Historically, Malaysia (the Malay Peninsula) was known as the Golden Chersonese, and in the past, Malay populations lived in riverine and coastal settlements, which were some of the most important trading hubs in Southeast Asia. The Malay maritime empire was once a large kingdom, stretching from the coast of Vietnam and Cambodia to Southern Thailand, the Malay Peninsula, Singapore, Borneo, Sumatra, Riau, Sulawesi, and Southern Philippines. Across the Malay-speaking world, fabrics embellished with gold were for the rich and powerful, such as the ruler of the kingdom. Besides the golden fabric, songket, Malay embroideries were mostly used by nobility and royals. In the fifteenth century, the Melaka Sultanate instituted sumptuary laws governing the types of ornaments and colors for interior and soft furnishings, such as curtain fringes, bolster ends, cushions, prayer mats and other items. Across the Malay world, the numbers of dais, bolsters, and layers of siting mats, were associated with a certain hierarchy, varying across the regions.

Fifteen years ago, nobody used the term ‘intangible cultural heritage’ (ICH) in Vietnam. It was only used in the official context of the 2001 Law on Cultural Heritage. The Cultural Heritage Law of Vietnam is conforming with other international documents regarding wording for safeguarding ICH and inventories. Although inventory-making is one of the important measures used in safeguarding intangible cultural heritage, the term ‘ICH inventory making’ was not included in the law. At that time, inventory making meant surveying and collecting. In 2003, as an international legal tool, the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage helped enlighten the understanding of ICH inventory making in Vietnam. Six years later, this term, as well as other contents compatible with the Convention were included in the 2009 amended Law on Cultural Heritage. This illustrates the fact that, despite starting late, understanding and awareness of ICH inventory-making in Vietnam has developed rapidly and thoroughly.

The National Institute of Folk & Traditional Heritage, popularly known as Lok Virsa, was established by the government of Pakistan in 1974 with a mandate to collect, document, preserve, and disseminate Pakistan’s tangible and intangible cultural heritage.

Design intervention has been an established initiative of development projects initiated by governments and NGOs across the world as a means to enhance market reach and the livelihood of traditional craft communities. However, innumerable instances have been cited on the ethics of engagement where design development has ended by benefitting the interests of designers and commercial enterprises while craftspeople have continued to remain unnamed and unknown.

In 2003, the Bose Levu Vakaturaga (Great Council of Chiefs) and the vanua (confederacies) of Fiji raised concerns about the need to safeguard the traditional knowledge systems of the iTaukei as well as the cultural expressions of the people. However, to implement legal safeguarding mechanisms, villagers needed to establish some kind of an inventory to see what rituals, ceremonies, dances, customary practices, etc. existed in their territories. Thus there was a need to develop a system by which the vanua and different tribes could freely participate and thus ensure that their stories and traditional knowledge could be documented. In other words, to satisfy their various needs in relation to intangible heritage safeguarding, the Cultural Mapping Initiative was established.

Nepal, like most nations, has its own distinct cultural, ethnic, and bio-diverse makeup. The richness of Nepal’s centuries old art, crafts, and culture abounds the alleys and courtyards of Kathmandu. Arts and crafts have long been a part of Nepalese livelihoods and lifestyles. Today these arts and crafts have become precious commodities—souvenirs and antiquities for collectors. Still hundreds of thousands of people create masterpieces as part of their livelihood. Acknowledging the importance of arts and crafts in Nepal, many Fair Trade Organizations (FTOs) have been working to preserve and promote art, crafts, and culture as a means of sustainable livelihood for people practicing fair trade (FT).

"The Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (‘ICH Convention’ or ‘Convention’ hereafter) was adopted in 2003 and subsequently brought into force in 2006. The ICH Convention mandates signatories to use or mobilise various measures to safeguard intangible cultural heritage. \nEven though the Convention does not succinctly mention the elaborate legal measures for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage, the intellectual property rights to protect intangible cultural heritage and its holders are implied throughout provisions of the Convention. To implement the Convention’s spirit, the Operational Directives clarify legal form as safeguarding measures by stating that: State Parties shall endeavor to ensure, in particular through the application of intellectual property rights, privacy rights and any other appropriate form of legal protection, that the rights of the communities, groups, and individuals that create, bear and transmit their intangible cultural heritage are duly protected…."

This paper is based on two phases of my work focusing on South Asian context:\n\n(i) my experience of designing an integrated heritage management programme and running it for the past five years, in which Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) has been a core concept; and\n(ii) my personal interest in rethinking the overall idea of education in general, and refining professional education for the heritage sector in particular.\n\nBoth of the above aspects have emerged from my engagement and exposure to the overall heritage scenario in South Asian contexts, hence this paper is a reflection on ICH pedagogy at least for the South Asian context. The paper explores the idea of ‘contextual learning’ as a feasible pedagogy that could be adopted in ICH education at two levels: first is to create professionals for safeguarding of ICH, and the second is to integrate ICH as resources both in early (child) education as well as professional education in general.

Alisher Ikramov reviews information collected through a survey funded by ICHCAP. While his work primarily reviews ICH festivals, he is also able to gain insights into ways that networks can promote ICH along the Silk Roads. Looking at the importance of local communities and the popularity of such festivals locally, there is concern about a lack of a network to encourage larger tourist attendance. However, there are feelings that festivals do not authentically represent local traditions and products. Therefore, this could lead to an undesirable level of commoditization and as a result lower the quality of the event.

Law and Legal Documents on ICH \n\nLaw on Cultural Heritage indicates clearly that the cultural heritage in Vietnam is the valuable property of all ethnic groups of Vietnam and has its significant role in the sustainable development of the country. \nIn compatible with the 2003 Convention Vietnam rectified in 2005, the Law on Cultural heritage (2001) amended in 2009 with some articles on the identification of ICH, management, its safeguarding measures and designation of the master practitioners. The Article 1 on the identification of ICH states that “ICH is the spiritual product that is attached to the communities or individuals, relevant to tangible culture and cultural space. It expresses the cultural identity of communities, and has been continuously recreated and transmitted from generation to generation orally, through apprentices, performances and other modes of transmission."\n

The South-Western Alps, across Italy and France are an area of long-lasting and significantly dense presence of diverse intangible cultural heritage expressions, resulting from the peculiar forms of relation and adaptation between the communities and the mountain ecosystems. But now, this area faced a number of challenges, Alessio Re & Giulia Avanza introduced the projects for building up resilience on the South-Western Alps territory.

- Children should not build a birdhouse in order to learn the Pythagorean Theorem.\n- Children should learn the Pythagorean Theorem in order to build a birdhouse.\n\nTouch. Feel the texture. Smell. Duplicate a shape, a pattern or a color. These are examples of what we call "action transmitted knowledge." A young lumberjack once stood quietly, observing the older man whose job it was to load the logs onto the long lumber sled and drive them to the mill. The older man had his own way of moving, he nearly danced with each log, lifting it, rolling it a little, using small motions to push it this way and that. Until quite suddenly everything was in place, ready to be transported on the sled. One day the young lumberjack saw that the older man had brought his five-year-old son with him. The boy walked behind his father, watching him and doing exactly what he did, easing a log, dancing with the load, mimicking each of his father's movements. At that moment, the young lumberjack realized that he was observing a transmission of knowledge from father to son.