The University of Santo Tomas-Graduate School Center for Conservation of Cultural Property and the Environment in the Tropics (USTGS-CCCPET) was established in 2003 primarily to advance research and advocacy on heritage conservation and sustainable development. At a time when heritage was at risk all over the world, pressured by globalization, climate change, migration, tourism, and terrorism, the search for memory and identity became more pronounced and more assertive.

The Phnom Penh Vientiane Workshop and Charter were driven by participants who represented museum and heritage leadership from linguistically and culturally diverse communities of South-East Asia and Timor-Leste. Its integrity, from preparation to follow-up, has been overseen by a leadership of entirely Asian linguistic and cultural backgrounds. It was the first of such major initiatives in Asia by the International Council of Museums (ICOM). It addressed the concern that models and methods from developed or rich countries, where heritage contexts are well resourced, may not necessarily work for cultural communities and groups in low economic indicator countries. This concern was prioritised with the significance given to stakeholder or carrier and transmitter communities in the UNESCO 2003 Convention.

Thai massage, or Nuad Thai, is an ancient art and science of healthcare and therapy that is a branch of Thai traditional medicine. The worldview and theoretical knowledge of Thai massage are closely associated with Buddhism.

Ceremonial cloths known as Tais have been woven in Timor-Leste for generations. From the time of the Timorese ancestors, women have learned how to make Tais for use in traditional ceremonies, such as weddings. It is seen as important for women to transmit this knowledge for the future generations, and thus the technique has been passed down from mother to daughter for centuries. The weaving tradition is considered a key social function as it strengthens familial bonds. For Timorese, Tais is strongly connected with local tradition and its weaving is seen as not only a local practice but part of the national identity. The designs and techniques record a woven narration of the culture, lore, paradigms, and stories of Timor-Leste’s history.

Sri Lanka has a diverse dancing culture where three main styles represent the classical dance tradition. These styles are known as Kandyan dances of the hill country (Uda Raṭa Nätum), the low country dances (Pahata Raṭa Nätum), and the mid-country (Sabaragamuva Näṭum). These three classical dancing styles are transmitted across generations with their ritualistic identities that are unique to movements, motions, costumes, and instruments. In the context of mask dancing, it is more relevant to the low country style, which is highly ceremonial and performed for ritualistic offerings to various devils. The dancers wear masks portraying many characters in different forms of spirits according to their characteristic features.

Discourse about intangible cultural heritage is anchored on the question of memory, which has become a topic of great interest today not only within academia but also in popular culture. America’s newfound taste for cupcakes and macaroni and cheese, for instance, is not so much about society’s gastronomic craving for these foods, as it is about society’s craving for history and the comfort of things past. In essence, it is about restorative nostalgia and the memories that these foods evoke and make possible through the imaginary. Our preoccupation with memory and remembering, in large part, is driven by our recognition of the fragility of memory, a fragility that is underscored by this age of mass displacement in which we live. As the Iranian American writer Roya Hakakian notes in her recent memoir, “When you have been a refugee, abandoned all your loves and belongings, your memories become your belongings.” In a world where over 80 million people are currently forcibly displaced, amounting to one person being forcibly dislodged from his or her home and lifeways approximately every two seconds, dislocation, uprooting, and rupture are as much a facet of our lived experience as are connectivity and interdependence. Exilic condition is an unfortunate but undeniable feature of modernity.\nEven within living memory, Asia has had her share of tumultuous histories. Colonization, conflict, war, and other calamities have engendered mass dispersal. Over 2 million Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians fled their homelands in the aftermath of war, revolution and genocide, and many more Southeast Asians continue to be displaced in varied contexts and conditions as we speak. The genocide in Cambodia left deep wounds and ravaging effects on the cultural memories of the nation that is now bifurcated between Asia and the diaspora. Even without the trauma of war and mass atrocities, globalization, modernization, and urbanization have progressively divested traditional knowledge of its merits, and peripheralized certain memories into oblivion.

In calling for memory values to be considered anew in the escalating public debate on the World Heritage Convention’s definition of outstanding universal values, Francesco Bandarin, former director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, speaking as part of the Our World Heritage initiative, recently reminded his audience, “Heritage is not just beauty.” Indeed, it is so much more.

Angkor Park, spread over an area of 40,100 hectares, happily coexists with local settlements (112 villages scattered within the boundaries of the registered site and dating from before the inscription of the site as a World Heritage element in 1994) and a sizeable settlement outside—the town of Siem Reap, a mainly recent development south of Angkor. Siem Reap is the provincial capital with an international airport, over a hundred hotels and guesthouses, innumerable restaurants and cafes, and markets and shops, and this is to say nothing of administrative buildings.

Angkor in Cambodia is a World Heritage Site (inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1992) renowned for its archaeological and architectural significance. It contains artistic masterpieces of Khmer sculpture and design and is known for its regional influence of Khmer art. The tangible heritage aspects of Angkor have received global recognition and have been the focus of remarkable international conservation and restoration efforts in recent decades. Angkor, however, is also the site of lesser-known, yet unique, forms of intangible heritage, many of which have links to the Angkorian and pre-Angkorian periods. Over the past four years I have researched the intangible heritage of Angkor and potential mechanisms for its safeguarding. Many of the forms of intangible cultural heritage researched are intricately associated with the daily activities of people who live around the monuments of Angkor. These activities are related to the belief system of local Khmer and are often deeply intermingled with Buddhist and animistic values as well as familial and agricultural knowledge.

The Tao Foundation for Culture and Arts is a Philippine non-profit, non-governmental orga-nization based in Quezon City, National Capital Region, Luzon and in Agusan del Sur, Caraga Region, Northeastern Mindanao. Established in 1994, the Tao Foundation is led by an all-fe-male Board composed of Filipino scholars, artists, and Indigenous community leaders engaged in cultural regeneration initiatives in response to the five centuries of colonial and neocolonial histories and the need to help build strong cultural communities. The Tao Foundation’s mission is to (1) facilitate the exchange, transmission, and development of Philippine ICH/TCH; and to (2) contribute to the empowerment of culture bearers or those who possess ancestral practical and theoretical knowledges that have endured and transformed to remain relevant through colonial and neocolonial histories as a result of day-to-day and more large-scale acts of resistance.

Chak-ka-yer is a Thai word similar in meaning to tug-of-war in western countries. It is one of the oldest folk team games in Thailand. Thai people across the country know chak-ka-yer, and many may have had some direct and indirect experience with this game, either as participants or observ-ers. Chak-ka-yer benefits Thai society in several ways. People use chak-ka-yer for fun, pleasure, recreation, and relaxation from their routine work. Chak-ka-yer is played between teams, groups, or communities to test their physical strength. The game does not focus on competition, team preparation, contest regulations, and championship, but rather on unity, friendship, morale, and incentive of communities. Chak-ka-yer as a game is related to thoughts, beliefs, customs, traditions, rituals, and values of the people in different areas. Chak-ka-yer is a high-level game of development and doesn’t focus on systematic contests; it has specific agency to respond to and has the team seriously trained and practiced to win the championship. Chak-ka-yer as a sport is left unmentioned in this article since it has become an international sport.

The subject of this study is to find out the protection and sustenance ways of Shaman heritage among the Turks of Turkey. As it is known, Turks of Turkey are shaman community in terms of ancient religions and world-views such as Kazakhs, Uighurs, Uzbeks, Turkmen, Altai, Republic of Tuva, Sakha and other Turkish tribes constituting the Turkish World. Majority of the Turks of Turkey migrated from the middle of today’s Mongolia to the shores of Aegean Sea and Balkan Peninsula in the last 1500 years. Another factor complicating this 1500-year migration is the fact that Turks accepted Manichaeism, Buddhism, Christianity and some groups accepted Judaism. Normally while it was expected that they pursued various religions and dispersed in this tens of thousands kilometer square, these Oghuz tribes weren’t assimilated and they assimilated many communities whose administration they undertook within the scope of their control.