The ger, a traditional dwelling created by nomadic Mongolians, is specifically designed to fit their way of life. Its semi- sphere shape helps the ger endure storms and tempests. It has solutions for heat control and ventilation. It is flexible in terms of size and design, and it is portable and lightweight. At the same time, it is also comfortable to live in and easy to build and dismantle. Moreover, the ger is used as a measure for time and directions.

Inside the Guam Museum’s multipurpose room, Chamorro oral historian Toni “Malia” Ramirez sits on a carpet of autumn tones along with a small group of young children. On the floor beside him are a world globe, a sprouting coconut plant, and a tray of local foods as diverse as the multicultural children seated—lumpia from the Philippines, Japanese-style omusubi, Korean kimchee, and Chamorro titiyas. On the back wall, a wire grid is covered with an assortment of t-shirts hung with plastic hangers. The t-shirts have phrases in Chamorro, the indigenous language of the Mariana Islands. In the tradition of Chamorro storytellers, Ramirez converses with the children, sharing memories he had collected over the years from Guam’s war survivors and their stories of life during the Japanese Occupation and Liberation in July 1944. The t-shirts, he explains, express cultural values that helped the Chamorros survive the atrocities of the war, values that are important even today. The t-shirt he wears is decorated with “Tåutau latti’ yu’, Guåhan, Islas Marianas,” asserting his pride as a “person of the latte,” and a native of Guam. With a song, the tray of food soon represents the cultural diversity of Guam home. As the session ends, the children and their parents wave Guam flags and sing “Fanoghe Chamorro,” the island’s territorial anthem. Ramirez has shared with the event’s participants important historical memories of Guam’s people, Chamorro cultural values, and lessons for good citizenship in a little more than an hour.

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 Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) was set up to fulfil late Smt. Indira Gandhi’s (former Prime Minister of India) idea of restoring the integral quality of a human being, fragmented by his diverse roles in cities, classes, ethnic groups, religions, traditions, and nationalities, to reconcile one’s material and spiritual needs, and enable one to be at peace with oneself and with society. The center was visualized as encompassing the study and experience of all the arts—each form with its own integrity, yet within a dimension of mutual interdependence, interrelated with nature, social structure, and cosmology.

Since times immemorial, Indonesia’s seas have been natural crossroads of migration, communication and commerce. Human conquest of the Pacific began here millennia ago and unified seafaring and trade among diverse people and customs into a cultural zone once known as the Malay world. The vehicles powering these developments were the perahu, the countless types of indigenous sailing vessels, the legacy of the perhaps most sophisticated maritime traditions of our world.

The Loden Foundation is a pioneer organization in Bhutan bridging cultural heritage with socio-economic development. Loden literally means ‘the intelligent one’ and is an epithet of the Bodhisattvas, who work for the world using wisdom and compassion. Loden first started as a modest child sponsorship scheme in 1999 to help poor students go to school. Since then, it grew incrementally to become a leading NGO in Bhutan. Led by a group of people with shared visions, concerns and interests, Loden has three programs supported by a wide network of donors, volunteers, management team and partners.

The Chinese classical garden is a material and spiritual complex that not only embodies material elements—superb skills of architecture, nature, and plant landscape—but also contains the intangible elements of gardening design, gardening techniques, art, and others. It can be said that it is the mutual promotion and infiltration between the two kinds of elements that make the brilliant artistic achievements of Chinese classical garden.

Teyyam is a divine dance that is prevalent in the northern districts of Kerala, such as Kannur and Kasargod. The name teyyam is derived from daivam, a Sanskrit word meaning ‘god’ or ‘deity’. Performed in shrines, sacred groves, houses, and open places, teyyam represents mythological, divine, ancestral, animal, and heroic characters, each with its own distinct shape and form of origin. There are over 350 of these teyyams.

Strengthening the human capacity of creativity is at the basis of much of UNESCO’s work, which recognizes creativity as a multifaceted human resource that can inspire positive, transformative change for present and future generations. Creativity, embracing cultural expressions and the transformative power of innovation, is an integral part of human ingenuity and contributes to finding imaginative and appropriate responses to development challenges. Tapping into creative assets is a viable way of making globalization more human, now and in the future. Creativity is essential to promoting peace and sustainable development. For these reasons, UNESCO included ‘Fostering creativity and the diversity of cultural expressions’ in the list of strategic objectives of its current Medium-Term Strategy and attributed a central place to the safeguarding of intangible cultural in the program and action under this objective.

This publication contains papers from the 2021 World Intangible Cultural Heritage Forum held online for three days, from September 29 to October 1, 2021. The event was hosted by the National Intangible Heritage Center and organized by ICHCAP.\n\nThe forum was held under the theme of “Rediscovering Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Era of Convergence and Creativity” to re-examine the creative value of intangible cultural heritage and present the possibilities by examining examples of innovation and value creation through intangible cultural heritage.

The Masters Degree Programme in Heritage Management at Ahmedabad University is open to students and practitioners from any discipline but with a demonstrated interest or experience, in any sector of heritage. Since its launch in 2015, the disciplinary backgrounds represented so far include arts, architecture, archaeology, commerce, conservation, engineering, geography, history, international relations, literature, museology, and planning. Such a diverse group of students spend two years in this journey together learning from peer group interaction and experiences, regular class room sessions, seminars, field visits, projects, immersion, practicum and research. The programme is designed to pursue heritage as an everyday concept, and heritage management as an opportunity of enhancing and enriching livelihood and ecosystem. This way, the canvas of heritage for us seems full of more intangibles than tangibles because heritage is essentially defined through values, knowledges and cultural practices. Hence, there are milestones in the programme that highlight these interconnections, and bring a holistic heritage idea to the forefront. It has to be noted that there is no explicit course for ICH convention but it does gets referred in multiple courses – sometimes explicitly and at length, sometimes as an integrated concept and a tool. \n\nIn fact, some of our discussions focus on critical reflections on the ICH convention too. This paper will discuss the concepts of the programme and how it integrates ICH across various aspects of heritage – not just the intangible and knowledges, but also tangibles and other standard fields of practices. Such an integrated approach is at the core of the programme, and the ICH discourse and various tools help us achieve our goals. In doing that, we believe the programme also contributes in safeguarding of ICH as demonstrated by various theses that has been done by the graduating students.

The primary value of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) lies in its ability to create locally based knowledge that performers, practitioners, and other participants use to contemplate, understand, and act upon their lives. Its scope is utilitarian as well as spiritual, ethical as well as aesthetic. Through ICH, local participants realise a wide range of benefits—ranging from practical techniques to affirmations of individual identity and group solidarity. National cultural institutions that programmatically recognise this value develop policy both to help safeguard local ICH and to promote cultural diversity, an ethical and political principle that recognises the creativity, beauty, wisdom, and legitimacy of the variety of human cultures. Cultural diversity at a national level can help safeguard local practices of ICH.