Understanding Intangible Cultural Heritage and New Museology- A summary

We share cultural expressions that have been passed from one generation to another, have evolved in response to their environments and contribute to giving us a sense of identity and continuity. There are things that we regard as important to preserve for future generations. They may be significant due to their present or possible economic value, but also because they create a certain emotion within us, or because they make us feel as though we belong to something – a country, a tradition, a way of life. They might be objects that can be held and buildings that can be explored, or songs that can be sung and stories that can be told. Whatever shape they take, these things form part of a heritage, and this heritage requires active effort on our part in order to safeguard it.

In the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, UNESCO’s most recent and proactive initiative, Intangible cultural Heritage (hereafter, ICH) is defined as follows:
“ICH is the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage.” (UNESCO, 2003: Article 2)

It is manifested inter alia in the following domains:
1. Oral traditions and expressions, including language as a vehicle of intangible heritage.
2. Performing arts.
3. Social practices, rituals and festive events.
4. Knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe.
5. Traditional craftsmanship.

The United Nations Education, Science, and Culture Organisation (UNESCO), a global leader for the promotion and protection of cultural heritage, has put forth several initiatives in an effort to raise awareness of the multitude of shared and individual ways in which people express themselves. UNESCO uses the term ‘intangible cultural heritage’ for categorising the languages, music, stories and belief systems, as examples, that represent, at the core, the wide range of human cultural expressions.

Since ICH is traditional and living at the same time therefore their notion living heritage also applies for the same. The role of museums in contributing to the promotion and safeguarding of ICH as well as cultural diversity has increased in recent years.

The concept of an integral museum was passed in the round table conference held in Santiago in 1972. Striking Personalities Hugues de Varine and George Henri Riviere played a crucial role in advocating for community museology and they termed the word eco museum giving a new dimension and perspective to the museum arena known as New Museology. After the notion of New Museology came in much had changed in the 70’s in the area of looking into a particular culture or into defining a society or heritage. This movement was also coined as Sociomuseology by some other renowned supporter of the new frame of Museology; New Museology.
The term Sociomuseology is an attempt to take museums into an age of increased democratization of museological tools and heritage processes. The moderator between capturing and forwarding the culture here is the dialogue and not the four walls of a showcase, seen in any conventional museum. Sociomuseology can be seen as the result of new Museology’s maturity. It concerns the study of the social role of museums and heritage as well as of the changing conditions in society that frame their trajectories.

Sociomuseology is also defined as a way of understanding the museums and heritage and a way of acting upon the world.
Argued by many museologists, ICH can be envisioned as an intellectual framework from which new roles for heritage institutions and museums can be envisaged, rather than as a category of cultural heritage that is endangered and in need of safeguarding. The idea of understanding culture as tradition in need of protection must shift to a broad vision of understanding culture as dynamic and continuously evolving, as argued and brought forward by many contemporary museum professionals.

Ecomuseum:
The ideal of ecomuseum is based on notions of democracy, inclusiveness and an
Understanding of the interconnected relationships between community, heritage and locality.
In general, the ecomuseum ideal lays a foundation for a “holistic museology” approach that emphasizes the life of people in terms of their full physical, economic, social, cultural, political and environmental interactions and contexts (Corsane & Holleman, 1993: 122).

As Davis (1999: 68) states, “intangible local skills, behaviour patterns, Social structure and traditions are as much part of the ecomuseum as the tangible
evidence of landscapes, underlying geology, wildlife, buildings and objects, people and their domestic animals”.
It is important to note that the term ‘ecomuseum’ can conjure up the idea of an ecological park, or an area devoted to the protection of particular ecological processes.
The distinctions between traditional museology and that of ecomuseology have been compared in two formulae:

• Traditional Museum = building + collections + expert staff + public visitors
• Ecomuseum = territory + heritage + memory + population

In 1971, Hugues de Varine invented a word to encapsulate the idea of creating museums, using local heritage and driven by local communities and their participation, to aid sustainable development. Participation of the practising community is the main criteria in safeguarding the process of the ‘ecomuseum’ movement which originated in France in the early 1970s initiated by George Henri Rivière and Hugues de Varine.
Ecomuseums are not confined to museum buildings like other conventional museums but are dedicated to incorporate and celebrate ICH.

The 3 main pillars of the ecomuseum ideal are:
• Sense & spirit of place-through a holistic approach to heritage resources in their environments.
• Community involvement-public participation and the ‘democratisation’ of processes.
• The ecomuseum ideal is malleable and should be responsive to unique contexts.

Author::
Mrinmoy Das
Student (M.A) Museology Department
National Museum Institute,New Delhi

Bibliography:
• Newmuseology, communities,ecomuseums;DavisPeter(Newcastle university,U.K)
• Sociomuseology3;Paula Assuncao dos Santos, Judite primo
• Museums of the Future: using the ecomuseum ideal to promote and safeguard Intangible cultural heritage; Michelle L. Stefano
• Contextualising Intangible Cultural Heritage in Heritage Studies and Museology Marilena Alivizatou (Doctoral Candidate, University College London, UK)