Tag Archives: unesco

Commercialization without over-commercialization : normative conundrums across heritage rationalities

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Chiara Bortolotto, 2020. Commercialization without over-commercialization : normative conundrums across heritage rationalities, International Journal of Heritage Studies 

Abstract: 

In aligning its priorities around the Sustainable Development Goals, UNESCO officially acknowledges the need to reconcile the market and heritage. Yet inscriptions of commercial practices on the Intangible Cultural Heritage lists are qualified as ‘traumatic’ by actors that design normative principles for ‘good’ heritage governance. Based on ethnographic observations of the meetings of the governing bodies of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, I analyse the controversies generated by the ‘risks of over-commercialization’, shedding light on the disputed entanglements between ICH and the market. In exploring the notion of ‘commercialization without over-commercialization’ meant to resolve the tension between heritage and the market, I highlight how ‘over-commercialization’ refers to notions of ‘misappropriation’ and ‘decontextualization’ and the ways it, therefore, intersects with the logics of Intellectual Property. This allows to elucidate a constitutive ambiguity in the implementation of the Convention, torn between the rationalities of heritage and property regimes.

 

“When it Comes to Intangible Cultural Heritage, Everyone is Always Happy” Some Thoughts on the Chinese Life of a UNESCO Convention

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Demgenski, Philipp. 2020. “When It Comes to Intangible Cultural Heritage, Everyone Is Always Happy” Some Thoughts on the Chinese Life of a UNESCO Convention.” Contemporary China Centre Blog. April 22, 2020. http://blog.westminster.ac.uk/contemporarychina/when-it-comes-to-intangible-cultural-heritage-everyone-is-always-happy-some-thoughts-on-the-chinese-life-of-a-unesco-convention/

Proving participation: vocational bureaucrats and bureaucratic creativity in the implementation of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage

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Bortolotto, Chiara, Philipp Demgenski, Panas Karampampas, and Simone Toji. 2020. “Proving Participation: Vocational Bureaucrats and Bureaucratic Creativity in the Implementation of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.” Social Anthropology 28 (1): 66–82. https://doi.org/10.1111/1469-8676.12741.

This paper investigates the bureaucratisation of the (utopian) ideal of community participation in Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) safeguarding and management. The analysis considers the whole ‘policy life’ of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of ICH. Our ethnographic examples from UNESCO, Brazil, China and Greece illustrate how bureaucratic operations often disenchant the participatory ideal, alienating it from its original intention. At the same time, driven by their commitment to ‘good’ governance and informed by sentiments of frustration and disappointment with actual policy results, vocational bureaucrats at different administrative levels experiment with and conceive of new tools in order to produce evidence of participation. We demonstrate how this bureaucratic creativity has concrete consequences, which may differ from the intended utopia, but nevertheless bring to life particular interpretations of the participatory principle among the recipients for whom heritage policies were originally designed. Thus, we present a more nuanced picture of bureaucratisation in which officials’ emotions and engagement sustain their agency against structural constraints as well as the futility and fragility of administrative procedures.

Cómo “comerse” un patrimonio: construir bienes inmateriales agroalimentarios entre directivas técnicas y empresariado patrimonial

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Bortolotto, Chiara . Cómo “comerse” un patrimonio: construir bienes inmateriales agroalimentarios entre directivas técnicas y empresariado patrimonial. [en línea]. Revista Andaluza de Antropología, Num. 12, marzo de 2017. http://www.revistaandaluzadeantropologia.org/uploads/raa/n12/bortoloto.pdf, pp. 144-166. ISSN: 2174-6796

Este artículo explora el creciente dominio del patrimonio cultural inmaterial alimentario en el marco de la Convention de la UNESCO para la salvaguarda del patrimonio cultural inmaterial. El análisis traza la fricción entre los principios y objetivos de la Convención y las expectativas iniciales de los primeros proyectos de patrimonialización en la esfera alimentaria. A partir de la observación etnográfica de la producción del expediente de la “Comida gastronómica de los franceses” se revisará el proceso de adecuación de los proyectos locales al dispositivo internacional poniendo así al día el poder performativo de las directivas técnicas elaboradas a menudo informalmente para alinear las solicitudes de los Estados con las prioridades de la Convención. Esta experiencia técnica permite separar los aspectos culturales dentro del sector de la alimentación de otras facetas, incluyendo la comercial, no obstante orgánicamente relacionados con este campo. Si los documentos presentados a la Unesco se esfuerzan por eliminar estos temas polémicos, siguen siendo el centro de las preocupaciones de los actores sociales y políticos, y se encuentran actualmente en el centro del debate sobre la relación entre la salvaguardia del patrimonio cultural inmaterial y el desarrollo sostenible puestos en cuestión por las implicaciones del uso neoliberal de la cultura como un recurso.

This article explores the field of food-related intangible cultural heritage in the framework of the Unesco Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. The analysis outlines the frictions between the Convention’s principles and objectives and the initial expectations of the first heritage projects in the food realm. Grounded on the ethnographic observation of the making of the nomination file of the «Gastronomic meal of the French», the article examines the complex encounter between local priorities and endeavours on one side and international norms and procedures on the other. The tension arising from this encounter sheds light on the agency of technical directives informally put forward by international organisations to harmonise the States’ requests within global governance apparatuses. In our case technical expertise isolates foodways’ cultural aspects from other features, in particular commercial interests, despite their organic integration within this field. Even if the nomination files submitted to Unesco try to clear these controversial matters, the latter stay high among the concerns of social and political actors. Currently at the core of the raising debate on the relationship between the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage and sustainable development within Unesco, ICH’s economic potential question the implications of the neoliberal uses of culture as a resource.

http://www.revistaandaluzadeantropologia.org