In just six years, an important element of intangible cultural heritage went from being an element in need of urgent safeguarding to being an active part of the lives of Vietnamese people. The Hat Xoan Phu Tho tradition, a distinctive call-and-response musical genre of Phu Tho Province in northern Vietnam, was inscribed on the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding in 2011, and as a result it became the focus of an extensive revitalization program to ensure its survival.\n\nA unique blend of song and dance performance, xoan originated in the upland region of Viet Tri in Phu Tho for the people to express the richness of their community lives. Some of the performances are to venerate ancient kings while others are expressions of the people’s skills and artistry or their knowledge of farming, fishing, hunting, weaving, and other rural crafts. xoan is considered the core and essence of the social and cultural identity of the villages of Phu Duc, Kim Dai, Thet, and An Thai.\n\nSince 2011, the state and local communities have been supporting a project to revitalize xoan. A series of creative collaborations between knowledgeable elder practitioners and a nucleus of over sixty younger artists have committed themselves to xoan practice and dissemination and have subsequently secured xoan transmission to future generations. Training classes are held monthly and weekly within the communities. An active set of xoan guilds with as many as a hundred members of three or even four generations of practitioner families are successfully recruiting new adherents.\n\nTo generate an audience for the genre, xoan has been introduced into the regional school curriculum as a reference point for teaching on issues of heritage and local history. Demonstration activities and social events outside the xoan communities, have attracted young people and increased their understanding and enjoyment of xoan.\n\nWithin the xoan communities, many of the temples and shrines used for performances had deteriorated because of war and time, becoming unusable. The state, however, has allocated priority funding to restore these performance areas. Through the government-funded program, community members are fully involved in the restoration and have been empowered to manage their own cultural spaces. On 28 March 2017, the country’s largest site for xoan practice was inaugurated in Kim Duc, a commune of Viet Tri. Legend has it that this space, within the Lai Len temple in Kim Duc, was the first site of xoan performance in Vietnam.\n\nThrough these unique programs, xoan communities have become vibrant places of practice and the transmission of xoan.\n\nPhoto : In marked contrast to the traditional past, Xoan is now widely performed by young practitioners © Le Thi Minh Ly

Boysun district, in southern Uzbekistan, has a beautiful natural landscape and is surrounded by a mountain range. The local environment and geographic isolation created favorable conditions for unique local intangible cultural heritage forms and expressions to form and be preserved over time. The same conditions also led to the existence of various types of labor activities, such as agriculture, cattle breeding, and handicrafts.

A small crowd is standing on a bridge across the canal that brings water to the village. The canal diverts some water from the Syr Darya River, the only source of irrigation water in the region. There are several cars parked on the banks of the canal and a medium-size truck with a two-year old bull is parked right on top of the bridge. A group of young men take the bull on the bridge and tie him up. The crowd gathers around and the people present lifts their palms up at the chest level. The most respected elder loudly starts making a wish: “May there be plenty of water this year for our crops and livestock; may there be peace and prosperity in our lands; may there be accord and respect in our community….” The wish, which is also a blessing, goes on for several minutes. After every sentence, the crowd univocally utters “amen” to show that every person seconds that wish. Then, bull is solemnly sacrificed on the river bank, and its blood flows into the current turning it red for a little while.

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.

We would like to address the issue of “Once cultural heritage of the community has suddenly become media news” There are a number of elements of intangible cultural heritage that have come to be thought of as problematic or 'bad customs' having a negative impact on contemporary social life. For example, the ritual of sacrificing animals as an offering to gods or spirits. The question is whether such things really should be understood as bad customs? Should we allow such practices to continue or either alter or abandon them? And who has the right to decide in such matters?

Banglanatak dot com is a social enterprise working with a mission to foster pro-poor growth using culture-based approaches. The Art for Life (AFL) initiative of the organization has led to socio-economic empowerment of 4500 folk artists in two eastern Indian states, West Bengal and Bihar. AFL aims at revitalizing traditional skills in arts and crafts by using these skills to augment livelihood opportunities and develop creative enterprise. The organization has worked with traditional folk singers, dancers, theater groups, painters, and artisans to revitalize their skills. Textual and audio-visual documentation aimed at safeguarding and promoting living heritage have also been undertaken.

Azerbaijan is one of the oldest areas of human habitation, where people once lived in natural geological formations. In its territory, archaeologists have discovered caves where people lived as far back as the Paleolithic era. For centuries, architects accumulated knowledge and skills related to rational planning schemes and the constructional and compositional methods of building residential houses in the area. However, data on the development of residential houses in Azerbaijan have been available only since the eighteenth century. Although we have little evidence of the development of the residential house in Azerbaijan in earlier periods, there is little doubt that the houses of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that have survived to the present time contain many features developed earlier.

In this new century, barriers are falling, customs are changing, and yet, there is a core of meaning, of affect, of memory that people refuse to give up. In this flowing and foaming world, people rush towards the new at the same time that they want to cling to meanings and shared experiences with others. Why? Because sharing gives them a sense of self and of identity in an open world. When such bonds are lost, their need is keenly felt, psychologically and politically, as is very evident in the world today. It was the concern over this loss in the turmoil of globalization that led Member States to give UNESCO the mandate to generate actions for the protection of living culture. This was indeed a tall order, and one that led to fascinating intellectual and political meanders. At the beginning of the nineties, the “cultural turn” in world politics and the rise of representational claims had led to new ways of understanding cultural flows in terms of “worlding”—that is, creating a new cosmopolitical vision of the world based on cultural heritage, human rights, and democracy. People in nations, cultural enclaves, ethnic groups, diasporas, and recently emerged cultural groups began to mobilize to position themselves differently in the new world order. Through a deliberative process, the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage was successful in proposing a new concept for the recasting of relationships among nations, culture bearers, creators, and stakeholders.

The Vietnamese Institute for Musicology and the Binh Dinh Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism have jointly organized Bai choi Folk Art of Vietnam and Similar Art Forms around the World, an international conference held on 13 and 14 January 2015 in Qui Nhon City, Binh Dinh Province, Vietnam.

Heritage is not only our inheritance from the past but also an important factor shaping our present and future. Every human settlement with a history of social, political, and cultural activity is characterized by distinct tangible and intangible cultural assets creating identity, a sense of belonging, and cohesion among the dwellers. Intangible cultural heritage or ICH thrives through a dynamic process of transmission through generations. It is an ongoing dialogue with the present, connecting generations through a bond of shared traditional values.

Traditional food systems of native peoples around the world are critical to cultural identity and customs as well as to the continuation of biological genetic diversity. However, such traditional cuisines are becoming increasingly vulnerable due to the advent of global food systems, agroindustry, and changing lifestyles as well as to shifting preferences and ignorance of original ingredients. Furthermore, territorial transformations and distancing from ancestral lands have led to the loss of knowledge regarding the benefits of diverse ecosystems and their natural resources.

UNESCO’s Intangible Heritage Convention, which was adopted in 2003 and entered into force in April 2006, highlighted “Recognizing that com-munities, in particular indigenous communities, groups and, in some case, individuals, play an important role in the production, safeguarding, mainte-nance and re-creation of the intangible cultural heritage, thus helping to enrich cultural diversity and human creativity.” Articles 1 and 15 on purposes of the Convention make further references to issues relating to the participation of communities, groups, and individuals. By respecting and empowering practicing communities to define, desig-nate their intangible heritage, and engage in protecting ICH, many states have come to acknowledge community as one of the central goals of the convention. In fact, the interrelationship between community and heritage seems to be inseparable. Valdirmar Tr. Hasfstein pointed out that “At closer inspection, intangible cultural heritage is practically synonymous with community” and therefore “the purpose of the conven-tion is not only to safeguard traditional practice and expressions, but also, and just as importantly, to safeguard communities” (Valdirmar Tr. Hasfstein 2004, p.212)