[Ma Qianli] Representativeness, politicization and commercial development orientation: Some thoughts on UNESCO's "Intangible Cultural Heritage" List Mechanism

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Important: Since its implementation in 2008, many problems have arisen in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Representative List Mechanism.

These issues are represented by the politicization and commercial development orientation in the application, which seriously violates the original intention of UNESCO in formulating this mechanism.

In fact, the root cause of the problem lies in the ambiguity in the interpretation of the keyword "representativeness" under the representative list mechanism, which has largely led to the ability of domestic parties to the Convention for the Protection of the Intangible Cultural Heritage to use the mechanism to realize their political, diplomatic and commercial interests.

Relevant officials of UNESCO and some foreign scholars have already conceived a "Wikipedia"-style reform of this directory mechanism based on the ideas of "depoliticization" and "de-profitalization".

However, from the perspective of operability, it is a useful idea for States parties to translate their respective countries 'intangible cultural heritage lists into French or English and submit them to UNESCO's online public platform in the field of intangible cultural heritage, and update them regularly.

Keywords: UNESCO;"Intangible Cultural Heritage" Directory; Representative; Politicization; Commercial Development Orientation Author Profile: Ma Qianli (1985-), male, from Lu 'an, Anhui, Doctor of Law, teacher at the School of Foreign Languages, Yangzhou University.

(Yangzhou, Jiangsu, 225127)

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (hereinafter referred to as "UNESCO") Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage (hereinafter referred to as the "Convention") provides a macro framework for the protection of intangible cultural heritage (hereinafter referred to as "intangible cultural heritage") from both domestic and international levels.

At the international level, UNESCO has developed a Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (hereinafter referred to as the "Representative List"), a List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Urgent Need of Protection (hereinafter referred to as the "List of Urgent Protection"), plans, projects and activities that best reflect the principles and goals of the Convention (hereinafter referred to as the "List of Excellent Conservation Practices") and protection mechanisms such as international assistance.

These mechanisms have their own focuses in terms of purpose.

For example, the establishment of the urgently needed protection list is to "take appropriate protection measures" and make the protection of intangible cultural heritage the top priority, while the representative list is to "expand the impact of intangible cultural heritage, raise awareness of its importance and promote dialogue from the perspective of respecting cultural diversity."

Since 2008, the above mechanisms have had a greater impact on the cultural policies of most countries around the world, and have also played a certain positive role in raising the awareness of governments and people in these countries to protect intangible cultural heritage.

However, there are also many problems, some of which have even had a significant negative effect on the survival of intangible cultural heritage.

In fact, some structural issues and contradictions involve the rationality of the list of representative works, and discussions on the rationality of this list have been uninterrupted since the drafting stage of the text of the Convention and involve complex political and diplomatic factors.

This paper starts with the external problems and internal contradictions of the representative works list mechanism, and explores the path to reform it from the perspective of the purpose and spirit of the Convention.

1.

The origins and current situation of imbalances in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List and Register Mechanism

As early as the drafting stage of the Convention, the design of the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List system has caused heated debates among government representatives and experts from various countries.

In the course of the debate, many countries were disgusted with the elitist color of the intangible cultural heritage list under the "Declaration of Representative Works of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" program (hereinafter referred to as the "Representative Works Plan") and questioned or opposed the re-design of an intangible cultural heritage list mechanism under the framework of the Convention.

Whether it is necessary to design a directory system for the protection of intangible cultural heritage and whether it is necessary to establish a procedure for inclusion in the "international" intangible cultural heritage list have become a long-debated topic during the drafting of the Convention.

The representative of France's views on this issue are representative.

In written comments on the draft Convention, the country's representative wrote: "The purpose is to protect rather than establish a list of 'universal and outstanding value' and use it as an honor list...

my country also believes that resources that can be used to implement future conventions should be used directly for the protection of specific intangible cultural heritage projects." During the discussion of the draft Convention, countries formed two roughly different views.

The first view opposes copying the Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage adopted in 1972 (hereinafter referred to as the "1972 Convention"), questioning the "elitist" nature of the "Oral and Intangible Heritage Representative Works Plan" and emphasizing the need to prioritize intangible cultural heritage protection; the second view also agrees to give priority to protection, but insists that the "list" or "roster" can represent the communities, countries and citizens holding intangible cultural heritage and have the role of enhancing the visibility of intangible cultural heritage and promoting the protection of intangible cultural heritage.

The number of countries holding the second view far exceeds that holding the first view.

The former also believes that the implementation of the intangible cultural heritage list does not conflict with the concept of heritage that avoids the tendency of "elitism".

The key issue is to implement the intangible cultural heritage list mechanism while paying attention to avoiding copying such as the 1972 Convention or the "Representative Works Plan" model.

In addition, the representative of the Netherlands also suggested that if an intangible cultural heritage list is established, the intangible cultural heritage items included in the list should not remain on the list indefinitely.

Also on the basis of opposing the continuation of the "elitism" and hierarchical logic inherent in the above two mechanisms, the Brazilian representative suggested that the criteria for inclusion in the intangible cultural heritage list should not emphasize "excellence"(le caractère exceptionnnel), but should be based on "representativé"(la représentativé).

Ahamed Skounti, a Morocco scholar who participated in the discussion and drafting of the Convention, also believed that doubts about the list mechanism were reasonable, while emphasizing the need to avoid hierarchical status among all forms of intangible cultural heritage projects and the need to make every effort to protect those intangible cultural heritage projects that are on the verge of extinction.

It is worth mentioning that African countries have also collectively put forward written proposals emphasizing the need to establish an "endangered intangible cultural heritage list".

In the end, countries reached a consensus and decided to establish a "List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Urgent Need of Protection", which became the basis of Article 17 of the Convention.

During the discussion, the original differences in attitudes among countries towards the list mechanism gradually narrowed, and a consensus was formed to place "sauvegarde" at the core of this new international instrument.

Next, representatives and experts from various countries discussed the establishment of another type of directory to include intangible cultural heritage projects with ideal protection status.

Interestingly, representatives and experts from various countries have proposed and discussed expressions such as "trésor","masterpiece" and "most prominent intangible cultural heritage"(PCI le plus saisissant) for the modifiers used in the name of this directory.

Finally, those involved in the drafting overcame the stereotypes created by the 1972 Convention and the "Representative Works Plan" and named the list the "Liste représentative du patrimoine culturel immatériel de l 'humanité).

Although the list mechanism, especially the list of representative works, may bring some kind of "elitism", have a strong color of the 1972 Convention, and do not conform to the nature and laws of intangible cultural heritage, countries have adopted the drafting of the 2003 Convention and The formulation of the list system still reached a preliminary consensus.

However, the relevant debate has not stopped.

Instead, it has continued with the serious imbalance between the number of items declared in the two directories and the Register of Excellent Conservation Practices (hereinafter collectively referred to as the "Directory") that occurs every year.

The review criteria for the list of representative works do not involve the "excellence" of intangible cultural heritage projects and do not emphasize their value in terms of craftsmanship, science and aesthetics.

However, this mechanism quickly became as worried by some countries during the drafting of the Convention.

As such, it was used by many governments as a platform to expand their cultural influence and enhance their international voice.

Many declared projects must be selected at various levels in China, which undoubtedly strengthens the hierarchy between different intangible cultural heritage practices in these countries and violates the values of cultural relativism.

The excessive enthusiasm of governments in various countries to declare this list has also caused a large amount of domestic human and economic resources to be wasted in the declaration work, affecting the rescue protection of intangible cultural heritage practices that are on the verge of extinction.

Looking back on the list of urgently needed protection, except for 2009 and 2011, which included a large number of items, reaching 12 and 11 respectively, in other years, it basically hovered at a low level of about 4.

As for the recommendation and selection of a roster of excellent practices aimed at promoting intangible cultural heritage protection experience globally, it is even more bleak in comparison.

From a data point of view, UNESCO's idea of giving priority to protecting intangible cultural heritage practices worldwide, especially those on the verge of extinction, through urgently needed protection lists, has not been realized.

Instead, the intangible cultural heritage list mechanism at the international level has become a tool for political power seeking expansion.

Statistics on the number of projects included in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List and Roster over the years,

2.

Main issues in the UNESCO Directory Mechanism of Intangible Cultural Heritage Representative Works

In fact, both some front-line scholars on intangible cultural heritage protection research in various countries and the responsible personnel of the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Section have many views on the above-mentioned list mechanism, especially the application and review mechanism for the representative list.

Marc Jacobs, a Belgian scholar who participated in the discussions during the drafting stage of the Convention, directly expressed his rejection of the representative list mechanism.

He pointed out that in the more than ten years from 2003 to 2016, although people have been discussing this mechanism, no one knows what the representative list really represents.

The establishment of a representative list was a request of many power owners, and many experts ultimately supported the creation of this list out of the consideration of balancing political power requirements.

Jacob also believes that the list of representative works should have a role in attracting people's attention to intangible cultural heritage, but in reality, after the practice of intangible cultural heritage is declared as a "representative work of oral and intangible heritage" or is included in the list of representative works, In most cases, it will have a negative impact on living practice.

These mechanisms have not helped local communities.

Jacob's opinions reflect several problems in the intangible cultural heritage list system at the international level, namely, the unclear core value of the representative list, the politicization of intangible cultural heritage declarations, and the commercial development orientation of declarations.

(1) The core values of the representative works list are unclear

Literally, the word "representative" in the name of the Representative List is the key to reflecting the nature and core values of the list.

"Representative" replaces measures such as "authenticity" and "excellence" under the 1972 Convention and the "Representative Works Plan".

However, neither the 2003 Convention, its "Operation Guidelines" nor the "Guidance for Filling in Forms" for declaration have defined what "representativeness" means.

Scholars such as Skunti, who have long been involved in the formulation of intangible cultural heritage protection policies at the international level, cannot give a clear explanation of the "representativeness" of the representative list.

Skunti also raised a series of questions about this "representativeness", including what "representativeness" is, whether representativeness has universal significance, for whom the representativeness (list) is built (whether it is an intangible cultural heritage holding community, country, a party to the Convention, or all mankind), etc.

In reality, since this "representativeness" is always in a semantically ambiguous state, each State party is given sufficient space to declare items in the representative works list based on its own political, economic and diplomatic interests.

As Skunti summarized, the term "representative" used in the name of the directory is a third expression that is different from the anthropological and political views on intangible cultural heritage, and was ultimately unanimously accepted when drafting the Convention.

However, no one has made any effort to formulate a definition for this concept, so that the protection and recognition of intangible cultural heritage can have quite broad implications both at the national and international levels.

(2) Politicization of intangible cultural heritage declarations

Regarding the politicization of intangible cultural heritage declarations, Cécile Duvelle, former Secretary of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Section of UNESCO, used the "Miss World Campaign" in 2015 to describe the popularity of countries for applying representative projects.

She pointed out that many governments and parties involved in intangible cultural heritage practice have major misunderstandings about the function of the representative directory.

This directory is only a tool for communication and not for hierarchical classification.

However, many countries regard it as an honor list and are eager to appear on it.

Italian scholar Bortolotto also pointed out that countries actually use this misunderstanding to ensure their sense of existence and reputation, and use this misunderstanding for cultural diplomacy.

In France, the project "Le repas gastronomique des Fran9ais", which was included in UNESCO's representative list in 2010, attracted a strong reaction from the country's heritage protection and research community.

The application for this project was initiated by some well-known chefs and culinary history experts and promotes a certain social and ritualized way of dining on the French table.

However, the word "repas" quickly disappeared from propaganda discourse and was replaced by the expression "gastronomie." Immediately afterwards, some French ambassadors abroad began to organize luxurious French food exhibitions in their host countries to promote French cuisine.

Nicolas Sarkozy, then President of France, was also proud of UNESCO's inclusion of this project on the list, boasting of French cuisine in public.

UNESCO therefore reminded the French government to draw attention, but to no avail.

In the view of some heritage scholars, this political use of the UNESCO Representative List project is "intellectual fraud that opens Pandora's Box."

At the national level, the politicized orientation of the application of this UNESCO Representative Directory is sometimes reflected in the selection of application projects with political purposes.

The practices of ethnic minorities in some countries are selectively ignored, such as the traditional practices of the Kurdes in Turkey.

In Turkey's 2016 application for the Nevruz (Festival) project, which participated in the joint declaration of representative works, Turkish Kurds, one of the festival holding groups, were not mentioned.

The declaration also circumvents the history of Kurds, especially the Kurdistan Workers 'Party (PKK), using the Noruz Festival to enhance the Kurdish national identity and demand national independence.

It also does not mention the fact that the Kurds currently use this high participation among this group.

The festival activities are used to promote national unity and strive for national cultural rights.

Reviewing the contents of item R.4 of the application form, it can be found that there are also no Kurdish associations or individuals among the communities, groups and individuals that gave informed consent to the application.

The declaration texts related to Turkey present a nationalized, national, unrelated to specific ethnic groups and even pan-Turkic image of Noruz.

(3) Commercial development orientation for directory application

Since the declaration motives of the reporting countries are often inconsistent with the purpose of the Convention, the list of applicants is more a desire to use the reputation effect produced by the "signboard" of UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage Representative List, and then seek economic benefits through tourism and trade.

In this process, living heritage is often musealized or folklorized, and cultural practices are separated from the context and holding communities in which they originally existed.

As a common consequence of the inclusion of living heritage in the representative list, this de-contextualization exacerbates the destruction of living heritage, prevents the intangible cultural heritage of relevant communities, groups and individuals from being respected, resulting in the contrary to the purpose of the Convention.

consequences.

It is a relatively common practice to develop tourism on listed intangible cultural heritage.

"la Place Jemma el Fna" in Marrakesh, Morocco, was included in the first batch of "Representative Works Plans" as early as 2001 and was transferred to the Representative Works List in 2008.

This heritage quickly became the "trump card" for local tourism development, but its protection did not receive special attention from the local government.

Morocco scholar Ouidad Tebba pointed out: "The inclusion of the 'Representative Plan for Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity' and the development of civil society in Morocco have jointly triggered the tourism development of the square.

This development has seriously weakened the vitality of the square.

On the one hand, commercial activities play the lead role, and on the other hand, storytellers, snake charmers or jugglers take a back seat."

Worldwide, the commercialization of living practices, especially the development of transforming rituals originally held and passed down by communities that have specific significance to the community, into commercial performances, is growing rapidly.

According to statistics, one-quarter of intangible cultural heritage projects have changed their nature after being included in the representative list.

The representative directory system at the international level has catalysed the instrumentalization of UNESCO's logo.

This phenomenon has been criticized by many scholars and regarded as a "terrible chaos"(gachisépouvantable).

3.

Solutions to the problem of the representative work directory mechanism

In fact, the politicization and commercial development orientation in the application mentioned above are not only related to the unclear core values of the representative list, but also due to the fact that the applicant country can use the credibility of UNESCO as an institution to increase the reputation capital of intangible cultural heritage projects included in the list, and through reputation capital to obtain more economic benefits.

Based on this fact, some intangible cultural heritage protection researchers and officials from the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Section have begun to explore ways to reform the list of representative works.

Belgian scholar Mark Jacobs advocates transforming the list of representative works into a Wikipedia-style directory.

Under this model, there are no longer any criteria for inclusion, and everyone can decide which projects to be included in the list.

Jacob also predicted that implementing this model would inevitably encounter great resistance.

Within UNESCO, officials in charge of intangible cultural heritage affairs no longer vehemently express criticism when discussing the negative impact of representative projects, but instead point to the "pathological appeal" caused by this selection mechanism, or "manipulated and meaningless declarations." As head of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Section, Tim Curtis set out to envision an alternative, also an open Wikipedia-like roster, in a bid to eliminate UNESCO's "brand" effect.

However, at present, all States parties are basically not active in this regard, and their enthusiasm for compiling a list of declaration representatives is still high.

The general negative attitude of States parties towards alternative solutions also reflects the reality that the representative list has become a carrier of interests.

In fact, various actors related to intangible cultural heritage, including communities, groups, inheritance individuals, governments, enterprises, academic circles and the media, all have their own interest demands in the declaration process.

It is only because of the design of the representative works list item declaration mechanism that the government actually plays a leading role in this process, so its interest demands are more superficial.

The interest claims of some productive intangible cultural heritage projects (for example, the application sponsor of the "Belgian Beer Culture" project included in the Representative List in 2016 is a local beer production company) are also relatively easy to achieve through UNESCO's reputation capital.

When selecting projects, the Swiss Domestic List of Living Traditions is directly guided by applying for the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List.

On the one hand, it comprehensively refers to the criteria for applying for the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List in terms of selection criteria to improve the success rate of future applications.

On the other hand, the selected projects will be concentrated on the so-called "uniqueness" for Switzerland (originalité) and "exemplarité", while also requiring that projects that may strengthen foreigners 'stereotyped perceptions of Switzerland's cultural image (cliché) are not prioritized.

However, an indicative list recommended by the expert group to the Swiss federal government for applying for UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List projects does not include the cultural practices of immigrant communities (such as African and former Yugoslav immigrants) who have entered Switzerland since the 20th century.

The indicative list still reflects Switzerland with rural, pastoral and Catholic culture in the traditional sense.

It can be seen from the above situation that the current application for a representative list has largely deviated from the original intention of the Convention to establish a representative list.

Although during the application process, various actors in intangible cultural heritage protection were mobilized, the community participated to varying degrees in the preparation of application materials, and the corresponding intangible cultural heritage projects were further promoted, promoted and passed down after being included in the list.

However, it can be seen from the use and development of these intangible cultural heritage projects in many countries that this list mechanism has not played the role of "promoting dialogue from the perspective of respecting cultural diversity."On the contrary, it encourages competition and conflict among countries and cultures.

Even if some projects jointly declared by many countries, their role in promoting dialogue and mutual appreciation among different cultures is not obvious.

From the source, the reason why UNESCO wants to promote the protection of intangible cultural heritage on a global scale is that it promotes universal cultural rights and cultural diversity of mankind, opposes cultural hegemony, safeguards the cultural rights and interests of ethnic minorities and groups, and protection is often directly related to traditional cultural practices held by the lower and middle classes of society.

In reality, the declarations of the governments of the contracting parties, which are the main parties, are often far from UNESCO's philosophy, resulting in a situation of "one list, each expressing itself".

It can be foreseeable that without making substantial reforms to this list mechanism, the existing above-mentioned problems will be difficult to solve, and it will be difficult for the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Branch to fundamentally change the Representative List, the Urgent Protection List, and the Excellent Conservation Practice List.

There is an extreme imbalance between the number of applications for the list.

In fact, the idea of replacing the representative list with a Wikipedia-style roster quoted above is based on a "de-profitalization" consideration.

Eliminating the possibility of using the representative list to pursue political, economic and diplomatic interests is one way to restore the basic function of the representative list as defined in Article 16 of the Convention.

This alternative avoids the situation where the rights and interests of communities, groups and individuals are "represented" under the application review mechanism.

At the same time, the open user editing method provides the possibility for communities, groups and individuals to directly participate in the preparation and filing of intangible cultural heritage lists.

Of course, before applying this method to compile a socialized and depoliticized intangible cultural heritage list, it is necessary to predict the technical and ethical problems and challenges it may bring.

At the national level, some organizations and individuals have edited entries on Wikipedia to include projects officially included in the country's intangible cultural heritage list and related materials (excluding videos), such as the "French Intangible Cultural Heritage List"(Inventaire du patrimoine culturel immatériel en France) and the "Swiss Living Traditions"(Catégorie: Tradition vivante de Suisse).

However, these intangible cultural heritage lists are limited to the basic archives of intangible cultural heritage projects recognized by the government's cultural management department, and there are no living practices actively recommended by communities, groups and individuals.

At the international level, how to design this framework structure, which theoretically includes a directory of all living traditional practices of all mankind, and how to ensure that all members of the huge community of all mankind can make good use of this mechanism are quite challenging and difficult to implement.

topic.

From a feasibility perspective, as an alternative to a representative list at the international level, although the Wikipedia-style intangible cultural heritage list or roster represents the direction of "de-politicization" and "de-profitalization", it is too extensive due to the geographical scope involved., and the often different political and cultural traditions between different countries in the world are likely to make its implementation more difficult.

This user-open editing solution may be more suitable for the social documentation of living practices within a country or a specific region.

It can be seen from the statement in Article 16 of the Convention on the purpose of the list of representative works that improving the visibility of intangible cultural heritage in human society is the main purpose of establishing this list.

At the same time, most States parties to the Convention have already compiled intangible cultural heritage lists.

Certain results have been achieved, then also under the premise of abolishing the application and review mechanism, It should be a more reasonable solution for States parties to translate their respective countries 'intangible cultural heritage lists (including brief project descriptions) into French or English (if the original text of their intangible cultural heritage lists is not one of these two languages) and submit them to UNESCO's online public platform in the field of intangible cultural heritage.

and regularly update them.

This open archive will become a sharing platform aimed at continuing to improve the visibility of intangible cultural heritage in human society, thereby fulfilling the functions set by Article 16 of the Convention for the representative list, and also providing a comparative study of various countries.

Information is provided by the intangible cultural heritage list or list mechanism.

Of course, any reform of the current representative list mechanism will involve the interests of States parties and is also a topic that requires in-depth discussion.

Since further discussions will inevitably involve the study of international politics and diplomatic activities within the framework of UNESCO, this paper will not discuss this.

However, it is precisely the political dimension contained in the application of the list of intangible cultural heritage representatives that provides an interdisciplinary perspective for the reform of the research representative list mechanism.

In addition, how to properly handle the relationship between promoting the Convention on a global scale and respecting the sovereignty of States parties, how to substantively improve the operating effectiveness of several other mechanisms such as the List of Urgent Protection, the List of Excellent Protection Practices, and international assistance, and how to Improve the cooperative relationship between UNESCO, the governments of States parties and local communities in these mechanisms are topics worthy of further exploration.

(This article was published in "Cultural Heritage", No.

6, 2017.

The annotations are omitted and refer to the original issue for details)