[Zhou Jinzhang] The "structural deficiency" of the subject of intangible cultural heritage protection

In recent years, intangible cultural heritage has gradually become a hot topic in society.

Not only has a national and holistic systematic census project been formed, but the awareness of recognition and protection in the whole society has also been continuously enhanced.

In recent years, the protection of intangible cultural heritage in China has made rapid progress, and a relatively complete intangible cultural heritage list system at the national, provincial, municipal and county levels has been gradually established.

Currently, there are 1028 projects listed in the national-level "intangible cultural heritage" protection list, 1044 "intangible cultural heritage" inheritors, more than 260,000 precious objects and materials collected through cultural surveys, and the total amount of "intangible cultural heritage" resources is nearly 560,000 items.

However, what corresponds to the growth rate of quantity is the structural lack of protection subjects.

At present, the social organization that plays a major role in the protection of intangible cultural heritage is the government.

Business units and scholars have only participated in protection activities to a certain extent, but the enthusiasm of the public is not high, and the development of service and rights-based intermediary organizations is relatively lagging behind, which I call a "structural deficiency."

First, the protection of intangible cultural heritage should be improved efficiency.

According to the author's investigation, government functional departments at all levels are currently responsible for a wide variety of affairs such as economy, culture, environment, public security and people's livelihood construction.

The existing organizational system is overburdened, resulting in the inability to protect and manage intangible cultural heritage.

Some local governments are very active in preparing data and materials before applying for cultural heritage.

Once the application is successful, they relax management.

Second, the effect of management and protection based on administrative means is limited.

Although the government has advocated "shifting the focus and basing itself on the grassroots" since the beginning of the protection of intangible cultural heritage, and wants to decentralize the focus of work to grassroots communities closely related to local cultural traditions, in reality it seems to have evolved into delegating work tasks to grassroots organizations, resulting in a strong administrative tendency for the protection and management of intangible cultural heritage.

The author once went to an intangible cultural heritage protection office in a certain place for investigation.

According to the main person in charge and staff, their work is reported one by one.

Every year, nearly 10,000 forms from various government departments need to be filled out.

They also have to participate in various meetings, large and small, and usually need to go deep into street publicity and research.

The work is in a passive situation, and the initiative, enthusiasm and creativity of the grassroots have not been fully exerted.

Third, intangible cultural heritage protection cannot be different.

Some local governments simply proceed from economic benefits and adopt a mentality of eager for quick success and instant benefits.

As a result, six provinces competed for the birthplace of the "Cowherd and Weaver Girl", more than a dozen cities were eyeing the ownership of the "Hometown of Liang Zhu", and a "Three Character Classic" caused the two cities to fight fiercely.

Although some traditional intangible cultural heritage projects can produce certain benefits through packaging and commercial operation, the cultural value of most intangible cultural heritage projects needs to be further explored, and their vitality is already quite fragile.

Industrialization and commercialization are pursued under extremely immature circumstances.

The path can only cause damage to "intangible cultural heritage" projects.

There are also some places where intangible cultural heritage has become tourist attractions and become fashionable consumer goods and cultural labels.

Excessive commercialization of intangible cultural heritage has lost its historical and cultural heritage and the significance of cultural inheritance.

To solve the above problems, we should continue to improve and give full play to the leading role of the government, encourage extensive public participation, cultivate social volunteer service organizations, explore the establishment of a protection mechanism that combines multiple entities such as the government, scientific research units and non-governmental organizations, and form a social support network.

It will become a new source of strength for promoting the protection of intangible cultural heritage.

First of all, in the protection of intangible cultural heritage, mobilize people's enthusiasm to participate in cultural self-construction and self-restoration.

In developed countries, the government mainly conducts comprehensive coordination and planning of intangible cultural heritage from a macro perspective, and provides corresponding financial, technical and information technology support.

The extensive participation of the people plays an important role in the protection of intangible cultural heritage.

They participate in organizing training, public education, setting standards, managing the environment, promoting the establishment of protected areas, and coordinating management with the government.

They have a clear scope of goals, can understand, respect and support the wishes of all parties, have certain sources of funding, and can check the standards and implement joint decision-making, etc., all of which are of reference significance to us.

Judging from my country's situation, on the one hand, the government should increase publicity efforts on the protection of intangible cultural heritage to arouse public awareness of participation; on the other hand, it can consider carrying out education at various levels, aspects and forms to enable the public to improve the awareness and protection level of intangible cultural heritage through learning and training, so as to ensure that there is a broader institutional space for the development of the intangible cultural heritage protection system.

The protection of intangible cultural heritage is not only the right and responsibility of governments at all levels, but also the common cause of the general public.

Only when the people consciously and wholeheartedly protect cultural heritage can cultural heritage have dignity, and only when cultural heritage with dignity have strong vitality.

It is necessary to take advantage of the application of intangible cultural heritage, mobilize social forces to participate in the protection and restoration of intangible cultural heritage, carefully protect the intangible cultural heritage of the people, and protect and encourage the people to spontaneously cultivate and develop multi-level and diversified cultural and ecological environment, and promote the joint appreciation, protection and management of intangible cultural heritage products by internal and external cultural members.

Culture is originally created by the general public.

Only when it is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people can cultural undertakings have vitality and have sustainable development.

Secondly, take advantage of my country's organizational resources, establish a hierarchical management organizational system, and give full play to the advantages of non-governmental volunteer service forces.

In the process of rapid urbanization, a group of appeals, volunteers and actors for the protection of intangible cultural heritage have emerged in my country.

Based on the reality of historical awareness, personality and aesthetic appreciation, they regard the protection of intangible cultural heritage as a way of life.

At the same time, some enterprises are also active in protecting and inheriting China culture.

However, most of the above-mentioned volunteer service forces are regional or industrial behaviors and lack standardized organizations and sufficient credibility.

They are relatively small in scale and have limited effects; most organizations lack restraint mechanisms for volunteer management, which often results in rapid flow of personnel and unstable teams.

The key to solving the above dilemma lies in leveraging the effectiveness of government organizational resources.

Consider establishing a state-authorized non-governmental intangible cultural heritage protection platform, supervised by the cultural department or relevant functional departments, and unify scattered volunteers to achieve complementary functions.

We can also consider strengthening the classified management of intangible cultural heritage volunteer service forces, assisting some outstanding volunteer organizations to join the corresponding cultural management departments as group members, and recommending the backbone of some volunteer organizations to serve as government employees to further leverage the vitality of volunteer services.

We can also actively organize and establish a volunteer salon for intangible cultural heritage protection, regularly carry out volunteer networking activities, strengthen liaison, enhance friendship, exchange experiences and experience, and provide useful suggestions and practices for further promoting intangible cultural heritage protection activities.

Third, with the help of the results of intangible cultural heritage protection, we should give full play to the role of scientific research units and establish authoritative professional heritage protection institutions.

In recent years, many universities and scientific research units have begun to engage in research on the protection of intangible cultural heritage.

However, due to the utilitarian influence of real politics and commercial industries, the academic nature and normative nature of research are difficult to improve, and "theory" and "practice" are often separated.

Therefore, it is necessary to actively promote cooperation between universities and other scientific research units and relevant departments to achieve complementary functions and technologies between the two parties.

On the one hand, we will give full play to the advantages of policy-oriented, use scientific research projects to organize social elites, mobilize experts from universities and other scientific research institutions to participate, and establish a reasonable network configuration to maximize the benefits of intangible cultural heritage protection; On the other hand, scientific research institutions should give full play to their talent advantages, report results to government departments more directly, more nuanced and more quickly, provide decision-making consultation, and introduce and explain the history and current situation of ethnic and folk cultural heritage to experts and scholars in various fields, and provide teaching and scientific research platform, while demonstrating cultural heritage products to a broad social audience, expanding services, especially enhancing patriotic education for young people.

Author's unit: School of Political Science and Law, Capital Normal University)