► Intangible Cultural Heritage - UNESCO

Rural topic(s): Local ecological knowledge

City: 75352 Paris 07

Country: France

Web site: https://ich.unesco.org/

The 2003 Convention’s aim is to safeguard a specific form of (intangible) heritage: practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, and skills that communities recognize as their cultural heritage. It is also a tool to support communities and practitioners in their contemporary cultural practices, whereas experts are associated only as mediators or facilitators. As a living form of heritage, the safeguarding measures for intangible cultural heritage aim, among other things, to ensure its continuing renewal and transmission to future generations.

The term ‘cultural heritage’ has changed content considerably in recent decades, partially owing to the instruments developed by UNESCO. Cultural heritage does not end at monuments and collections of objects. It also includes traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants, such as oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe or the knowledge and skills to produce traditional crafts.

At the national level, States Parties must: define and inventory intangible cultural heritage with the participation of the communities concerned; adopt policies and establish institutions to monitor and promote it; encourage research; and take other appropriate safeguarding measures, always with the full consent and participation of the communities concerned.

Scale of intervention : National, International

Keywords: cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, knowledge transmission, safeguard of knowledge

Places: Europe,

Actors: local community, research institute/center