[Huang Tao] On the Contextual Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage *
[Abstract] As a living culture, the complete form and vivid content of intangible cultural heritage exist in specific situations.
Cultural events and cultural situations are intertwined and inseparable.
Cultural events from which situational factors have been simply removed are just static, rigid and incomplete text forms.
The constituent elements of cultural situations can be grasped from two latitudes.
From the perspective of time, cultural situations can be divided into two aspects: diachronic traditional conventions and synchronic environmental conditions; from the perspective of space, cultural situations can be divided into two parts: on-site situations and social and cultural background.
The definition of intangible cultural heritage and the interpretation of protection work in relevant UNESCO documents are based on paying attention to situational elements.
There are two types of situational protection work for intangible cultural heritage: first, we should vigorously support cultural events that still have survival value in modern society and protect the soil on which they rely for survival so that they can be passed down in modern society; second, we should not adapt to the modern social environment and are dying due to the loss of survival value.
Cultural events that are not adapting to the modern social environment must be completely recorded and preserved, not only to preserve their cultural events, but also to preserve their cultural situations.
In the future, the protection of intangible cultural heritage should formulate detailed and feasible operating specifications in terms of situational protection.
[Keywords] Intangible cultural heritage protection Cultural events Cultural situation Cultural situation In recent years, the trend of globalization accompanying the modernization process has brought a threat to cultural integration and unity to the world.
In view of this severe situation, UNESCO places the protection and development of human cultural diversity at an extremely important or even primary position in its work, advocating mutual understanding, respect and tolerance between cultural systems with their own characteristics, and building a rich and colorful human culture on the basis of "beauty" and common development.
With this goal, UNESCO has issued a series of documents on the protection of intangible cultural heritage since it adopted the Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage in Paris in 1972, and has gradually clarified that the protection of intangible cultural heritage is a more important task of developing human cultural diversity projects.
The Istanbul Communique "Intangible Cultural Heritage, a Mirror of Cultural Diversity" adopted by the Third Roundtable of Ministers of Culture in September 2002 pointed out: "The various manifestations of intangible cultural heritage reflect the cultural characteristics of various ethnic groups and societies in the main aspects.
Intangible cultural heritage is the common wealth of all mankind." The Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage issued by UNESCO in 2003 said: "It is a melting pot of cultural diversity and a guarantee of sustainable development." It can be seen that the protection of intangible cultural heritage plays a crucial role in maintaining the pattern of human cultural diversity.
Our country's government and academic circles have always attached great importance to the protection of intangible cultural heritage.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, they organized and carried out a series of fruitful and commendable work.
There were two landmark achievements in the early stage: First, the large-scale investigation of the folk culture of China ethnic minorities starting in the 1950s and the subsequent publication of the "Five Series of Ethnic Issues of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission" and the "Series of Survey Materials on Social and Historical History of China's Ethnic Minorities"; Second, in 1979, the Ministry of Culture, the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, and the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles jointly initiated the compilation of the "Ten Collected Chronicles of China Ethnic Folk Literature and Art".
By the end of 2004, 224 volumes (nearly 400 million words) had been published.
After UNESCO launched the "Representative Works of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" project in 2000, my country's Kunqu Opera art and Guqin art were included in the first two batches of representative works lists in 2001 and 2003.
In 2002, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Finance launched the "China Ethnic Folk Culture Protection Project", and the China Folk Literary and Art Association launched the "China Folk Cultural Heritage Rescue Project." In August 2004, my country officially joined the Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage launched by UNESCO in October 2003.
In March 2005, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Strengthening the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage in my Country", which determined the work guidelines of "protection first, rescue first, rational utilization, inheritance and development" and the working principles of "government-led, social participation, clarifying responsibilities and forming synergy; long-term planning, step-by-step implementation, integrating points and aspects, and emphasizing practical results", and made more specific arrangements for the protection work.
The construction of relevant laws and regulations has also been very effective, and the "Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage" will be promulgated soon.
When this huge cultural project is being carried out in an all-round way, it is particularly necessary to carry out theoretical research on intangible cultural heritage protection that is not only in line with international standards, but also in line with China's reality.
The situational protection of intangible cultural heritage discussed in this article is one of the basic theoretical issues.
As the name suggests,"heritage" is the wealth created, enjoyed and passed down by predecessors under specific historical conditions and in specific environments, while cultural heritage is the cultural wealth that occurs, develops and inherits in specific cultural situations.
For the convenience of display, reference or grasp, we can also extract cultural heritage events from cultural situations and deal with them in a "purified" manner.
But from a more scientific and holistic perspective, cultural events and cultural situations are intertwined and inseparable.
This is true for material cultural heritage, and even more so for intangible cultural heritage.
The complete form of intangible cultural heritage as a living culture must be grasped in the context in which it survives.
In a modern society with the rapid development of globalization, industrialization and commercialization trends, the continuation and promotion of outstanding intangible cultural heritage that still has survival value today also depends on the strong protection and support of its situation.
Therefore, in intangible cultural heritage protection projects, situational protection should be one of its fundamental contents and occupy an important position that cannot be ignored.
Many scholars have talked about issues related to the context of intangible cultural heritage, such as remarks about its "background","ecology","environment" and "living soil", which are all closely related to the context protection mentioned in this article.
However, there has not been a relatively in-depth and systematic theoretical discussion on this issue, and there are very few that have raised this topic to the level of situational protection to positively explain it.
The concept of situation mentioned in this article is what is commonly referred to as "context" in relevant domestic disciplines.
"Context" is the abbreviation for "linguistic context" or speech situation.
[1]"Context" is a translation method used in the domestic linguistics community and was later used when it entered other disciplines.
The original meaning of the English word "context" refers to the context of a language segment, the preceding and following paragraphs, or the preceding and following sentences in a conversation.
Later, as a term to express an academic trend, its meaning expanded to refer to the conversational situation, social environment, etc.
of language communication.
In linguistic research, context refers more to conversation situations, while in the field of literary criticism, context mainly refers to the social environment in which texts are generated and disseminated.
It is convenient to use this term in the field of literary criticism, because the objects of study, namely literary works, are also texts based on language and can be called "literary discourse." Except for folk language and folk literature, the main part of intangible cultural heritage is not based on language, and relevant cultural activities do not focus on language expression, but on various behaviors of cultural subjects.
Therefore, the author believes that it is more justifiable to call the environmental factors of intangible cultural heritage "cultural context"(referred to as "context").
Situation-based research was first widely carried out in the field of linguistics, and then entered the fields of logic, literary criticism, and cultural studies.
In the field of international folklore, attention and research on cultural situations have a long history and have been a hot issue for a long time.
Nowadays, context-based research has become one of the mainstream value orientations in the folklore community.
American folklorist Alan Dundis once briefly reviewed the academic history of situation research and believed that the strong focus on situation began with Malinowski: "It was Malinowski who most fancied the context.
In his important 1926 paper,"Myths in Primitive Psychology," he repeatedly pointed out that it was wrong to collect text alone, calling it incomplete fragments of reality." In fact, as early as 1923, Malinowski had formally raised the issue of context in the article "Questions of Meaning in Original Languages".
He used terms such as "context","context of situation" and "speech-situation", and made clear and scientific definitions of relevant terms.
[2]Later, Bscom (1954) and Goldstein (1964) continued to advocate situational folk research.
Dundis himself attaches great importance to the issue of context, and he criticizes and criticizes the folklore fieldwork and research methods of "collecting antiquities" in abandoned situations: "A long catalog of proverbs is published in folklore magazines without any explanation of their use and meaning...
Folk texts without context are essentially similar to the large number of foreign musical instruments that decorate the walls of anthropological and folk museums and add luster to private homes.
These instruments are as authentic as folk texts, but the range, tone, function and complexity of instrument performance are all unknown." [1]In the 1960s, the field of folklore began to use several key terms belonging to this academic system of thought: "text","text","context").
Dundis used his own exposition and related research to complete the exact expression of these terms.
Richard Bowman created an influential theory of performance based on an emphasis on situation.
However, in Western folklore circles, one feature or weakness of situational folklore research is: "Context researchers pay special attention to the synchronicity of the interaction between background knowledge and folklore, and often forget the historical factors of folklore.
In the preference for interaction, traditional history is put on hold." [2]In view of this, our definition of cultural situations should consider the diachronic factors of cultural events.
The definition of intangible cultural heritage in a series of UNESCO documents also clearly reflects the academic orientation of attaching importance to situation.
As early as November 1989, the organization's "Proposal for the Protection of Folk Creation" interpreted "folk creation" as "all creations from a certain cultural community." Connecting folk creation with a specific community is a reflection of academic thinking that focuses on the situation.
The Istanbul Communique "Intangible Cultural Heritage, a Mirror of Cultural Diversity" said: "Intangible cultural heritage is deeply rooted in the local history and natural environment, and is reflected in many languages that embody many worldviews...
Intangible cultural heritage is a lively and lively whole that practice, knowledge and expression can constantly be recreated, which enables individuals and communities at all levels of society to express their worldviews through various systematic values and ethical standards." UNESCO defines "intangible cultural heritage" in the Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage as: "Refers to the various practices, performances, manifestations, knowledge and skills and their associated tools, objects, crafts and cultural spaces that are regarded by groups, groups, and sometimes individuals as their cultural heritage." Various groups and groups continue to innovate this intangible cultural heritage passed down from generation to generation as their environment, interaction with nature, and historical conditions change, while giving themselves a sense of identity and history, thereby promoting cultural diversity and human creativity." These two important documents both define the main body of intangible cultural heritage as a living, vivid, procedural, and varying cultural phenomenon, and clearly point out several situational factors closely related to it: natural environment, historical conditions, cultural venues, etc.
The document regards "cultural places" as one of the components of the ontology of intangible cultural heritage.
The "Representative Works of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity Regulations" promulgated by the organization specifically defines the term: "Within the scope of this declaration, the anthropological concept of 'cultural place' is identified as a place where folk and traditional cultural activities are concentrated, but it is also identified as a period of time generally characterized by a certain cycle, season, schedule, etc.) or an event.
The existence of this time and this place depends on the very existence of cultural activities carried out in traditional ways." Cultural places, as the specific time and space conditions for cultural activities to occur, are one of the components of cultural situations.
Defining cultural sites as the ontological element of intangible cultural heritage reflects UNESCO's full attention to situational issues.
In fact, treating intangible cultural heritage as a cultural event in specific situations is a fundamental principle that cannot be ignored for correctly grasping this concept.
2.
Intangible cultural heritage is also called oral or intangible cultural heritage.
According to the Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage, it includes the following aspects: "a) oral traditions and expressions, including language as a medium of intangible cultural heritage;b) performing arts;c) social customs, rituals, festivals;d) knowledge and practices about nature and the universe;e) traditional handicraft skills." Material cultural heritage, such as the main part of a building, is tangible, and its basic form is certain and easy to grasp.
The main part of intangible cultural heritage is intangible (its English term Intangible Cultural Heritage literally translates as "intangible cultural heritage"), has no fixed spatial form, and is a living culture passed down orally and physically.
Therefore, its structure, survival method, demonstration process, etc.
are not very intuitive and have a certain degree of uncertainty.
If it is grasped from different angles and using different methods, different patterns may be obtained.
For example, if a proverb is not combined with situational factors, it is just a sentence composed of several words as a combination of sound and meaning; and if it is placed in the soil of its life to grasp it, the basic form of this cultural event will have a richer content.
Intangible cultural heritage is largely behavior, performance or craftsmanship.
Its associated material form does not occupy the main position, and it still changes with various factors.
Therefore, its main part needs to be grasped in the context of its occurrence.
Otherwise, you will pick up sesame seeds and lose watermelons, and you will not be able to have a complete understanding or record of the research objects.
Here, we regard intangible cultural heritage in its complete sense as a structure.
It consists of two parts: cultural events and cultural situations.
Cultural events are the "text" parts of living culture formed in specific cultural situations, such as the customs and activities of a festival, the performance of a story, and the telling of a proverb.
All other factors closely related to cultural events, such as participants, behaviors, time, occasions, functions, effects, social background, historical traditions, etc., in cultural event performances, we all attribute them to cultural situations.
In this way, cultural context is a very inclusive and complex concept.
It includes both on-site conditions and various related situations outside the field.
It has both simultaneous and temporal factors.
Here, this paper attempts to define the concept of cultural situation.
The comprehensive meaning of Cultural Situation refers to the social environment, activity scenes, etc.
under the rules of continuous historical traditions and within specific time and space that are intrusive.
From the perspective of time, this definition contains two elements: on the one hand, the traditional regulations of diachronic nature, and on the other hand, the simultaneous environmental conditions.
The diachronic "continuity" makes cultural events have traditional characteristics, while the synchronic "interference" makes cultural events undergo adaptive adjustment or mutation.These two factors project and converge into the soil and conditions for the occurrence and development of cultural events.
Therefore, cultural situation is the intersection of historical traditions and real life.
Historical traditions are stored in the consciousness and memory of the collective of the people in a specific community.
They promote, restrict and standardize the main features of cultural events, while practical factors adjust and modify historical traditions, causing the actual cultural events to vary.
The convergence and blending of the two aspects is the main situational factor that affects the actual cultural performance.
From a spatial perspective, cultural situations can be divided into two parts: on-site situations and social and cultural background.
On-site scenes refer to the on-site conditions during the performance of cultural events, such as the actors, the relationship between the actors, the motivation of the behavior, the time of the behavior, the occasion where the behavior occurred, the relevant activities carried out on the spot, the audience's reaction, the effect or function of the behavior, etc.
On-site scenes are the direct factors that lead to the occurrence of cultural events, and determine the manifestation and expression effect of cultural events.
Social and cultural background refers to various factors outside the field, including regional cultural characteristics, lifestyles, relevant historical traditions, economic conditions, national power, and the impact of foreign cultures.
Although they are not directly present, they play an important role in regulating and influencing on-site activities and are a kind of hidden presence.
[3]Applying the above definition of cultural situations to the analysis of multiple cultural events in the same time and space or community may seem too broad and all-encompassing, because multiple cultural events in the same time and space generally have a common social and cultural background, and such a comprehensive analysis of each cultural event will obviously be unnecessary duplication.
This paper defines the comprehensive meaning of cultural situations, mainly based on the construction of basic theories, and has a relatively comprehensive grasp and systematic sorting of the situational factors of intangible cultural heritage.
Such all-round situational analysis is conducive to researchers to conduct a holistic examination of cultural events, correctly and thoroughly demonstrate their cultural connotations and social functions, and effectively avoid misinterpretation and dismemberment of cultural phenomena.
In each specific research on a large-scale topic, because the macro background of many cultural events involved is often the same, it is not necessary to conduct a comprehensive situational analysis of each cultural event, which will lead to duplication and redundancy.
Don't discuss those self-evident situational elements that are not related to the topic.
Focus only on a certain part of the above-mentioned situational concept, which is usually the on-site situational part.
In this way, we can also divide the above-mentioned situational concepts into broad and narrow categories.
The broad concept is a comprehensive grasp of all relevant situational factors, and the narrow concept refers to on-site situational factors.
Based on this clear definition of cultural situations, the vitality, process, and variability of intangible cultural heritage can be implemented.
Three-situation protection should become an important part of the protection process of intangible cultural heritage.
UNESCO pointed out in the Istanbul Communique "Intangible Cultural Heritage, a Mirror of Cultural Diversity":"Intangible cultural heritage faces the risk of extinction or marginalization, mainly due to conflicts, intolerance, extreme mercantilism, uncontrolled urbanization or rural decline.
The extreme vulnerability of intangible cultural heritage requires governments to take resolute action to safeguard the environment in which intangible cultural heritage is performed and disseminated." This passage actually emphasizes the close relationship between cultural situations and cultural events, and clearly puts forward the requirements for situational protection.
At present, there is an emotional opposition to calls for "protection" and "rescue" in society.
Many people equate "protection" with "conservatism", believing that the protection of cultural heritage hinders local people's integration into the modernization process.
In fact, this is a misunderstanding of cultural heritage protection.
According to the UNESCO Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage, the exact meaning of "protection" is: "refers to the adoption of measures to ensure the vitality of intangible cultural heritage, including the recognition, documentation, research, preservation, protection, promotion, inheritance (mainly through formal and informal education) and revitalization of all aspects of such heritage." That is to say, there are two types of protection work.
One is to record and preserve the data of cultural events that have lost vitality and are about to decline; the other is to make them better survive when they are still vibrant.
There are also two categories of situational protection work for intangible cultural heritage: first, cultural events that still have survival value in modern society have a bad "ecological environment" due to human destruction or some unreasonable suppression, resulting in a weakening or even decline.
This should be vigorously supported and protected the soil on which they rely for survival so that they can be passed down in modern society; Second, cultural events that are not adapted to the modern social environment and are dying due to the loss of survival value must be completely recorded and preserved, not only to preserve their cultural events, but also to preserve their cultural situations.
In the past, we have done a lot of work and achieved great achievements in the protection of folk cultural heritage.
The shortcoming is that while focusing on collecting, recording or displaying cultural events, we have a tendency to ignore their cultural contexts to varying degrees.
For example, the collection of proverbs records the form of words and ignores vivid content such as the survival soil, cultural connotation, and social function of words.
It is regrettable that each volume of proverbs is integrated into a catalog of proverb entries to a large extent, with very few relevant explanations.
In fact, if we add situational content, we can reduce the scale of our work and reduce the number of integrated volumes.
By making the content of each volume more in-depth, detailed and vivid, it will also have higher preservation and utilization value.
As Dundis advises: "Our future folk collection goals should be fewer texts and more contexts, accompanied by detailed oral literary criticism." [1]Therefore, future cultural heritage protection work should formulate detailed and feasible operating specifications in terms of situational protection.
If global culture is regarded as a human cultural community, then the cultures of various nations and countries are subsystems that influence each other but are relatively independent and have their own characteristics, and intangible cultural heritage is the characteristic culture that occurs, continues and survives in each subsystem.
wealth.
China's intangible cultural heritage is formed in the melting pot of Chinese national culture.
In this regard, the "Basic Situation of the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage in my Country" issued by the Ministry of Culture on April 26, 2005 made a good statement: "Our country is a unified multi-ethnic country, and 56 ethnic groups have been engaged in long-term production and life.
The rich and colorful cultural heritage created in practice is the crystallization of the wisdom and civilization of the Chinese nation, the link connecting national emotions and the basis for maintaining national unity.
The unique spiritual values, ways of thinking, imagination and cultural awareness of the Chinese nation contained in my country's intangible cultural heritage are the basic basis for safeguarding my country's cultural identity and cultural sovereignty." "A unified multi-ethnic country" is the general environment for every intangible cultural heritage project in China.
In this country with a vast territory, a long history and many ethnic groups, various places have their own unique small environments and colorful cultural events.
The rich amount of intangible cultural heritage represents the basic characteristics and style of China culture.
It is not only an important cultural wealth of the Chinese nation, but also a necessary part of the cultural treasure house of all mankind.
The protection of intangible cultural heritage that attaches importance to situational factors will help the splendid Chinese culture be properly inherited and vividly preserved, thus occupying an important position with unique style in the forest of world cultures.
(This article was published in Journal of Renmin University of China, Issue 5, 2006)
[References][1][America] Written by Alan Dundis, Compiled by Hu Xiaohui.
Analysis of folk customs [M].
Guilin: Guangxi Normal University Press, 2005.
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[2]Meng Huiying.
Folk customs in context [J].
Folk Culture Forum, 2004 6).
--------------------------------------------------------------------* This article was read out at the "China Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Suzhou Forum and the Second China Kunqu International Academic Symposium" sponsored by the Ministry of Culture in July 2005, and some modifications have been made here.
[Introduction to the author] Huang Tao (1964-), native of Jing County, Hebei Province, Doctor of Law, professor at the School of Humanities, Wenzhou University.
His main research interests are folklore and folk literature.
[1]Scholars who focus on distinguishing language from speech believe that context should be the "speech environment".
Some pragmatic works interpret it as "pragmatic environment".
[2]This article was published as an appendix to the book "The Meaning of Meaning" by C.K.Ogden and I.A.Richards.
A Harvest/HBJ Book, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York and London, 1923.
[3]The author has previously proposed the concepts of "folk situation" and "social situation" and made a preliminary discussion.
The concept of "cultural situation" here is a special term proposed on this basis in conjunction with the situation in the field of intangible cultural heritage protection research, and provides a new explanation and more comprehensive definition of the connotation of "situation".
For relevant results, see the author's papers "On the Composition and Function of Language Folk Situations"(Journal of Beijing Normal University, No.
4, 2004) and "Defining the" People "of Contemporary China Folk Customs According to Social Situations"(Journal of Renmin University of China, No.
4, 2004).