[Tao Lifan] Folklore and Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection

Intangible cultural heritage protection is a new thing that emerged at the beginning of the 21st century.

In October 2003, the 32nd General Conference of UNESCO adopted the Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

In August 2004, the China government approved accession to the treaty, and in June 2006, the Convention entered into force.

Since then, the Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage has become an important policy document for the protection of intangible cultural heritage in China.

Regarding intangible cultural heritage, the UNESCO Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage defines it as follows: Intangible cultural heritage refers to the various social practices, conceptual expressions, forms of expression, knowledge, skills, and related tools, objects, handicrafts and cultural sites that are regarded as part of their cultural heritage by communities, groups, and sometimes individuals.

This intangible cultural heritage is passed down from generation to generation and is constantly recreated as communities and groups adapt to their surrounding environment and interact with nature and history, providing these communities and groups with a sense of identity and continuity, thereby enhancing cultural diversity.

Respect for human creativity.

According to the above definition,"intangible cultural heritage" includes the following aspects: (1) oral traditions and manifestations, including language as a medium of intangible cultural heritage;(2) performing arts;(3) social practices, rituals, festivals;(4) knowledge and practice about nature and the universe; and (5) traditional handicrafts.

The so-called "protection" in the Convention refers to various measures to ensure the vitality of intangible cultural heritage, including the identification, documentation, research, preservation, protection, publicity, promotion and inheritance of all aspects of such heritage (especially through formal and informal education) and revitalization.

In order to implement the spirit of the Convention, UNESCO has established three lists and lists of human intangible cultural heritage: the "Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity", the "List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Urgent Need of Protection" and the "List of Excellent Practices".

Its special committee reviews the heritage items declared by various countries every year and then decides whether to include them in the list or roster.

States parties to China's Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage naturally commit to protecting China's intangible cultural heritage.

In 2005, the State Council issued the "Notice on Strengthening the Protection of Cultural Heritage".

In 2006, the first batch of representative lists of national-level intangible cultural heritage was announced, and a national four-level (national, provincial, municipal, and county) list protection system was established.

In February 2011, the "Intangible Cultural Heritage Law of the People's Republic of China" was promulgated and came into effect on June 1 of the same year.

Since then, China has a legal basis for the protection of intangible cultural heritage.

The protection of intangible cultural heritage is a vigorous work carried out in China at the beginning of the 21st century.

In more than ten years, almost the whole country has been mobilized to conduct a census of intangible cultural heritage, and 1372 national-level representative intangible cultural heritage projects have been announced, and a list of 1986 representative inheritors of each project has been established.

There are also 39 China intangible cultural heritage projects that have entered the UNESCO List of Representative Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, Intangible Cultural Heritage List in Urgent Need of Protection, and Excellent Practices List.

This has aroused great repercussions in the folklore community of China.

Scholars not only participated in protection practice, but also began to think about the academic relationship between folklore and the protection of intangible cultural heritage.

The first is the proposal and definition of the concept of intangible cultural heritage.

The concept of intangible cultural heritage was proposed from the UNESCO Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

It is clear that this concept stems from the need to protect intangible cultural heritage, rather than academic pursuits.

This is proved by the many meetings and documents of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization on the formation of the concept of intangible cultural heritage.

As for whether "intangible cultural heritage" has disciplinary connotations, it is a matter of concern to scholars.

Since the concept of intangible cultural heritage was put forward, the debate in the folklore community is still ongoing.

Some scholars believe that "intangible cultural heritage" does not have a disciplinary nature, but is just a working term in protection work, that is, a description of the definition with protection as the core; some scholars believe that it already has a disciplinary nature and propose the concept of "intangible cultural heritage".

With the deepening of protection work, there are still some liberal arts colleges and universities offering "Intangible Cultural Heritage" courses for undergraduate and postgraduate training, and some schools are preparing to offer intangible cultural heritage majors, although they are still in the pipeline.

Intangible cultural heritage refers specifically to a certain cultural phenomenon, such as endangered historical culture.

It has the nature of heritage and is still being passed down alive and needs to be protected.

In order to define intangible cultural heritage, the Convention sets certain categories, formulates principles, requirements and plans for protection work, and a blueprint for realizing these plans.

This is reflected in the project application for the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

The Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage promulgated by UNESCO embodies this spirit.

For example, in the definition of intangible cultural heritage, the scope of protection is reflected in five aspects: only oral traditions and forms of expression and language as a medium of intangible cultural heritage; various performing arts; social customs, etiquette, festivals; Knowledge and practice about nature and the universe; various traditional handicrafts, etc.

can enter the scope of protection.

In terms of inheritance and protection, it mainly refers to communities, groups and individuals.

In addition, there are principles and methods of protection.

According to the concept of folklore, intangible cultural heritage is undoubtedly one of the objects of its research, and these objects are scattered in various fields of material folklore, social folklore and spiritual folklore.

As far as its inheritors are concerned, folk customs seem to be passed down by the people, while the Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage breaks down class restrictions.

As long as the communities, groups and individuals related to the protection project, as long as they have the intangible cultural heritage that they inherit, they have a sense of identity, are the holder of property rights of this culture, and participate in the inheritance of cultural heritage, they can be protected as objects.

This is completely different from the "people" in folk customs.

The word "min" in folk customs refers specifically to, and according to fashionable parlance, it refers to the grassroots class.

The scope of inheritors of the Convention is obviously much broader, even including the elite.

In this sense, non-physical cultural heritage refers specifically to a certain type of cultural phenomenon, rather than the entire study of folk culture, that is, its research objects are scattered cases.

It is like extracting one of them from a certain complex folk cultural space for protection as intangible cultural heritage, rather than protecting folk culture as a whole.

Secondly, it constitutes the elements and theoretical framework of the discipline.

The theoretical framework of folklore contains a complete system.

Such as basic theory (concepts, objects, characteristics, classification, methodology), applied research (applied folklore), history of folklore and data science, etc.

In the protection practice of intangible cultural heritage, multi-disciplinary support is often relied on and the disciplinary theories that have been developed are utilized.

For example,"oral traditions and expressions, including language as a medium of intangible cultural heritage", can be protected using the theoretical guidance of folk literature and linguistics;"performing arts","social practice, rituals, festivals","knowledge and practice about nature and the universe","traditional handicrafts", etc., can be protected using the theoretical guidance of folklore and folk literature and art.

Practice has proved that the accumulation of past disciplines can completely solve the problem of intangible cultural heritage protection.

From this point of view, the study of intangible cultural heritage is at best an applied study of folklore, while protection is a theoretical practice.

From the currently published papers and works on intangible cultural heritage, we can also see that many contents are at the working level.

For example, the classification of intangible cultural heritage; inheritance subjects and protection subjects; protection concepts, principles and methods; and the production of declaration texts are all specific operating methods and are far from reaching the level of methodology.

As for the study of subject history, there is even a blank.

The lack of subject requirements makes the theory of intangible cultural heritage naturally pale.

Third, the status and role of folklore in the protection of intangible culture.

The protection of intangible cultural heritage in China is in the ascendant.

Many folklore researchers have been involved since the beginning of the work.

From the perspective of protecting traditional culture, China's folklore scholars are foresight.

As early as the 1980s, many scholars devoted themselves to the rescue and protection of China folk literature and art.

They spent a quarter of a century completing the compilation of "Ten Sets of Folk Literature and Art Collected Chronicles".

This project is known as the "Great Wall of Culture" and is written into the annals of folk culture rescue and protection.

From the perspective of rescuing folk culture, it has won at least more than 20 years for the protection of intangible cultural heritage.

Many projects in the rescue work of folk literature and art have today been included in the representative list of intangible cultural heritage at all levels as intangible cultural heritage.

In the cross-century folk culture protection work, the texts, recordings, and images of many items in folk literature, folk art, rituals, festivals, and traditional handicrafts have also entered the protection database, which is used for the application and identification of intangible cultural heritage projects., plays a vital role.

In terms of the three sets of integrations of folk literature ("Integration of China Folk Stories","Integration of Folk Ballad", and "Integration of Folk Proverbs"), the rescue work is mainly undertaken by folk literature and folklore scholars.

I have long accumulated rich learning and experience on why, what and how to protect folk culture.

Therefore, when the protection of intangible cultural heritage was carried out, the government relied on experts from various disciplines (including folklore scholars) to help formulate work plans and formulate census manuals to ensure the smooth progress of the protection of intangible cultural heritage; in the application work of intangible cultural heritage, the identification of various application items and the production of application texts were mostly undertaken by folk artists and folklore scientists; During the implementation stage of protection work, in addition to helping formulate protection plans, folklore scientists have repeatedly emphasized the importance of inheritors and inheritance groups in the protection of intangible cultural heritage.

Without the theoretical guidance of folklore and the efforts of experts, it is difficult to protect intangible cultural heritage.

Fourth, the protection of intangible cultural heritage promotes the continuous deepening of folklore research.

China is a unified multi-ethnic country with rich intangible cultural heritage resources.

Although "intangible cultural heritage" is a newly introduced concept, since UNESCO promulgated the Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage, China's intangible cultural heritage protection work has been synchronized with the protection work of countries around the world.

The nationwide protection of intangible cultural heritage also provides a good opportunity for the study of folklore in China.

Folklore fieldwork methods are widely used in the census and declaration of intangible cultural heritage.

Folklore theory is used as an entry point for the protection of intangible cultural heritage, attracting the attention of various disciplines; in terms of talent training, whether they are pursuing a master's degree or a doctoral degree, many young students choose intangible cultural heritage projects to conduct case or special research.

Intangible cultural heritage protection has become a place where folklore research can be used and fruitful results have been achieved.

It can be said that the protection of intangible cultural heritage and folklore research complement each other and complement each other.