[Zhu Gang] A textual research on the academic history of UNESCO's protection of intangible cultural heritage
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Summary: In the existing UNESCO academic history research on the protection of intangible cultural heritage, some results have been achieved with the 1989 Proposal for the Protection of Folk Works and the 1997 Plan for the Declaration of Representative Works of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
Compared with the former, existing research still pays insufficient attention to the historical background and development context of the "Representative Works" Program, and the understanding of its intrinsic connection with the 2003 Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage is relatively lagging behind.
As far as a comprehensive summary of the evolution history of international intangible cultural heritage protection is concerned, incorporating those events of typical significance into a process analysis and systematically interpreting them from a specific historical context may help the academic community to further build a multi-dimensional understanding of the basic process of international cultural policy evolution.
Keywords: UNESCO; Intangible Cultural Heritage; Historical Context; Events; Academic History Author Profile: Zhu Gang, Associate Researcher, Institute of Ethnic Literature, China Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing 100732).
Fund project: The phased achievement of "China Epic Studies" in the construction of strategic advantageous disciplines of China Academy of Social Sciences.
As one of the hottest topics at the moment, intangible cultural heritage (hereinafter referred to as "intangible cultural heritage ") has become a key research object in various disciplines.
The reasons may be related to the conceptualization process of intangible cultural heritage from strangeness to familiarity to acceptance.
The international community continues to reflect on and revise existing concepts of cultural heritage, providing effective protection of cultural diversity in the context of globalization.
Thought tools; The second may be related to the construction of current international political discourse and the daily cultural life of the people.
Various conferences and resolutions led by UNESCO have not only profoundly affected the formulation and implementation of cultural policies in various countries, but also directly affected the daily cultural life and practice of residents on five continents.
In other words, in the field of intangible cultural heritage protection, global and local dialogues and interactions are taking place in an unprecedented way.
In a sense, identifying a certain culture and its practices as intangible cultural heritage and protecting them is not only a local practice of global heritage protection discourse or a localized expression of the global heritage process.
It is also a new attempt to compare and understand local characteristics within the global grand pedigree.
In other words, whether it is folklore or other humanities and social sciences, intangible cultural heritage research is an important opportunity to promote discipline construction and theoretical production.
Therefore, studying the basic process of UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage protection has become a necessary prerequisite and starting point for various disciplines to enter into intangible cultural heritage research.
At present, in response to the historical context of UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage protection, relevant domestic scholars have roughly outlined the evolution trajectory from the surge of its concept to the final promulgation of the 2003 Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage (hereinafter referred to as the "Convention ").
Among them, representative scholars include Chao Gojin, Bamoqubumo, An Deming, etc.
Their research is of great significance to the construction of domestic intangible cultural heritage discourse, and also allows domestic readers to further understand the historical background of UNESCO's protection of intangible cultural heritage.
Inspired by the above-mentioned scholars, the author tried to textual research and review relevant academic history, and through the article "A Historical Survey of UNESCO's Events to Protect Intangible Cultural Heritage", briefly introduced two parallel and intertwined development lines: The first is the clue based on the 1989 "Proposal for the Protection of Folk Creation"(hereinafter referred to as the "Proposal "), and the second is the clue based on the 1997" Plan for the Declaration of Representative Works of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity "(hereinafter referred to as" Representative Works ").
It should be said that in existing academic history research, most important events that promote the development of these two clues have been observed and analyzed to varying degrees.
In other words, most scholars have explored the origin of the Convention and the concept of intangible cultural heritage behind it, and have detailed the setbacks encountered by the international community in protecting folk customs through intellectual property rights, and then turned to the evolution of protecting intangible cultural heritage from a global cultural perspective.
process.
However, compared with the 1989 "Recommendation", existing research still pays insufficient attention to the historical background and development context of the "Representative Works" Plan, and the understanding of its intrinsic connection with the Convention is relatively lagging behind.
Therefore, this paper attempts to conduct research around this clue, tracing and exploring several key events in this period of history.
a
Before entering the discussion, it is still necessary to briefly summarize the two clues in the development process of UNESCO's protection of intangible cultural heritage, so that readers can position the research scope and objects of this paper in a more macro historical background.
As mentioned above, the first clue is based on the 1989 Recommendation, which mainly covers the period from the 1970s to the promulgation of the Recommendation in 1989 to the "Recommendation" to the "Protection of Folk Creation" held in Washington in 1999: Global Assessment: The Conference on Local Empowerment and International Cooperation, then through the Turin and Elche Conferences in 2001 and the Rio Conference in 2002, to the promulgation of the Convention in 2003, is a historical process consisting of a series of key meetings and events.
The second clue is based on the 1997 "Representative Works" Plan, covering a historical period before and after the plan was launched-from the trend led by Japan after World War II to formulate cultural policies to resist the impact of cultural globalization and standardization on folk customs, to the transitional project of "Living Human Treasures" in 1993.
Then in 1997, specific activities and projects such as the "Representative of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" were announced-accumulating valuable experience for the promulgation of the Convention from a practical perspective and can be described as a veritable "living testing ground." Simply summarize the above two clues, one can be the conceptualization process of intangible cultural heritage, and the other can be a brief history of practice of intangible cultural heritage protection.
Intuitively speaking, these two clues show a continuous and parallel relationship: the two originated from different historical stages, and the relevant backgrounds driving their development are also different.
However, due to the rising enthusiasm of the international community for protecting intangible cultural heritage, the two clues were merged into one at a specific historical stage: the reflection on the "Proposal" after the Washington Conference and the work report of the "Representative Works" Project formed an in-depth intertextuality, indicating that the two clues have merged and produced a superposition effect, jointly laying a solid foundation for the Convention in terms of concept and practice.
If we compare these two development clues in depth, we will find that the first clue is related to the surge of specific ideological trends.
Its development process reflects the gradual progress of the concept of intangible cultural heritage from germination to global resonance.
It also seems to indicate that With the accumulation of human knowledge and social progress, intangible cultural heritage protection will surely become a historic choice of the general trend of the world.
The second clue focuses on specific practical activities or projects.
Although its ideological background is generally not divorced from the history of the occurrence and evolution of the concept of intangible cultural heritage, it is mixed with more local and personal factors, and these factors are in the historical trend.
It also played a role that cannot be ignored in the shaping process.
As a result, the two clues also present relatively different narrative styles-the first clue describes various meetings and events, mostly only retaining the results reached by all parties through communication and compromise.
The controversy and debate process, or personalized expressions and opinions, are often concealed and obscured by the final negotiation results or mainstream discourse.
Therefore, under this narrative style, the development history of intangible cultural heritage is often described as the rise of a spirit of the times or the rise of a new trend in cultural heritage protection.
The second clue itself is practical and pragmatic.
Each project and activity has its own specific goals, implementation details and results, and involves a large amount of information about time, place, people, motives, etc.
Examining each event in isolation cannot provide information with historical depth beyond the details.
Only by putting it into the overall development context can we further construct the historical connection between events and their specific role and function in the historical process.
This view of the development history of intangible cultural heritage is in a sense similar to the "contextualism" proposition advocated by Dr.
Skinner, who puts the text into context for understanding.
It is also related to Collingwood's view of history that examines ideas within the overall context of history.
Its basic starting point is an attempt to put historical events into their own development trajectory for understanding.
In his famous article "Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas", Skinner refuted the view that only focuses on the text itself and believes that ideas have eternal value that transcends the text and time and space, emphasizing that researchers must examine the conditions and context under which classic texts are produced.
At the same time, due to the profound influence of Dr.
Ludwig Wittgenstein and Dr.
Austin, Skinner also believed that any thought is essentially a speech act, so researchers should also pay attention to the specific intentions behind specific speech and examine the specific issues addressed by specific speech in specific contexts.
Guided by the above-mentioned reasoning, this paper mainly focuses on the key event in the second clue, the Marrakesh Conference, and attempts to describe and analyze the practical basis behind the promulgation of the Convention and its internal complexity, as well as the intrinsic connection between this event and UNESCO's subsequent protection practice.
Although existing research has certain flaws in the overall description of the launch background of the "Representative Works" Project, and the understanding of the key role of the Marrakesh Conference in promoting the development of the Convention is relatively superficial, some scholars have made useful explorations on this issue and realized the intrinsic relationship between the evolution of the Convention and the Marrakesh Conference, such as Kiko Ikawa, Bamoquumo, Thomas Schmitt, Ahmed Skounti), Wait.
They believe that the Marrakesh Conference will have a self-evident role in promoting the launch of the "Representative Works" Program.
Borrowing Bamoqubumo's summary, this is a "key event" in the process of conceptualizing intangible cultural heritage.
Schmidt also believes that UNESCO's subsequent protection practice on intangible cultural heritage can basically be regarded as "a local and global adaptation" of the Marrakesh experience.
This reminds us that for the entire history of the development of international intangible cultural heritage protection, only by making up for those important details that have been ignored in the past can the existing academic history be regarded as complete, otherwise it will be suspected of being lame.
second
Different from the technical calendar path of the first clue, the second clue reflects the characteristics of nationality and dispersion, and is intrinsically related to the trend of countries to protect folk customs through the formulation of cultural policies in the context of globalization.
As mentioned above, in the 1950s, Japan's attempt to protect cultural heritage through legislation and establish a "national treasure on earth" recognition system to save local cultural traditions that were squeezed during the modernization process has aroused resonance in Asia, America, and Europe.
Many countries have followed suit and launched their own cultural heritage protection projects.
Since then, in order to reflect on the geographical and cultural imbalances that occurred during the implementation of the 1972 World Heritage Convention, UNESCO successively launched the 1992 "Intangible Cultural Heritage" project and the 1993 "Living Wealth of Humanity" project based on various surveys, as well as the 1997 "Representative Works" Program, UNESCO's highest-level cultural protection project at that time.
The plan declares a number of traditional and popular cultural expressions and cultural spaces every two years as representative works of the oral and intangible heritage of mankind.
After the Convention enters into force, the plan will automatically terminate, and all previously announced projects will be transferred to "Human Intangible Cultural Heritage Representative List".
If we ignore important backgrounds such as the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, the 1994 Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the 1995 Report, the original motion to create the "Representative Works" Plan actually originated from a small-scale meeting held in the capital of Morocco in June 1997, the Marrakesh Conference.
The conference was called "International Consultation on the Preservation of Popular Cultural Spaces-Declaration of the Oral Heritage of Mankind" and was attended by a total of 11 international experts and 5 Morocco experts.
So why was the venue of this meeting chosen in Marrakesh? We need to place it in the relevant historical context and examine it.
Data shows that there is a direct historical connection between an important factor promoting the convening of the 1997 Marrakesh Conference and an initiative sent by Spanish writer Juan Goytisolo to Federico Mayor, Director-General of UNESCO, in 1996.
It should be said that without this internationally renowned writer and activist, UNESCO might not have looked to Marrakesh, the ancient Erfona Square that is squeezed by modernity and is in jeopardy.
In a sense, this localized protection practice around the popular cultural space of Morocco, namely Erfona Square, eventually evolved into an open situation that affected the protection of global cultural heritage.
This possibility was unimaginable to even Goitisolo himself at the time.
Goitisolo is a famous contemporary Spanish writer and thinker.
He has been in exile in Paris, France since the 1950s because of his opposition to Franco's dictatorship, and came to Marrakesh, the capital of Morocco, in 1976.
Having lived in Marrakesh for a long time, Goitisoro not only learned the local language, but also gained a deeper understanding of Islamic culture.
Goitisolo is naturally very familiar with Erfona Square, located in the old city of Marrakesh.
The square is a cultural business card of Marrakech and is mentioned in almost all tourism promotional materials.
The square carries profound historical and cultural connotations.
It can be traced back to the Murabit Dynasty established by the Berbers in the 11th century AD.
After a period of development and prosperity, it was officially named Erverna Square during the Assad Dynasty.
In a sense, Erfona Square is not only a landmark in Marrakesh, but also one of the most prosperous folk squares in Africa and even the world.
A large number of commercial elements, folk handicraft traditions, oral performance traditions, and religious traditions are filled with it, fully reflecting the diversity and vitality of Morocco's folk cultural traditions.
However, with the process of commercialization and urbanization, the square has inevitably embarked on a path of cultural change from prosperity to depression.
This has also triggered a series of protection actions against this cultural space.
In fact, as early as the French colonial rule in the 1920s, the earliest heritage protection action in the modern sense appeared around the square.The then consul, Dr.
Riati Maréchal Hubert Lyautey, who claimed to be a protector of architecture and cultural heritage, proposed a protection bill that identified the boundaries and spaces of the square, clearly stipulating that the construction of houses on the square was strictly prohibited and that Morocco people were prohibited from purchasing or leasing properties around the square.
The above measures were ostensibly intended to protect the "authenticity" of Elverne Square, but in fact they were also consistent with the "urban apartheid" policy implemented by the French colonists, which was to maintain the separation of local people and colonial groups in Morocco and other French colonies.
Since then, as the Old City of Marrakesh was included in the UNESCO "World Heritage" list, the square was also recognized as one of the sites of the heritage in 1985.
Coupled with the fact that the square was declared a "masterpiece of oral and intangible heritage of mankind" in 2001, there have been three external interventions in the protection of cultural heritage in the modern sense for this project.
Some scholars even believe that in the 1990s, Goitisolo ran back and forth to protect Erverna Square and played a key role like a midwife in the promulgation of the 2003 Convention, an international law.
As a writer, Goitisolo is particularly fond of the tradition of storytelling in Piazza Erverna.
In his novel "The Cemetery"(Makbara) published in 1981, he gave a detailed description of Elverna Square.
In 1990, he was deeply moved when a cafe in the square that gathered a large number of outstanding storytellers and musicians closed down.
Later, he said in an interview that people need to understand the importance of the tradition of storytelling, and that the death of a storyteller is more serious than the loss of 200 best-selling authors.
Therefore, after learning of the local government's plan to build a modern high-rise building and underground parking lot in the square, Goitisolo immediately opposed it.
However, his opinions were not taken seriously or even responded to by local government officials.
He had to turn to his publisher, Hans Meinke, for help, trying to appeal to UNESCO Director-General Mayor through this middleman.
In January 1996, Mainke mentioned in a letter to Mayor that UNESCO should declare Elverna Square the "Oral Heritage of Humanity" to avoid the abuse of some commercial speculation in the Arab world.
Here we can see Goitisolo's proposal, the essence of which is that UNESCO will give the square international recognition through awarding honors, ultimately achieving the purpose of protecting this precious cultural space.
Later, Goitisolo went to UNESCO headquarters to meet with Mayor and stated his suggestions for the protection of Erverna Square and the importance of protecting human oral cultural heritage and human creativity.
Mayor agreed and supported Goitisolo's suggestion.
He also instructed Kiko Aikawa, who was then in charge of intangible cultural heritage projects, to follow up on the proposal and use the case in Marrakesh as a pilot to develop a protection plan with an international dimension.
Some scholars believe that the above facts prompted the formalization and formalization of a series of cultural heritage protection actions adopted by UNESCO in the 1990s.
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The reason why Goitisolo's appeal had a direct impact on the convening of the Marrakesh Conference was first inseparable from its relevant efforts in Morocco, such as the establishment of a non-governmental organization "The Association to Protect Popular Cultural Expression Performed in Jemaa el-Fna Square".
Secondly, and more importantly, relying on his identity as a famous writer and extraordinary network of people, Goitisoro successfully elevated a local cultural space to the level of international heritage protection and included it on UNESCO's agenda.
In this sense, although we say that intangible cultural heritage protection was already a consensus of the general trend of the international community at that time, this personal factor still played an important role in promoting the entire history of international intangible cultural heritage protection.
In addition, in UNESCO's early memorandum, we can find relevant records of the "Juan Goytisolo Proposal" Proposition de Juan Goytisolo, which also shows that in the construction of historical clues with project protection as the main line, It can already be seen that the organization's actions to protect intangible cultural heritage have gradually become a sign.
On the other hand, although UNESCO saw the important implications of protecting Erverna Square from Goitisolo's proposal, this also raised another problem.
A document from the organization mentioned that although Goitisolo's proposal is novel and meaningful, it is difficult to actually implement it.
Moreover, the concept of "oral heritage" cannot be included in the organization's existing heritage classification system, so this concept needs to be redefined and recognized by relevant member states.
In addition, UNESCO also had a concern at the time that if it only declared Elverna Square an "Oral Heritage of Humanity", other countries with rich oral traditions, especially those from Africa, might feel unfair or disgusted.
This is why Mayor asked Kiko Ikawa to develop it into an international plan.
Therefore, UNESCO commissioned Dr.
Marc Denhez, a Canadian heritage lawyer who had just completed a legal evaluation of the 1989 Recommendation, to conduct research on how to protect threatened cultural spaces worldwide by awarding international honors (International Recognition).
It should be noted that the original intention of UNESCO establishing the honor mechanism at that time was to remind member states of the importance of intangible cultural heritage through international recognition.
Denherz conducted a detailed survey of UNESCO's existing reward and honor mechanisms, including the Sultan Qaboos Prize for Environmental Preservation, the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education, and the Aga Khan Award for Architecture.
But as a professional lawyer in the field of heritage, he naturally set his sights on the 1972 World Heritage Convention.
Denherz initially believed that establishing a new convention based on the 1972 Convention, or incorporating oral heritage based on the convention, should be a relatively reasonable solution.
Later, he proposed the idea of combining the World Heritage List with the UNESCO award system to create a new protection plan, the "Declaration of the Oral Heritage of Humanity" program.
He believes that the reward mechanism can have a greater impact around the world.
Moreover, from a procedural perspective, this is easier to advance than adapting the ideas of the World Heritage Convention, and is also more in line with the attributes of oral heritage itself.
Denherz believes that the naming of the program should have the potential to ensure that relevant donors can gain reputation from the mechanism.
Secondly, he believes that the plan should follow the following three principles: granting official recognition to selected cultural spaces, encouraging individuals, groups, institutions and governments to participate in the management of conservation actions, and raising awareness of the importance of intangible cultural heritage among stakeholders.
At The same time, after referring to UNESCO's reward system, the "Living Wealth of Humanity" project, the 1972 Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention and other relevant practices, Denherz proposed the selection criteria for cultural spaces: authenticity; current social and cultural functions to the relevant communities; creative value; and witnessing the cultural traditions and history of the relevant communities.
It should be pointed out that compared with the above-mentioned cultural evaluation standards, Dunherz attaches more importance to institutional or institutional requirements.
The institutional standards it formulates are not only meticulous, but also put inheritance and the centrality of the community of practitioners first.
Finally, he also suggested setting up a jury (jury) to be responsible for the selection of the project.
At the Marrakesh Conference held in 1997, Den Hertz published the above proposition under the title "System to Honour Cultural Space with Remarkable Intangible Heritage".
After discussion, experts attending the meeting agreed that UNESCO may support the idea of establishing a list system based on the World Heritage List as a model.
It was at this conference that cultural spaces were defined as various places where cultural activities take place, with characteristics that change over time, and their existence depends on the presence of various forms of cultural expression.
Regarding the selection of cultural spaces, experts believe that two levels of requirements must be met: first, cultural standards have outstanding universal value as general cultural standards), and second, institutional or institutional standards encourage relevant governments, NGOs and communities to actively participate.
Protection of oral heritage).
Among them, especially on the second criterion, experts attending the meeting emphasized that relevant communities should fully participate in the implementation process of protection measures.
In addition, experts also believe that a special fiscal system, such as funds or bonuses, needs to be established to ensure that new protection projects can be actively and effectively promoted.
Obviously, some parts of the above suggestions, such as institutional regulations, the core position of community participation, the establishment of funds, and the establishment of review bodies, have been continued and developed to varying degrees in the subsequent framework of the 2003 Convention.
The "Representative Works" Program starts with small-scale award projects targeting Elverna Square), and also uses mature UNESCO initiatives such as the World Heritage List as an important frame of reference.
Its basic purpose is to give a worldwide recognition or reputation to those on the verge of extinction.
Oral heritage.
The original name of the plan-"Declaration of Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity"-the English word for "masterpiece" is "masterpiece".
Although later developments showed that this naming was repeatedly criticized for implying a hierarchical sequence within the heritage, and was eventually replaced by the Representative List, this concept of "excellence" was indispensable for the original intention of establishing the "Representative Works" Plan at that time.
In this sense, it is not difficult to understand that Dunherz believes that the plan requires a design concept that will bring a certain reputation to relevant donors.
In addition, from a funding perspective, UNESCO allocated a budget of approximately US$1.3 million for intangible cultural heritage projects between 1996 and 1997, of which only approximately US$850,000 was available to UNESCO headquarters, and more than 50% of the funds needed to be invested in various urgently needed projects.
Therefore, financial constraints have also prompted the "Representative Works" Plan to incorporate the possibility of raising funds into its design.
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From the Marrakesh Conference to the establishment of the "Masterpieces" Program, UNESCO has taken an important but slightly bold step forward.
However, this experimental approach has had a special impact on the overall context of intangible cultural heritage protection.
The "thermometer"-like function it plays measures the enthusiasm of various states parties to protect intangible cultural heritage, and has also accumulated valuable practical experience for the formulation and promulgation of the Convention to a certain extent.
In addition, the coordination and implementation process of the "Representative Works" Plan was not smooth.
There were still many disputes and a large number of uncertainties, which even threatened the plan with "shutdown" or even failure.
For example, at the 154th session of the Executive Board of UNESCO held in June 1998, Morocco and Guinea submitted for the first time a document entitled "A draft Regulation of the Proclamation of Masterpieces of Oral Heritage of Humanity"(154EX13 +CORR).
Although Executive Board members supported the draft in principle, they were unable to reach consensus in the resolution process and adopt it.
This was a blow to the advancement of the "Representative Works" Plan, because at that time some Western developed countries believed that the draft had no practical value and was a waste for tight budgets.
Countries with indigenous peoples have not been able to fully understand the potential and value contained in the draft.
In this case, the Executive Board decided to expand the coverage of the plan and add the relevant expression of "intangible cultural heritage" to the naming.
The Executive Board also requested the Director-General to consult extensively with Member States, revise the draft and resubmit it at the next Executive Board meeting (October 1998).
Since then, the UNESCO Secretariat organized a series of consultation activities around the draft from June to September 1998.
As expected, the implementation of the "Representative Works" Plan has already caused a lot of controversy, and the new round of consultation activities will naturally include consultation and debate.
Among them, the focus of debates among various countries is on issues such as "masterpiece","universal values" and "methodology for community participation." At the same time, since the scope of consultation is limited to the level of member states, relevant countries believe that it is not necessary for the Secretariat to organize expert meetings to build an implementation framework for the next stage of work from a conceptual level.
Perhaps it was precisely because of this subtle difference that the Secretariat did not convene a special meeting to discuss relevant issues as usual, but instead avoided the possible negative impact of detailed consultations and debates at the level of administrative procedures.
Judging from the final results, this slightly thoughtless approach has had unexpected results.
It has overcome the common problems of administrative inefficiency and difficulty in practice in international politics, and cleared up obstacles to the preparation of the Convention politically, conceptually and even operationally, as suggested in the action plan proposed after the Washington Conference.
A similar example is the 157th session of the Executive Board held in October 1999.
When Executive Board members reviewed the implementation report of the "Masterpieces" Plan, representatives from several developed countries held heated debates around the concept of "masterpiece", the selection method of jury members, and the role of NGOs, which once caused the "Masterpieces" Plan to fall into a "shutdown" dilemma.
At this time, the Director-General's intervention once again played a decisive role.
The personal representative he sent spoke at a critical moment, believing that the current debate can only focus on the specific situation of the progress of the plan and cannot be based on this to overturn the resolutions adopted in previous meetings.
She also suggested that at least one complete review cycle should be used to accumulate relevant experience for the implementation of the plan.
The above views are both insightful and practical.
At the same time, based on the Director-General's authority in UNESCO, the representative made a final decision at a critical moment, reversed the direction of the debate, and saved the "Representative Works" Plan, whose life was at stake.On the other hand, the reason why those Western developed countries strongly oppose the "Representative Works" Plan is mainly because they have seen from the implementation of the plan that a new convention is about to be released.
The concept of heritage represented by this new convention is incompatible with their inherent concept of heritage, or this is a conceptual correction for the "Europe-centered" cultural heritage concept represented by the 1972 World Heritage Convention.
Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that the "Masterpieces" Plan has encountered resistance or controversy.
It is worth noting that the plan originated from Goitisolo's appeal to the Director-General to protect Erverna Square.
At an important juncture in the development of the plan, it was the Director General's focus that played a role in protecting the plan.
If after the Marrakesh Conference, UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage protection can be regarded as a "local global transfer", then writer Goitisolo and Director-General Mayor also played an indispensable key role in the evolution of this local discourse into global discourse.
Judging from the above details, compared with the structural evolution of the first clue, individuals have exerted more historical initiative in the second clue, and in fact promoted the overall evolution and development of the history of intangible cultural heritage protection.
In addition, judging from Goitisolo's personal motives, its main purpose is to protect Erverna Square rather than promote the drafting of an international convention specifically dedicated to the protection of intangible cultural heritage.
But if he had not advocated in and outside Morocco and successfully influenced the Director-General of UNESCO through his personal network, perhaps the Marrakesh Conference would not have been held in history, let alone the launch of the "Representative Works" Program.
So far, we have examined several landmark figures and events during the specific period from the Marrakesh Conference to the "Representative Works" Project.
Historically, the Marrakesh Conference was an event with far-reaching influence-it not only directly promoted the implementation of the "Representative Works" Plan at that time, but also was an important external force promoting the birth of the Convention in the long run.
In reality, within the framework of the Convention and its current practice, the protection goals discussed at the Marrakesh Conference and implemented in the "Representative Works" Plan-giving official recognition to selected projects at the international level, drawing the attention of the international community to the protection of intangible cultural heritage, and promoting understanding of the importance of intangible culture-have also been continued to a certain extent.
Not only that, but from the perspective of concepts that are always changing) to the core position of community participation in various tasks) to specific regulations such as administrative procedures, the concept and practice of the "Representative Works" Plan and the Convention are self-evident.
Therefore, for a comprehensive summary of the academic history of international intangible cultural heritage protection, it is necessary to incorporate those events with typical significance into the process analysis, and at the same time conduct systematic explanations based on specific historical contexts, so as to help us understand the current international intangible cultural heritage protection practice.
The basic status quo provides a useful reference.
(This article is published in "Folk Customs Research", No.
5, 2020.
The annotations are omitted.
See the original issue for details)