Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage in the 2003 UNESCO Convention: a critical appraisal by Richard Kurin

Richard Kurin is the director of the Centre for Folklife and Cultural Heritage which produces the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Recordings, and other cultural educational programmes. He is an anthropologist and author of The Reflections of a Culture Broker (Smithsonian). He serves on the UNESCO jury for the Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity and participated in conferences and meetings of intergovernmental experts to draft the Convention.

Can UNESCO help local cultural traditions around the world survive and even flourish in the face of globalization? No one really knows, but with a new International Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage it may be better equipped to do so.

At the biennial meeting of General Conference of UNESCO in Paris on 17 October 2003 some 120 Member States voted for the multilateral treaty; scores more registered their support subsequently. No one voted against it; only a handful of nations abstained – Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the United States among them. For the Convention to now become international law it needs to be ratified by thirty states parties.

This article considers the nature of intangible cultural heritage, the approach, consequences, problems and possibilities suggested by the new Convention.

66 ISSN 1350-0775, no. 221–222 (vol. 56, no. 1–2, 2004) Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ (UK) and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148 (USA) Intangible Cultural Heritage in the 2003 UNESCO Convention Richard Kurin

What is intangible cultural heritage? Historical background

The Convention following common practice, Well-meaning people have thought about how to describes intangible cultural heritage in the form save, protect, and preserve the world’s living of a list, as oral traditions and expressions – such cultural heritage for at least several hundred years. as epics, tales, and stories, performing arts – The specific idea of an international legal including music, song, dance, puppetry and instrument to do so has a two-track history that theatre, social practices, rituals and festive formally extends back to the 1950s. events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe – for example, folk One track is a technical, legal one and medicine and folk astronomy, and traditional concerns the ownership of cultural property. craftsmanship, as well as the sites and spaces in Multilateral discussions in the 1950s considered the which culturally significant activities and events idea of copyright and its application to folklore and occur. A more generative, categorical definition traditional culture. Copyright is a means of assuring is somewhat illusive. It is the culture that people continued artistic and intellectual activity, as well as practise as part of their daily lives. It is beliefs social benefit, by encouraging commercial rewards and perspectives, ephemeral performances and for the creators of particular tangible cultural events that are not tangible objects of culture products for a specified period of time. Could like monuments, or paintings, books or artefacts. traditional forms of expression – ancient songs and It is often described as the underlying ‘spirit’ of a folk tales for example be covered by copyright law? cultural group. The technical, somewhat Should nations regulate and exert some form of legal awkward term ‘intangible cultural heritage’ was control over such expressions on their territory, and selected because of the many difficulties cultural their commercial exploitation by others? While workers and scholars have encountered in an such has been the subject of both national and international, comparative context, with the use international law, the extent of regulation is still an and misunderstanding of such terms as ‘folklore’, open question being considered by the World ‘oral heritage’, ‘traditional culture’, ‘expressive Intellectual Property Organization and others. culture’, ‘way of life’, ‘folklife’, ‘ethnographic culture’, ‘community-based culture’, ‘customs’, The other track was a more diffuse, ‘living cultural heritage’, and ‘popular culture’. nationalistic one, oriented to social and cultural Many people – educated experts as well as policy. Japan, in the post Second World War era, community members from around the world who had begun a serious programme to offer hold such heritage will not know what government recognition and support to those ‘intangible cultural heritage’ means. Since the traditions that embodied its national cultural success of many safeguarding efforts will depend patrimony. The programme grew in reaction to the upon public acceptance, disseminating and concern that ancient, royal, and local traditions explaining the term itself will take considerable would disappear in the wake of modernization and work. thus diminish national identity. In its benchmark

ISSN 1350-0775, No. 221–222 (Vol. 56, No. 1–2, 2004) 67 DEFINING THE INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE

Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties (1950), global mass culture raised the question of whether and its revision (1954), the government defined valuable traditions, practices, and forms of tangible and intangible cultural properties, and knowledge rooted in diverse societies would people as ‘living treasures’, – all national resources survive the next generation. As the pace of cultural and assets to be protected, appreciated, utilized transformation and displacement picked up, and managed – not for commercial profit, but for scholars and community advocates have sought the very survival of the civilization. A variety of means of encouraging contemporary linkages to other national programmes grew from these roots their distinctive cultural past. Numerous and in response to similar concerns in the Republic governments, too, became sensitive to the of Korea, the Philippines, the United States, importance of publicly asserting the value of their Thailand, France, Romania, the Czech Republic, national cultures in various forums that bestow Poland and other nations. and reflect international prestige.

The formal effort to safeguard intangible Renewed attention to the issue of local, cultural heritage through UNESCO began three national and regional cultural survival resulted in a decades ago in 1972 with the acceptance of the series of UNESCO-sponsored regional conferences Convention for the Protection of World Cultural and on the topic, and culminated in a global conference Natural Heritage and the initiation of the World at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington in Heritage List – a programme oriented towards the 1999. That conference found the UNESCO international recognition and national support for Recommendation to be a somewhat ill-construed, the restoration, conservation, and preservation of ‘top-down’, state oriented, ‘soft’ international tangible monuments, sites, and landscapes. Bolivia, instrument that defined traditional culture in with the support of several other nations, proposed essentialist, tangible, archival terms, and had little addressing oral traditions. Little action followed impact around the globe upon cultural for a decade. A variety of experts’ meetings were communities and practitioners. The conference held in the 1980s, and in 1989 UNESCO issued a and a subsequently published book – Safeguarding Recommendation on the Safeguarding of Traditional Traditional Cultures, called for a more dynamic Culture and Folklore. This defined practices that view of cultural traditions as ‘living’ and enacted by countries could put in place to preserve communities. It envisioned a community-involved, their intangible cultural heritage. Very participatory approach to safeguarding efforts in few did. any formal convention that might be developed. This gave the movement towards a convention an By the mid-1990s, international awareness added boost, especially given the appointment of of and discourse about the consequences of the Japanese diplomat, Koı¨chiro Matsuura, as globalization had increased dramatically. Many Director-General of UNESCO. cultural observers around the world believed that local, regional, even national, traditions were Under Matsuura’s leadership UNESCO devalued or endangered or both. The onslaught of instituted a programme, Masterpieces of the Oral

68 Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ (UK) and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148 (USA) Intangible Cultural Heritage in the 2003 UNESCO Convention Richard Kurin

and Intangible Heritage, which pointed to the value Recognizing intangible cultural heritage in the of such traditions. In 2001, the first nineteen Convention Masterpieces were proclaimed – ranging from Chinese kunqu opera to the balaphone tradition of Not all human cultural activity is defined as Guinea, from Sicilian puppetry to the disappearing intangible cultural heritage in the Convention. oral tradition of an Amazonian rain-forest First, the Convention has as its purview forms of community, from the practice of Dominican con- experience that are aesthetically or conceptually fraternities to the ‘cultural space’ of Morocco’s elaborated. The Convention is focused upon famed Jemaa El-Fna Square in Marrakesh. The ensembles of action that people name as traditions Masterpieces programme was very well received, and regard as meaningful – not mere utilitarian despite considerable conceptual and practical actions. Second, the Convention views heritage as problems about the criteria for selection. It did have something shared within and symbolically immediate and significant impacts – bringing identified with a cultural community, and public attention to and validation for traditions, traditional in that it is socially transmitted from and encouraging local and national governments one generation to the next. Most of the experts to develop action plans to safeguard them. The who helped formulate the Convention assumed programme was seen as a corrective to the that intangible cultural heritage is traditional World Heritage List. That list generally excluded culture and ruled out all sorts of things – avant the cultures of many states, particularly those in garde theatre, video games, pop music, Bollywood the southern hemisphere, because they lacked choreography, contemporary state rituals, monuments and sites. The Masterpieces McDonald’s recipes, American football, programme offered a form of international astrophysics and university legal studies. But the recognition more suited to the particularities of definition, as given in the Convention, can those cultures with strong intangible traditions. encompass a broader range of activity than the framers assumed. Such cultural forms as rap music, Buoyed by the conferences and the success Australian cricket, modern dance, post-modernist of the Masterpieces programme, advocates for a architectural knowledge, and karaoke bars all convention argued that such would inspire symbolize cultural communities (albeit not worldwide attention and also voluntary donations necessarily ethnically or regionally based) and pass of significant funds to support safeguarding on their own traditions (though not usually activities. A preliminary draft convention was genealogically). crafted, following closely the language and structure of the World Heritage treaty. Three Recognizing intangible cultural heritage in meetings of intergovernmental experts in Paris and terms of the Convention is not that obvious and is endorsements by various meetings of cultural sometimes befuddling. Verbal expressions of a ministers accomplished the technical, legal, and particular language – for example stories, tales and diplomatic work needed to bring the Convention sayings are considered intangible cultural heritage, to the UNESCO General Conference. but not a language as a whole.

ISSN 1350-0775, No. 221–222 (Vol. 56, No. 1–2, 2004) 69 DEFINING THE INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE

The differentiation of intangible from Understandably, UNESCO does not want to tangible heritage might also be puzzling. Craft support or encourage practices inimical to human items, such as magnificently elaborate Lithuanian rights such as slavery, infanticide, or torture. Yet crosses are tangible, but the knowledge and skills the standard is not without controversy. Is female to create them intangible. Tools are tangible, but genital mutilation a legitimate part of intangible plans, if thought are not, but if drawn are. This cultural heritage to be recognized by the makes safeguarding most interesting because Convention or not? Is a religious tradition that sometimes the preservation of the tangible and includes Brahmins, but excludes non-Brahmins intangible are intimately conjoined. For example disqualified as intangible cultural heritage because tangible textual scripts, costumes, props and stage of its discriminatory quality? Is a musical tradition settings are part and parcel of a performance where only men play instruments and only women tradition like ’s Sanskrit Kutiyattam theatre sing inequitable, and thus contrary to human rights and Japanese Nogaku theatre. For many peoples, accords? Determining what is allowable or not as separating the tangible and the intangible seems intangible cultural heritage under the Convention quite artificial and makes little sense. For example, will be a difficult task. among many local and indigenous communities, particular land, mountains, volcanoes, caves and Similarly problematic is the ‘mutual other tangible physical features are endowed respect’ clause in the Convention. Intangible with intangible meanings that are thought to be cultural heritage is by definition something used inherently tied to their physicality. Similarly, it is for community self-definition. Many cultural hard to think of the intangible cultural heritage of communities though, define themselves in Muslims on the hajj, Jews praying at the western opposition or resistance to others. Their very wall of Jerusalem’s temple, or Hindus assembling identity as a people or community relies on their for the kumbh mela as somehow divorced and victory over or defeat by others. Their defining distinct from the physical instantiation of songs and tales may celebrate the glory of empire, spirituality. Given that the Convention, in effect, victorious kings, religious conversion, or operationally makes the intangible tangible, the alternatively resistance to perceived injustice, conceptual distinction and separation of the two martyrdom and defeat – not the mutual respect of domains is problematic. peoples. The Convention’s standard is quite idealistic, seeing culture as generally hopeful and Furthermore, according to its explicit positive, born not of historical struggle and conflict provisions, not all intangible cultural heritage is but of a varied flowering of diverse cultural ways. recognized for the purposes of the Convention. Including the ‘mutual respect’ standard can To be recognized, intangible cultural heritage however disqualify much of the world’s traditional must be consistent with human rights, exhibit culture from coverage by the Convention. the need for mutual respect between communities, and be sustainable. This is a very high and one The standard of ‘sustainability’ is might say unrealistic and imposing standard. noteworthy but problematic. Consider that the

70 Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ (UK) and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148 (USA) Intangible Cultural Heritage in the 2003 UNESCO Convention Richard Kurin

whole treaty is about safeguarding heritage own resources, coupled with those of the thought to be endangered to some degree or community for such purposes, as well as seeking other. The very fact that a tradition is endangered UNESCO aid and recognition for those traditions means that it is not sustainable in its current form deemed particularly valuable and especially or in its current context – hence the need for endangered. Once the Convention is ratified, a national or international intervention. Yet by UNESCO fund generated by voluntary members’ definition a tradition to be recognized as dues and donations will be established. UNESCO intangible cultural heritage under the Convention will also form an international committee and an and thus worthy of safeguarding, must itself also internal unit to oversee the work, assuring that be sustainable. The provision, though well safeguarding efforts are based upon empirical meaning, is confusing. Sustainability here is an research, sound assessment and regular ideal to be achieved, not an eligibility requirement evaluation. The committee will also oversee two for action. Cultural workers will have to figure international ‘lists’. One will be a list of out the degree to which a tradition may be ‘representative’ – one might have preferred the sustained – much more a matter of professional term ‘exemplary’ intangible cultural heritage. This judgement than legal stricture. will incorporate the items already designated as Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Heritage by Duties and obligations under the Convention UNESCO. It will be comparable to the World Heritage List. The other list will be that of The Convention commits nations to develop endangered cultural heritage – those traditions inventories of their intangible cultural heritage and recommended to UNESCO for immediate to work with local communities, groups and safeguarding work by the international individual practitioners on various, appropriate community. means of ‘safeguarding’ those traditions. The Convention calls upon nations and communities Are the obligations the Convention to develop action plans for safeguarding culture. imposes reasonable? Are the foreseen impacts Safeguarding those traditions entails their research and outcomes beneficial? Are the Convention’s and documentation, education and transmission, envisioned actions adequate to the stated need? appropriate legal protection, and forms of public recognition and support. Those action plans will The largest obligation imposed by the be formulated with expert involvement, and Convention is that it commits national scholars presumably, to be good, will be based on research, and public servants to the task of composing community input, and comparison with other such comprehensive inventories of intangible cultural interventions. Safeguarding, according to the heritage. There was considerable debate among Convention, must be done with the permission, international experts over the usefulness of co-operation, and substantive decision-making inventory making. For most, it was deemed a involvement of the relevant communities and rational way of identifying and itemizing intangible practitioners. National governments may use their cultural heritage as a prelude to management – just

ISSN 1350-0775, No. 221–222 (Vol. 56, No. 1–2, 2004) 71 DEFINING THE INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE

as is done for other cultural ‘property’ like The difficulty of working with and monuments and archaeological sites. For critics, engaging far-flung isolated communities in safe- this is a huge, never-ending task, using a guarding activities is logistically and sociologically historically discredited methodology challenging. This, anthropologists, folklorists, and misconceiving culture as atomistic items, and linguists usually surmount, albeit imperfectly. The bearing little relationship to the goal – as if such challenges will be considerably greater in cases inventories in themselves could encourage cultural where the cultural community constitutes a very vitality. The former prevailed, arguing prudent large ‘national’ group within a state. Large or management; with the latter anticipating that significant groups might, through cultural making inventories will divert resources and assertion seek their own civic or political public servants away from the task of working with autonomy or even independence from the state specific communities on actual safeguarding party. Working with such communities – activities. particularly those defined as indigenous peoples – will not just be a technical challenge, but rather A second large obligation for states grows call upon very sophisticated political and legal from the Convention’s appropriate recognition that skills given a variety of other national and those who practise the traditions should have the international treaties, often of a contentious major responsibility for their safeguarding; states- nature. parties have to work with them to do so. The problem is how. Efforts by governments to involve The third major obligation for states is cultural communities appropriately recognizes to charge a specific national entity with local agency, but on the downside might require developing action plans to safeguard its the formalization of social relations that detract intangible cultural heritage. Most nations have from the tradition. Most cultural communities are not done this. The typical situation is that constituted informally. Cultural exemplars are within a nation a variety of governmental units, more respected than they are elected. Identifying university departments, and other organizations who speaks for the cultural tradition being have developed rather uncoordinated plans to safeguarded is no easy task – will wise women and address one or another aspect of safeguarding exemplary storytellers have to be elected as such? work. A cultural community may also be beset by factionalism. Developing a means of working A 1995–99 UNESCO survey of actions together is also difficult. There are often great undertaken by nations to safeguard intangible status differentials between public officials and cultural heritage revealed a lack of institutions in experts on the one hand and the practitioners of the field and a paucity of effective programmes. the tradition on the other. Bringing community Many countries have good programmes in place participation into play has been a great challenge to research and document intangible cultural for many cultural projects in the past and will heritage – though there are never enough trained continue to be so in the future. researchers, equipment or supplies, and time to

72 Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ (UK) and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148 (USA) Intangible Cultural Heritage in the 2003 UNESCO Convention Richard Kurin

meet the need. Most nations have developed some Given the disparate state of current form of archives documenting intangible cultural programmes, one would anticipate widely differing heritage, but they generally lack the resources strategies and capabilities of nations in formulating adequate to keep up with cataloguing and their action plans. Many do not have experience in preservation functions. Many are also challenged developing such plans and carrying them out. to digitize their collections and make them Many plans now in place often reflect antiquated accessible to the tradition bearers and the general cookie-cutter approaches, full of assumptions public, whether in analogue or digital form. about the nature of tradition and its preservation. Dissemination and valorization programs for There is, around the world, a real lack of study and intangible cultural heritage typically take the form assessment of best practices. The Convention does of organized festivals, exhibitions, audio not mandate any particular strategies for recordings, films, videos, books, conferences, safeguarding work. educational materials, and increasingly web pages. But overall, nations lack the human and fiscal National action plans may indeed enhance resources to produce these forms of intangible particular traditions and their practitioners, but cultural display in a regular, high-quality manner. they may also have unintended, negative Formal legal measures for the protection of consequences. The revival and revitalization of intangible cultural heritage vary greatly around traditions may, to ensure sustainability, turn the globe, with a wide variety of consequences for religious practices, for example, toward tourist traditional culture – intended and unintended. A and commercial endeavours. The Convention number of governments provide stipends and seeks to have the safeguarding of intangible direct support to tradition bearers through ‘living cultural heritage integrated with other state treasures’ and apprenticeship programmes. These interventions – planning for development, are intended to promote both the status of building institutions, fostering scientific research, tradition bearers and the transmission of the formulating laws, budgets and government particular tradition, but do so only for a miniscule operations. This is most appropriate. Yet the portion of the population. Large-scale projects question of how to accomplish this remains. where government agencies or non-governmental organizations work closely with the cultural The Convention: drawbacks and obstacles community to help perpetuate intangible cultural heritage, tying it in with economic development, Aside from the programmatic obligations, the cultural enterprise, and comprehensive Convention imposes upon states obligations that educational efforts are few and far between – may prove drawbacks and obstacles to its success. though there are encouraging programmes such For one, the Convention calls upon nations to take as the development of community-based ‘necessary measures’ to ‘ensure’ the viability of museums, local-level cultural industries, and even intangible cultural heritage. ‘Necessary measures’ community-controlled cultural tourism can be quite extreme. Surely no one rationally operations. envisions the Convention as safeguarding the

ISSN 1350-0775, No. 221–222 (Vol. 56, No. 1–2, 2004) 73 DEFINING THE INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE

transmission of intangible cultural heritage argument for national control over traditional through such coercive forms as legally requiring cultural expressions, and those who sought to the sons and daughters who practise a tradition to leave such a debate to future treaties – such as a continue in their parents’ footsteps. No cultural looming UNESCO accord on cultural diversity, as treaty should ensure results through the denial of well as those under consideration by the World freedom promised under human-rights accords, Trade Organization and the World Intellectual with the opportunity for social, cultural, and Property Organization. The ‘savings clause’ economic mobility. essentially postpones the discussion of who owns culture, and leaves to this Convention a more A similar over-reach of the Convention programmatic orientation. regards its envisioned results. ‘Safeguarding’ is defined as ‘ensuring the viability of the intangible The Convention: adequate for the task? cultural heritage.’ No cultural intervention can ‘ensure’ such an outcome. Culture changes and The big question about the Convention is whether evolves. Practices of the past are discarded when or not it is up to the task envisioned. Can it really they cease to be functionally useful or symbolically safeguard living cultural practices among the meaningful to a community. UNESCO and diversity of the world’s people? Member States need not guarantee through financial and symbolic rewards the survival of The inventories and lists by themselves those customs and practices, beliefs and traditions may have value for recognizing and valorizing that the community itself wants to discard. Nor various traditions, but will hardly save them. The should they encourage particularly harmful ‘representative’ list that will incorporate the practices, or ‘freeze’ cultural practices in the guise Masterpieces programme will probably continue to of preserving cultural diversity or defending include those traditions that are colourful, against cultural globalization. The true aim of the poignant, have long histories, and a good measure Convention to is to aid traditional cultural of national, if not international, popularity. The list practices and their practitioners so they have the of endangered intangible cultural heritage will note opportunity to survive and even flourish, but not their worthiness for international support, but guarantee such an outcome. not necessarily occasion action plans adequate to sustain them. Another technical consideration and possible drawback is the consistency of the The Convention tends to reduce intangible Convention with other international accords. The cultural heritage to a list of largely expressive Convention has what is called a ‘savings clause’, traditions, atomistically recognized and conceived. which says it has no effect on any rights or The actions it proposes miss the larger, holistic obligations regarding intellectual property. This, aspect of culture – the very characteristic that makes too, was a matter of considerable debate between culture intangible. This is the intricate and complex those who wanted the Convention to bolster the web of meaningful social actions undertaken by

74 Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ (UK) and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148 (USA) Intangible Cultural Heritage in the 2003 UNESCO Convention Richard Kurin

individuals, groups, and institutions. Thousands of the future course of safeguarding practice. It will human cultures today face a myriad of challenges. help implement definitions and criteria, select Whether they survive or flourish depends upon so projects, examine best practices, review plans, many things – the freedom and desire of culture make recommendations for funding, consult with bearers, an adequate environment, a sustaining communities and other experts, and in the end, economic system, a political context within which assess results and Convention impacts. their very existence is at least tolerated. Actions to safeguard ‘tangibilized’ inventoried items of cultural Importantly, this committee can provide a production are unlikely to safeguard adequately the core function with regard to the improvement larger, deeper, more diffuse intangible cultural in cultural work, hopefully galvanizing the patterns and contexts. Saving songs may not protect intellectual tools and organizational efforts which the ways of life of their singers, or the appreciation have lagged behind the need to safeguard due by listeners. Far greater more holistic and intangible cultural heritage around the world. systematic action is likely to be required. Heretofore, experts have not developed the theory and practice for saving languages, ensuring the Conclusion continuity of musical traditions over hundreds of years, applying the rich and disparate knowledge The International Convention for the Safeguarding of folk communities to contemporary life, or using of the Intangible Cultural Heritage has come a long living cultural resources in a wise and sustainable way from the much more conceptually way for economic development. Fortunately, now, problematic Recommendation that preceded it. this deficiency can be addressed. Given the both the subject matter and the nature of international treaties, perfection is an illusive The Convention does some very good attainment. Yet the desire of Member States and things. It reinforces the idea that the practice of experts to do at least some good for endangered one’s culture is a human right. It seeks government cultures and traditions outweighs the fears of recognition and respect for the varied cultural doing inadvertent harm or nothing at all. The traditions practised by people within its Convention is clearly a work in progress wherein jurisdiction. It seeks to bolster the idea that all experts and community people, policy-makers cultures give purpose and meaning to lives and and scholars will try to figure out how to thus deserve to be safeguarded. It privileges the safeguard cultures over the coming years. The culture bearers over the state. It suggests that forms Convention itself sets out a viable means of of safeguarding be integrated with legal, addressing the problems and legitimate concerns educational, and economic development efforts raised by critics. This is to be done through the where appropriate so that culture retains its vitality formulation of an international committee of and dynamism. Now, with this Convention, a cultural experts under the auspices of UNESCO, mechanism will be put into place at the elected by the General Assembly for the international level where those efforts may be Convention. The committee will help determine energized and improved to take on the task. While

ISSN 1350-0775, No. 221–222 (Vol. 56, No. 1–2, 2004) 75 DEFINING THE INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE

doubts persist about the institutional machinery and the ability of the Convention to attract adequate external funding appropriate to the level of need, the Convention may still provide an important opportunity. For cultural advocates around the globe, and for many communities and tradition bearers, the International Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage is a welcome addition to the tool-kit of resources available for accomplishing valuable cultural work.

76 Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ (UK) and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148 (USA) Intangible Cultural Heritage in the 2003 UNESCO Convention Richard Kurin Miguel Gandert Ó

12

12. The Oruro carnival, Bolivia, was proclaimed by UNESCO as a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity in 2001. The cultural memory is embodied in these practices, not in the object.

ISSN 1350-0775, No. 221–222 (Vol. 56, No. 1–2, 2004) 77