Shihan De Silva Jayasuriya et al
PREFACE to her new book entitled “Sustaining Support for Intangible Cultural Heritage” (ICH)
Sustaining Support for Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) continues the conversations on cultural heritage which commenced at a virtual conference held on August 3, 2020, at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. The conference was spurred by the screening of my film – “Indian Ocean Memories and African Migrants” – at the Social Scientists Association, Colombo. The interest shown by UNESCO Global Network Facilitators, Dr Bilinda Nandadeva and Dr Gamini Wijesuriya, who attended the screening, was a catalyst to convening the conference. The Covid-19 pandemic further exposed the significance of heritage and the vulnerability of intangible culture. The book is a call to value ICH and an inspiration for academics, researchers, stakeholders, civil society, cultural practitioners and policymakers to understand the threats to sustaining heritage.
The binary of tangible and intangible heritage is a fault line. Rather than working to resolve definitional differences, the range of ideas and even ambiguities surrounding discourses on ICH emerge as resources to explore the importance of intangibility within contemporary heritage. UNESCO’s 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage formalised a distinction between heritage that is tangible in its materiality and another form of heritage that is about skills, crafts and knowledge. This distinction has provoked considerable debate with regards to legal instruments, recognition, preservation and impacts. Within this discourse, we aim to contribute to research that investigates the rationales and repercussions of this distinction, and to critically consider the implicit assumption that the distinction is universally relevant. The nature of intangible heritage, its malleability and change are explored. To this end, we focus on the tensions between different forms of living heritage and the impact of heritage nomination – factors which influence whether the latter results in fossilisation of heritage or whether the ‘intangible heritage’ will survive its nomination. Whilst UNESCO’s efforts at making ICH visible are effective in spurring national bodies to respond to the needs of local heritage practitioners, the conference draws attention to regional networks and global alliances, such as the Commonwealth, which might be well placed to support cultural production and practice.
Of particular importance to me are the cries of marginalised communities who live within the trappings of poverty. Balancing the trade- offs in cultural maintenance with economic gains from cultural tourism is a tight rope to walk on. Sustainability of oral traditions and cultural performances, both religious and secular, is a main theme of the book as are the environment and global cultural heritage.
Marginalisation of intangibility is a burden on creating an inclusive society. Whilst the pandemic exposed global inequity, ICH is under further threat with the low priority that it receives from those who are able to support its practice. Communities articulate the interlacing of identity and heritage in diverse ways. Through heritage we re-live our past in the present and ensure its continuity in the future. As the chapters illustrate, cultural productions give voice to the voiceless. Whilst cultural production and agency of communities is brought out by the authors, a core element of this book is sustainability linked to enhancing economic and educational resources and their social needs emerge as key to the future strategy of heritage. The challenges at the local level with threats from globalisation need to be balanced carefully against the sensibilities of communities.
Heritage generally emphasises objects and places; ICH brings forth people and communities as agents and subjects. Intangible heritage takes many different forms, all of which raise particular intellectual and social challenges. The necessity to understand the entwining of tangible and intangible heritage and the need to consider them as integral to heritage is a prerequisite in sustaining cultural heritage. Pressures from society on the administrative and political authorities to reshape public spaces for the continuity of hereditary practices gained new impetus during the pandemic. But sustenance of heritage itself is threatened.
The book includes many years of fieldwork and research by a diverse group of scholars in various stages of their careers who spent the last year writing up the chapters for this book.
Co-editors Mariana Pinto Leitão Pereira and Gregory Hansen draw on their theoretical and practical expertise in heritage to weave the chapters together through a masterly Introduction and concluding Commentary to the book. Ritu Sethi and Bilinda Nandadeva contribute their vast exposure to the international heritage scene at UNESCO ICH committees. More specifically, their insider expertise and lived experiences on the resilience of ICH during the pandemic by Indian and Sri Lankan multi-ethnic communities, are invaluable.
In fact, ICH has been a binding force for communities throughout the pandemic whose adaptability supported sustainability. The omba and majini of Northern Mozambicans, the jikkar and goma/dhammal of the Gujarati Sidis in northwestern India and the manja of Afrodescendants in the northwestern province of Sri Lanka described by Chapane Mutiua, Beheroze Shroff and myself connect Africans and Afrodescendants separated by time and space. Survival of culture on the margins is played out through collective manja performances of Afrodescendants in northwestern Sri Lanka, which the community describe as their only heritage.
Whilst the societal and economic support are significant in these cultural productions in the Indian Ocean, similar issues are highlighted by Gregory Hansen through Bluegrass in Arkansas. The role of green social workers in the loss of global environmental cultural heritage through the link between Covid-19 and environmental degradation is emphasised by Lena Dominelli. Cheryl Toman looks at preserving the environment in Gabon, through the narratives of Nadia Origo, a Gabonese sustainable development expert.
The nine scholars approaching sustainability through their epistemologies in preservation, arts and crafts, folklore, ethnomusicology, anthropology, social work and literary studies, weave a rich tapestry of heritage. Their insider epistemologies and insider positionalities are powerful descriptors of the communities they describe and go beyond the all-too-common assumption that heritage is only history and archaeology. Although the editors assessed the arguments in relation to contemporary scholarship, we do recognise that there is a diversity of opinion within academic discourse. Consequently, the specific arguments reflect the views of the contributors rather than a unified view of the book’s editors. Similarly, the language used in the narratives by the contributing authors reflects their own positionalities.
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Sustaining Support for Intangible Cultural Heritage, Edited by Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya, Mariana Pinto Leitão Pereira and Gregory Hansen
This book was first published 2022 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK …………….. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library…………Copyright © 2022 by Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya, Mariana Pinto Leitão Pereira, Gregory Hansen and contributors
All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
ISBN (10): 1-5275-8134-9……………….ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-8134-0
Contents
List of Illustrations………………………………………………………………………….. vii
Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………. ix
Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya: Biographies of Contributing Authors……………. x
Preface…………………………………………………………………………………………. xiv
Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya: Introduction: Situating Intangible Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development: A Challenging Partnership?………………………………… xvii
Mariana Pinto Leitão Pereira
Intangible Cultural Heritage and the COVID Pandemic
Chapter 1: Protecting our Environment: Learning Lessons from Covid-19
Lena Dominelli…………………………………………………………………………………….. 2
Chapter 2………………………………………………………………………………………. 24
Living Culture and Sustainable Development: Impact of the Pandemic on Intangible Cultural Heritage in Sri Lanka
Bilinda D. Nandadeva
Intangible Cultural Heritage in/as Performance
Chapter 3………………………………………………………………………………………. 42
Safeguarding Afro-Sri Lankan Intangible Cultural Heritage Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya
Chapter 4………………………………………………………………………………………. 63
Intangible Cultural Heritage of Sidis of Gujarat, India Beheroze Shroff
vi Contents
Chapter 5………………………………………………………………………………………. 83
Local Knowledge as Intangible Cultural Heritage: The Case of Omba
and Majini in Northern Mozambique Chapane Mutiua
Chapter 6………………………………………………………………………………………. 96
KASU FM 91.9’s ‘Bluegrass Monday’: Performing Intangible Cultural Heritage and Fostering Historic Preservation in Arkansas, USA Gregory Hansen
Decolonising Intangible Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development
Chapter 7…………………………………………………………………………………….. 116
The Many Shades of Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage and its Sustainable Development in India
Ritu Sethi
Chapter 8…………………………………………………………………………………….. 134
Nadia Origo’s Aurore’s Journey: A Novel About Sustainable Development by a Gabonese Geographer
Cheryl Toman
Commentary………………………………………………………………………………… 149
Resources for Resiliency within Intangible Cultural Heritage Gregory Hansen
Index
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ALSO NOTE
- https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-8134-0/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shihan_de_Silva
- https://www.heritage.arch.cam.ac.uk/people/mp850
- https://www.religiousstudiesproject.com/persons/gregory-hansen/
AND FURTHERMORE
- https://thuppahis.com/2011/01/30/kaffirs-record-their-debut-album/
- https://thuppahis.com/2018/08/15/hardy-women-yesterdays-africans-in-todays-lanka/
- https://thuppahis.com/2017/03/21/where-music-transcends-ethnic-divisions-sinhala-nona/
- https://thuppahis.com/2017/11/07/about-the-portuguese-burghers-and-kaffirs/
- https://thuppahis.com/2021/02/24/about-the-kaberi-in-colonial-ceilao-and-the-fort-of-galle/
- https://thuppahis.com/2021/03/11/remembering-indian-ocean-slavery-through-film-afro-sri-lankan-memories/
- https://thuppahis.com/2022/01/29/kaffir-traditions-vibrant-traces-at-sirambiyadi-off-puttalam/
