The public health restrictions and social distancing imposed as a consequence of COVID-19 have not only had a profound impact on intangible heritage, they have also prompted resilience, reinvention, and creativity. This analysis of the period provides an insight into the social significance of intangible heritage and its adaptability and ability to evolve, while also raising questions about its sustainability. This article tackles the impact of lockdown and public health restrictions on the festivals included in the UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Heritage in Spain. Employing qualitative and ethnographic methodology, the study analyzes the effects of restrictions on the 18 elements on the UNESCO list and the responses adopted; it also includes case studies on three elements. The article concludes that in the post-COVID-19 period, it will be necessary to rethink the economic and social sustainability of intangible heritage practices and to discover new ways of managing them. It will also be necessary to go back to more local formats that are less crowded and less dependent on tourism. The pandemic has exposed the fragility of intangible heritage, and it is now time to rethink the perhaps excessive growth it has experienced in recent years.

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The Sustainability of Intangible Heritage in the COVID-19 Era—Resilience, Reinvention, and Challenges in Spain

The need to study and understand urban resilience has been defended by academics, justified by a new global context characterized by a growing urban population and a changing climate. Moreover, the importance of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) has been recognized by UNESCO since 2003. Nevertheless, the relationship between ICH and urban resilience discourses is recent, with academic studies on this topic seeing an exponential growth from 2017 onward. This article aims to develop a systematic literature review in order to answer the research question “how does intangible heritage relate to urban resilience?” and present current academic debates on this relationship. Following a methodology which entailed an academic database search and the application of exclusion criteria, 94 results from Scopus and Web of Science were retrieved and analysed. The article presents a discussion of results and showcases an existing linkage between both areas of study. This study demonstrates the fragmentation and diversity of the debates when addressing the relationship between the two topics, with an existing focus on sustainability discourses, built heritage and the role of local communities. Moreover, the article also shows a prevalence of discourses based on an engineering resilience approach. Considerations for future approaches to ICH and urban resilience are presented, namely, the need to better integrate ICH into urban resilience discourses.

The Relationship between Intangible Cultural Heritage and Urban Resilience: A Systematic Literature Review

In aligning its priorities around the Sustainable Development Goals, UNESCO officially acknowledges the need to reconcile the market and heritage. Yet inscriptions of commercial practices on the In...

Commercialization without over-commercialization: normative conundrums across heritage rationalities

Cet article traite de la correlation entre bureaucratie, ideologies d’echelle et utopie dans la production du « patrimoine partage » comme incarnation de l’ideal porte par l’UNESCO pour rapprocher les peuples par-dela les frontieres physiques et symboliques. L’utopie scalaire de l’UNESCO est exploree en mettant l’accent sur la promotion des « candidatures multi-nationales » a la Liste representative du patrimoine culturel immateriel. Leur agentivite politique est illustree par la candidature binationale de la lutte coreenne qui celebre le partage d’une meme culture par des pays rivaux. Ce dispositif est compare a la rhetorique universaliste des debats qui ont accompagne l’inscription du reggae et du yoga sur la meme liste. Une observation participante du dispositif global du patrimoine culturel immateriel met en evidence l’ingeniosite des fonctionnaires du patrimoine dans leur poursuite d’ideaux d’unite : des technologies administratives creant des representations du patrimoine partage sont concues et mises en œuvre dans un processus qui rend l’utopie bureaucratique et la bureaucratie utopique.

« Let’s get together » : fabriquer du patrimoine partagé, entre bureaucratisation de l’utopie et utopisation de la bureaucratie

The purpose of the study is to develop in hunting management the approaches to identifying, evaluating and accounting the socio-ecological phenomena of hunter specialization (by types of hunting, game caught) and the interchangeability of hunts, taking into account the presence of a market sector in the area under consideration. The research used the methods of interdisciplinary analogies and semi-structured interviews in addition to general scientific methods. A comparison of hunts close in formal characteristics was made, their significant differences were revealed. It is noted that comparisons can be made for many hunts, and their quantitative and qualitative differences will be more significant. The wide distribution and relative stability of hunters' preferences are shown. A definition of the concept of hunt interchangeability has been developed.   The structural elements of this definition determine the algorithm of practical survey, which is necessary at the design stage of changing the protection regime and the use of hunting resources. Recommendations are given on the practical analysis  of the interchangeability of hunts practiced in certain areas, the inclusion of the results in strategic planning documents and the consideration in planning management decisions that provide for the prohibition of separate hunts. It is pointed out that ignoring the phenomenon of hunters' specialization when setting hunting restrictions can lead to a complete or partial loss of this hunt, related knowledge, abilities and skills. Especially dangerous is the loss of highly specialized hunts, including the use of specially bred decoying and catching animals. Other undesirable consequences may be a reduction in the social base of hunting in general, as well as an increasing protested or constrained poaching. The combination of these and other negative phenomena creates a threat to the sustainability of the use of hunting resources.

Interchangeability of hunts as a factor of sustainability of hunting use

UNESCO heritage policies encourage the idea that heritage should be ‘shared’ at the international scale, and invite States and the involved actors to adopt this vision. Yet ‘sharedness’ can be understood in many different ways. In this article, we explore several territorial and political issues related to this notion of sharedness. A focus on the uses of a particular UNESCO tool—‘multinational nominations’— allows to shed light on transnational cultural practices and to examine forms of cooperation within communities and between States in the framework of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). Specifically, we analyse the work of a French commission for ICH as well as the nomination processes of three different cultural practices to the ICH Lists: flamenco, falconry, and alpinism. We argue that ‘shared heritage’ is interpreted in a variety of ways, leading to contrastive appropriations and competing territorial scenarios among the various protagonists.

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Cecilia Raziano

Papers

Sharing heritage? Politics and territoriality in UNESCO’s heritage lists