amendments shall be adopted by a two-thirds majority of States Parties present andvoting.
3. Once adopted, amendments to this Convention shall be submitted for ratification,
acceptance, approval or accession to the States Parties.

92

2012 Meeting on Documentation of ICH: International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI)

4. Amendments shall enter into force, but solely with respect to the States Parties that have
ratified, accepted, approved or acceded to them, three months after the deposit of the instruments
referred to in paragraph 3 of this Article by two-thirds of the States Parties. Thereafter, for eachState Party that ratifies, accepts, approves or accedes to an amendment, the said amendment
shall enter into force three months after the date of deposit by that State Party of its instrumentof ratification, acceptance, approval or accession.
5. The procedure set out in paragraphs 3 and 4 shall not apply to amendments to Article 5
concerning the number of States Members of the Committee. These amendments shall enter
into force at the time they are adopted.
6. A State which becomes a Party to this Convention after the entry into force of amendments
in conformity with paragraph 4 of this Article shall, failing an expression of different intention,
be considered:(a)

as a Party to this Convention as so amended; and(b)

as a Party to the unamended Convention in relation to any State Party not bound by
the amendments.

Article 39 – Authoritative texts
This Convention has been drawn up in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish,
the six texts being equally authoritative.

Article 40 – Registration
In conformity with Article 102 of the Charter of the United Nations, this Convention shall be
registered with the Secretariat of the United Nations at the request of the Director-General of
UNESCO.

93