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Prof. Dr. Christoph Wulf

Freie Universität Berlin

Erziehung und Anthropologie D-14169 Berlin Arnimallee 11 Germany

DOI: 10.24153/2079-5912-2017-8-3-4-12

THE PERFORMATIVITY AND DYNAMICS OF INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Introduction The practices of intangible cultural heritage are central to the cultural Christoph Wulf is Professor of Anthropology heritage of humanity, which comprises practices from a plethora of different and Education and a member of the cultures as well as monuments listed as world cultural heritage. These oeuvres Interdisciplinary Centre for Historical Anthropology, the Collaborative Research and practices play an important role in the cultural identity of human beings. Centre (SFB) “Cultures of Performance,” the They are an expression of cultural diversity, they can promote inter-human Cluster of Excellence “Languages of processes of mediation and initiate educational development on many Emotion,” and the Graduate School levels which conveys cultural heritage to the next generation. Engaging with “InterArts” at the Freie Universität Berlin. His these practices under the conditions of globalisation permits us to make books have been translated into 15 languages. For his research in anthropology important experiences of heterogeneity and otherness (Wulf/Merkel 2002; and anthropology of education, he received Wulf 2006; Paragrana 2010). the title “professor honoris causa” from the The importance of the monuments listed by UNESCO as world cultural University of Bucharest. He is Vice President of heritage for the cultural self-understanding of man is undisputed – by the German Commission for UNESCO. contrast, the role of the practices of intangible cultural heritage is subject to Research stays and invited professorships have included the following locations, more controversial debate. This is all the more surprising given that the among others: Stanford, California; Tokyo, monuments have arisen out of man's intangible cultural practices. Japan; Kyoto, Japan; Beijing, China; Mysore, In the context of the growing influence in modern societies of India; Paris, France; Modena, Italy; individualisation and personal autonomy, we are at times confronted with Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Stockholm, the view that many practices of intangible cultural heritage have today Sweden; London, England; and Saint Petersburg, Russia. become superfluous and could be replaced by other practices. Just like in Major research areas: historical and cultural the old days, however, communal life is impossible without the practices of anthropology, educational anthropology, intangible cultural heritage. They are historical and cultural products, and in mimesis, aesthetics, rituals and emotions. studying them, the cultural determination of the phenomena themselves and Christoph Wulf is editor, co-editor and the culturally determined character of the research perspectives brought to member of the editorial staff of several national and international journals. them come to be superimposed upon one another (Wulf 2002, 2010, 2013).

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In the following, seven aspects highlighting the specific body and man's very existence which is based upon it, with its character and the specific relevance of practices of concomitant bodily presence and vulnerability. Through the intangible cultural heritage are treated in turn (Wulf et alii staging of practices of intangible cultural heritage, cultural 2004a, 2004b, 2010, 2011): communalities are produced, and this production process is not only linguistic and communicative, but also bodily and • the human body as medium, material. People stage themselves and their relations, and in • practices of communication and interaction, so doing produce culture. In staging and performing intangible cultural practices, they bring forth cultural orders • mimetic learning and practical knowledge, which express, among other things, power relations between • the performativity of cultural practices, the members of various social strata, between generations and between the sexes. By virtue of being performed and • central structural and functional elements, expressed in bodily arrangements, the practices of intangible cultural heritage take on the appearance of being "natural" • difference and otherness, and universally accepted. By inviting us to "join in and play • inter-cultural learning. along", they facilitate the unquestioning acceptance of the cultural orders which show themselves in them. Whoever The human body as medium declines the invitation to "join in an play along" in a cultural In contrast to architectural monuments, which are easily community puts himself beyond the pale, is excluded and identified and protected, the forms of intangible cultural can become a scapegoat and thus a surface for the heritage are much more difficult to pick out, to convey and projection for negativity and violence (Girard 1982). to conserve. Whereas the architectural oeuvres of world cultural heritage are fashioned from relatively durable Practices of communication and interaction material, the forms of intangible cultural heritage are subject For the genesis and practice of religion, society and to historic and cultural change to a far higher degree. While community, politics and the economy, culture and art, architecture produces material cultural objects, the human learning and education, the practices of intangible cultural body is the medium of the forms and figurations of intangible heritage are essential. With their help, the world and the cultural heritage. That is the case in 1. oral traditions and modalities of human life are ordered and interpreted; within modes of expression, including language; 2. the performing them, they are experienced and constructed. The practices arts; 3. social practices, rituals and celebrations; 4. naturist of intangible cultural heritage create a connection between practices; 5. the skills and knowledge of traditional arts and past, present and future; they make continuity and change, crafts, among others. If we wish to grasp the specific structure and society as well as experiences of transition and character of intangible cultural heritage, we need above all transcendence possible. to reflect and acknowledge the fundamental role which the In the current political situation, which is characterised in human body plays as its carrier. many parts of the globe by debates about the disintegration A number of consequences ensue from the fact that the of the social, the loss of values and the search for cultural human body is the medium of intangible cultural heritage. Its identity, these practices are increasingly gaining in bodily practices are determined by the passage of time and importance. There is an expectation that they will bridge the the temporality of the human body. They depend on the gap between individuals, communities and cultures. The dynamics of time and space. Unlike cultural monuments, the practices of intangible cultural heritage appear today to practices of intangible cultural heritage are not fixed. They create cultural coherence mainly by virtue of presenting are subject to processes of transformation linked to social forms which, by their ethical and aesthetic content, offer change and exchange. Interlaced with the dynamics of life, security in times where the big picture is easily lost from sight. they are characterised by their process-like nature and more The practices of intangible cultural heritage hold out the susceptible to the pull of homogenising tendencies. promise of compensating for the experience of losing As the practices of intangible cultural heritage are contextualisation in a community – an experience associated performances and mises-en-scènes of the body, they tend to with modernity – of compensating for the experience of have greater social weight than mere discourses. For with losing a sense of cultural identity and authenticity – their bodily presence, the cultural actors invest the associated with the tendencies to individualisation, community with "something extra" in addition to the spoken virtualisation and simulation as well as with the erosion of word. This "something extra" is rooted in the materiality of the social and cultural systems.

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Cultural communities constitute themselves through The importance of mimetic processes for the transfer of verbal and non-verbal forms of interaction and practices of intangible cultural heritage can hardly be communication. Many of the practices of intangible cultural overestimated. These processes are sensual; they are tied to heritage are, as it were, performed on "stages"; by means of the human body, they relate to human behaviour and staging and performing, forms of cohesiveness and intimacy, seldom unfold consciously. Through mimetic processes, of communal solidarity and integration are produced. human beings incorporate images and patterns of practices Communities are distinguished not only by a collectively of intangible cultural heritage, which subsequently become shared symbolic knowledge, but to an even greater degree part of their inner world of images and imaginations. Mimetic by cultural action, in which they stage and perform such processes transfer the world of intangible cultural heritage knowledge in the practices of intangible cultural heritage, into the inner world of man. They contribute to a cultural thereby expressing the self-projection and reproduction of enrichment of this inner world and broaden it, thus furthering culture. Communities are dramatised fields of action, which man's development and education. In mimetic processes, the are constituted as symbolic stagings within spheres of practical knowledge necessary for the staging and experience through intangible practices of cultural heritage performance of cultural actions is acquired. This culturally and which form a system of communication and interaction diverse knowledge develops in the context of the staging of (Turner 1966; Geertz 1973; Grimes 1995). the body and plays a special role in the creation of cultural Human beings communicate and interact in practices of performances in modified form. As a practical form of intangible cultural heritage. These practices are bodily, knowledge, it is a result of a mimetic acquisition of performative, expressive, symbolic, rule-based, non- performative behaviour, which in itself develops out of a instrumental, efficient; they are repetitive, homogenous, bodily form of know-how. playful, public and operational; in the practices of intangible As practical knowledge, mimesis and performativity are cultural heritage, collectively shared knowledge and mutually intertwined – repetition plays a big role in the transfer collectively shared practices of action are staged and of intangible cultural knowledge. Cultural competence only performed and the self-projection and self-interpretation of develops in cases in which socially formed behaviour is cultural orders reaffirmed. repeated, and in being repeated, modified. Without Practices of intangible cultural heritage have a beginning repetition, without the mimetic rapport to something present and an end and therefore a temporal structure of or past, no cultural competence can come into being. For communication and interaction. They take place in cultural that reason, repetition is a central element of transferring spheres which they in turn help shape; they have a intangible cultural heritage to the following generation pronounced character, they are conspicuous and (Boetsch/Wulf 2005). determined by their respective framing (Goffman 1974). The performativity of cultural practices Mimetic learning and practical knowledge The performativity of practices of intangible cultural Practices of intangible cultural heritage are largely heritage comprises at least three dimensions appropriated in mimetic processes, in which the practical (Wulf/Göhlich/Zirfas 2001; Wulf/Zirfas 2007). Such practices knowledge necessary for their staging and performance is may firstly be grasped as communicative cultural acquired (Bell 1992, Sahlins 1976). These learning-processes performances. As such, they are the result of mises-en-scène take place first and foremost when people participate in and processes of bodily performance. Their unfolding deals cultural mises-en-scène and performances, in which mimetic with the cultural arrangement of social scenes, in which the processes unfold as processes of creative imitation. Those actors fulfil different functions. As speaking and acting relate behaving mimetically attempt, in these processes, to become to one another, their interaction produces cultural scenes. like their role-models. These processes of mimetic likening Just like works of art and literature, the practices of intangible differ from one person to the next and depend on the way of cultural heritage may be construed as the outcome of relating to the world, to other persons and to oneself. In these cultural actions, in the course of which even divergent social mimetic processes, people take an "imprint" of the cultural forces are subsumed into an accepted cultural order. world and in so doing make it a part of themselves. At the Secondly, the performative character of speech is of same time, the practices of intangible cultural heritage are crucial significance in the practices of intangible cultural thus passed on to the next generation (Gebauer/Wulf 1995, heritage, made explicit for example in rituals of baptism and 1998). communion, of transition and investiture, instances in which the words spoken during the performance of the ritual

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practices contribute substantially to the creation of a new aspects of bodily performativity are missing from many reality. The same is true for cultural practices in which the traditional theories of action, in which the actors are still relation of the sexes to one another is organised and in which reduced to their cognitive dimension, while the sensual and repeatedly addressing a child as "boy" or "girl" contributes to contextual conditions within which they act are ignored. In the development of gender identity. order to avoid such reductionism, we have to remind Finally, the performative also comprises an aesthetic ourselves, and keep in mind, how the practices of intangible dimension, constitutive of artistic performances. Without cultural heritage emerge, how they are linked to language taking this dimension into account, many other practices of and imagination, how their uniqueness is made possible intangible cultural heritage cannot be made transparent. This through social and cultural patterns and how their event-like aesthetic perspective points to the limits of a functionalist dimension relates to their repetitive aspects (Wulf 2006; view of the performativity of cultural acts. Just as the Wulf/Zirfas 2004). aesthetic regard upon artistic performances prohibits reducing them to acts determined merely by the intention of Central structural and functional elements attaining functional goals, so it reminds us, that the practices The practices of intangible cultural heritage have many of intangible cultural heritage are "more" than the different functions, which they can nonetheless never quite manifestations of concrete intention (Fischer-Lichte/Wulf 2001, be reduced to in any exhaustive sense. Their importance for 2004). human communities consists, in my opinion, of the following Even when the intentions they serve are identical, the ten points: staging of bodily performances of intangible cultural heritage 1. Culture as the result of practices of intangible cultural often exhibits important differences. Among the reasons are heritage general historical conditions, cultural and social conditions Communities are unthinkable without the practices of and finally conditions associated with the uniqueness of the intangible cultural heritage, for they are formed and protagonists. The interplay of both kinds of factor produces transformed in and through cultural processes and practices. the performative character of linguistic, social and aesthetic Via the symbolic content of many forms of interaction and action in cultural mises-en-scène and performances. At the communication, and especially via the performative same time, the limits of the predictability and manageability processes of generating interaction and meaning, practices of practices of intangible cultural heritage are made of intangible cultural heritage guarantee and stabilise the transparent when we consider their specific, event- and community itself. The community is the basis, the performance process-like character. By taking into account their aesthetic and the effect of cultural action. Many practices of intangible dimension, the significance of the style of cultural practices is cultural heritage transform, by their specificity, non- made visible. The difference between conscious determined into determined behaviour. The techniques and purposefulness and the manifold layers of meaning accruing practices associated with this transformation serve the to the scenic arrangement of bodies is obvious. The repetition of the necessary enactments, their being performative character of practices of intangible cultural amenable to direction and control and making identifiable heritage invites many different interpretations and readings, causes, effects and disturbances. without this difference of interpretation diminishing the effect Communities are distinguished not only by the common of the cultural arrangements as such (Schechner 1977; sphere of a collectively shared symbolic knowledge, but Tambiah 1979; Turner 1982). On the contrary: part of the above all through forms of cultural interaction and effects of the practices of intangible cultural heritage flows communication, in which and through which they stage this precisely from the fact that the same practices admit of knowledge. Such staging can be understood as the attempt different readings, without detrimental consequences for the to guarantee the self-representation, reproduction and magic of their practice (Frazer 1996, Bourdieu 1972). integrity of the cultural order, to produce symbolic knowledge Communication crucially depends on how people make by communicating and above all to generate spheres of use of their body in their culturally determined behaviour and interaction, dramatic fields of action. Many practices of action, which body distances they keep, which body intangible cultural heritage produce community emotionally, postures they adopt, which gestures they develop. By these symbolically and through performance, they are stage-like, means, people communicate much about themselves and expressive actions, in which the participants, via mimetic their approach to life, about their way of seeing, feeling and processes, reciprocally attune the worlds of their perception experiencing the world. Despite their central importance for and imagination to one another's – without a comprehensive the effects and consequences of cultural action, these accord as to the ambiguity of the symbolism involved being

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possible. By guaranteeing the integration of a cultural context Practices of intangible cultural heritage serve the purpose of action, the practices of intangible cultural heritage aim at of time and again reassuring oneself of the presence of a the formation of community. community, of reasserting through repetition its timeless and immutable order and its potential for transformation and of 2. Practices of intangible cultural heritage as generators of giving both permanence. They aim as much at the staging of order continuity, timelessness and immutability as at the process-like As cultural templates for action, the practices of character and the future- and projection-orientation of intangible cultural heritage develop a specific regularity, communities. Practices of intangible cultural heritage conventionality and correctness implying a practical horizon synthesise social memories and communal projections of the of apperception and knowledge for communities. It is future. The cultural mediation of dealing with time fosters impossible to determine whether the cultural practices arise temporal and social competence. Ordered temporal from the social order or whether the social order is generated patterns are a medium of social life – viz. the way the cultural in the first instance through cultural actions. The practices of order of time structures the entirety of life in industrial society. intangible cultural heritage are bodily practices, which The time of the practices of intangible cultural heritage is the determine form and content of experiencing, thinking and co-presence of the community members, whose time is in turn remembering, and which reduce and extend, channel and itself divided into temporal sequences by these practices. In transform them. For that reason, they generate a special form this way, cultural action promotes certain memories and of reality. Within them, the point is not truth, but taking the exposes others to withering away. By their repetitive structure, right action. The correctness of communal action means that many practices of intangible cultural heritage signal durability the protagonists are able to decode the symbolic content of and immutability and thus produce and control social a situation according to specific rules produced through the memory. Cultural performances bring past events into the practices of intangible cultural heritage. These practices aim presence, make them accessible to present experience. With at correctness and thus at ordering communal action in a the aid of efforts at cultural remembrance, a connection may way compulsory for all participants. If the common practice be formed between the presence (threatened with being of cultural action is based upon a structural asymmetry, the forgotten) and that past which is meaningful, as tradition and practices of intangible cultural heritage may also serve history, to the community. Practices of intangible cultural adaptation, manipulation or suppression. heritage evolve because they can never be performed as an exact reproduction. Rather, they are always mimetic, and in 3. The production of identification through practices of these mimetic processes, the creative potentialities are, intangible cultural heritage through repetition, already built-in (Gebauer/Wulf 1995, 1998). The potential for identification and transformation of practices of intangible cultural heritage stems from their 5. Overcoming crises symbolical and performative character, it resides in their When communities experience differentiation and face creative and reality-generating dimension. In them, a new situations of crisis, many practices of intangible cultural order is produced, the achievement of a new state of being, heritage can contribute to channelling and even overcoming the emergence of a new cultural reality – a cultural reality the crisis scenarios. They may promote a communicative which looks as though it were natural and which for that mediation and understanding of a novel situation reason makes distancing oneself from (or resisting to) it experienced as threatening and as rupturing the framework difficult. In may cultural practices, things revolve around an of the everyday. These practices do not form instrumental "evocation", that is to say, around the ascription of a blueprints for action and cannot serve as technical means to competency, an ability. These identificatory practices are solving concrete problems. The force achieved in communal performances which bring forth what they denote, by cultural action exceeds the possibilities of the individuals and enjoining humans to an ability which they do not yet possess, leads to the creation of community and solidarity. and by at the same time recognising them as those which they are yet to become. In this process, cultural being 6. The relation to the sacred in practices of intangible emerges through ascriptions, denotations and cultural heritage categorisations. In many practices of intangible cultural heritage, situations are rehearsed and practiced which escape comprehensive 4. Practices of intangible cultural heritage as control in "real life" contexts. For that reason, practices of remembrance and projection intangible cultural heritage can serve to relate the self to its

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"externality", by drawing dividing lines, by bridging distances actions undertaken previously. Each performance of a and by believing that the mimetic and performative forces cultural practice is based upon a new mise-en-scène which unleashed in cultural practices act not just inwards but also leads to modifications of prior cultural actions. Between past, outwards, upon "reality". In this way, in certain practices of present and future cultural actions a mimetic relationship intangible cultural heritage one becomes someone entirely exists, within which new actions are produced with reference "different", that is to say relates as such, transformed, to the to previous ones. In mimetic processes, a relationship to an "utterly different", to the sacred. The sacred provides cultural existing cultural world is established, frequently based upon a interactions with an organising solidarity, endows them with link of likeness: a likeness of occasions, of protagonists or of taboos and draws borderlines which in turn imbue time, the social functions of the cultural actions. The decisive space, objects and actions with extraordinary significance. element is not, however, the likeness, but producing a The sacred may be understood as the idea of a specific form relationship to the other world. When a cultural action is of transcendental effectiveness and power relating to linked to a previous one and performed in likeness to it, a wish objects, actions, writing, people and communities etc., exists to do something like the protagonists to whom this shrouded with sentiments of diffidence and awe and relationship refers, to liken oneself to them. This wish is rooted surrounded by a codex of norms, rules and taboos (Eliade in the desire to become like the others, but at the same time 1959). The community depends upon the sacred, in the sense to differentiate oneself from them. In spite of the desire to that the cultural relatedness to the sacred fulfils the function become alike, a desire for difference and autonomy persists. of governing integration, delimitation and exchange within Many practices of intangible cultural heritage tend, the community. By the same token, many practices of simultaneously and with equal urgency, towards repetition intangible cultural heritage are based upon a specific belief and difference, thus setting free energies which drive the in the transcendent, in the sacred dimension of community, staging and performance of cultural actions, and from this hence the significance of sacred holidays and festivities for dynamic stems their productivity. Whilst maintaining communities (Durkheim 1968, Kamper/Wulf 1998). continuity, they offer scope for discontinuity and open up a field for the negotiation of the relation between continuity 7. Practices of intangible cultural heritage as media for and discontinuity. dealing with difference Many practices of intangible cultural heritage, and rituals 9. Practices of intangible cultural heritage as progenitors especially, are action-guiding systems for dealing with of practical knowledge difference. By guaranteeing the integration of an interactive In order to act with cultural competence, not so much context for action, rituals aim at integration and the formation theoretical as practical knowledge is necessary. This is what of community. The concept of a community of performance enables people to act in accordance with the respective does not refer to a prior, organic or natural entity, to an requirements in various social spheres, institutions and emotional sense of belonging, to a symbolic system of organisations. In large parts, such practical knowledge is significance or to collective value-consensus, but rather to acquired in mimetic processes, through which the actors cultural patterns of interaction. The question how integrate images, rhythms, schemes and movements of ritual communities engender, assert and transform themselves patterns into the world of their imagination. Mimetic brings to the fore cultural forms of mise-en-scène, bodily and processes are the conduits for staging and performing the linguistic practices, spatial and temporal frameworks as well cultural action required in new contexts. Mimetic acquisition as various forms of mimetic circulation. Community from this engenders a practical knowledge within the protagonists perspective appears less as a homogenous, integrative and which can be transferred onto other situations. As a authentic sphere of proximity but rather as an experiential consequence of this knowledge, the mimetically acquired range of tensions, limitations and processes of mediation and practical knowledge is practiced, developed and adapted bargaining. We term a community of performance a cultural through repetition. Practical knowledge, thus incorporated, is sphere of action and experience characterised by stage-like, historical and cultural in character and as such intrinsically mimetic, playful and power-related dimensions (Wulf et alii open to change (Wulf 2002a, 2002b, 2013). 2004a, 2004b, 2010, 2011). 10. Practices of intangible cultural heritage as means for 8. Practices of intangible cultural heritage as initiators of producing subjectivity mimetic processes For a long time, traditional cultural practices (such as Cultural action does not bring forth a mere copy of rituals) and individuality/ subjectivity were held to be

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contradictory. It is only recently that it has become accepted Globalisation has developed the following three strategies that this is not the case in modern societies. The actions of for reducing otherness: egocentrism, logocentrism and individuals are the result of practical knowledge, for the ethnocentrism. development of which numerous cultural practices are essential. That is not to say that there are no tensions and Egocentrism: The processes which contribute to conflicts between community and individuals, the irreducible constituting modern subjectivity and to the genesis of difference between the two is too marked. Nevertheless, the egocentrism have been studied from a great variety of two are mutually dependent, one is the precondition of the perspectives (Elias 1976, Foucault 1977). Technologies of the other. A fulfilled individual life is possible only where individuals self abet the development of individual subjects. Many of are able to act and communicate competently in cultural these strategies are tied to the idea of a self-sufficient self, communities. Likewise, a community requires differentiated which is meant to lead its own life and must develop its own individuals able to behave in a socially and culturally biography. The unintended side-effects of a self-sufficient competent way, and which acquire, develop and adapt subjectivity are nevertheless manifold. The processes of self- these abilities in the corresponding practices of intangible determination frequently overstretch people's capacities. cultural heritage. Other processes defy self-determination and strain against the hope of autonomous action. On the one hand, Difference and otherness egocentrism constitutes modern subjectivity, confers powers Protecting the practices of intangible cultural heritage of survival, of domination and adaptation upon the individual requires the development of a sensitivity for the other. To subject. On the other hand, it does not allow for differences avoid reducing cultural difference to sameness, to avoid and reduces diversity. The attempts of the individual subject utterly homogenising cultural diversity requires the to reduce the other to his utility, functionality and availability development of a sensitivity for cultural heterogeneity, i.e. for are efficient – and yet simultaneously fail time and again. This difference and otherness. Only by fostering a sense for insight opens up new perspectives for dealing with difference otherness can we avoid the standardisation of culture which and otherness as a new field of knowledge and research. results from blindly homogenising processes of globalisation (Wulf/Merkel 2002, Wulf 2006). Both outstanding instances of Logocentrism: As a consequence of logocentrism, we practices of intangible cultural heritage and their daily social perceive the other solely through the prism of criteria derived routine are of central importance for the experience of from European rationality. We accept only what accords to difference and otherness. the laws of reason, all else is excluded. He who sides with reason is right, even when the reason in question is The impression, which some may have gained at a reductionist and functional. Thus, parents are mostly right vis- certain point, that difference and otherness were bound to à-vis their children, civilised people vis-à-vis the so-called gradually dissolve, has been decisively negated by the primitives, the healthy vis-à-vis the sick and so forth. Those in developments of recent years. Things, situations and people possession of reason are superior to those endowed with in the heart of our familiar everyday world suddenly become lesser forms of rational action. The more someone's language strange and unknown. Norms of life, binding for a long time, and reason deviate from the general norm, the more difficult are questioned and lose their validity. The attempt to grasp it becomes to approach and understand him. Nietzsche, the other through an extension of reasoned understanding Freud, Adorno and many others have criticised this self- has not led to the expected results. On the contrary, more sufficiency of reason and pointed out that human life is only and more people are experiencing that the familiar everyday partly accessible to reason. life with which they are so well acquainted is accompanied by insecurity, out of which time and again experiences of the Ethnocentrism: In the course of history, ethnocentrism has strange and unknown arise. Contexts and relationships long destroyed many forms of difference and otherness for good. held to be valid appear suddenly transformed and unreliable. The processes which have led to the destruction of foreign The more we know, the greater the complexity of the world, cultures have been analysed many times over. Among the of social contexts and of our own lives. The more we know, most atrocious examples is the colonisation of Central and the greater the extent of our ignorance. Even though we South America in the name of Christ and the Christian kings frequently attempt to reduce the other to someone identical, (Todorov 1982, Greenblatt 1991). The conquest of South we invariably fail. Just as it always has been, the strange is a America meant the suppression of local cultures. Indigenous precondition of cultural diversity. values, ideas and practices of worship were replaced with

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the forms and content of European culture. Everything Intercultural education foreign, everything different was eradicated. The natives In order to win people over to an appreciation of cultural were unable to grasp the insidiousness of the Spaniards. They diversity and the importance of protecting and advancing had to experience that the Spaniards' friendliness was not all intangible cultural heritage, inter- and trans-cultural it purported to be. Promises, for example, were given not in perspectives are required, today more than ever. Today, order to be kept, but to mislead and deceive the natives. many people no longer belong to just one culture, but Each and every action served other goals than those it partake of various cultural traditions. Intercultural or trans- pretended to serve. The interests of the crown and of the cultural education is a means of supporting them in dealing Christian mission and the inferiority of the indigenous peoples with the cultural differences inherent within themselves, in their legitimised the colonial conduct. In addition, economic immediate surroundings and in encounters with others. motives abetted the destruction of other forms of viewing the Identity cannot be conceived of without otherness, so that world. intercultural education implies a relational link mediating between an irreducibly fractal self and many forms of Egocentrism, logocentrism and ethnocentrism are closely otherness. In these processes, hybrid forms of culture are intertwined, and as strategies of transforming the other they becoming increasingly important. If understanding others mutually reinforce one another. Their shared objective relates to understanding oneself and vice versa, then the consists in destroying otherness and to replace it with process of intercultural education is also a process of learning something we are used to. The obliteration of the diversity of about, of educating oneself. If successful, it will establish the cultures is the consequence. People could only survive by insight into the fundamental impossibility of understanding the accepting and taking on the culture of the victors. A special other. Given the disenchantment of the world and the tragedy lies in those cases where the annihilation of local decrease of cultural diversity the danger arises that the world and regional cultures ensued. over people may only encounter themselves and their own products, and that this lack of otherness will dramatically In order to alert and sensitise people to the importance of reduce the richness of experiencing oneself and the world. If cultural diversity and of intangible cultural heritage, they the reduction of cultural diversity threatens the richness of need to experience otherness at first hand. This experience human life, however, then fostering cultural diversity must also alone puts them in a position where they are able to deal be a central concern of education. with foreignness and difference and where they may develop an interest in the non-identical. Individuals are not Cultural and intercultural learning, respectively, must not self-contained entities, they consists of many contradictory be reduced to the ability of dealing with minorities. Rather, and fragmentary elements. Rimbaud coined an expression education today is an intercultural task in all parts of world for this experience which remains as valid as ever: "Myself is society (Wulf 1995, 1998) in which encountering and coming someone else". Freud's observation that the ego is not the to terms with foreign cultures, with the otherness of one's own master of its own house points in the same direction. culture and with the other inherent in oneself are of central Integrating those elements of subjective individuality importance. excluded from one's self-image internally is a precondition for perceiving and respecting otherness in the outside world. Only if people are able to perceive their own otherness are translation: Henning Grunwald / Vanderbilt University they capable of perceiving the otherness of other people, and to come to grips with it. If we succeed in perceiving the other in our own culture, an interest in the foreign aspects of other cultures will germinate and the possibility of valuing them can flourish. To do so, we need to foster the ability to take the other as the point of departure of our thought, that is to say to try and see ourselves through the eyes of other people, to think heterologically.

Special guest - Prof. Dr. Christoph Wulf 11

Literature Bell, C.: Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, New York: Oxford University Press 1992. Boetsch, G./Wulf, Ch. (dir.): Rituels, Hermès 43, Paris: CNRS Éditions 2005. Bourdieu, P.: Esquisse d’une théorie de la pratique, précédé des trois études d’ethnologie kabyle, Genève : Droz S. A. 1972. Butler, J.: The Psychic Life of Power. Theories in Subjection, Stanford: Stanford University Press 1997. Durkheim, E.<. Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse, Paris : PUF 1968. Eliade, M.: The Sacred and the Profane, New York: Harcourt, Brace 1959. Elias, N.: Über den Prozess der Zivilisation, 2 vols., Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp 1976. Fischer-Lichte E./Wulf Ch. (eds.): Theorien des Performativen. Paragrana. Internationale Zeitschrift für Historische Anthropologie 10 (2001) 1.

Fischer-Lichte, E./Ch. Wulf, Ch. (eds.): Praktiken des Performativen. Paragrana. Internationale Zeitschrift für Historische Anthropol- ogie, 13 (2004) 1. Foucault, M.: Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison, New York: Pantheon 1977.

Frazer, J. G.: The Golden Bough. A Study in Magic and Religion, New York: Penguin Books 1996. Gebauer, G./Wulf, Ch.: Mimesis. Culture - Art - Society, trans. Don Reneau, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: California University Press 1995. Gebauer, G./Wulf, Ch.: Spiel, Ritual, Geste. Mimetische Handeln in der sozialen Welt. Reinbek 1998. Geertz, C.: The Interpretation of Cultures, New York: Basic Books 1973. Girard, R.: Le bouc émissaire, Paris : Frasset et Fasquelle 1982. Goffman, E.: Frame Analysis. An Essay on the Organization of Experience, New York: Harper & Row 1974. Greenblatt, S.: Marvellous Possessions. The Wonder of the New World, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1991 (2nd edition). Grimes, R.: Beginnings in Ritual Studies, Columbia: University of South Carolina Press 1995. Kamper, D./Wulf, Ch. (eds.): Das Heilige. Seine Spuren in der Moderne, Frankfurt: Syndikat, second edition 1998. Paragrana. Internationale Zeitschrift für historische Anthropologie, 19 (2010) 2, Themenschwerpunkt: Kontaktzonen, ed. Wulf, Christoph Sahlins, M.: Culture and Practical Reason, Chicago: Chicago University Press 1976. Schechner, R: Essays on Performance Theory 1970-1976, New York: Drama Book Specialists 1977. Tambiah, S.: »A Performative Approach to Ritual », Proceedings of the British Academy 65, 1979, pp. 113-163. Todorov, T.: La conquête de l’Amérique. La question de l’autre, Paris: Éditions du Seuil 1982. Turner, V.: The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, New York: Aldine Publishing Company, 1966. Turner, V.: From Ritual to Theatre. The Human Seriousness of Play, New York: PAJ Publications 1982. Wulf, Ch. (ed.): Education in Europe. An Intercultural Task, Münster/New York : Waxmann 1995. Wulf, Ch. (ed.): Education for the 21st Century. Commonalities and Diversities. Münster/New York: Waxmann 1998. Wulf, Ch.: Anthropology of Education, Münster, Hamburg, London: Lit 2002. Wulf, Ch.: Anthropologie kultureller Vielfalt. Interkulturelle Bildung in Zeiten der Globalisierung, Bielefeld: transcript 2006 Wulf, Ch. : Der Mensch und seine Kultur. Hundert Beiträge zur Geschichte, Gegenwart und Zukunft menschlichen Lebens. Köln : Anaconda 2010: Wulf, Ch. : Anthropology. A Continental Perspective , Chicago : The University of Chicago Press 2013. Wulf, Ch. et alii: Penser les pratiques sociales comme rituels. Ethnographie et genèse de communautés, Paris: L’Harmattan 2004a. Wulf, Ch. et alii: Bildung im Ritual. Schule, Familie, Jugend, Medien, Wiesbaden: VS 2004b. Wulf, Ch. et alii: Ritual and Identity. The Staging and Performing of Rituals in the Lives of Young People: London: The Tufnell Press 2010. Wulf, Ch. Et alii: Die Geste in Erziehung, Bildung und Sozialisation. Ethnographische Fallstudien. Wiesbaden. Verlag Sozialwissen- schaften 2011. Wulf, Ch./Göhlich, M./Zirfas, J. (eds.): Grundlagen des Performativen. Eine Einführung in die Zusammenhänge von Sprache, Macht und Handeln, Weinheim/München: Juventa 2001. Wulf, Ch./Merkel, Ch. (eds.): Globalisierung als Herausforderung der Erziehung, Münster et al.: Waxmann 2002. Wulf, Ch./Zirfas, J. (eds.): Die Kultur des Rituals, München: Wilhelm Fink 2004.

Wulf, Ch./Zirfas, J. (eds.): Die Pädagogik des Performativen. Weinheim/Basel:; Weinheim 2007.

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