INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE AND THE ISSUE OF COMMUNITY IDENTITY

Abstract

The Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, which was adopted by UNESCO in 2003, as well as other documents related to the preservation of cultural heritage, are declaratively associating the notion of cultural heritage with the identity of communities or groups and proposing that preservation of cultural heritage represents preservation and expression of the identity of persons who recognize certain heritage as their own. This paper is defining the general issues of understanding the relationship between the preservation of intangible cultural heritage and the identity of communities. The thesis is that the issue of identity is embedded in the process of creation of the said Convention, but in such a way that it leaves open possibilities of different interpretations of the concept of intangible cultural heritage, in terms of its use as a means of expressing identity. The basic ways of applying the convention and its instruments are discussed from the aspect that within the idea of cultural diversity they may produce cultural parochialism, from which separations arise between communities instead of the intended unification and mutual tolerance of differences. One particularly problematic aspect is cultural reductionism, which leaves the possibility of creating artificial identities of communities.