Practitioner Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage provides an accessible introduction to the Intangible Cultural Heritage field. Summarising the major changes that have taken place over the last two decades, the book explores ongoing debates and changes in thinking about best practice. Drawing on the author's own experience of operationalising the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in a variety of contexts. The book also incorporates case studies from practitioners from her extensive international network, providing valuable insights about best practices. Demonstrating that the top-down, state-driven hierarchy for the safeguarding of heritage is starting to shift to a model of shared ownership and values driven by communities and practitioners, the book shows that the notion of the 'expert' is also diversifying to include other forms of transmission of traditional knowledge. Orr argues that these different perspectives provide a platform to enrich understanding and knowledge and create a stronger basis for the safeguarding of heritage - both intangible and tangible. Exploring some of the policy developments that have laid the foundations for the future involvement of community and practitioners in the global discourse, Practitioner Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage also suggests how practitioners can expand networks and contribute to the global discourse. Practitioner Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage will appeal to museum curators and other heritage professionals, as well as students and academics engaged in the study of museums and heritage, art, and cultural policy and management.

Practitioner Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage provides an accessible introduction to the Intangible Cultural Heritage field. Summarising the major changes that have taken place over the last two decades, the book explores ongoing debates and changes in thinking about best practice. Drawing on the author’s own experience of operationalising the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in a variety of contexts, Orr also incorporates international case studies from practitioners and provides valuable insights about best practices. Demonstrating that the top-down, state-driven hierarchy for the safeguarding of heritage is starting to shift to a model of shared ownership and values driven by communities and practitioners, the book shows that the notion of the ‘expert’ is also diversifying to include other forms of transmission of traditional knowledge. Orr argues that these different perspectives provide a platform to enrich understanding and knowledge and create a stronger basis for the safeguarding of heritage - both intangible and tangible. Exploring some of the policy developments that have laid the foundations for the future involvement of community and practitioners in the global discourse, the book also suggests how practitioners can expand networks and contribute to the global discourse. Practitioner Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage will appeal to museum curators and other heritage professionals, as well as students and academics engaged in the study of museums and heritage, art, and cultural policy and management.

This collection provides an in-depth and up-to-date examination of the concept of Intangible Cultural Heritage and the issues surrounding its value to society. Critically engaging with the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, the book also discusses local-level conceptualizations of living cultural traditions, practices and expressions, and reflects on the efforts that seek to safeguard them. Exploring a global range of case studies, the book considers the diverse perspectives currently involved with intangible cultural heritage and presents a rich picture of the geographic, socioeconomic and political contexts impacting research in this area. With contributions from established and emerging scholars, public servants, professionals, students and community members, this volume is also deeply enhanced by an interdisciplinary approach which draws on the theories and practices of heritage and museum studies, anthropology, folklore studies, ethnomusicology, and the study of cultural policy and related law. The Routledge Companion to Intangible Cultural Heritage undoubtedly broadens the international heritage discourse and is an invaluable learning tool for instructors, students and practitioners in the field.

A decade after the approval of the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), the concept has gained wide acceptance at the local, national and international levels. Communities are recognizing and celebrating their Intangible Heritage; governments are devoting important efforts to the construction of national inventories; and anthropologists and professionals from different disciplines are forming a new field of study. The ten chapters of this book include the peer-reviewed papers of the First Planning Meeting of the International Social Science Council’s Commission on Research on ICH, which was held at the Centro Regional de Investigaciones Multidisciplinarias (UNAM) in Cuernavaca, Mexico in 2012. The papers are based on fieldwork and direct involvement in assessing and reconceptualizing the outcomes of the UNESCO Convention. The report in Appendix 1 highlights the main points raised during the sessions.

For nearly 70 years, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has played a crucial role in developing policies and recommendations for dealing with intangible cultural heritage. What has been the effect of such sweeping global policies on those actually affected by them? How connected is UNESCO with what is happening every day, on the ground, in local communities? Drawing upon six communities ranging across three continents—from India, South Korea, Malawi, Japan, Macedonia and China—and focusing on festival, ritual, and dance, this volume illuminates the complexities and challenges faced by those who find themselves drawn, in different ways, into UNESCO's orbit. Some struggle to incorporate UNESCO recognition into their own local understanding of tradition; others cope with the fallout of a failed intangible cultural heritage nomination. By exploring locally, by looking outward from the inside, the essays show how a normative policy such as UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage policy can take on specific associations and inflections. A number of the key questions and themes emerge across the case studies and three accompanying commentaries: issues of terminology; power struggles between local, national and international stakeholders; the value of international recognition; and what forces shape selection processes. With examples from around the world, and a balance of local experiences with broader perspectives, this volume provides a unique comparative approach to timely questions of tradition and change in a rapidly globalizing world.

This volume examines the implications and consequences of the idea of ‘intangible heritage’ to current international academic and policy debates about the meaning and nature of cultural heritage and the management processes developed to protect it. It provides an accessible account of the different ways in which intangible cultural heritage has been defined and managed in both national and international contexts, and aims to facilitate international debate about the meaning, nature and value of not only intangible cultural heritage, but heritage more generally. Intangible Heritage fills a significant gap in the heritage literature available and represents a significant cross section of ideas and practices associated with intangible cultural heritage. The authors brought together for this volume represent some of the key academics and practitioners working in the area, and discuss research and practices from a range of countries, including: Zimbabwe, Morocco, South Africa, Japan, Australia, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, USA, Brazil and Indonesia, and bring together a range of areas of expertise which include anthropology, law, heritage studies, archaeology, museum studies, folklore, architecture, Indigenous studies and history.

Authenticity and Authentication of Heritage presents an assimilation of chapters that critically address some of the key emerging areas associated with authenticity. It presents a variety of inspiring pieces of work that range from host-guest authentication and intangible heritage to knowledge transfer processes, authenticating heritage in fairy-tale settings, authenticity and anxiety in the smell of death and life, understanding the boundaries of authenticity, nostalgia, sustainability, marketing, destination competitiveness, examining affective connotations of authenticity, and their contribution towards optimizing hedonic and eudaimonic well-being during times of disruption. The contentious concept of authenticity continues to be valorised in heritage tourism. This scholarly initiative seeks to broaden the discursive parameters of authenticity and identify power mechanisms that shape the way authenticity is produced, marketed and consumed. This is an attempt to share contemporary views on how the contemporary notions of authenticity are derived, interpreted, applied, processed and legitimised in local and global contexts. Furthermore, the significant relationship between health and authenticity is explored. To put it simply, this pandemic has significantly halted the way people connect with their cultural resources and seek authenticity within their inner selves and the outside realms in the heritage tourism system. Heightened sense of global consciousness is a call to polish our authentic selves and elevate above inauthenticity or moral hypocrisy. So, is authenticity an evolving story or is it a story of floating immobility? Who can tell the story and who decides what elements to fossilise? How can existentialist authenticity and self authentication promote moral selving and well-being of the self and the society? Many questions like these have emerged in recent literature, and this book uses conceptual, empirical and theoretical explorations to identify and engage with such inquiries. The chapters in this book, except for the concluding chapter, were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Heritage Tourism.