Changing Climate, Changing Culture: Adding the Climate Change Dimension to the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage

2011 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hee-Eun Kim

AbstractThis article explores the interplay between climate change and cultural heritage, in particular the intangible aspects of cultural heritage, in international legal frameworks, either existing or under development. The prime focus of the current climate change regime of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, leaving certain aspects of cultural heritage rather on the sidelines of debate and policy. However, where climate change combines with generally weak law and policy for culture and traditions, countries vulnerable to climate change may face significant cultural loss in the years to come.In its inventory of present and contemplated legal protection options, this article draws particular attention to policymaking directed at shaping a “rights-based” system in the form of sui generis rights, to complement any existing intellectual property-based protection. If adequately motivated, indigenous people have a key role to play not only in observing change, but also in developing adaptive models to cope.

2008 ◽  
Vol 37 (S1) ◽  
pp. 14-24
Author(s):  
Terri Janke

Abstract Indigenous knowledge is an integral part of Indigenous cultural heritage. Knowledge about land, seas, places and associated songs, stories, social practices, and oral traditions are important assets for Indigenous communities. Transmitted from generation to generation, Indigenous knowledge is constantly reinterpreted by Indigenous people. Through the existence and transmission of this intangible cultural heritage, Indigenous people are able to associate with a communal identity. The recording and fixing of Indigenous knowledge creates intellectual property (IP), rights of ownership to the material which the written or recorded in documents, sound recordings or films. Intellectual property rights allow the rights owners to control reproductions of the fixed form. IP laws are individual based and economic in nature. A concern for Indigenous people is that the ownership of the intellectual property which is generated from such processes, if often, not owned by them. The IP laws impact on the rights of traditional and Indigenous communities to their cultural heritage. This paper will explore the international developments, case studies, published protocols and policy initiatives concerning the recording, dissemination, digitisation, and commercial use of Indigenous knowledge.


Author(s):  
Ali Reja Osmani

Moving ahead from the freshwater reservoir versus climate change debate, the Indo-Bangla controversy over the Tipaimukh Project exists over the right of riparian states. India needs more energy to propel its economic growth, whereas Bangladesh is worried about downstream impact. The concerns of Bangladesh are based on the experience of severe water shortage and other impacts of Farakka Barrage and Teesta Barrage and also Himalayan Component of the Interlinking of River Project. Over the years some progress was made at bilateral level. But the major problem remains unaddressed i.e. without reconciling the issues of indigenous people a big dam cannot be constructed. This paper highlighted the existing scenario of Bangladesh and the indigenous people of Manipur in India in one hand and ecological, socio-economic concern in other hand i.e. obligation not to cause significant harm. There is no straight way answers available to be choose between a ‘Yes' or ‘No'; neither depends on the issues of ‘might' over ‘right' or ‘development' over ‘destruction', but on the circumstances to come.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Fernanda Escallón

Abstract:This article examines the different meanings that rights to land and culture hold in San Basilio de Palenque, an Afro-Colombian community whose “cultural space” was declared by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to be intangible cultural heritage of humanity in 2005. I investigate how the language of rights—both communal and individual—operates simultaneously at various registers and is strategically put to work in distinct political spheres. Drawing from ethnographic field research conducted between 2009 and 2013, I argue that while communal rights are invoked to garner recognition from state and transnational organizations like UNESCO, individual rights, conceived as exclusive prerogatives, serve to mark hierarchical distinctions between community members. I examine the paradoxical coexistence of two contradictory claims: one of cultural cohesion and another of social hierarchy. I conclude by questioning how a more nuanced examination of rights discourses in Palenque might contribute to understanding the multiple meanings of rights, not simply across time or space but also in relation to their perceived strategic purpose.


2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (6) ◽  
pp. 691-710 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Owen ◽  
Nicola De Martini Ugolotti

Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian bodily discipline that has now become a global phenomenon. In 2014 the cultural significance of capoeira was recognized on the world stage when it was awarded the special protected status of an ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity’ by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. In the application to this organisation, and in wider advertising material and practitioner literature, capoeira is celebrated as a practice that promotes social cohesion, inclusivity, integration, racial equality and resistance to all forms of oppression. This paper seeks to problematize this inclusive discourse, exploring the extent to which it is both supported and contradicted in the gendered discourses and practices of specific capoeira groups in Europe. Drawing upon ethnographic data, produced through two sets of ethnographic research and the researchers’ 24 years of combined experience as capoeira players, this paper documents the complex and contradictory contexts in which discourses and practices of gender inclusivity are at once promoted and undermined.


Author(s):  
Charlotte Waelde ◽  
Sarah Whatley

Digital technologies enable us to visualize dance in new ways and to capture recordings of dance which may be preserved and handed down to future generations. In this way, dance starts to become part of our intangible cultural heritage. But capturing dance also raises questions of authorship and ownership of copyright in both the dance and the recording of the dance. Challenges arising at the intersections between the legal frameworks of intangible cultural heritage and copyright have surfaced in an EU-funded project, Europeana Space. This contribution describes the E-Space project and the place of dance within it, and it introduces work being done at the Centre for Dance Research at Coventry University on dance and examines the intersections between copyright law and the international legal frameworks applicable to safeguarding intangible cultural heritage.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asep Nugraha

Angklung consists of two to four bamboo tubes suspended in a bamboo frame, bound with rattan cords. The tubes will produce certain notes when the frame is shaken or tapped. Each angklung produces a single note or chord, so several players must collaborate in order to play melodies. Traditional Angklungs use the pentatonic scale, but in 1938 musician Daeng Soetigna introduced Angklungs using the diatonic scale, known as angklung padaeng. Angklung is closely related to traditional customs, arts and cultural identity in Indonesia, played during ceremonies such as rice planting and harvest. Angklung education is passed down orally from generation to generation, and increasingly in educational institutions (Prodi Angklung and Musik Bambu ISBI Bandung. Angklung has been included in the UNESCO’s (United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization) list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity. This paper discusses the interesting things about the angklung. Especially the process of traditional angklung that developed into the modern angklung and then both has been worldwide as Indonesian culture heritage.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document