Principal investigator

Chiara Bortolotto is a research associate at the Institut interdisciplinaire d’anthropologie du contemporain. Her research focuses on global heritage governance and is based on multiscale and multipositioned ethnography. In 2013-2014 she was a visiting EURIAS fellow at Cambridge University at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH). From 2010 to 2013 she was a Marie Curie fellow at the Free University of Brussels (Laboratoire d’Anthropologie des Mondes Contemporains Lamc). She has edited Le patrimoine culturel immatériel: enjeux d’une nouvelle catégorie (Maison des sciences de l’homme, Paris, 2011) and published several articles on UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage policies.

Post-docs

Philipp Demgenski is a post-doctoral researcher at the Institut interdisciplinaire d’anthropologie du contemporain (IIAC) at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS). He works on the China branch of the UNESCO Friction Project. Previously, he was an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Anthropology Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he also completed his Ph.D. His doctoral research looked at inner city redevelopment, urban heritage and governance in China. He is also a Research Associate at the Centre for Historical Anthropology of Qingdao University.

Panas Karampampas is a post-doctoral researcher at the Institut interdisciplinaire d’anthropologie du contemporain (IIAC), École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS). He currently works on Intangible Cultural Heritage policies in Greece and global governance. Previously he lectured in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of St. Andrews, where he also completed his PhD. His research focused on the European goth scene, digital anthropology, dance and cosmopolitanism, scrutinising the core aspects of the goth life-project which build towards individuality, connectivity, movement and inclusivity as well as the creative display of their hybrid cosmopolitanism, the very essence of what it is to be goth. He has also conducted ethnographic research on Roma education as a scientific associate at the Centre for Intercultural Studies at the University of Athens. He co-edited the volume Collaborative Intimacies: Anthropologies of Sound and Movement (Berghahn, February 2017).

Simone Toji is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institut Interdisciplinaire d’Anthropologie du Contemporain, through a partnership between the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and the Institute for the National Historic and Artistic Heritage/Ministry of Culture of Brazil. Her research in the ‘Unesco frictions’ project explores the complex connections and positionalities emerging in the intangible cultural heritage field, considering Brazil as case study. She completed her PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews in 2016, focusing on questions of globalism, cosmopolitanism, life stories and experimental ethnography in the journeys of international migrants living in the city of São Paulo. This research topic was inspired by her participation in an inventory of the legacies of international migrants in São Paulo developed by the Institute for the National Historic and Artistic Heritage, where Simone Toji has been working since 2006. In this Institute, she has predominantly been involved in activities and projects related to the Brazilian Intangible Cultural Heritage Program in the state of São Paulo.

Associate researchers

Carlos Sandroni is an Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology at the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), Recife, Brazil. He published books on the history of samba music (Feitiço decente, Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 2001) and on the work of the poet and pioneer of Brazilian musicology, Mário de Andrade (Mário contra Macunaíma, São Paulo: Vértice, 1988). He co-edited Patrimônio cultural em discussão (Recife: UFPE, 2014), and Samba de roda do Recôncavo baiano (Brasília: IPHAN, 2007). He taught on Brazilian music  at the University of Texas in Austin (2007) and at the Indiana University at Bloomington (2015). His current research deals with Brazilian policies on ICH in a comparative perspective. He is spending the academic year 2017-2018 as an associate researcher in the UNESCO Frictions Project, funded by the Brazilian federal agency CAPES.

Mukaddas Mijit obtained her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of Paris Nanterre. She is a research associate at the “Centre de Recherche en ethnomusicologie” (Paris) and at the “Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Solidarités, Sociétés, Territoires” (Toulouse). Her research explores the use of music and movements in spiritual Sufi ceremonies, the contemporary staging of Uyghur music and dance, which in 2003 was declared “masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity” by UNESCO, and on the making of intangible cultural heritage in Central Asia. She is also a traditional Uyghur dancer and a documentary filmmaker.

Dirceu Cadena de Melo obtained a master’s degree in urban development. He is pursuing his PhD in geography at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) where he is a member of the Study and Research Group on Policy and Territory (GEOPPOL). His doctoral research analyzes how different institutional scales are articulated in the implementation of the World Heritage Convention in African countries.

Advisory board
Michael Herzfeld (Harvard University)
George Marcus (University of California, Irvine)
Ruth Phillips (Carleton University)