Ackuwent Into Force Only in 2006
PCHA Conference Publication Masoma Nazari, Sara Noshadi Education & Intangible Heritage Panel Ahmad Zia Rafat, & Constance Wyndham INTRODUCTION This chapter will consolidate the many conversation points that arose from the discussion panel that concerned Education and Intangible Cultural Heritage. It will include the viewpoints expressed by the panel members, the panel moderator, the audience members who participated in the discussion, and the volume’s editors. We feel that both education and intangible heritage are crucial components of heritage preservation. The decision to group them together, as opposed to treating them separately, or grouping education with other topics, comes from the idea that these particular spheres are so closely related. We must have means to preserve and convey the immaterial past, and education, in a variety of forms, is one of the strongest transmitters of non-material culture. In Afghanistan, armed conflict and its attendant mass population dislocations have seriously damaged the family and community structures that are so important for transmitting and ensuring the continuity of many (but not all) aspects of intangible heritage. In this chapter we will address not only the relationship between education and intangible cultural heritage, but also definitions of each term, how they impact the Afghan national identity, effective modes of preservation, and challenges that Afghanistan faces in these areas. CONCEPTS OF INTANGIBLE HERITAGE “Intangible heritage” is a concept that first was created at the turn of the millennium in reaction to what had become a global focus on strictly tangible cultural heritage. It was not until 2003 that the global community began to consider that endangered culture includes more than just the tangible remnants of human society, and that cultural heritage is not limited to monuments, buildings, art objects, and artifacts.
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