Consent, agreement, communities and holders: the issue of social participation in the field of cultural heritage and the dialogue between the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Heritage and the intangible heritage policy of Brazil

This article considers some modes of activation and operationalization of the idea of social participation in the field of intangible cultural heritage. It regards the newest proposal of operating participation established by the UNESCO Convention on Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage and the experience of its implementation in Brazil. By analyzing how the issue of participation was developed through dialogue between the international and national levels, the paper also shows how the emergence of categories of social actors such as “communities” and “bearers” has been consolidated within the mentioned intangible cultural policies.

How does the legacy of colonialism in Southeast Asia manifest itself in contemporary regional attitudes and practices towards looting and collection?

<p>Cultural property trafficking continues to be and is growing as an issue despite increased legislation, international agreements and public interest, particularly since the seminal 1970 UNESCO Convention. For criminology, the challenge is to take into account the distinct and complex characteristics of cultural property trade and trafficking in order to aid in controlling, regulating and preventing crime in a way that resonates with those it seeks to target. However, the mainstream approach to this issue relies uncritically upon a dominant and simplistic narrative of transnational cultural property movement from Global South sources to Global North markets, which renders significant regional and processes invisible and creates an incomplete model of reality. By incorporating a postcolonial framework and interviewing market actors in the cultural property world, this thesis aims to fill a gap in the discipline by examining how colonial narratives, frameworks and structures still inform modern attitudes to cultural property trade and trafficking, which has emerged from the same history. As a rich source region with a healthy cultural property market, Southeast Asia is the chosen case study; however, though the conclusions drawn originate in this specific context, the methodology used is applicable beyond this scope. The findings indicate that though cultural property collection is accompanied by a shadow of illicitness, market actors are able to justify their activities by not only relying on familiar colonial tropes and narratives of custodianship and education, but also pragmatically referring to the moralities and identities of a post-colonial age. Additionally, the social structures fundamental to the cultural property world are also, to some extent, the product of a certain history, and identity formation and projection through cultural capital are key concepts in understanding the impetus for collection. Ultimately, actors’ understandings of an authentic object as one that is of a particular style and, critically, of a particular age and condition, is synonymous with colonially influenced attitudes, and is inherently linked to the damage that anti-trafficking legislation seeks to mitigate.</p>

How does the legacy of colonialism in Southeast Asia manifest itself in contemporary regional attitudes and practices towards looting and collection?

<p>Cultural property trafficking continues to be and is growing as an issue despite increased legislation, international agreements and public interest, particularly since the seminal 1970 UNESCO Convention. For criminology, the challenge is to take into account the distinct and complex characteristics of cultural property trade and trafficking in order to aid in controlling, regulating and preventing crime in a way that resonates with those it seeks to target. However, the mainstream approach to this issue relies uncritically upon a dominant and simplistic narrative of transnational cultural property movement from Global South sources to Global North markets, which renders significant regional and processes invisible and creates an incomplete model of reality. By incorporating a postcolonial framework and interviewing market actors in the cultural property world, this thesis aims to fill a gap in the discipline by examining how colonial narratives, frameworks and structures still inform modern attitudes to cultural property trade and trafficking, which has emerged from the same history. As a rich source region with a healthy cultural property market, Southeast Asia is the chosen case study; however, though the conclusions drawn originate in this specific context, the methodology used is applicable beyond this scope. The findings indicate that though cultural property collection is accompanied by a shadow of illicitness, market actors are able to justify their activities by not only relying on familiar colonial tropes and narratives of custodianship and education, but also pragmatically referring to the moralities and identities of a post-colonial age. Additionally, the social structures fundamental to the cultural property world are also, to some extent, the product of a certain history, and identity formation and projection through cultural capital are key concepts in understanding the impetus for collection. Ultimately, actors’ understandings of an authentic object as one that is of a particular style and, critically, of a particular age and condition, is synonymous with colonially influenced attitudes, and is inherently linked to the damage that anti-trafficking legislation seeks to mitigate.</p>

Heritage and Memory

This chapter explores the complex and contested relationship between memory and heritage. It covers topics such as notions of authenticity, intangible heritage, and commemoration and museums. Chapter contents: 5.0 Introduction (by Giulio Verdini) 5.1 Grassroots Values and Local Cultural Heritage in China (by Harriet Evans) 5.2 ‘When It Comes to Intangible Cultural Heritage, Everyone Is Always Happy’: Some Thoughts on the Chinese Life of a UNESCO Convention (by Philipp Demgenski) 5.3 Ruins on Ruins: Forgetting, Commemorating, and Re-Forgetting the Third Front (by Paul Kendall) 5.4 Complex Collections, Contentious Memories: Reflections on the Jianchuan Museum Cluster (by Lisheng Zhang)

Decolonising or Recolonising: Struggles on Cultural Heritage

This article directly responds to an article authored by Iacono and Brown published in Dance Research (2016), and considers issues emerging since its publication. The core topic is the UNESCO Convention from 2003, and in our view, criticism in the 2016 article is based on misinterpretation. We address the claims that the Convention is marked by binarism and provide in-depth background for the concept of intangible cultural heritage. We also caution against using the biomorphic term ‘living cultural heritage’ as its application stands in an ambiguous relation toward essentialist, organicist and totalitarian ideologies. We end with a discussion on attitudes toward globalisation and the concept of innovation. These, we argue, have profound implications for recent discussions on decolonisation.

The Innovative and State of the Art Public Access Management of Malta’s Underwater Cultural Heritage

The obligation to preserve underwater cultural heritage is a core principle of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. A key element of this obligation is a balance of scientific research, protection, and the promotion of responsible access to underwater cultural heritage sites. Such a balance requires the setting up of a network of communication between the tourism and heritage sectors on the one hand and the maritime and diving communities on the other hand. A variety of approaches have been developed to promote responsible access to underwater cultural heritage sites, and since the vast majority of the public does not dive, this also includes the development of virtual access. In Malta, maritime archaeology can be traced to humble and sporadic beginnings in the 1950s. The following decades brought a growing interest in diving activities and a rising number of diving schools and clubs. Whilst Malta has today established itself as a diving tourism destination, responsible access to underwater cultural heritage sites was not always entrenched in dive operations or institutionally recognized. The protection and management of underwater cultural heritage has recently been firmly established within Heritage Malta, the national agency for museums, conservations, and cultural heritage. This paper is intended to outline the trajectory of Malta’s underwater cultural heritage management and to present the innovative and state of the art public access system that is managed by the Underwater Cultural Heritage Unit within Heritage Malta.

From Discovery to Public Consumption: The Process of Mapping and Evaluating Underwater Cultural Heritage in Malta

The in situ promotion and preservation of underwater cultural heritage sites is one of the main ideas of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage. Currently, most shipwrecks are found in water shallower than the 50 m contour. The continued technological advances and increases in technical diving and deep-water exploration point towards a shift in this statistic, which is set to increase exponentially in the not-too-distant future. Thus, it is imperative to look at ways in which such directives can be implemented. This paper will highlight the synergy between existing remote sensing technologies and the management of underwater cultural heritage with examples of on-going research projects, such as Malta’s approach to surveying and implementing a scoring system for historic wreck sites based on local and global considerations of historic and natural conditions of site elements. Such an approach allows for the scaling of sites based on a number of parameters and provides instructive information for the creation of management strategies. The intention here is to demonstrate how large-scale remote sensing surveys can make major contributions to site management, which, in turn, facilitates the decision-making process in terms of how and what information is transmitted to divers and members of the public.

Review of The Songs of the Cádiz Carnival during the Second Republic

Looking into affective topics such as historical memories often starts with a very personal story. It was not the case with Santiago Morello, whose curiosity inspired him to research social history and historical memories of Cádiz. Thus he managed to remain objective when answering a simple WHY question. Moreno grew up in Spanish Andalusia and had a first-hand experience of what education is like when there is no consensus on local history — important topics tend to be avoided. As a researcher, Santiago Moreno took a special interest in the repressed participants of the carnival and the prohibition of the carnival in 1937: he defended a thesis, published a collection of carnival-related songs, and produced a documentary Murieron Cantado. The book under review is his latest work on the topic. Moreno posits that sensitive issues of local history should find a wider audience via diverse channels. For this purpose, he initiated thematic excursions, including Cádiz and the Banned Carnival. Today carnival in Cádiz is one of the biggest in Spain, and as of 2021 is being considered to be included in the UNESCO Convention on the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage. The reviewed book comes out as a separate volume in the series of historical records of the Province of Cádiz and presents a unique collection of carnival songs. The first part of the book gives an overview of the historical context, the social background and even managerial and financial aspects of holding a carnival. Lyrics are analyzed in terms of their reflection of the social agenda of the time taking into consideration the censorship. The texts presented in the second half of the book come from different origins since few of them were preserved in the official archives. The author believes is that carnival rests upon enthusiasts who take part in it for generations. During the Civil War, especially after Cádiz was taken over, many of them had to destroy their collections of songs for fear of oppression and a great number of valuable documents were lost. Moreno’s work is a precious yet not comprehensive source for culture studies: the collection includes songs of 94 out of 108 participants of the carnival in 1932–1936. Some of the songs were not submitted to censors, many others were never recorded. Nevertheless, the book will be of interest to specialists in cultural studies, history and folklore, and those fond of the carnival.

antiquities market we deserve: 'Royal-Athena Galleries' (1942-2020)

On September 13, 2020 a quarter of a century had elapsed since the Swiss and Italian authorities raid in the Free Port of Geneva, on the warehouses of Giacomo Medici, later convicted of involvement in cases of trafficked antiquities. Since then, many other raids followed on properties of other notorious antiquities traffickers, thousands of antiquities were confiscated from them and their invaluable archives were discovered and seized. The research on these archives resulted in hundreds of notable repatriations so far, but mainly in the enrichment of our knowledge about the criminal way in which the so-called ‘reputable’ members of the international antiquities market have been acting since the 1970 UNESCO Convention, which they completely ignored in practice. Despite the numerous occasions on which these ‘reputable’ members were identified as involved, even today they continue to act in the same way, some without any (or known) legal sanctions. This chapter reviews the illicit associations of one of these ‘prominent’ members of the international antiquities market, the ‘Royal-Athena Galleries’ in New York, a gallery run by the antiquities dealer Jerome Eisenberg, who has repeatedly been found selling looted, smuggled and stolen antiquities. I then present seven antiquities, most of them identified in October 2019, one in March 2020, soon before the retirement of Jerome Eisenberg and the closure of ‘Royal-Athena Galleries’ on October 31, 2020. This piece lays out all the relevant evidence from the confiscated archives and combines everyone involved to illustrate the network that ‘circulated’ these seven objects. This case study also highlights all the problems that are ongoing in this research field, proving that essentially nothing has changed since 1995, or even 1970, and we indeed deserve the (illicit) antiquities market we still have. On cover:ANNIBALE CARRACCI (BOLOGNA 1560 - ROME 1609), An Allegory of Truth and Time c. 1584-1585.Oil on canvas | 130,0 x 169,6 cm. (support, canvas/panel/str external) | RCIN 404770Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021.

Cultural and creative sectors at a crossroad: from a mainstream process towards an active engagement

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a current global health crisis with dreadful repercussions all over the world. A global economic recession is anticipated, with strong impacts in all economic and social sectors, including the cultural sector. Although all sub sectors will be impacted (heritage sites, theatres, museums, operas, art galleries), the cultural built heritage is particularly at stake, as it relies on multiple stakeholders through a wide range of heritage-related activities (tourism, recreation, housing, real estate, construction, craftsmanship, etc.). Sites management and heritage conservation have not only been vulnerable to strong economic and social disruptions, like most of other cultural fields, but have been greatly challenged because heritage values and the paradigm of conservation (50 years after adoption of the UNESCO convention) are being themselves revisited in the perspective of the Sustainable Development Goals. The paper aims also to consider cultural heritage as part of the Cultural and Creative Sectors (CCS) and how creativity and innovation contribute to post-COVID recoveries through Schumpeter-related creative destruction process. The current crisis might be perceived in a perspective of long wave theory of innovations and economic growth. The economic history is filled with many examples of such transition period when inventions, innovations, and growth reactivate the economic development in an upward long-term trend. In such framework, crisis can trigger innovation and creativity and can be understood as opportunity to increase the CCS resilience and sustainability, as well as harness the universality and the power of creativity. Finally, the paper aims to describe implications of such situation by providing to the CCS ways to learn and experience cultural entrepreneurship, resilient strategies, new sustainable and circular business models applied to the cultural heritage sector and its conservation.