Proving participation: vocational bureaucrats and bureaucratic creativity in the implementation of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage

Abstract

This paper investigates the bureaucratisation of the (utopian) ideal of community participation in Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) safeguarding and management. The analysis considers the whole ‘policy life’ of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of ICH. Our ethnographic examples from UNESCO, Brazil, China and Greece illustrate how bureaucratic operations often disenchant the participatory ideal, alienating it from its original intention. At the same time, driven by their commitment to ‘good’ governance and informed by sentiments of frustration and disappointment with actual policy results, vocational bureaucrats at different administrative levels experiment with and conceive of new tools in order to produce evidence of participation. We demonstrate how this bureaucratic creativity has concrete consequences, which may differ from the intended utopia, but nevertheless bring to life particular interpretations of the participatory principle among the recipients for whom heritage policies were originally designed. Thus, we present a more nuanced picture of bureaucratisation in which officials’ emotions and engagement sustain their agency against structural constraints as well as the futility and fragility of administrative procedures.

State Institutions as Building Blocks of China's Infrastructures of Memory – The Case of Intangible Heritage

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Kesan Mengokok Kepada Postur Ergonomics: Kajian Kes Pengokok Etak Warisan Di Kelantan, Malaysia

“…Berdasarkan petikan tersebut, sesuatu unsur budaya itu hendaklah dipelihara supaya tidak mati ataupun lupus. Namun harus diingat bahawa maksud memelihara disini adalah memastikan kelangsungan sesuatu budaya atau warisan seiring dengan zaman pada ketika itu (Bortolotto, et al, 2020). Namun begitu, sebarang penambahbaikkan haruslah tidak merosakkan nilai -nilai asal unsur budaya dan warisan tersebut.…”

“Reluctant Gatekeeper of the National Inventory” – a Case Study of the Formation of the Faroese Inventory of ICH

“…Finding oneself as part of processes in which stakeholders possess varying means of power and access to defining what is "valuable heritage" calls for reflection of one's own role as a scholar and "expert". I recognize that many colleagues share the experience and have reflected on this along the way -Bortolotto (Bortolotto, Demgenski, Karampampas, Toji, 2020) addresses the consequences of "bureaucratic creativity" where academic experts within official institutions are taking on the responsibility of "bringing to life particular interpretations of the participatory principle" found at the base of the UNESCO Convention. Whilst I follow the argument that: …bureaucracies are not homogenous wholes of a mechanistic model that function beyond the social actors who comprise their respective institutions, as some approaches have tended to emphasise.…”