identifying and inventorying intangible cultural heritage

Intangible Cultural Heritage

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Identifying and Inventorying Intangible Cultural Heritage

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Intangible cultural heritage takes many forms.The Convention explains that it may beexpressed in a number of domains, includingbut not limited to:

a. Oral traditions and expressions includinglanguage as a vehicle of the intangiblecultural heritage;

b. Performing arts;

c. Social practices, rituals and festive events;

d. Knowledge and practice about nature andthe universe;

e. Traditional craftsmanship.

It goes without saying that many elements ofintangible cultural heritage might belong to oneor more of these domains.

The main purposes of the Convention are tosafeguard such heritage, to ensure respect for it,to raise awareness about its importance and toprovide for international cooperation andassistance in these fields. Countries that ratifythe Convention (known as States Parties) take

on the obligation to safeguard the intangiblecultural heritage present on their territories. Atan international level, the Conventionestablishes two Lists, the List of IntangibleCultural Heritage in Need of UrgentSafeguarding and the Representative List of theIntangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Thegoal of these Lists is to call attention to thoseelements of intangible cultural heritage that arerepresentative of human creativity and culturaldiversity and especially those in need of urgentsafeguarding.

The Convention focuses on the role ofcommunities and groups in safeguardingintangible cultural heritage. It is concerned withprocesses and conditions rather than products,placing emphasis on living heritage that isperformed by people, often collectively, andcommunicated through living experience. Itdeals with heritage that communitiesthemselves deem important, and strives tocontribute to the promotion of creativity anddiversity, and to the well-being of communities,groups, and society at large.

The Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritagedefines intangible cultural heritage as the practices, representations,expressions, knowledge and skills – including the instruments, objectsartefacts and cultural spaces associated with them – that communities,groups and individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. Thisintangible cultural heritage is transmitted from generation to generationand is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response totheir environment, their interaction with nature and their history, andprovides them with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promotingrespect for cultural diversity and human creativity.

and inventorying

LLL The Rabinal AchíDance Drama Tradition,Guatemala

LL The Cultural Space ofJemaa el-Fna Square,Morocco

L The Bistritsa Babi – ArchaicPolyphony, Dances andRitual Practices from theShoplouk region,Bulgaria

K The Oral Heritage andCultural Manifestations ofthe Zápara People, Ecuadorand Peru

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Safeguarding without freezingTo be kept alive, intangible cultural heritage mustbe relevant to its community, continuouslyrecreated and transmitted from one generation toanother. There is a risk that certain elements ofintangible cultural heritage could die out ordisappear without help, but safeguarding doesnot mean fixing or freezing intangible culturalheritage in some pure or primordial form.Safeguarding intangible cultural heritage is aboutthe transferring of knowledge, skills and meaning.Transmission – or communicating heritage fromgeneration to generation – is emphasized in theConvention rather than the production ofconcrete manifestations such as dances, songs,musical instruments or crafts. Therefore, to a largeextent, any safeguarding measure refers tostrengthening and reinforcing the diverse andvaried circumstances, tangible and intangible, thatare necessary for the continuous evolution andinterpretation of intangible cultural heritage, aswell as for its transmission to future generations.

Safeguarding measures to ensure that intangiblecultural heritage can be transmitted from onegeneration to another are considerably differentfrom those required for protecting tangibleheritage (natural and cultural). However, someelements of tangible heritage are often associatedwith intangible cultural heritage. That is why theConvention includes, in its definition of intangiblecultural heritage, the instruments, objects,artefacts and cultural spaces associated with it.

Does this mean that intangible heritage shouldalways be safeguarded, or be revitalized at anycost? As any living body, it follows a life cycle andtherefore some elements are likely to disappear,after having given birth to new forms ofexpressions. It might be that certain forms ofintangible cultural heritage, despite theireconomic value, are no longer consideredrelevant or meaningful for the community itself.As indicated in the Convention, only intangiblecultural heritage that is recognized by thecommunities as theirs and that provides themwith a sense of identity and continuity is to besafeguarded. By ‘recognition’, the Convention

means a formal or, more often, informal processby which communities acknowledge that specificpractices, representations, expressions, knowledgeand skills and, if appropriate, associatedinstruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces,form part of their cultural heritage.

Safeguarding measures must always be developedand applied with the consent and involvement ofthe community itself. In certain cases, publicintervention to safeguard a community’s heritagemay be undesirable, since it may distort the valuesuch heritage has for its community. Moreover,safeguarding measures must always respect thecustomary practices governing access to specificaspects of such heritage, for example, sacredintangible cultural heritage manifestations or thosethat are considered secret.

Inventories: identifying for safeguardingThe Convention is a permissive document andthe majority of its articles are worded in non-prescriptive language, allowing governments toimplement it flexibly. However, drawing upinventories is one of the specific obligationsoutlined in the Convention and in theOperational Directives for its implementation.

Inventories are integral to the safeguarding ofintangible cultural heritage because they canraise awareness about intangible culturalheritage and its importance for individual andcollective identities. The process of inventoryingintangible cultural heritage and making thoseinventories accessible to the public can alsoencourage creativity and self-respect in thecommunities and individuals where expressionsand practices of intangible cultural heritageoriginate. Inventories can also provide a basis forformulating concrete plans to safeguard theintangible cultural heritage concerned.

According to Article 11 of the Convention, eachState Party is required to take the necessarymeasures to ensure the safeguarding of theintangible cultural heritage present in its territoryand to include communities, groups and relevantNGOs in the identification and definition of

LLL The Cultural Space ofJemaa el-Fna Square,Morocco

LL The Mystery Play ofElche, Spain

L The Cultural Space of theBoysun District, Uzbekistan

I Taquile and its Textile Art,Peru

4 . INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE


distribution of intangible cultural heritage, aswell as great diversity in their political andadministrative structures, the Convention leaveseach State Party a great deal of freedom to drawup inventories in ways best suited to its ownsituation, allowing national and local conditionsand concerns to be taken into account.

Among the safeguarding measures enumeratedin the Convention, research and documentationare likely to be among the first strategies thatStates will consider in order to understand ‘whatis there’, ‘who does it’ and ‘why they do it’. Statesmay wish to set up national intangible culturalheritage committees to coordinate this work,including relevant institutions, researchers andcommunity representation, which will alsofacilitate interaction between members ofcommunities and researchers.

States are able to choose whether to create asingle, over-arching inventory or a set of smaller,more restricted ones. That is why neither theConvention nor the Operational Directives everspeak of ‘a national inventory’: instead, they referto ‘one or more inventories’. In this way, Statesare not forced to include all domains or allcommunities within a single system. They mayalso incorporate existing registries andcatalogues. A system that includes multipleinventories may be particularly appealing tofederal states where responsibility for culturefalls outside the remit of the centralgovernment, allowing sub-national regions orprovinces to create their own inventories.

Involvement of tradition bearers andpractitionersIn spite of the freedom given to States in theway they inventory intangible cultural heritage,the Convention does impose several conditions.The most important of these is the onerequiring community involvement.

Since communities are the ones who createintangible cultural heritage and keep it alive, theyhave a privileged place in safeguarding it. Thecommunities that practise intangible cultural

elements of that intangible cultural heritage.Identification is a process of describing one ormore specific elements of intangible culturalheritage in their own context and distinguishingthem from others. This process of identifying anddefining should lead to ‘inventorying’. Inventoryingshould be done ‘with a view to safeguarding’ –that is, inventorying is not an abstract exercise butan instrumental one. Therefore, if a certain numberof elements of intangible cultural heritage havealready been identified, States may decide to startimplementing safeguarding projects for thoseelements.

Recognizing that States will take differentapproaches to inventorying, the Conventioncontinues that States Parties are obliged to createone or more inventories of the intangible heritagepresent in their territory, and shall update themregularly (Article 12). While Articles 11 and 12 aremore prescriptive than other Articles in theConvention, they still provide enough flexibility fora State Party to determine how it will prepare itsinventories. States are free to create their inventoriesin their own fashion. However, intangible heritageelements should be well defined in the inventoriesto help put safeguarding measures into practice.

A State Party is not expected to have alreadydrawn up one or more inventories beforeratifying the Convention, although many havebeen doing so for many decades. On thecontrary, the development and updating ofinventories is an ongoing process that can neverbe finished. It is not necessary to havecompleted an inventory in order to startreceiving assistance or filing nominations for theLists of the Convention. However, theOperational Directives for implementing theConvention require that a State Party submittinga nomination file for inscription on either theUrgent Safeguarding List or the RepresentativeList must demonstrate that the proposedelement is already included in an inventory of theintangible cultural heritage present in its territory.

Since there are great differences among Statesconcerning population, territories and

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heritage are better placed than anyone else toidentify and safeguard it, and therefore theyshould be involved when their intangible culturalheritage is to be identified through inventorying.The Convention’s definition of intangible culturalheritage reminds us that it must be recognizedby its communities, groups or individuals;without their recognition, nobody else candecide for them that a given expression orpractice is their heritage. So it is natural thatinventorying cannot happen without theinvolvement of the communities, groups orindividuals whose heritage is to be identified anddefined. Sometimes, of course, communities maynot have the power, or the means, to do this ontheir own. In this case the State, or agencies,institutions and organizations, might work tohelp them inventory their living heritage.

Documentation consists of recording intangiblecultural heritage in tangible forms, in its currentstate, and collecting documents that relate to it.Documentation often involves the use of variousrecording means and formats and the collecteddocuments are often preserved in libraries,archives or websites, where they may beconsulted by the communities concerned andthe larger public. But communities and groupsalso have traditional forms of documentationsuch as songbooks or sacred texts, weavingsamplers or pattern books, or icons and imagesthat constitute recordings of intangible culturalheritage expressions and knowledge. Innovativecommunity self-documentation efforts andprogrammes to repatriate or disseminatearchival documents in order to encouragecontinued creativity are some of the provensafeguarding strategies increasingly being used.

Also, Article 13 (d) (ii) stresses that States Partiesshould always keep in mind customary practicesrelated to providing access to intangibleheritage. In some instances, this may mean thatcertain forms of intangible cultural heritageshould not be inventoried or that someintangible cultural heritage already included ininventories should be made public only undercertain restrictions. Communities may decide,

for instance, to indicate who the custodians ofcertain knowledge are, rather than recordingdetailed documentation on sensitive topics inthe inventories. Providing information about anelement of intangible cultural heritage in aninventory makes access to that element easier.According to the spirit of the Convention, thewill of those communities who refuse to includean element of their intangible cultural heritagein an inventory must be respected.

Although some States already and intensivelyinvolve communities of intangible culturalheritage bearers, many inventory projects donot yet take into account the provisions of theConvention concerning communities’involvement. They were often developed byorganizations and individuals from outside thecommunities and often were not created withthe aim of ensuring the viability of intangiblecultural heritage, as required in the Convention.

States Parties are responsible for makingappropriate institutional arrangements forinvolving communities in the inventory-makingprocess. Such arrangements might include theestablishment or designation of intersectoraladministrative bodies for assessing relevantexisting legislation, institutions and traditionalsafeguarding systems, as well as for identifyingbest practices and areas for improvement. Such bodies would be in charge of drawing up inventories of intangible cultural heritage,developing safeguarding policies, developinginitiatives to raise awareness about theimportance of intangible cultural heritage andencourage public participation in inventoryingand safeguarding it. The administrative bodyshould also, where necessary, develop appropriatesafeguarding measures for inventoried intangiblecultural heritage. States Parties may also wish toestablish advisory or consultative bodies thatwould comprise practitioners and other traditionbearers, researchers, NGOs, civil society, localrepresentatives and relevant others, as well aslocal support teams including communityrepresentatives, cultural practitioners and otherswith specific skills and knowledge in training

LLL The IndigenousFestivity dedicated to theDead, Mexico

LL The Lakalaka, Dancesand Sung Speeches ofTonga

L The Mystery Play of Elche,Spain


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and capacity building. Methods for inventoryingintangible cultural heritage might be carried out in steps and the identification of all relevantstakeholders and their involvement in the process. Potential consequences of inventorying,procedures to ensure an ethical relationshipbetween stakeholders and customary practices,governing access to the intangible culturalheritage also need to be identified.

Inventorying should be a top-down andbottom-up process involving local communitiesas well as governments and NGOs. In order forStates Parties to satisfy the requirement ofcommunities’ involvement, procedures shouldbe established for:

! Proper identification of communities orgroups and their representatives;

! Ensuring that only intangible cultural heritagerecognized by the communities or groups isinventoried;

! Ensuring that the free, prior and informedconsent of the communities or groups isobtained for inventorying;

! Ensuring the consent of communities wheninvolving non-community members;

! Respecting customary practices regardingaccess to intangible cultural heritage;

! Actively involving local or regionalgovernments;

! Adopting and following a code of ethics thatshould take into account the lessons learntfrom good practices worldwide.

Drawing up inventoriesMany existing inventorying systems and almostall older inventories were not created withsafeguarding in mind, as understood in the 2003Convention. Some of them were designed byresearchers to meet their own needs. Moreover,some old inventories are particularlyproblematic as they may have been producedunder colonial conditions or as part of nation-building exercises.

Both Article 11 (b) and Article 12 of theConvention imply that the totality of theintangible cultural heritage in a country should

Community-based documentationcontributes to the viability of intangiblecultural heritage in the Philippines

Between 2003 and 2004 the Subanencommunity in Western Mindanao in thePhilippines undertook innovativedocumentation of their indigenousknowledge about the plants found in theirancestral domain. The plants are valuable tothem for their medicinal, agricultural,economic, and religious uses.

Plant diversity in the region is declining dueto population pressure and climatic changes.Elders recognized that as plant diversitydwindles, knowledge about plants alsodeclines. They also realized that as theyounger generations are drawn intomainstream society, orally transmittedindigenous knowledge is no longer passedon to the next generation, and couldeventually disappear forever.

The Subanen leaders sought assistance fromspecialized organizations to provide themwith the skills to document this indigenousknowledge themselves, with externalexperts acting as facilitators. The non-literatebut knowledgeable community eldersprovided the information, and youngerliterate community members assumed therole of documenters.

The resulting documentation waspackaged into a multimedia format andother popular educational materials inEnglish with Subanen translations. Thesematerials were formally registered with thegovernment copyright office, in order toguarantee the community’s intellectualproperty rights. The community’s educationprogramme now uses them to teachschoolchildren about their culture; they arealso used as curriculum material for adultswho want to learn to read and write in theirancestral language.

This ‘self-documentation’ has turned out to bea successful way to preserve orally transmittedbotanical knowledge and to make it availablefor present and future generations,contributing to the viability of this part of theSubanen’s intangible cultural heritage.

LL The Mevlevi SemaCeremony, Turkey

L The Traditional Music ofthe Morin Khuur, Mongolia

L A Subanen performing ritual before enteringnew documentation site as a way of askingpermission from the unseen and informing themthat specimen collection is to be carried out fordocumentation


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be covered, since they refer to the intangibleheritage present in the territory of the StateParty. Inventories should therefore be ascomprehensive and complete as possible.However, in many cases, this may prove an almostimpossible task. Inventories can never becompleted or fully updated because of theimmense scope of the heritage covered by theConvention and the fact that intangible culturalheritage is constantly changing and evolving.

Considering the amount of intangible heritage tobe identified and listed, some priorities mightneed to be set. In this case, those elements whichare recognized by the communities or by theirpractitioners as particularly important for theiridentity or as being particularly representative oftheir intangible cultural heritage might beinventoried first. The role of creating inventoriesas a safeguarding measure should not beforgotten. Therefore, where possible, the viabilityof inventoried elements should be indicated andthreats to their survival outlined. This is forinstance the case of inventories in Brazil andColombia. In Bhutan, Bulgaria and Lithuania the

risk of disappearance is used as a criterion forinclusion in the inventory.

In order to reach as quickly as possible a certaindegree of representativeness in the inventories,States may wish to start drawing up inventoriesby providing relatively brief information. Someelements might benefit from greater attentionthan others, but it is advisable as far as possibleto present each element according to the sametemplate and to refer to detailed informationavailable elsewhere rather than include it withinthe inventory.

Inventories must be regularly updated, as statedin Article 12 of the Convention. This is vital dueto the fact that intangible cultural heritageconstantly evolves and threats to its viability canemerge very rapidly. Many national inventoriesalready contain elements that no longer existwhile others include information on practicesthat have substantially changed. States Partiesare obliged to periodically provide relevantinformation on their inventories, includinginformation on the process of regular updating.

A four-year project to record living musicand dance traditions in Ethiopia: towards acomprehensive national intangible culturalheritage inventory

With over 80 living languages and ancientcultures nourished by African and MiddleEastern influences, Ethiopia is a land ofastounding diversity. Forged over a longhistory of isolation and exchange periodsresulting from Ethiopia’s unique geographicaland political context, this diversity isabundantly reflected in the country’s musicand dances.

Indeed, the music of Ethiopia has emergedfrom Christian-Orthodox, Judeo-Ethiopianand Muslim traditions as well as Africanpolyphonic and instrumental expressions.Although predominantly vocal, Ethiopianmusic features a variety of instruments, someof which reputedly date from Old Testamenttimes. Among the most widespread arebaganna and krar lyres, the masenqo fiddle,the kabaro drums and the washint flute.

UNESCO launched a four-year project tocollect and inventory music and dancetraditions throughout Ethiopia. As a first step in the compilation of a morecomprehensive national inventoryencompassing all aspects of Ethiopia’sintangible cultural heritage, the projectaimed at building local capacities anddocument living practices and traditions.

In order to guarantee the continuation of the work by Ethiopian specialists, courses inethnomusicology were organized at theUniversity of Addis Ababa and the YaredMusic School using specifically designedcurriculum materials in English and Amharic.Training in inventorying music and dancebegan in 2006 with “The Musical Landscapeof Addis Ababa”, a survey of the variousEthiopian traditions found in the capital.Students then joined European specialistswho were already working in the field tostudy traditions and practices in differentregions. Activities included conductingresearch among the Maale people of

southern Ethiopia and organizing training in the use of equipment for multi-trackpolyphonic recording for the staff of theSouth Omo Museum and Research Center inthe town of Jinka. Numerous centres andmuseums around the country have receivedtraining and equipment adapted to theirparticular needs.

By the project’s completion, a generation of Ethiopians has been trained to carry on the national intangible cultural heritageinventory by including other domains whilealso raising awareness of the importance ofintangible cultural heritage among local andnational authorities thus contributing directlyto the long-term safeguarding of Ethiopia’sliving heritage.

L The Vimbuza HealingDance, Malawi

I The Carnival ofBarranquilla, Colombia


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The Convention explicitly leaves the choice ofwhether to draft one or several inventories to theStates Parties, but remains silent about parametersfor defining the scope of each of the inventories inthe case of a multiplex system. One can think ofdiscrete inventories for different domains ofintangible cultural heritage, different communities,different regions, or for different subjects of federalStates. Whoever the actors involved in preparingthe inventories or parts of them are, at the end ofthe day it is the States, i.e. the States Parties to theConvention, who are responsible for the designand implementation of their inventories.

While States Parties may be encouraged whendrawing up inventories to follow the definition ofintangible cultural heritage as developed for theConvention, they are not obliged to do so,particularly as inventories may be drawn up in amanner best suited to the circumstances of theState Party in question. However, if a State Partyproposes an element for inscription on theRepresentative List or Urgent Safeguarding List orwishes to request financial assistance for theelement’s safeguarding, it will have to demonstratethat it meets the definition of intangible culturalheritage as laid out in Article 2 of the Convention.

Most inventories will include a system ofclassifying the intangible cultural heritage. Oneplace to begin would be the domains listed inArticle 2.2 of the Convention: oral traditions andexpressions including language as a vehicle ofthe intangible cultural heritage; performing arts;social practices, rituals and festive events;knowledge and practice about nature and theuniverse; and traditional craftsmanship.As already noted, the Convention makes it clearthat these domains are not comprehensive, andany system of classification is only a tool forhelping to organize the information within aninventory.

Some inventory systems, like those in Cape Verde,Mauritius and South Africa, more or less follow thedomains laid out in the 2003 Convention. In otherStates Parties, there is a great deal of variation:some, especially in Africa and Latin America,

present languages as intangible cultural heritagein their own right and not just as a ‘vehicle’ of it,and others explicitly mention ‘music and dance’rather than the term ‘performing arts’; still othersconsider music separately from dance, and so on.

However, numerous categories in nationalinventories can be easily accommodated underone or more of the domains outlined in theConvention: ‘traditional medicine‘ and ‘indigenousknowledge systems‘ might be classified under‘knowledge about nature‘ and such categories as‘games‘ or ‘play‘ and ‘social organization‘, under the domain of ‘social practices‘. Themes such as‘mythology‘ and names of places, objects oranimals could be accommodated under ‘oralexpressions‘ and some religious ceremonies andpilgrimages, under ‘rituals‘ or ‘festive events‘. Other categories such as ‘memories and beliefs’,‘genealogical information’ or ‘culinary traditions’also find their place in one or more of the domains presented in Article 2 of the Convention.Divergence concerning domains often reflects the different focuses of communities’ intangiblecultural heritage in different parts of the world,and this is perfectly consistent with theConvention’s insistence that each State shoulddraw up its inventories in a manner geared to its own situation. Algeria and Haiti, for example, have separate categories for particular religious practices.

Some inventorying systems are not limited toelements of the intangible cultural heritage. TheLithuanian system, for instance, integrates tangibleelements associated to practices of intangiblecultural heritage, to the traditions’ bearers or toarchives, as well as several elements that are nolonger practised. On the other hand, in Belgium,there are plans to include elements of cyberculture and virtual practices in the classificatorysystem of intangible cultural heritage.

Another major difference between States is thatsome limit themselves to inventoryingindigenous or native intangible cultural heritagewhile others – Belgium and the USA, for instance– also take into account the intangible cultural


L Shashmaqom Music,Tajikistan and Uzbekistan

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heritage of immigrant communities. Manymulticultural States do not restrict themselves tothe expressions and practices of the mostwidespread culture but rather undertake, fromthe start, to consider the intangible culturalheritage of minority groups.

There is also a huge variation in the amount ofdocumentation and the degree of detailprovided in inventories. It seems not physicallyor financially feasible to provide detailedinformation about all the intangible culturalheritage manifestations present in countrieswith a tremendous variety of intangible culturalheritage. About half of the systems in use todaypresent extensive documentation, while othersare less exhaustive in providing informationabout listed elements. Some take the form ofcatalogues or registers, while others presentinformation as a series of encyclopaedia-likeentries. In Brazil, a system is used thatincorporates both approaches. There is anational level of elements that have beenincluded in a ‘Registry’ and another level withelements included in an ‘Inventory’. On anational level, extensive documentation is

provided for both of these categories, while inthe federal states inventories are being createdwithout this weight of documentation.

In most countries there are no legal provisions to protect the property rights of the communities,groups of practitioners and tradition bearers over their traditional cultural and social practicesand expressions. This may mean that caution isnecessary when dealing with easily accessibleinformation with possible commercial applications.Without appropriate legal protections, outsidersmay use and take commercial advantage ofinformation such as traditional medicalknowledge, knowledge of natural resources, and of music and oral traditions. Since communitiesshould give their free, prior and informed consentbefore their heritage is inventoried, they canrestrict how much information they wish toprovide – or none – about elements of theirintangible cultural heritage. Communities may not always be aware of the potential value of theirheritage to others, so those responsible for theinventorying should be sensitive not to includeinformation that would violate privacy or inviteunfair exploitation by outsiders.


L The Oral Heritage ofGelede, Benin, Nigeria andTogo

K The Maroon Heritage ofMoore Town, Jamaica

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There is no minimum age for how long practicesneed to be established and transmitted betweengenerations in order for them to be consideredelements of intangible cultural heritage underthe Convention. Some States impose such arequirement on elements to be inventoried, andthese range from two or three generations up toseven. In some cases, it is difficult to establishover how many generations a tradition has beenpractised, particularly in communities whose firstlanguage has traditionally not existed in a writtenform. Since the community itself should decidewhat it recognizes as its intangible culturalheritage, imposing a uniform, external age limit seems to contradict the Convention.

Particular attention should be given to rapidevolutions with significant impact from externalfactors: while they may have their roots intraditional intangible cultural heritage elements,they may not always be seen as resulting froman uninterrupted chain of development. Someinventorying systems do not include revitalizedelements where there has been such a break;others choose to include them if they arerecognized by a community as its heritage.

Some States divide their inventories alonginternal administrative lines. Venezuela, forexample, presents the cultural heritage of eachof its municipalities separately. Federal statesoften structure their inventories according to territories; indeed, many States use admini -strative partitions as a primary classifyingprinciple.

In Colombia, a separate inventory is underdevelopment for each of the country’s thirty-two departments. China officially recognizesfifty-six ethnic groups and organizes itsinventory accordingly. Some countries, such asHaiti, feel no need to distinguish betweendifferent communities or regions. However, dueto urbanisation, migration and centralizingpolicies, present day administrative divisions donot always coincide with borders of regions thatwere traditionally occupied by discrete ethno-linguistic or otherwise definable communities.


L The Cocolo DanceDrama Tradition,Dominican Republic

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The Bulgarian experience in inventory-making

In Bulgaria, at the national level, the Ministryof Culture (National Folklore Committee) andthe Institute of Folklore of the BulgarianAcademy of Sciences carry the responsibilityfor the safeguarding, inventorying andpromotion of the intangible cultural heritage.An inventorying project was conducted in2001 and 2002. The inventory was made ontwo levels, national and regional-localaccording to the existing administrativedivisions, and combined the territorialprinciple with classification according to

ethnic and religious background as thesetwo factors often coincided. The maincriteria for including an element in theinventory were authenticity,representativeness, artistic value, vitality,rootedness in tradition. The selecteddomains for classifying intangible culturalheritage were traditional rites and feasts,traditional singing and music playing,traditional dancing and children’s games,traditional narration, traditional crafts andtraditional production of home-madeobjects or products and traditionalmedicine. A questionnaire established byexperts was sent to communities both

through administrative channels andthrough the network of local chitalishte(‘culture and community centers’), thecollected data were analyzed by the expertsand a first version of the inventory waselaborated and put online for comments.Upon integration of comments andadditional field research, the final version ofthe inventory was published on paper andon the Internet. Today, the chitalishtenetwork, coordinated by the RegionalCultural Policy Directorate with the Ministryof Culture, ensures to a large extent thetransmission of knowledge and skills in thearea of the intangible cultural heritage.



The Brazilian experience in inventory-making

Brazilian experiences in inventory-making goback to the creation in the 1930s of theInstitute of Historic and Artistic Heritage(IPHAN) and the application of anadministrative act called Tombamento for thelegal protection of cultural heritage, bothmovable and immovable. The Tombamentowas based on Western notions ofauthenticity, including preservation ofproperty as much as possible in its originalform, focusing on objects rather than onrelated social processes. When, in the 1970s,the concept of cultural heritage wasbroadened to include explicitly intangibleassets, it became obvious that living culturalassets were to be safeguarded throughspecially adapted means, which eventuallyled to the creation by decree of the Registryof Intangible Cultural Assets in 2000.

Through this Registry intangible culturalheritage items are documented andpublicized, in a way that takes into accountthe collective and individual rights linked

to that heritage. Considering the dynamicnature of intangible cultural heritage, the Registry must be periodically revised, at least once every ten years. The registered properties are declared‘Brazilian Cultural Heritage’, which entitlesthem to be promoted and to receivefinancial support for safeguarding plans. Parallel to the Registry, a NationalProgramme for Intangible Heritage wasestablished for preserving the country’sethnic and cultural diversity, which included the National Inventory of Cultural References. For this NationalInventory, an inventory-makingmethodology was prepared by IPHANaimed at the identification of cultural assets, both tangible and intangible.Intangible cultural assets are divided intofour categories: ‘Celebrations’, ‘Forms ofexpression’, ‘Craftsmanship or traditionalknowledge’ and ‘Places or physical spaces’.The local delimitation of inventoryingactivities may correspond to a village, adistrict, a zone, an urban sector, a culturallydifferentiated geographic region or acomplex of territories.

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The inventory-making methodologycomprises three phases: (1) preliminarycollection, (2) identification anddocumentation, and (3) interpretation. The inventories carried out by IPHANemphasize the cultural references ofindigenous people, Afro-Brazilian citizens and groups inhabiting protected urbannuclei, as well as people living inmulticultural urban contexts. There is aspecial focus on cultural properties at risk.

According to IPHAN, an important goal ofinventorying intangible cultural heritage is tomaintain the country’s cultural diversity in acontext of homogenizing tendencies, and tocontribute through the implementation ofsafeguarding mechanisms to social inclusionand improvement of living conditions of thetradition bearers. Since 2000, IPHAN hasconcluded 48 inventories of culturalreferences throughout the country and other47 are now in progress. Sixteen cultural assetshave been registered since 2002 and elevenaction plans are being implemented in orderto guarantee their transmission andcontinuity.



The Venezuelan experience in inventory-making

The Ley de Protección y Defensa del PatrimonioCultural (the Venezuelan Law on theProtection and Defence of Cultural Heritage)of 1993 decreed the establishment of anInstituto del Patrimonio Cultural, IPC (Instituteof Cultural Heritage, www.ipc.gob.ve). Oneof the main tasks of this Institute is theinventorying of Venezuelan Cultural Heritage.During a first inventorying exercise, only 610cultural goods were declared of which 476were architectural (colonial). The Instituterealised then that this did not reflect thewealth and variety of the country’s culturalheritage. The Institute decided therefore in2003 to start a new inventory project thatwould aim at reflecting all forms of culturalheritage of all Venezuelan municipalities. In2005, 68 000 expressions of tangible andintangible heritage had been registered, andthe project was expected to be finalised withsome 110 000 expressions inventoried.

The new inventory aimed at reflecting thosecultural manifestations that are valuable forthe communities themselves. By doing so, itrejects the principles previously used of theestablishment by a specialist of theirexceptional value, and of the appropriation ofheritage by society in general through publicpolicies. The final goal of the new inventorywas instead to register all the activities, mani -festations, products or cultural expressionsthat represent and socially characterize eachof the Venezuelan communities and groups.The basic inventorying criterion used was the

representative character of the tangible andintangible cultural heritage for thecommunities and groups, including thelisting of individuals with distinctive skillsthat symbolise a collective identity.

Field work started in 2004 through thegathering of information, on municipal basis,by using pre-existing questionnaires, whichresulted to be of limited effectiveness as theywere neither reflecting the representativeprinciple of the exercise, nor including theright questions for valuing other heritage thanmonuments or sites. New questionnaireswere therefore developed with the idea thatone question would lead to the next, leavingenough flexibility to afterwards compile andedit the information gathered. Theassessment criterion used for determining therepresentative character was the need toprove the evidence of a collective valorisationof the cultural goods to be registered. Lackingthis evidence, the elements were rejected.

The information gathering was organized byworkers in the field of culture, students,volunteers and the network of localteachers, which is one of the most extendedpublic networks in the country. Thecommunities were informed about thescopes and purposes of the project andwere told that only the information theywanted to provide would be published inthe Catálogos del Patrimonio CulturalVenezolano, a series of more than 200 booksthat presents the results of the inventory in335 municipalities. Cultural heritage wasregistered, for each of the municipalities,

under five categories: los Objetos (objects), lo Construido (built heritage), la CreaciónIndividual (individual creations), la TradiciónOral (oral traditions) and las ManifestacionesColectivas (collective manifestations).

An editing and publishing team was incharge of bringing the information back to abrief description of each of the elements forpractical reasons concerning the publicationof the inventory. The rest of the written andaudiovisual information is included in digitalform in a central database of IPC, with thepurpose to make it accessible via internetand other means to the general public. IPCalso has the intention to publish a CD withthe cultural heritage of each of theVenezuelan administrative regions and acultural mapping project. The inventory isseen as a main cultural and educational toolto be used in development policies.

From a legal point of view, the TribunalSupremo de Justicia (Supreme Court)decreed that all cultural heritage that hasbeen duly registered and published in theinventory, is subject of protection by the Lawon the Protection and Defence of CulturalHeritage. When allocating financial resources for safeguarding inventoriedintangible cultural heritage, priority is givento cultural heritage under threat ofdisappearing. Today, more than 84 000cultural expressions have been inventoriedand more than 160 Catálogos have beenpublished and are available for free in everycultural, social and educational institution ofeach municipality.

The spirit of the Convention calls for inven-tories to be as representative as possible of theintangible cultural heritage borne by localcommunities and groups who make up thenational community of the submitting State Party.Above all, the elements that feature in inventoriesof intangible cultural heritage should be selectedon the basis of the primary criterion of whetherthey are recognized by one or more communities,groups or, in some cases, individuals as beingexpressions of their cultural identity. TheConvention requires that inventorying be donewith the participation of those very communities.Other questions of classification, scope, level of

detail, and the mechanisms of conducting,maintaining and updating those inventories willbe determined by each State, ‘in a manner gearedto its own situation’.

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Possible outline for inventorying elementsof the intangible cultural heritage

1. Identification of the element1.1. Name of the element, as used by

community or group concerned;1.2. Short, maximally informative title

(including indication of domain(s));1.3. Community(ies) concerned;1.4. Physical location(s) of element;1.5. Short description.

2. Characteristics of the element2.1. Associated tangible elements;2.2. Associated intangible elements; 2.3. Language(s), register(s), speech level(s)

involved;2.4. Perceived origin.

3. Persons and institutions involved withthe element3.1. Practitioners(s)/performer(s): name(s),

age, gender, social status, and/orprofessional category, etc;

3.2. Other participants (e.g., holders/custodians);

3.3. Customary practices governing access tothe element or to aspects of it;

3.3. Modes of transmission;3.4. Concerned organizations (NGOs and

others).

4. State of the element: viability4.1. Threats to the enactment;4.2. Threats to the transmission;4.3. Availability of associated tangible

elements and resources;4.4. Viability of associated tangible and

intangible elements;4.5. Safeguarding measures in place.

5. Data gathering and inventorying5.1. Consent from and involvement of the

community/group in data gathering andinventorying;

5.2. Restrictions, if any, on use of inventorieddata;

5.3. Resource persons(s): name and status oraffiliation;

5.4. Date and place of data gathering;5.5. Date of entering data into an inventory;5.6. The inventory entry compiled by….

6. References to literature, discography,audiovisual materials, archives


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Intangible cultural heritage, transmitted from generation togeneration, is constantly recreated by communities and groups,and provides them with a sense of identity and continuity, thuspromoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity.

Intangible Cultural Heritage

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With the support of the Government of Norway


identifying and inventorying intangible cultural heritage

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