[Yuan Li] On further deepening the understanding of the concept of intangible cultural heritage
[Abstract of the paper] When we define the concept of "intangible cultural heritage", we should at least accurately grasp the following elements: First, the inheritance subject of intangible cultural heritage is not determined by class or class, but is determined by the mastery of traditional knowledge, traditional skills and traditional skills; second, intangible cultural heritage must be a product of history, but at the same time it must be passed down to this day in a living way; Third, intangible cultural heritage must have important historical cognitive value, artistic value and scientific value; fourth, intangible cultural heritage is mainly distributed in folk literature, performing arts, traditional crafts, traditional festivals, traditional rituals, production knowledge, and life.
Eight aspects of knowledge and cultural space.
However, the various "tools","objects" and "finished products" related to this may have special significance for the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage, but they cannot be regarded as intangible cultural heritage.
In the spring of 2006, the author accompanied Vice Minister Zhou Heping of the Ministry of Culture to Zhejiang to participate in an academic seminar on intangible cultural heritage.
At the meeting, the deputy minister told everyone such a joke.
He said: There are many fortune-tellers near the Lama Temple in Beijing.
In the past, they ran away when the city management officers came, but now they are shouting while running: "Don't arrest me, I am Intangible cultural heritage!" The minister said that there must be problems with their understanding of intangible cultural heritage, but on the other hand, it can indeed be seen that after recent efforts, the concept of "intangible cultural heritage" has become a household name and deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
However, knowing does not mean understanding, and understanding does not mean understanding accurately.
If we want to protect intangible cultural heritage, we must first understand what intangible cultural heritage is.
Otherwise, it will be easy for us to protect things that should not be protected due to the ambiguity of concepts, and the intangible cultural heritage that really needs to be protected and rescued will lose the opportunity to be finally protected.
On October 17, 2003, UNESCO promulgated the Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
The Convention defines intangible cultural heritage as follows: "The so-called intangible cultural heritage refers to various social activities, narrative arts, performing arts, production and living experiences, various handicraft skills, and various tools, objects, manufactured products and related places used in the process of telling, performing and implementing these skills and skills that are regarded by people everywhere or certain individuals as an important part of their cultural wealth.
Intangible cultural heritage has the characteristics of being inherited from generation to generation, and will continue to innovate in its interaction with the surrounding humanistic environment, natural environment and even the past history, so that the broad masses of the people can identify with it and inspire their sense of cultural diversity.
Respect for human creativity.
Of course, what this Convention protects is not all intangible cultural heritage, but the most excellent part of it, including those that are in line with existing international human rights conventions, are conducive to the establishment of a harmonious society of mutual respect, and can best enable human society to achieve sustainable development."
The expression of "intangible cultural heritage" made by my country's academic circles basically stems from this definition.
For example, the "Work Manual for the Survey of China Ethnic Folk Culture Protection Project" believes that the so-called intangible cultural heritage "refers to various traditional cultural expressions that have been passed down from generation to generation by people of all ethnic groups and are closely related to people's lives, such as folk activities, performing arts, traditional knowledge and skills, as well as related instruments, objects, handicrafts, etc.) and cultural spaces are places where traditional cultural activities are held regularly or traditional cultural expressions are concentrated.
Both temporal and spatial)."
It should be said that the above definition has touched on the core content of intangible cultural heritage, but there are still imperfections in its expression and further supplements, revisions and development are needed.
The author believes that if we want to make an accurate academic positioning of intangible cultural heritage, we must make a series of clear academic positioning for the inheritance subject, inheritance time, inheritance form, inheritance content, inheritance value and other subsystems of intangible cultural heritage., and through the academic positioning of the above subsystems, we can lock in the connotation and extension of the concept of "intangible cultural heritage".
1.
Restrictions on the subjects of intangible cultural heritage inheritance
The inheritors of intangible cultural heritage are the main body of inheritance of intangible cultural heritage.
Without the inheritor, the intangible cultural heritage will also disappear, which is the so-called "death and art".
So, what talents are qualified to serve as inheritors of intangible cultural heritage? Some people directly position the inheritors of intangible cultural heritage as "folk", which is obviously not enough.
We know that in the process of creating and inheriting my country's intangible cultural heritage, the vast majority of intangible cultural heritage inheritors do come from the private sector.
In our daily expression process,"folk" can indeed be used to refer to all intangible cultural heritage inheritors.
But this does not mean that only the people are the only inheritors of intangible cultural heritage, and people outside civil society have no right to receive this honor.
If this is the case, Japan's famous intangible cultural heritage-Noh Le, Kabuki, South Korea's famous world-class intangible cultural heritage masterpiece-court sacrifices, etc., are not entitled to be included in the Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection List-because they are all typical court culture.
But in fact, we have to admit that they are indeed the most excellent intangible cultural heritage of these nations or countries.
Similarly, although the official kilns that appeared in the history of the development of porcelain culture in China and the Manchu and Han banquet that appeared in court life were not created by the people or passed down by the people, we cannot deny that they are also the most excellent cultural heritage of the Chinese nation.
The creation and inheritance of many intangible cultural heritage must be based on strong economic strength.
In many cases, without the support of the state or the court, many intangible cultural heritage cannot be passed down most effectively.
Therefore, it is obviously not appropriate for us to position the so-called intangible cultural heritage inheritance category only in civil society.
We believe that since intangible cultural heritage itself is not a political concept but a concept of knowledge, technology and experience, there is no need for us to choose from a political perspective, but should choose from the perspective of knowledge, technology and experience.
In other words, when we judge whether a traditional cultural event is intangible cultural heritage, the criterion for judgment should not be political, but should be knowledge, technology, and experience; judging whether a person is an intangible cultural heritage inheritor, not by his political background, whether he is a poor peasant or a rich peasant, a civilian or an emperor, but by how much traditional knowledge, skills and skills he has mastered.
In the Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage adopted by UNESCO on October 17, 2003, UNESCO did not limit the creators and inheritors of intangible cultural heritage to only "people everywhere", but also included "certain individuals" in addition to "people everywhere".
If we take a more open stance to define the inheritors of intangible cultural heritage, then this group should be a specific group of people with special knowledge, special performance skills and skills in human society-such as artists, craftsmen and wizards.
2.
Limitations on the time limit for the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage
It is not enough to limit the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage to the "present" and "spread to the people".
Living circulation is an important feature of the survival of intangible cultural heritage in the world, but this does not mean that all cultural events passed down in human society are intangible cultural heritage.
Some cultural events may be excellent, but due to their short circulation time, they cannot enter the intangible cultural heritage protection list.
For example, the peasant paintings in Hu County that appeared after 1949 were produced in the 1950s) and the peasant paintings in Jinshan were produced in the 1970s), at least temporarily, cannot be included in the intangible cultural heritage protection list.
In the selection of intangible cultural heritage, all countries have certain time limits.
Take Japan and South Korea and other advanced countries in the protection of intangible cultural heritage as examples.
Although they have never had clear legal requirements for the entry threshold of intangible cultural heritage, judging from some intangible cultural heritage protection projects announced by these countries, the ones with the shortest history generally have a history of more than a hundred years.
This standard is undoubtedly more appropriate for ordinary countries.
If we introduce this standard into my country's intangible cultural heritage evaluation system, then the general intangible cultural heritage application event should have a history of at least more than 100 years, that is, the event that originated before the Qing Dynasty and has been passed down in a living form to this day.
Traditional cultural event.
Traditional cultural events that occurred after the Qing Dynasty and were less than a hundred years old are not eligible to be included in the Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection List.
Of course, this is just a lower limit, a basic entry threshold.
In fact, in the specific operation process, in an ancient civilized country like China with a history of 5000 years, general intangible cultural heritage should usually have a history of more than hundreds of years, such as kites, printmaking technology, Kunqu Opera, Peking Opera performance art, etc.).
Some will be longer, such as the wood-drilling technology that originated in the late stage of primitive society, which has a history of at least nearly 10,000 years.
The reason why it is called "heritage" must be the wealth left to us after the death of the creator of the property.
The creator of property is still alive, so how can we call the property he gave us a "legacy"?
3.
Restrictions on the inheritance forms of intangible cultural heritage
For material cultural heritage, only a limit on time is enough.
However, for intangible cultural heritage, it is not enough to limit the time limit alone.
We must also implement necessary restrictions on the form of its inheritance.
Different from material cultural heritage that exists in a solid state, the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage usually appears in front of us in a living form.
To judge whether a traditional cultural event is intangible cultural heritage, the first step is to see whether it is passed down in a living way in terms of inheritance form.
For example, if there is still someone who narrates the Manchu Shuobu in a traditional way, the Manchu Shuobu is intangible cultural heritage; and once the narrator dies without heirs, although we also admit that this is left to us by the Manchu ancestors.
A precious spiritual wealth, it will no longer be intangible cultural heritage, nor will it continue to be named on the national intangible cultural heritage protection list.
4.
Limitations on the scope of coverage of intangible cultural heritage
It is too broad to broadly position the coverage of intangible cultural heritage as "all traditional cultural events".
The cultural heritage of a nation should not be the whole of this nation's traditional cultural events, but should be the most essence of this nation's traditional culture.
Let's not talk about vulgar customs such as smoking cigarettes and binding feet, but even those traditional cultural events with a neutral nature, such as drinking and playing mahjong, can hardly obtain the honor of "national cultural heritage".
Therefore, when UNESCO promulgated the Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2003, it roughly defined the coverage of intangible cultural heritage as folk literature, performing arts, traditional skills, traditional knowledge, traditional festival rituals and folk activities.
Several areas where heritage storage is relatively concentrated seem to have been fully considered.
Why is the storage of cultural heritage in the above several fields bound to be high? Let us give an example.
Take traditional festivals as an example.
As everyone knows, there are 365 days in a year, but not every day is equally important for the inheritance of a nation's excellent cultural heritage.
There are always a few days in the year.
It is particularly important for the inheritance of a nation's excellent heritage.
These special days are exactly the festive cultural heritage we want to protect.
Why must these traditional festivals be regarded as cultural heritage and special protection be given to them? Because people can not only pass on the production technology of festive food and festive costumes through tasting festive food and wearing festive costumes, but also make traditional performing arts flourish by participating in performances.
At the same time, solemn festive ceremonies can also invisibly heal people's spiritual wounds, enable people to gain more spiritual baptism through sacred rituals, make people more united, and make society more harmonious and stable.
This is the value of traditional festivals, and this is the significance of protecting traditional festivals.
From here, we can see that UNESCO has included traditional festivals in the Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection List from a diachronic perspective.
It has indeed been carefully considered and fully reflects UNESCO's commitment to the inheritance of diachronic intangible cultural heritage.
Highly summary.
In the same way, folk literature, performing arts, crafts, folk knowledge, etc.
are also "rich mines" that exist in traditional culture, and are also UNESCO's high-level summaries of the civilization created by mankind from different perspectives.
Excavating gold mines requires identifying the veins and protecting intangible cultural heritage.
It also requires us to theoretically understand the distribution laws of intangible cultural heritage.
Only in this way can we protect each type of intangible cultural heritage in a more targeted manner.
5.
Limitations on the value contained in intangible cultural heritage
Judging from the connotation that the heritage shows us, it is obviously too broad to simply position intangible cultural heritage as various traditional cultural matters that are "popular with the people." According to the experience of UNESCO, Japan and South Korea and other countries, if you want to declare world-class or national-level intangible cultural heritage, it must have important historical value, artistic value, cultural value or scientific value.
Without these hard conditions, it is almost impossible to declare intangible cultural heritage.
In short, when defining the new concept of intangible cultural heritage, we must at least make strict limits on several aspects such as inheritance subject, inheritance time limit, inheritance form, heritage value, and heritage coverage.
Below, let's talk about several misunderstandings in the application process of intangible cultural heritage.
Myth 1: Treat various "tools","objects" and "finished products" as intangible cultural heritage.
Previously, both UNESCO and domestic academic circles had included "various tools, objects, finished products and related places used in the process of telling, performing, and implementing these skills and skills" in the category of intangible cultural heritage.
This approach is debatable.
The so-called "intangible cultural heritage" refers to traditional cultural matters of knowledge, technology and skills that have been created by humans in history and passed down to this day in a living way, and have important historical value, artistic value, cultural value and scientific value.
However, those various "tools","objects" and "finished products" that are "visible" and "tangible" may have special significance for the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage, but they cannot be regarded as intangible cultural heritage, let alone included in the Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection List.
Myth 2: In the Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage promulgated by UNESCO, UNESCO has also included "relevant spaces"(also referred to as "cultural spaces ") in the Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection List.
Theoretically speaking, the proposal of the concept of "cultural space" is of great significance for the overall protection of intangible cultural heritage.
Because only by protecting intangible cultural heritage together with the external environment in which it lives can it be possible to comprehensively protect intangible cultural heritage.However, any intangible cultural heritage lives in a specific cultural space.
If we ignore the inherent classification of UNESCO and declare some of its items separately in the name of "cultural space", it will inevitably cause classification chaos, which is also tolerated by classification theory.
So, in the process of applying for representative works of intangible cultural heritage, can we not use the concept of "cultural space"? Of course not.
Judging from the first three batches of "Representative Lists of Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity" that have been published by UNESCO, although UNESCO does not advocate the declaration of individual heritage items such as song and dance performances as "cultural spaces", it does not oppose those intangible cultural heritage with comprehensive characteristics shall be declared separately in the name of "cultural spaces".
In this case, if the types of cultural heritage in a certain area or village are extremely rich, and the correlation between them is very strong, and the individual declaration of any item is not conducive to the overall protection of the intangible cultural heritage here, We can consider packaging the various intangible cultural heritage here into a whole and independently declaring it in the name of a complete "cultural space".
However, it should be noted that this "cultural space" should not be too large.
It is best to use villages and towns as a unit, so that it is relatively easy to protect and more operable.
Based on the above points, we seem to be able to define intangible cultural heritage as follows: The so-called "intangible cultural heritage" refers to those traditional cultural events of knowledge, technology and skills that have been created in history by humans, especially those with special knowledge, skills and skills, and have important historical value, artistic value, cultural value and science.
The value is sufficient to represent the local culture and be recognized by the local people and society, and have universal value.
This kind of heritage is mainly distributed in folk literature, performing arts, traditional crafts and technologies including cultural relic restoration technologies), traditional festivals, traditional rituals, production knowledge, life knowledge, and cultural spaces containing a large number of intangible cultural heritage expressions.
Since this kind of heritage usually exists in the minds of inheritors of traditional culture such as craftsmen and artists in an "invisible" and "intangible" form, which brings certain difficulties to the declaration, designation, inheritance and protection work, Japan and South Korea, when advanced countries in the protection of intangible cultural heritage designate such cultural heritage, they also designate the inheritors of these heritage together.
Source: Henan Social Sciences)