[Fang Shengde] On Public Awareness: The "Grassroots" of Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection
[Abstract of paper] The public's awareness of protection restricts the progress of my country's intangible cultural heritage protection work.
This concept has not received universal attention.
Most researchers focus more on grasping and implementing the protection of intangible cultural heritage from a macro perspective.
Huge projects, which is different from foreign protection strategies and one of the reasons why my country's intangible cultural heritage protection lags behind.
The author attempts to explore how to more effectively implement the protection of intangible cultural heritage from the perspective of public protection awareness.
Since ancient times and today, the leaders of China culture have "taught people to pursue filial piety.""Filial piety" is the most important feature of the spirit of the Chinese nation.
No country or nation in the world has such a preference for traditional culture and artifacts left behind by ancestors as the Chinese nation.
Protecting and inheriting intangible cultural heritage is also the basis of this "filial piety".
It is no accident that this behavior can finally take shape and trigger a series of major practical actions at the end of the 20th century and the 21st century.
Or "hot-headed".
In the early 20th century, people of insight recognized the value and significance of intangible cultural heritage, called on the people to protect it, and proposed a series of protection measures.
However, due to war, endless social mobilization and revolutionary movements, people have no time to take care of this field; With the deepening of reform and opening up and the impact of Western culture, people are becoming more and more eager to explore where they came from and where they are going.
They are striving to impress their lives.
Protecting intangible cultural heritage is to preserve this memory.
First, it is "not only a systematic project, but a long-term and grand historic task that is taken over from generation to generation with the participation of the whole country and the whole country.") See Liu Kuili's article "Intangible Cultural Heritage and the Integral Principles for its Protection", Journal of Guangxi Normal University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), No.
4, 2004.) However, judging from the protection status in recent years, although very detailed and legally effective protection strategies and measures have been introduced, they have not effectively suppressed the disappearance of intangible cultural heritage.
The author believes that the emergence of problems is not only related to tangible "policies", but also related to intangible public protection awareness.
1.
Pay attention to collaboration at the "upper" and "lower" levels
The carrier of intangible cultural heritage is a nation or ethnic group.
It belongs to all people of that nation or ethnic group.
It has a strong public character.
Public awareness is the self-awareness of these ethnic groups or ethnic groups, which plays a fundamental role in the protection of intangible cultural heritage.
Protecting the intangible cultural heritage of countries around the world is a measure to maintain world cultural diversity, and this has also become the consensus of countries around the world.
However, at present, many units or regions in the country have insufficient understanding of the importance of intangible cultural heritage.
In particular, the broad masses of the people do not have sufficient understanding of the concept, content and significance of intangible cultural heritage.
They do not know what to protect.
Can it be protected? How to protect it?
Over the past century, many researchers have devoted a lot of time and energy to the collection, collation and research of intangible cultural heritage, and have done a lot of useful and valuable work for the protection and inheritance of my country's intangible cultural heritage.
However, the protection of experts and scholars often has a certain utilitarian nature.
They are keen to "fill in the gaps" and wear "art sunglasses" to transform and utilize certain factors in intangible cultural heritage to "mutate" The form exists in the "ivory tower" level of exchanges and cooperation.
"However, while folk art activities are used in large quantities as creative materials and are predatory exploitation, they themselves are still regarded as backward, primitive, and crude, and as objects that must be transformed in an elite cultural model to have artistic value." (Note: See Fu Jin's article "Field Methods of Art Research","The Power of Grassroots", Guangxi People's Publishing House, 2001 edition.) This living condition that ignores intangible cultural heritage and the so-called "protection" that is divorced from the basic consciousness of the protection subject, that is, the public awareness of protection, cannot keep up with the extinction of intangible cultural heritage.
Government policies are conducive to protection and to raising public awareness of protection.
However, excessive reliance on policies will also lead to a weak public awareness of protection.
On August 28, 2004, the China government joined the UNESCO Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
In May 2006, the State Council issued the "Notice on Promulgating the National Intangible Cultural Heritage List", announcing 518 national-level intangible cultural heritage items.
In June 2007, 226 representative inheritors of the first batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage projects were identified.
It should be said that the human, material and financial resources invested by the national government provide a strong guarantee for the protection of intangible cultural heritage.
However, the distinctive "hierarchical" protection strategy sometimes weakens the people's awareness of protection, and they may think that under the list It is the heritage that needs protection, or the "high-level" heritage that is the object of protection.
We seem to have entered a dilemma.
The original intention of "publishing the list and inheritors" is to raise the public's awareness of protection, but in the actual implementation process, this awareness has been reduced.
Therefore, the key is not how forward-looking the introduction of policies is.
How significant is the research of experts and scholars, but in practice, the coordination of policies and research results and raising public awareness of protection should be emphasized, so as to tell people why they should protect and love this type of culture.
Increase awareness of the urgency of protection.
2.
Three-level measures to improve public protection awareness
Improving public awareness of protecting intangible cultural heritage (national and social consciousness) is actually a process of national "cultural consciousness".
"An important feature of intangible cultural heritage is that it is not a 'dead culture' but a 'living culture'.
The essential feature of its difference from material cultural heritage is that it adheres to a specific nation, group, region or individual existence and has been passed down to this day." (Note: See Qiao Xiaoguang's article "Focus on Mother River","Collected Works of the International Academic Symposium on Folk Paper-cutting of China Intangible Cultural Heritage", Shanxi People's Publishing House, 2005 edition, page 7.) To protect intangible cultural heritage, we must pay attention to "vitality" and be based on "people".
Without paying attention to and attaching importance to people, we must abandon the original and pursue the last.
Although improving the protection awareness of "people" is aimed at the entire public, the specific operation should also be scientific and step-by-step.
The author believes that there should be three progressive levels, which target different audiences and achieve different results.
Combined implementation can improve the protection awareness of the whole people.
1.
Improve the protection awareness of inheritors and corresponding professionals
Most areas of intangible cultural heritage are passed on, continued and developed from generation to generation through oral transmission from the inheritors.
They "hold the exquisite skills and cultural traditions created by their ancestors.
They are symbols and important components of China's great civilization.
Contemporary outstanding inheritors of folk culture are the living treasure trove of folk culture of all ethnic groups in our country.
They carry the cultural essence created by their ancestors and have the unique creativity of genius...
Transmission from generation to generation is the most important channel for the inheritance of culture and even civilization.
Inheritors are the key to the transmission of folk culture from generation to generation.
Genius and outstanding inheritors of folk culture often push the culture of a nation and the era to the peak of history." (Note: See "Work Manual for Investigation, Identification and Naming of Outstanding Inheritors of China Folk Culture" compiled by China Folk Literary and Art Association, 2005 edition, page 11.) The key to protecting and continuing intangible cultural heritage is to protect the inheritors, which has been recognized by more and more people.
Due to the reputation and special position of the inheritors, in addition to imparting specific "culture", it is also necessary to spread and continue the meaning of such "culture".
However, for some inheritors, they do not realize that what they are engaged in is what we consider "culture".
This most direct way to raise public awareness of protection should be taken seriously.
In addition, after the government announced the first batch of national-level heritage and inheritors in the past two years, some inheritors who were not included in the list expressed their complaints through media channels: "The country does not pay attention to it, how can we inherit it?" Relying too much on government policies and utilitarian protection awareness will not only fail to effectively protect our intangible cultural heritage, but will also aggravate its extinction.
In the specific implementation process of the protection of intangible cultural heritage, from the rescue of endangered forms, to the collection, collation and research of extinct forms, to the support, revitalization, development and utilization of living forms, it is inseparable from the participation of corresponding professionals and guidance of necessary theoretical knowledge.
Compared with the current arduous task of protecting intangible cultural heritage in my country, the professional research team and its distribution are very uneven.
Most of the more qualified professionals in the field of traditional culture and art research are concentrated in some metropolises, universities and scientific research institutes.
Moreover, they are generally older, and they do not have much time and energy to conduct long-term on-site research.
However, the vast majority of existing intangible cultural heritage is concentrated in "local and grassroots", and its protection can only wait for "people of insight" to explore it or use the only local personnel with certain professional knowledge to maintain it.
This makes my country's Intangible cultural heritage protection in a "non-professional" state, inevitably with certain utilitarian nature.
Cultivating professional talents to enter the grassroots, training local talents, and establishing non-governmental intangible cultural heritage protection organizations are the only way to effectively implement intangible cultural heritage and a strong guarantee for improving public awareness of protection.
2.
Pay attention to the dissemination methods of education
Education is an important way to inherit human cultural memory.
In my country's intangible cultural heritage protection work, educational activities have also become an important task to support, protect and inherit intangible cultural heritage.
Due to the serious lack of professional research teams, some educational institutions, especially colleges and universities, have begun to establish relevant majors and carry out undergraduate, master's and even doctoral education to cultivate urgently needed talents for the inheritance and development of intangible cultural heritage, and give full play to the role of universities in the protection of intangible cultural heritage.
An important bridge role.
At the same time, we encourage and support some excellent cultural heritage content and cultural heritage knowledge to be incorporated into teaching plans and textbooks in primary and secondary schools, and organize visits and study activities to stimulate young people's enthusiasm for loving the traditional culture of the motherland and improve their awareness of the protection of intangible cultural heritage.
However, there is an extreme shortage of local professionals, especially in some remote villages, which are also the source of intangible cultural heritage.
Educators themselves have insufficient understanding of intangible cultural heritage and are unable to theoretically study local intangible cultural heritage courses.
If systematic planning is made on the curriculum, even if school education is rolled out across the board, it is very likely that the results will "backfire and be completely different, and it may even be possible that under the good desire to implement protection, Due to the inability to act in accordance with scientific ideas and the lack of necessary professional theoretical guidance, unnecessary regrets and unnecessary disasters are brought." (Note: See Wu Wenke's "People-oriented: Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage and Its Fundamental Principles", http://www.ihchina.cn/main.jsp.)
Paying attention to education, we should pay more attention to the dissemination channels of education.
The author believes that regarding the current status quo of intangible cultural heritage protection in my country, a top-down communication method should be adopted.
On the one hand, it is necessary to cultivate senior professionals who study intangible cultural heritage, and carry out investigation, registration, filming, recording, identification, filing and other work on intangible cultural heritage nationwide to find out the background; on the other hand, it is necessary to vigorously promote and raise awareness of the protection of intangible cultural heritage at the undergraduate and junior college education level, because a large number of graduates at this level will face the grassroots and local levels; Thirdly, teachers who are interested in teaching and communication in primary and secondary schools should be trained, and opportunities should be created and provided for them to learn again.
They are the "inheritors" of raising public awareness of protection.
Only by raising the awareness of the protection of intangible cultural heritage of people with certain cultural knowledge can we avoid "rushing into action" and improve the overall quality of protection of the whole people.
3.
Preserve and establish the original ecological living environment
Preserving and establishing the original ecological living environment and improving public awareness of protection are mutually restrictive and mutually reinforcing relationships.
In the process of protecting intangible cultural heritage, what needs to be paid attention to is the valuable spiritual connotation and historical traditions hidden behind the material level, which is inseparable from its original ecological environment.
In fact, under the constraints of the market economy, it is impossible to completely preserve and establish the original ecological living environment of intangible cultural heritage.
It can only be implemented relatively within limited conditions.
The establishment of an ecological museum provides this relative possibility.
The ecological museum is a new type of museum that combines natural ecological resources with national traditional cultural resources to implement overall protection.
It is also called a "living museum without walls." Establishing an ecological museum, the less it participates in economic interests, the more conducive it will be to protect the original ecological environment.
On the one hand, it is necessary to arouse the awareness of indigenous residents to protect and preserve the essence of traditional culture and increase economic investment from the government and the private sector; on the other hand, it can Enhance the sense of responsibility, heritage cohesion and protection of indigenous residents.
In addition, this form of "museum park" will inevitably attract a large number of tourists and visitors at home and abroad.
In addition to mandatory "education" before entering the park, the ecological museum also uses its unique charm to promote and enhance their understanding of intangible cultural heritage and its awareness of its protection.
The establishment of an ecological museum is only the initial stage of protecting the original ecological environment.
Our wish is to establish the original ecological environment of all intangible cultural heritage nationally or globally.
This is just a wish.
With the advancement of science and technology, economy, and people's life and culture, some things are destined to disappear.
However, as the public's awareness of protection increases, those intangible cultural heritage that is destined to disappear can be successfully transformed in a way such as in museums, At the level of folk museums or cultural centers, they are preserved in a relatively living manner.
For example, with the popularization of movies, television and the Internet, and the transformation of public aesthetic concepts, the decline of shadow puppet art is inevitable, and its nature will also change.
In Taiwan, before shadow puppet art had completely disappeared from people's vision, the government and non-governmental organizations established a "shadow puppet theater hall" to sort out the development process of shadow puppet, collect props for shadow puppet performances, reproduce the performance scenes of shadow puppet theater in various periods, establish inheritors files, and regularly invite inheritors of various factions to perform in the "shadow puppet theater hall", retaining this unique national memory in a relatively living way.
It also provides a reference for the mainland to protect the original ecological environment of intangible cultural heritage.
To sum up, the public's awareness of protection restricts the process of intangible cultural heritage protection, which has attracted the attention of researchers abroad, such as its prominent emphasis on "cultural communities","local communities","local communities" and the protection of cultural heritage at the community level.
However, as far as China's national conditions are concerned, the quality of the people, the inertia of government administrative methods, and direct and complete protection at the community level are not appropriate.
Only by focusing on policy guidance and strengthening cooperation and exchanges among all classes can the protection of intangible culture in China be carried out harmoniously.
(Source: Hundred Art Schools)