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Intangible Cultural Heritage: The Midas Touch?

Titre du projet
Intangible Cultural Heritage: The Midas Touch?
Description
The concept of intangible cultural heritage (hereinafter "ICH") has been in circulation since the 1970s and has spawned a number of measures, culminating in the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. It is the fruit of the realization that previous measures to protect heritage have unduly favored rich, industrialized countries, with their monumental constructions, over countries in the "South" in which cultural products often take more intangible forms: rituals, musique, belief-systems, etc, that deserve international protection. Switzerland ratified this Convention on July 18th, 2008. Under its terms, the government is obliged to create an inventory of Swiss ICH. Given the relative novelty of the ICH paradigm, its broad political mission and the latitude granted to signatory states, one would think that the application of the UNESCO Convention in the Swiss context would be open to widely diverse interpretations. In fact, a certain number of commonsense understandings of ICH, promoted by associations for folk traditions, are largely determining the ways in which Switzerland positions itself in relation to its treaty obligations. The broadest aim of this multidisciplinary research project is to keep reflections on ICH open at this initial stage by critically examining what it might mean, whom it might benefit and what might be worth inventorying and preserving under its auspices. The project explores these questions through a series of targeted empirical case studies. We ask: How we can meaningfully distinguish material from immaterial cultural expression? How can we reconcile the use of media (writing, recording, photography and film) necessary for the constitution and preservation of ICH with the charged norms of orality, immediacy and authenticity underlying the ICH paradigm? Are items of ICH distributed in space and time according to the community-based UNESCO model, and if not, what are the relevant units of analysis? What is the relation of ICH to the various forms of culture, including elite culture, already supported by other institutions? Which groups does ICH favor, whose cultural expressions are included and whose are excluded? Finally, how does the bureaucratization of cultural preservation alter its object, creating new understandings of culture and new resources for which social actors will be inclined to compete? The project brings together research teams from the Universities of Basel, Lausanne and Neuchâtel, the Museum of Ethnography (Neuchâtel), the CNRS (Laboratoire d'anthropologie et d'histoire de l'institution de la culture, Paris) and the Haute Ecole-Arc (Institut horlogerie et création).
Chercheur principal
Jacot-Descombes, Andrea
Knodel, Bernard
Joyce Bodenmann, Laurence
Statut
Completed
Date de début
1 Octobre 2009
Date de fin
30 Septembre 2012
Chercheurs
Fabre, Daniel
Gonseth, Marc-Olivier
Leimgruber, Walter
Cohn, Miriam
Graezer-Bideau, Florence
Baracchini, Leila
Gerber, Fabrice
Andris, Silke
Organisations
Identifiant interne
15191
identifiant
https://libra.unine.ch/handle/123456789/1483
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  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Politiques de la tradition. Le patrimoine culturel immatériel
    (Lausanne: PPUR, 2018)
    Hertz, Ellen 
    ;
    Leimgruber, Walter
    ;
    Graezer Bideau, Florence
    ;
    Munz, Hervé 
    Depuis quelques années, une nouveau concept circule sur les scènes culturelles suisse et internationale : le patrimoine culturel immatériel. Ce concept regroupe des activités telles que musiques et danses traditionnelles, rites et rituels, savoir-faire artisanaux et connaissances populaires. En adhérant, en 2008, à la Convention de l’UNESCO pour la sauvegarde du patrimoine culturel immatériel, la Suisse s’est engagée à en faire l’inventaire sur son territoire, sous la forme d’une « Liste des traditions vivantes ». Cet ouvrage saisit l’occasion des dix ans de cette adhésion pour faire le point sur le sens et les effets de ce nouveau dispositif patrimonial. Le patrimoine immatériel représente un facteur de cohésion sociale et d’ancrage identitaire crucial pour toute collectivité. S’engager à le sauvegarder, c’est fournir l’occasion d’honorer le passé, mais aussi de débattre de l’avenir. Que voulons-nous garder des pratiques et croyances de nos aïeules ? La réponse à cette question passe nécessairement par une réflexion de fond sur les politiques de la tradition, en Suisse et sur la scène internationale.