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.

If development is an aspiration, then culture is the historical sediment underlying this aspiration. Culture conveys humanity’s intersecting bonds and the kinds of rituals, practices, and representations that make up its ways of life. Development—conceived narrowly as income growth or broadly as ways in which people participate to achieve well-being—is heavily influenced by this sense of bonding and group-ness. Culture is literally the way humanity recognizes itself and reveals its aspirations.

The Azerbaijani Carpet Makers Union (ACMU), founded in January 2010, is a voluntary self-governmental public association of citizens rallied to support Azerbaijani carpet weaving.The ACMU seeks to promote a revival of the powerful spiritual heritage of carpets, the national traditions of the Azerbaijani people, a consolidation of the creative potential of seen figures of society and culture, support for talented children and youth, and creative carpet dynasties. The purpose of the ACMU is also to convey objective information about the unique national culture, rich historical heritage, and diversity of the carpet art of Azerbaijan to the international community.

Pebaek was one of the important ritual procedures of a traditional wedding ceremony. The ritual was performed at the groom’s house after the bride finished the wedding ceremony at her house. Pebaek was to introduce herself properly to her new in-laws and, her rst greetings were to the inlaw parents and relatives.

The biggest North Korean migrant community outside East Asia is located in a somewhat unlikely place, New Malden, UK, a suburb in southwest London (see Figure 1). Approximately 1,000 North Koreans live alongside the established community of over 12,000 South Koreans. In the foreign kitchen, what North Korean migrants do is recreate authentic traditional North Korean food that they have not had for such a long time. Decades of famine and national isolation have alienated people from basic meals and dishes that are part of the history and traditions of their country.

The current topic of this conference is not very well studied in the Philippines. The word –shamanism- is regarded as an arbitrary umbrella-catch-all term for lack of something better because what it refers to in the Philippines is a far ranging set of practices, belief and value systems that are very specific. It is with some trepidation that these sets of practices, beliefs and value systems may not at all fit into the north-Asian concept of Shamanism, especially with reference to the structure and social organization. The latest local term used is –pagdidiwata – referring to the rituals invoking spiritual beings (diwata). The other terms used\nare bunung, baki, pagaanito, alisig, and many others depending on the culture of the some 80 different major ethno-linguistic groups in the country. Common to all is the belief in the existence of a spirit world to which the world of people should relate, through the medium of ritual specialists. There are differences, however, in the structure and social organization in the social behavior related to ethnic practice.

"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…."

Central Asia stands at the crossroads of ancient civilisations. Its territory, crossed by the northern part of the great Silk Road, constitutes an ensemble of cultural heritage sites and monuments that express common historical experiences as well as reflect an extraordinary cultural diversity dating from prehistoric times to the Islamic period and beyond. For centuries, the phenomenon of intangible cultural heritage was a key factor for the transmission of indigenous cultural traditions for future generations as well as a matching point for intercultural dialogue in Central Asia—a region with unique oral and music traditions.

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.

Modernization and other internal and external influences have caused vernacular houses in the Asia- Pacific region to be replaced. Today, their traditional status has been taken over by houses constructed using newly introduced materials and styles, even in remote villages. Although a house, as a physical object, may be considered to be a tangible heritage, the vernacular house is a product that encompasses intangible components, including the knowledge, skills, and local traditions associated with their construction, use, and maintenance by the particular community. The conservation or protection of vernacular houses is, in other words, tantamount to safeguarding their rich culture rather than merely the preservation of static buildings. \n\nVernacular houses in the tropics of Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands are often built using native plants, and they require occasional rebuilding and regular maintenance. The knowledge and skills required for the construction of a vernacular house building are rarely documented. Instead, the expertise is generally stored in memory and in the activities that are undertaken by an individual, family, or community. This is transferred through practical experience down the generations and is only shared among the members of a community. Our initiative focuses on the reconstruction of vernacular houses in conjunction with local communities, creating opportunities to understand all the requisites of building these traditional structures by thoroughly recording the construction process. \n\nChanges that have occurred in individual values, the lifestyles of ethnic communities, and their surrounding environments have created a situation in which the resources that are necessary for the construction of vernacular houses are less easily available or no longer available. It is common for vernacular houses to be perceived as outdated, old-fashioned, and underdeveloped. A vernacular house can no longer be built and used in the same way that it was when it was the only choice of housing. We need to identify ways in which to sustain traditional house building practices and to utilize this knowledge by examining its potential and its meaning in the modern context. This paper introduces our approach to the reinstatement and reconstruction of vernacular houses and to the revival of related activities in conjunction with local communities in Fiji, Thailand, Vanuatu, and Vietnam and illustrates some of our findings. In the process, the study identifies what it takes to build and sustain vernacular housing.

It had taken a few weeks for roads to be cleared of rockfalls and to be made safe enough for vehicles carrying essential goods and supplies in the wake of the June 2013 flash floods and landslides in the western Himalayan region, in particular the mountainous state of Uttarakhand. A small team from the specialist center that I was associated with, the Centre for Environment Education Himalaya, was traveling to a few of the villages that had been affected, which were also villages in which the center had been working for some years before the natural disaster. Those in the small group were anxious. There had been no way to contact people in the villages nor even local administrators in the sub-district offices. Phone lines had yet to be restored, and mobile phone towers were being slowly replaced. Had there been casualties amongst the groups the center had trained? Were homes and school buildings still standing? No-one would know until they reached.

This paper presents UNESCO’s approaches and activities under two functions: 1) the standard‐setting function, which is mostly carried out at headquarters level through intergovernmental committees and in close collaboration with Member States; and 2) the “laboratory of ideas” function, which is implemented at the national level by UNESCO field offices. Capacity building, at both the institutional and individual levels, is a major focus that is integrated throughout all our work.