Dear Lois, Emmanuel N. ArinzeLois Irvine, Patrick Boylan
It is not easy to give a prompt answer to ICTOP questions concerning
intangible cultural heritage. I will however send you my short note on the
several forms intangible cultural heritage can take and on the relationship
between this last and museums.
During the UNESCO international meeting held in March 2001 in the Region
Piedmont (Italy) the following definition of intangible cultural heritage
has been suggested: " peoples' learned processes along with the knowledge,
skills and creativity that inform and are developed by them, the products
they create, and the resources, spaces and other aspects of social and
natural context necessary to their sustainability; these processes provide
living communities with a sense of continuity with previous generations and
are important to cultural identity, as well as to the safeguarding of
cultural diversity and creativity of the humanity".

I believe that it could be possible to discuss on some aspects of this
definition and that we could start by identifying at least three categories
of intangible heritage. These three categories help to create, although in
different ways, what has been defined as intangible cultural heritage.
Anyway, I am well aware that the boundaries separating these categories are
very difficult to identify and to define precisely.
There is a fundamental quality which is common ground to all the three
categories and which makes intangible heritage very different from tangible
heritage: each expression and each action representing part of  intangible
cultural heritage will unrestrainedly change in time as long as future
generations go by (just think of language for example). That is to say that
a fundamental quality of intangible cultural heritage is its vitality.
Every action envisaged to stop change will produce dead objects  which have
nothing to share with the "real and vital" intangible heritage both of
communities and of individuals.

1) the first category should include social actions belonging to the habits
of a certain community and that can be represented by a physical expression
( for example religious rites, traditional economies, common ways of life,
folklore etc. etc...). To this first category also belong some forms listed
by UNESCO under the name of "Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible
Heritage of Humanity" (the Kunqu Opera, , Sicilian Puppets, Marrakech Jemaa
el-Fna Square, etc.). These are expressions of cultures or traditional ways
of life that can keep their value as long as they stay spontaneously alive
in the culture (or in the economy) of the community they belong. If we try
to preserve these forms of expression artificially, from the outside, they
crystallize and fossilize in time and space; they lose any point of contact
with the community of origin and they automatically get out of the
definition of heritage. This should lead to reflect on how much it is
really worthy to identify and preserve a "world intangible heritage" -
which is UNESCO action.

As for what relates to the relationship between this first category of
intangible heritage and museums, we could say that museums can contribute
to its conservation; this would however lead to move this kind of heritage
out of its context and to transform it from living cultural expressions
into dead objects.

2) In the second category I would put all those forms of individual or
collective expression which do not have a physical status: language,
memory, oral traditions, songs and non-written traditional music, etc. Some
of them also belong to the "Monuments" of UNESCO (i.e. oral heritageo of
Zagara).
Museums can play an important role in the conservation of this kind of
intangible heritage: they can collect and file oral traditions on digital
supports, they can record and rewrite songs and traditional music, etc.
Museums can then transform this kind of intangible cultural heritage into a
tangible heritage and they can preserve it in a physical form, as
historical and cultural evidences. Also in this case however, intangible
heritage is crystallized and the original relationship with the individual
or with the community is lost.
3) And finally, the third category of intangible heritage includes the
symbolic and metaphorical meanings of objects constituting tangible
heritage. Every object bears in itself two parts:
its physical part (shape, beauty, size, etc etc...) and its meaning
(deriving from the its history, from the interpretation others give of it,
from the relationships with the individuals who get in touch with it, from
its power to link past and present, etc etc...).
Museums have a very important function in relation to this last category of
intangible heritage, as all the actions related to "museum processes"
(selection in acquisition and conservation, historical and scientific
interpretation of the object, exhibition, etc etc...) tend to create a
symbolic meaning of the object and to communicate it outside museums.
The actions of museums on the meaning of the object is however relative:
museums are not almighty because the symbolic meaning of an object comes
not only from the museum's interpretation of it but also from the
interpretation that each individual gives of the object, interpretation
which is based on the individual's personal background.

I hope I was not too boring and I really wish a lively debate is opened on
this subject. Sorry for my english

Giovanni Pinna

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Change ICOM-L subscription options, unsubscribe, and search the
archives at:  http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/icom-l.html