Nematerijalna Kulturna Baština, Identiteti I Vrijednosti

Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research Šubićeva 42 10 000 Zagreb

Project: Croatian Intangible Cultural Heritage, Social Identities and Values

Category of the Proposal: Research Project under the Topic “Values and Identities,” Scientific Area of Humanistic Sciences.

I. Project summary

Short Description The project Croatian Intangible Cultural Heritage, Social Identities and Values addresses intangible cultural heritage (ICH) as a new conceptual framework for the critical rethinking of the tradition and its plurality of identities. The aim is to promote the research, scientific, documentary and advisory competency of young scientists. We will support local communities to make their heritage recognizable and exchangeable and prepare for the new European project which will connect institutions with collected data on heritage. The practical value is in saving insights, documents and studies into specialized heritage data bases, keeping a wide circle of users informed about the possibilities for revitalizing, safeguarding and branding heritage, and its protection from commercialization and possible abuse.

International Context The concept of the pluralism of heritage and the empowerment of bearers has been initiated by UNESCO. Heritage is the result of a cultural production which infuses it with new life and values; it can be exchanged globally. UNESCO has recognized the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research (IEF) as a competent expertise centre. The submitter, Tvrtko Zebec, is the representative of the Republic of Croatia to the Intergovernmental Committee of UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Institute is a member of the European network Research into ICH. By opening the Referral Centre of the ICH, Institute would affirm itself as a centre of excellence, and the associates would be affirmed as social arbiters who promote new trends in safeguarding heritage and offer advice on the shortcomings and contradictions of the Convention itself. Analysis of UNESCO’s program is becoming a relevant scientific field; The International Journal of Intangible Heritage was launched in Seoul, and a series of publications Göttinger Studien zu Cultural Property was released by the University of Göttingen.

The project will investigate three levels of heritage production:

I. Managing Heritage in situ Heritage listed in registers will be documented. Case studies will investigate local concepts of heritage and feedback on the safeguarding, commercial and tourist usage, the interdependence of tangible and intangible heritage, issues of intellectual property rights, transnational cultural expressions and borderlines of heritage and the transfer of knowledge and know-how to younger generations.

II. Representing Heritage Values

1 Present research projects on heritage and their fundamental methodological standpoints and topics observed will be reevaluated. New ways of presenting heritage will be devised, the network of bearers will be maintained, specialized data bases will be made available on web pages of the Institute.

III. The Relationship between Heritage, Identity and Community will be reconsidered according to theories of interdependence. Community is constituted through heritage and heritage is the foundation upon which identities, through performance, are realized. Such dynamism will be researched in the context of the processes of globalization and (multi)culturalization with regard to multiple identities, under assumption that the production of heritage helps to overcome social tensions by promoting cultural diversity, intercultural dialog and human values. By questioning these relationships this project is completely aligned with the thematic priority of the call for proposals.

II. Specific Goals and Methods

The goals are the development of the research, scientific, advisory and expert potentials of the associates, and an innovative technological-informational development of the documentation centre in accordance with international criteria of excellence.

I. Research and Scientific Competencies Our team, which includes three renowned researchers, and our access to the internationally competitive area of ethnographic description and evaluation of heritage, assure the transfer of knowledge and competencies to younger associates. With various approaches to tradition and identity, rethinking the ambivalence of the researcher’s position and ethical principles, research will be founded on qualitative ethnographic methods and case studies. It will include ethnographic observation with participation in the communities whose heritage is included in registry or is in the process of being so categorised.

II. Expert Knowledge and its Application The goal is to enable younger associates, through the transfer of knowledge and skills and their own fieldwork experience, to develop into experts. By publishing research findings, organizing workshops and evaluating the applications to heritage lists, associates will become capable evaluators and cultural arbiters; their knowledge will be useful to governance bodies and to members of particular social groups.

III. Establishing a Referral Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage The goal is to affirm IEF as an international centre of excellence in the area of intangible heritage. This presupposes the technical development of the Institute's documentation centre, which will involve the conversion of documentation to electronic format and the establishment of a network interface and a virtual repository of heterogeneous materials, with the support of the European or regional project in the area FP7 of ICT – Information and Communication Technologies. The initial funds will facilitate the drafting of the concept for such a future European project. The Centre will enable access to the data bases of other similar institutions.

2 III. Expected Results and Significance of the Project

The potential of project is in multiple connections of our scholars with the international scientific community, the bearers of the ICH, NGO’s, governing bodies, legal experts in protection of intellectual property and public ownership, and business people in cultural tourism.

Expected results according to goals:

I. Development of research and scientific competencies: - International scientific conference - Proceedings of the conference - Collected and documented fieldwork material digitized (e.g., publishing of Croatian musical heritage stored in Viennese Phonogrammarchiv)

II. Advisory activities, development of expert knowledge and its application: - Workshops for introducing UNESCO's program for safeguarding of the ICH to local communities, with the presentation of best practices - Manual for writing applications for inclusion on the lists of the ICH - Further cooperation with the Ministry of Culture, NGO’s, local and minority communities and Croats in the diaspora

III. Establishing a Referral Centre for the Intangible Cultural Heritage: - Internet page for the Referral Centre - Networking with similar institutions and individuals who possess documented materials on the ICH - Specialized data bases - Completed flowchart of the activities of the Referral Centre and continuation of digitization of documentation as the basis for application for grants at FP7 (ICT)

The results will be better visibility of our experts in the international research market and active participation in the implementation of safeguarding, popularizing and branding of the ICH. The Institute’s practice of a cyclic transfer of knowledge from the scientific sphere (fieldwork and interpretation), through advisory activity for targeted groups (administration and local communities) and to the public (media which promote UNESCO’s actions and, indirectly, also the scientific results of IEF) would be strengthened in this way.

IV. Support of the Institution (up to 400 words)

Investigating and documenting of the ICH and reconsidering its role in shaping and expressing identity is an integral part of the permanent activity of the IEF, as a scholarly contribution to national policy for its safeguarding and protection. The Institute is a unique centre of ethnological, ethnomusicological, folklore and related research activities in the Republic of Croatia, with emphasis on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary critical research of culture. Included in the Institute’s strategic plan (2010-2015) are the research of heritage values of Croatian identity and the

3 establishment of the Referral Centre for the ICH (see Znanstvena djelatnost: Strategija, in http://www.ief.hr).

Research on Croatian traditional culture in the past and present (from performances within local communities and festivals to representations transmitted through media), while investigating the positionality upon which various discourses on heritage are constructed, will advance our existing knowledge of the values of heritage and Croatian identity. Development of the Institute's documentation centre (as the largest and most systematic archive of the ICH in Croatia) into the Referral Centre will link together all institutions in Croatia and in countries which have the relevant material about Croatian heritage, including the heritage of national minorities in Croatia and Croats abroad. This will ensure better support to scientists in their research and make available to a wider cultural public the valuable body of documents about Croatian traditional culture, linked into networks of collected materials of other institutions and organizations that cherish ICH (especially cultural organizations, bearers and knowledge holders of heritage, creators of touristic politics and promoters of sustainable development). The proposed project supports the education of young scientists: seven young scientists (4 post-doc and 3 graduating) and one professional associate will be working alongside of three research advisors and one research associate. The teamwork of researchers of multiple generations will stimulate the flow of new ideas and the transfer of knowledge and experience gained in ongoing research, study and evaluation of the ICH. The Institute has a modern equipped space of documentation, library and publishing and offices for scientists and associates with personal computers and appropriate technical equipment for fieldwork and documenting of material. With the existing experience, this infrastructure already offers much toward the successful completion of the proposed research. With everything stated here the proposed project fits into strategic priorities, i.e., is aligned with the direction of the thematic priorities of the Croatian Science Foundation.