For the last two decades, the polysemous notion of 'scale' has drawn an increasing amount of attention among scholars studying heritage policies and practices, often with regard to UNESCO conventions. Significantly, in many of these works, terms such as 'global', 'national' and 'local' are connected to categories of 'scale' or 'level' that are taken for granted by the scholars who use them to guide their analysis. This paper, in contrast, promotes a different, constructivist understanding of the notion of scale. From our perspective, there is an added value to be found in focusing-without using any preconceived or external conception of scale-on the ways in which stakeholders conceive of and use scale throughout the processes of heritage making. Using the case of alpinism and the creation of its file for submission to the Intangible Cultural Heritage list, we show that the interest of this approach lies in its comprehensive ability to highlight how people define, elaborate and use scale in order to qualify their practices or to achieve specific goals.
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. This paper explores several territorial and political issues related to this notion of sharedness. A focus on the uses of a particular UNESCO tool -'multinational nominations'sheds a light on transnational cultural practices and examines forms of cooperation within communities and between states in the framework of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). Specifically, it analyses the work of a French commission for the ICH as well as the nomination processes of three different cultural practices to the ICH lists: flamenco, falconry and alpinism. It is argued that 'shared heritage' is interpreted in a variety of ways, leading to contrastive appropriations and competing territorial scenarios among the various protagonists.
À partir d’une ethnographie de la transmission du métier d’horloger réalisée dans diverses écoles professionnelles de l’Arc jurassien suisse, cet article entend critiquer le paradigme de « patrimoine culturel immatériel » et l’ambition de sauvegarde des « savoir-faire traditionnels » qu’exprime la Convention pour la sauvegarde du patrimoine culturel immatériel (2003) de l’UNESCO. La description de caractéristiques propres à la didactique professionnelle et à la manière dont les acteurs qui la mettent en oeuvre qualifient ce qu’est une compétence en horlogerie permet tout d’abord de montrer que la Convention ne peut pas constituer un opérateur de transmission du savoir horloger. En deuxième lieu, il convient de relever que la figure de la transmission que la Convention met en exergue est anthropocentrée et que les dynamiques d’apprentissage du métier dans le cadre scolaire l’invalident. Elles font en effet des objets d’importants opérateurs de transmission de la gestualité et des techniques horlogères. Enfin, l’auteur fait voir que la distinction entre paradigme pédagogique (basé sur un impératif de transparence) et paradigme initiatique (qui fait la part belle aux secrets) ne permet pas de caractériser l’apprentissage dans le cadre des écoles d’horlogerie. La transmission horlogère s’opère également dans des pratiques de voilement/dévoilement sans que l’explicitation des savoirs en soit toujours une condition, ce qui contrarie fortement le principe de sauvegarde qu’incarne la Convention.Beginning with an ethnography of the transmission of the watch making trade carried on in various vocational schools in Switzerland’s Jura Arc, this article involves a critical review of the “intangible cultural heritage” paradigm and the ambition to conserve “traditional know-how” such as outlined in the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003). The description of characteristics belonging to vocational training and the way in which actors who practise it qualify what is a watch making skill makes it possible first to show that the Convention cannot constitute an operant of transfer in terms of watch making expertise. Secondly, It is appropriate to mention that the image of transfer which the Convention highlights is anthropocentric and that the learning dynamics of the trade invalidate it in the educational context. In fact, they make gestuality and watch making techniques into important transfer operants. Finally, the author shows that the distinction between the teaching paradigm (based on the necessity of transparency) and the initiatory paradigm (honouring the secrets) does not enable the classifying of the training in watch making schools. The passing on of skills in watch making is also at work in the practices of concealing/revealing without the necessity of always making the knowledge explicit. This strongly contradicts the principle of conservation embodied in the Convention
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