[Wu Bingan] Scientific Management and Operating Procedures for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage
At present, the intangible cultural heritage protection project fully launched in China has entered a specific implementation stage.
The pilot projects of 39 protection projects have been approved by the state and entered the working procedures of execution tasks and specific operations.
Since the entire work has been unbalanced among provinces and regions since the beginning, it is very important to specifically guide the protection of all pilot projects while repeatedly raising local awareness of the significance of protecting intangible cultural heritage.
Among them, strict scientific management and standardized operating procedures have become the top priority to promote the effective progress of work.
How to implement strict scientific management? How to implement standardized operating procedures? We need to prepare from three aspects.
One is to carefully learn from the successful international experience in protecting intangible cultural heritage.
The other is to closely combine China's national conditions, especially the various realities of the living conditions of China's intangible cultural heritage, and summarize the experiences and lessons of previous cultural protection.
The other is to have relatively complete and corresponding targeted professional scientific theories and operating methods.
Only with such sufficient preparation can a set of effective mechanisms for implementing protection work be established and these mechanisms can be developed continuously and effectively.
Therefore, in the initial stage of piloting this work, it is crucial to fully understand and accurately identify all projects for the protection of intangible cultural heritage of all ethnic groups in our country, because this is the solution to "What do we want to protect?" The key to this issue.
At the same time, we must fully grasp the professional operating procedures necessary for protection work, because this is the solution to "How should we protect?" indispensable methods and means for this problem.
Both are indispensable.
1.
Scientific management of the protection of intangible cultural heritage The scientific identification and approval management of intangible cultural heritage and its protection projects is the primary task of scientific management.
This paper should focus on analyzing this management task in order to be closer to China's current protection work.
The protection of intangible cultural heritage is a very general overall goal.
Only when specific cultural projects of various categories are identified as protection objects can it be said that the specific objects of protection be determined.
Therefore, the determination of pilot projects is itself the first scientific management work to enter the cultural protection process, and the identification and approval of protection projects has become the primary task of this management work.
Especially in my country, the definition and scope of intangible cultural heritage by cultural authorities at all levels, cultural circles, and academic circles are still in a state where they seem to understand, are unclear, unclear, and are seriously disturbed by various definitions and academic disputes.
Under the situation, this management can only be strengthened and cannot be carried out hastily.
This work is mainly divided into two steps: the first step is that the unit presiding over the protection project must strictly implement scientific argumentation for the classification and identification of the project; the second step is that the competent unit and its entrusted expert review organization must review the identification and demonstration in the project establishment unit's plan text.
The approval must be strictly controlled.
In particular, the classification, identification and identification of cultural spaces or cultural expressions must be accurate.
At present, what cultural protection implementation units in China are most confused is project identification.
There are several problems: (1) Identification of cultural protection projects from the perspective of folk tourism development; many folk art forms have been hastily adapted and packaged without having undergone qualified and effective protection, held large-scale displays and performances, and have been artificially forced into the tourism market, and this practice is called "real protection and utilization." (2) Identify intangible heritage items with standards for protecting material heritage; when identifying certain oral heritage or performing art forms of heritage, some use standards for assessing material cultural heritage, taking related or far-fetched buildings and sites as the goals of rescue and protection, and even make civil engineering plans and budgets, but no feasible implementation protection plan has been made for the intangible heritage itself to be protected.
(3) Understand cultural expressions only as artistic expressions, dare to identify protected projects in folk art forms, and do not dare and are not good at identifying projects in other cultural expressions, especially traditional cultural expressions related to folk beliefs or religions.
Forms, their identification is unclear and uncertain, and some even do not recognize their representative works as heritage that needs to be protected.
For example, temple fairs, god-welcoming competitions, shaman dancing, Nuo dancing, witchcraft (including witch doctors) and important sacrificial ceremonies of various ethnic groups, etc.
(4) The concept of "cultural space" is still in a state of difficulty in understanding or difficulty in identifying it."cultural space" is often broken down into several artistic expressions and identified separately, and even the form that is originally a cultural space is also called "XX art." The complete and unified form of intangible heritage cultural space has been separated, and the overall protection of culture has been damaged.
For example, the Northwest Hua 'er Art and Hua' er Fair Cultural Space in China; the "Regong Art" and "Regong Cultural Space" of Qinghai Tongren; the Miao song and dance and the "Naochong" and "Climbing Fair" cultural space in Qiandongnan, Guizhou; Mongolian song and dance, wrestling, horse racing and Aobao Sacrifice cultural space; among them, one example can testify to the importance of strict and scientific management of identified projects.
The oral legacy of "Liangshanpo and Zhu Yingtai" originated from rumors of characters and events in a specific space in history, and quickly took root in more than one or two places.
It was transformed into a plot motif of a love story in the form of a biographical character.
It spread and expanded into many oral versions that are similar.
Later, through the re-creation of folk artists and the re-dissemination of literati poems, notes, historical chronicles and other textual descriptions, it formed an oral legacy of one of the four major folk legends spread across the country in history.
"Butterfly Lovers" has now become the capital, abbreviation and special name for the oral heritage of "Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai" in Yixing, Ningbo and even the whole country.
It has become the code symbol for this specific oral heritage.
Among them, the protection group of the "Liang Zhu" oral heritage in Yixing, Jiangsu Province, used the rich oral heritage circulated locally, detailed historical clues and confirmed the comprehensive activity trajectory and characteristics of the Liang Zhu oral heritage that has been passed down in the Yixing area for more than 1600 years, based on the rich oral heritage, detailed historical clues and the cultural landscape relics of urban and rural communities.
We initially found out the real background of Liang Zhu's oral legacy in Yixing, and evaluated its value in many aspects such as cultural history, art history, social life history and even ideological history.
From the perspective of cultural anthropology, it is not difficult to conclude that the oral heritage of "Liang Zhu" represents a civilization that advocates freedom with the eternal significance of human society.
Its beautiful and moving China people's aesthetic ideals for love are the crystallization of the progress of human civilization.
It is not only a spiritual and cultural wealth passed down orally by the people of China, but also can be shared by members of all ethnic groups in mankind, becoming a precious heritage of all mankind.
Liang Zhu's oral inheritance has long formed a large legendary cultural circle in China.
In this circle, the distribution of Liang Zhu's oral inheritance is extremely uneven.
In most areas, including many ethnic minority areas, Liang Zhu's oral inheritance has the nature of borrowing or immigrating.
In those areas, there is almost no historical process of inheriting the basic motif of the Liang Zhu story directly into local scenery and cultural sites for localization.
Based on the methodology of fieldwork surveys, it can be concluded that the vast majority of these areas belong to the marginal areas of the spread of Liang Zhu's oral heritage.
The Liang Zhu's oral heritage here is obviously formed under the radiation influence of the center of the inheritance of Liang Zhu's oral heritage.
According to the quantitative standards of folk cultural surveys, the more locations a certain cultural event radiates and spreads, the more it can be proved that the cultural vitality and influence of this cultural event in its center area, and at the same time, the more it can be proved that multiple cultural elements of this cultural event exist intensively in its center area, and the most essential characteristics and fullest cultural connotations of this cultural event will be displayed in terms of quality standards.
After meticulous investigation and research, the rescue and excavation of Liang Zhu's oral heritage in Yixing proved that this place has been one of the centers of Liang Zhu's oral inheritance for more than a thousand years.
A distinctive feature of most oral legends passed down in the central area is the close adhesion of the legendary characters and events to local history and geography.
The adhesion of oral legends to local history and geography can also be understood as the basic feature of the content and expression form of the legends.
This feature is to provide people with a "credibility" to confirm the legend.
The "credibility" feature that provides confirmation is the primary feature that legends have far advantages in folk life over other types of oral stories.
This kind of confirmation does not refer to historical archives and historical data at any time, but refers to the credible basis for oral folk art.
People who tell local legends usually tell the legends with on-site and physical displays and explanations, or find credible evidence to encourage people to believe in the authenticity of their oral legends as they believe in history.
The oral inheritance of Liang Zhu in Yixing has this characteristic.
The legend of Liangzhu in Yixing has been adhered to the history of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties as early as ancient times.
The legendary protagonist always centered on the heroine Zhu Yingtai in its inheritance.
Therefore, many local relics related to Zhu Yingtai have been left behind in the local area.
For example, the address of Zhu Yingtai's old home, Zhu Yingtai's reading office, Zhu Yingtai's piano and sword? V, Yingtai Well, Yingtai Mausoleum and the remains of the scenery along the way of the Eighteenth Festival in the story; in addition, there are also the identification and legendary evidence of the Liangjiazhuang and Majiazhuang sites, etc., which are all "credible" proof that the legend adheres to the local scenery.
All these testimonies have a long history of oral inheritance and are not made by any modern person.
This is an important basis for the centralized inheritance and identification of Liang Zhu's oral heritage.
When identifying "Liang Zhu" as a form of oral inheritance of intangible cultural heritage, it is necessary to emphasize that all "credible objects" of scenery relics closely related to the legend of Liang Zhu are for the most basic and major intangible cultural heritage of oral heritage.
For heritage, it is not necessary to use documentary materials to verify the value and significance of historical facts itself; On the contrary, its value lies in the development of Liang Zhu's oral heritage into a relatively typical Liang Zhu culture, which fully expresses the form of Liang Zhu's cultural activities in the cultural center of Yixing.
This "credible" and "paradoxical" expression of Liang Zhu's culture is an important organic part of Liang Zhu's oral heritage.
Any historical data identification and truth-seeking textual research will damage the spiritual vitality of this oral heritage., thus weakening its precious artistic charm of oral legend.
However, it is regrettable that in the cultural relics research community engaged in cultural archeology, some scholars attach great importance to the identification of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai as historical figures, which led to the identification of Zhu Yingtai's ancient house, Zhu Yingtai's tomb, Zhu Yingtai Well, Liangjiazhuang Site and Majiazhuang Site for cultural relics archeology and cultural sites, using basic means of identifying material heritage.
For protecting the important intangible cultural heritage of Liang Zhu's oral legend, such cultural relics excavation and site identification and historical research are futile, meaningless and completely unnecessary.
There are also some cultural people who are enthusiastic about tourism development who also strongly advocate protecting the "Liang Zhu" culture, but they believe that the ruins of Zhu Yingtai's old house, Zhu Yingtai's reading office, Zhu Yingtai's piano and sword? V, Yingtai Well, Yingtai Mausoleum, as well as the scenery along the way in the story of the 18th Festival, Liangjiazhuang, Majiazhuang and other legendary evidence were all built and set up as tourist attractions for tourists to watch.
There is one of the most basic issues of classification and identification of cultural heritage here.
Therefore, we must emphasize that "Liang Zhu", as an oral literary heritage, does not need to verify whether Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai were actually local people at a certain historical stage in its intangible cultural attributes.
What is important is whether the two protagonists in this oral legend and their inheritance have the representativeness and great artistic value of human civilization, and whether they deserve our serious protection.
What is important is that the various records in the historical notes are the best clues and evidence for the inheritance and evolution of Liang Zhu's oral heritage.
Whether cultural relics and archaeological excavation or tourist attraction development, it is by no means the same thing as the intangible heritage protection of the oral heritage of "Liang Zhu".
On the contrary, the result of doing so will only cause considerable damage to the protection of intangible cultural heritage.
There are many examples similar to the above examples.
The main reasons are that on the one hand, the definition and scope of intangible cultural heritage are vague, on the other hand, various thoughts and concepts are seriously interfered with, and on the other hand, the interests of economic construction are driven, which has embarrassed the normal progress of cultural protection work.
To this end, it is urgent to strengthen the management of heritage identification, strengthen professional training in scientific identification, and strictly control the approval.
Regarding the definition of intangible cultural heritage, the "Regulations on Representative Works of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" promulgated in 1998 clearly points out that it comes from the "Proposal for the Protection of Folk Creation" promulgated in Paris on November 15, 1989 (also translated as "Recommendation on the Protection of Traditional Culture and Folklore").
Its original text reads "refers to all creations from a cultural community that are based on tradition, expressed by a group or individuals, and are considered to be in line with the community's expectations as an expression of its cultural and social identity; norms and values are passed down orally through imitation or other means." Its forms include language, oral literature, music, dance, games, competition, myth, etiquette, customs, crafts, architecture and other art.
In addition to this, it also includes traditional forms of communication and information." It can be seen that the definition of intangible cultural heritage (or translated as intangible cultural property) is actually the definition of national and folk cultural heritage proposed by my country now.
In November 2001, the 31st General Assembly of Member States of the United Nations adopted a decision to adopt a new definition of intangible cultural heritage.
The original translation is: "The process of people learning and the knowledge, technology and creativity they learn and create in the process, as well as the products they create in the process, and the resources, spaces and other social and natural structures necessary for their continued development; these processes give existing communities a sense of continuity with their ancestors, are important for cultural identification, and are also important for the protection of human cultural diversity and creativity." At the same time, two forms of expression of intangible cultural heritage were also announced: one is regulated cultural expressions, such as music and drama performances, religious ceremonies or various festival ceremonies; the other is a cultural space, defined as a place where popular and traditional cultural activities can be held centrally, or it can be defined as a period of time when specific activities are usually held regularly.
This event and natural space exist due to the existence of traditional cultural expressions in the space.
The above is the definition of intangible cultural heritage in terms of both content and form that has been determined so far, as the basic basis for internationally jointly implementing the identification of intangible cultural heritage.
According to the diversity of categories, styles or expression forms of intangible cultural heritage, according to the common classification standards in the international academic community, and combined with the characteristics of expression forms of representative works of my country's cultural heritage, the official documents of China's ethnic and folk cultural protection project generally divide the country's ethnic and folk cultural heritage into the following categories: ① Oral heritage (Language category: endangered ethnic languages, regional dialects, enigmatic jargon, proverbs, oral literature category: riddles, folk songs, myths, epics, stories, legends, oral history); ② Folk art (Music: Dance: Art: Opera: Quyi: Acrobatics: ); ③ Craft skills (Architectural skills: Cooking skills: Clothing skills: Craftsman skills: Folk medicine: ); ④ Customs and habits (Festival category: Etiquette category: Industry customs category: Entertainment and competition category: ) Among them, the concept of cultural space category is very important and special.
It is mainly a prescriptive concept of the cultural space-time form of folk customs and habits category.At its 155th General Conference in October-November 1998, UNESCO created a prize with additional funds to activate "cultural spaces or forms of cultural expression" of mankind's oral and intangible heritage.
The classification standards for "cultural spaces and cultural expressions" announced in 2001 now seem to be operable, concise and practical for identifying cultural spaces.
Edmund?, a cultural officer at the UNESCO Beijing office Mukala's explanation is very appropriate.
He said: "Cultural space refers to an area where folk traditional cultural activities are concentrated, or the time chosen for a specific cultural event." "Here we must be clearly aware of the difference between a cultural space and a certain place.
From the perspective of cultural heritage, a location refers to a place where materials created by human wisdom can be found, such as monuments or ruins.
Cultural space is an anthropological concept that refers to a place or series of places where traditional or folk cultural expressions occur regularly." A large number of fieldwork survey materials from anthropology and folklore over the years have proved that this category of expression accounts for a large proportion of the intangible cultural heritage of various ethnic groups in our country.
For example, various festivals, temple fairs, and song fairs that are popular among all ethnic groups, large-scale and fixed-point traditional activities such as established by convention belong to cultural spaces and are particularly important in folk cultural life.
UNESCO also recommends and encourages countries to establish standard classifications for intangible heritage.
(1) In view of the need to coordinate the classification systems used by various agencies, establish an identification and registration (collection, retrieval, recording) system; encourage the establishment of a standardized classification method for folk culture: that is, the compilation of a general classification table of intangible cultural heritage to guide this work around the world; compile a detailed compilation of intangible heritage; and conduct regional classification, especially through regional pilot projects.
This requires that the process of identification must be accelerated so that the country's standard classification method of intangible cultural heritage can be formed into a system as soon as possible, so that a compilation of China's intangible heritage can be compiled as soon as possible.
(2) Implementing relatively strict target management for heritage protection work that has been approved is an effective method for scientific management.
All approved projects must include several goals and specific planning indicators.
Managers at all levels and their institutions can only provide targeted guidance based on the approved phased goals, long-term goals or specific indicators of each sub-project., testing, supervision, coordination, identification, adjudication and acceptance, etc.
The use of funds and the management of budgets and final accounts shall be strictly incorporated into the national accounting system and effective supervision shall be implemented.
In goal management, management departments and their managers should determine two types of goals in advance: one is task goals that use prescribed planned indicators as requirements.
This is a hard goal that must be completed.
For example, for all intangible heritage, all inheritors, their inheritance methods and characteristics must be surveyed, and the inheritors must be comprehensively protected.
This is a strict and rigid goal that requires the presiding staff to use rigid indicators to complete it.
The other is to use flexible planning indicators as the required task goals.
This is a flexible goal, which requires flexible control of the rhythm or progress according to the actual situation during work, or increase or decrease the task volume, or change the work procedures and methods.
(3) The management of professional technical standards, especially the technical standards for preservation, maintenance and protection using modern scientific and technological means, must be clearly formulated in specific rules or technical manuals and strictly managed.
In China, most of the people currently engaged in heritage protection are accustomed to using traditional handicraft methods to conduct investigation operations at the grassroots level.
Even if they have used technical means such as recording, photography, and video recording, most of them are outdated or obsolete.
Old equipment means.
More importantly, even though special funds are used to equip them with the latest modern equipment and means, there is also a lack of specialized training in this field.
To use modern scientific and technological means to implement technical standards for preservation, maintenance and protection, standard technical manuals must be formulated in a timely manner and strictly managed in accordance with the provisions of the standards.
Specifications, models and usage requirements for drawings, photos, negatives, slides, audio tapes, tape recorders, cameras, etc.
used in protection work must be determined, and a detailed comprehensive catalog must be compiled to facilitate protection project professionals.
Master all technical standards by themselves or cooperate with professional technical personnel.
In terms of technical means for heritage protection, we must be "meticulous" and cannot and should not be "made do with".
We cannot "do things with less money or without spending money", and we cannot "simply do things just because of the urgency of protecting heritage.
The non-renewable nature of endangered heritage determines the comprehensive and thorough nature of this protection.
All collection and preservation must be guaranteed to meet the qualified standard of one-time completion and permanent preservation.
Any project's "doing with" and "simplifying" will be caused by the shoddy construction of backward means, because endangered heritage protection projects have their own characteristics, and the use of any substandard technical means to preserve heritage materials will make cultural protection eventually becomes a beautiful empty saying.
Today's cultural protection is a great cultural project that contributes to the contemporary era and benefits the future.
In terms of technical means, it can only be "a century-old plan, with quality first." Strengthen the matching management of standard requirements for high-tech means and corresponding investment of financial funds, so that important links in the protection and preservation of cultural heritage cannot be ignored.
(4) For the management of various expert teams engaged in protection projects and the management of managers at all levels, a relative division of labor and responsibility system shall be implemented, corresponding incentive mechanisms shall be established, and relevant codes or work rules shall be formulated for responsibility management.
At present, the management of cultural protection projects in China is administrative under the current government system, and a series of coordinated management has been appropriately carried out.
However, when protection work begins to be implemented, many areas and many projects will become busy, and a series of effective mechanisms need to be established as soon as possible to form a responsibility system.
Obviously, only the responsibility system at all levels of government subordination and the relationship between central and local governments is obviously not enough.
A responsibility system for professional division of labor must be established.
The current expert committee is temporarily in a loose union of professional consulting.
Its expert members participate in consulting services almost on a temporary basis as individuals.
Therefore, their responsibilities are very limited.
After protection work is carried out across the country, the workload of professional work continues to increase, and the workload of experts will inevitably increase accordingly.
How to scientifically manage the work of experts in accordance with the law has become a top priority for government management departments.
The expansion of experts in expert committees and professional groups will inevitably bring about the need to establish and improve the expert responsibility system.
All types of projects should be followed up, consulted and guided by various experts accordingly, and a corresponding expert responsibility system should be established.
Management agencies should manage experts, and experts should accept entrustment to assume management responsibilities for professional projects to form an effective responsibility and power system.
All shared tasks in other projects are guaranteed by a clear division of labor and responsibility system.
Only in this way can various indicators be completed on time with high quality and quantity.
Without clear responsibilities, all work will be difficult to achieve effective success.
2.
Operating Procedures for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage (1) Protection projects must first be carried out within the framework of the "Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Law" and relevant policy implementation rules.
This is the most basic work basis.
If you cannot rely on it, you cannot resist endangered human-caused disasters, and you cannot squeeze into the agenda of administration at all levels.
(2) Under the conditions of determining the source of funds and use standards, exploring the human resources participating in the protection project and conducting team building and professional training of protection workers are the guarantees for the effective advancement of protection work.
However, personnel training should be carried out on a separate basis.
There should be training for management personnel and professional workers, including various subjects such as professional theory, operation methods, and technical means.
All protection work without exception must rely on experts and professional workers from all walks of life to conduct technical work on various projects.
(3) It is an indispensable working procedure to conduct a comprehensive survey, identification, identification and screening of intangible cultural heritage that meets standards in non-governmental communities of all ethnic groups.
It is the prerequisite and operating basis for protection work.
(4) Texts used for all work (Including investigation reports, project establishment application materials, charts, implementation plans, task documents, plans, evaluation materials, appraisals, summary materials, budget and final accounts reports, etc.), all must have sub-columns with specified key points or titles for filling in relevant important information; At present, the simplification and thick lines of many project texts have caused common problems.
The main reason is that grassroots cultural authorities and cultural workers have little understanding of the professional characteristics of intangible heritage and are unfamiliar with the inheritance laws and manifestations of heritage.
To this end, the writing of texts must be based on academic research on special heritage, so that it can be compiled into qualified, practical and feasible scientific texts.
The preparation of the project plan text must have the following sub-items: cultural origin, historical evolution, category identification, distribution zoning, cultural characteristics analysis of the project (including analysis of cultural expression forms and analysis of characteristics of each sub-project), value evaluation, current situation analysis, inheritance and genealogy, etc.
Specific discussion and relevant quantitative data, protection measures and means, stage progress and expected results, additional academic evaluation or recommendation materials from expert experts, etc.
All kinds of texts must be signed by the responsible person, and must go through necessary procedures such as demonstration, approval, supervision and implementation, and acceptance of results.
(5) Timely compile and publish the "Practical Manual for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage" to guide the operation.
The manual should have the working details of the operating procedures as the main content.
The manual can only be a universal, universal and operable tool that meets the standards in the subject field.
There must be no obvious ambiguity or controversy in basic knowledge, theory and methods to prevent confusion in work.
All these management and operation mechanisms and norms should be established and implemented in a timely manner as the protection work progresses.
At present, China's protection work has entered pilot work, and next, we must enter the stage of comprehensive census and establishment of a list of China's intangible cultural heritage.
Author: Wu Bing 'an, Professor of Folk Studies Center of Liaoning University, China, Member of the Expert Committee of the China Ethnic Folk Culture Protection Project) Source: China Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Forum (June 2006, sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and hosted by China Academy of Art, Beijing.)