The Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity

In 2003, UNESCO declared Akyns, the bardic storytellers of Kyrgyzstan, a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

If this sentence makes you blink in confusion, you are not alone. When I mention UNESCO, people at first think that maybe I'm talking about a cookie company. However, UNESCO is actually an acronym that stands for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. UNESCO is unfamiliar to many Americans because the U.S. withdrew its membership between 1984 and 2003 to protest what our government felt was the organization's mismanagement and anti-American bias.

The concept of “intangible cultural heritage” (ICH) is unfamiliar to most people, as well. Intangible heritage refers to the kinds of culture that are usually transmitted directly, without mediation, from members of one generation to the next: music, ritual, local knowledge, and so on. A particular culture or art form must be deemed both valuable and “under threat” in order to be listed on the UNESCO registry of intangible world heritage. Being put on the intangible heritage list raises that culture's international visibility as well as its local esteem, attracting tourism, grants, and increased attention from the national government. In the case of the Akyns of Kyrgyzstan, the action plan supported by UNESCO (with money from the Japanese government) sponsored a conference and singing competitions, and created training centers around the country where traditional methods of teaching the art could be practiced.

But the part of the concept “Masterpiece of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity” that most intrigued me (and thus the genesis of my current research project) is the phrase “the heritage of humanity.” Heritage is a tricky word, with a variety of meanings, most of which are filled with normative and political implications. Normally, we speak of heritage in relation to a particular subsection of humanity: a family, an ethnic group, a nation, perhaps a profession. Is it possible, then, to conceive of the heritage of humanity as a whole?

With this question in mind, I set out to explore what the term "heritage" means in this context. As I learned from reading Valdimar Hafstein's excellent dissertation on UNESCO and intangible cultural heritage, the concept of heritage has evolved over time in a way that enhances the sovereignty of nation-states as well as creating a framework within international law that helps protect communities' rights to control their own cultural properties.

In the 1966 UNESCO Declaration on the Principles of International Cultural Cooperation, heritage implies human unity, both over time and across cultures. Culture is a human universal, and humanity universally values cultural difference: “In their rich variety and diversity, and in the reciprocal influences they exert on one another, all cultures form part of the common heritage belonging to all mankind [sic].” In the World Heritage Convention of 1972, the language emphasizes that some instances of heritage "are of outstanding interest and therefore need to be preserved as part of the world heritage of mankind as a whole." The point here seems to be that humanity has a common stake in preserving certain aspects of particular cultures. The 1972 convention also recognizes the sovereignty of individual states over the heritage located on their territory and emphasizes the duties, rather than the rights, of humankind towards these cultural forms.

This view of the heritage of humanity as the object of common interest and the bearer of common obligation is present in UNESCO's more recent programs on intangible heritage, as well. The 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage addressed increasing concerns about globalization and the loss of cultural diversity not just in legal but also in economic terms, recognizing "intangible cultural heritage as a mainspring of cultural diversity and a guarantee of sustainable development." The Convention also reflects a sensitivity to cross-border and sub-national cultures and acknowledges "that communities, in particular indigenous communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals, play an important role in the production, safeguarding, maintenance and re-creation of the intangible cultural heritage." However, as Hafstein argues, since all activities related to the Convention take place through UN member states, in effect, ICH activities can only preserve cultural transmission by bringing traditional practices into the governmental sphere and integrating them into official administrative structures.

In the case of Akyns, who were already part of official nation-building campaigns in Kyrgyzstan before the declaration of their status as Masterpieces, this integration into state structures will probably have little effect. However, in other cases of Masterpieces of ICH that I plan on investigating (such as the Boysun region of Uzbekistan and Maroon culture in Jamaica), regionally distinct groups may find the international prestige and assistance they receive to be a useful counterweight to the pressures brought upon them by increasing integration with the nation-state.