Intangible cultural heritage

Practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. This intangible cultural heritage, transferred from generation to generation, is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature and their history, and provides them with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity. The intangible cultural heritage is manifested inter alia in the following domains:

1. oral traditions and expressions, including language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage;
2. performing arts;
3. social practices, rituals and festive events;
4. knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe;
5. traditional craftsmanship.

The intangible cultural heritage is in fact practice, knowledge and activity. The purpose of the convention is to safeguard living community practices, to strengthen the identity of communities with an independent cultural image and thus to give mutual recognition to cultural diversity, and to raise awareness to non-objectified forms of expression, often close to extinction, and to protect such elements of heritage. While cultural world heritage always refers to a world heritage site after all, the convention refers to the community reviving (creating, practising, maintaining, handing down) the intangible cultural heritage.

 
References:

Act XXXVIII of 2006 on the promulgation of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, adopted on 17 October 2003 in Paris

 
This article based on the following document: Community development methodological guide