In many cultures, there is a concept of expected gendered roles where people perform certain functions, parts, or kinds of a cultural or social activity according to their gender. Men are expected to be strong and masculine, and employ the roles which are more related to hard labor, leadership, and literacy. Women, traditionally, assume feminine and maternal characteristics and roles in supporting men in their social events. Although these notions of gender qualities and roles differ from culture to culture, it is often found that the traditional customs which dictate who can and cannot participate in specific parts of the culture are often bounded by gender stereotypes and taboos.

For centuries, Korea had been a predominantly agricultural society; the overwhelming majority of its population engaged in farming. As a result of the rapid industrialisation that began in the 1960s, however, much of the population migrated from farming villages to cities. And during this period, Americancentred, Western culture had an enormous impact. Owing to this simultaneous industrialisation, urbanisation, and westernisation, the older way of life was rapidly disappearing. The older arts, rituals, and other kinds of intangible cultural expression that articulated the formerly prevalent way of life were also in jeopardy of rapidly disappearing. The instigation of the intangible cultural heritage system was intended to designate the valuable forms of expression that were being pushed to extinction by modern civilisation, to protect them, and to ensure their continued transmission.

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.

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.

In 2017, Tajikistan ratified the 2003 Convention. Two years later, the Tajik government passed a decree and project to take place between 2013 and 2020. The goals of this project were to safeguard ICH from disappearing; reviving traditions; helping and supporting performers and masters; endorsing cultural elements accessible for wide use; studying and preparing books, films, and musical discs; and organizing folk festivals, cultural competitions, and other exhibitions. The festivals have several social and cultural functions due to their continuity. Infestivals, a person experiences his/her membership in society and feels the collective solidarity. Festivals also include didactic elements, mainly structuring the young generation in the task of responsibility among other members of the society; they should follow prescribed social and cultural norms. At the same time, festival also function on a psychological level, giving people a sense of national or ethnic identity and building social integration, solidarity, thus creating an atmosphere of friendship.

We are accustomed to considering how the participation of communities, groups, and individuals in safeguarding their own intangible cultural heritage (ICH) is both a practical necessity and an ethical imperative. Implicit in the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage is a bolder claim: that because intangible cultural heritage plays a vital function within society, its safeguarding is a powerful strategy for communities, groups, and individuals to fortify themselves in the face of rapid sociocultural, economic, and environmental changes. Theconvention is not concerned with safeguarding ICH for its own sake, and neither is it concerned with the past. Instead, the convention looks resolutely forward, its mission being to safeguard ICH as a means of strengthening the viability and resilience of the communities, groups, and individuals concerned. Our goal in safeguarding ICH is to ensure that future generations will continue to have access to the practices, expressions, representations, and knowledge that we enjoy today, and will remain able to utilize them to strengthen the social fabric of communities and groups, even as they face new and unforeseen challenges.

The artistic world of traditional culture of Central Asian peoples is determined by contents that lie in certain historical periods and, at the same time, remain outside history. Contemporary science allows us to study the originality of the art of people in Central Asia, which is important for an objective reconstruction of the general picture of the art’s evolution. Historical and social changes cannot be studied without a clear understanding of cultural integrity and the perception of the artistic laws of culture and its context in this or that socio-historical period.

The shamanism heritage is not a tangible cultural asset preserved in the halls of a museumor a recording that can be viewed repeatedly as a still or moving image. It is true that tangible assets as subjects of observation are also part of the shamanism heritage, the essence of shamanism is a complex and real cultural asset experienced through rituals performed in the real world occupied by people living in a specific time and space. In fact, the tangible and intangible is impossible to differentiate when in comes to cultural assets of shamanism. They are treated as separate entities for realistic, methodological or technological limitations, but in fact all traditional culture, not just shamanism, is a composite of tangible and intangible elements.

“ICH and Gender” introduces the mutual relationship between gender norms and ICH and emphasizes that understanding the intimacy between ICH and gender is important for effective ICH safeguarding and gender equality.

Discussion on “Indigenous and Other Ritual Specialists in the Philippines - Culture Change” Dr. Jesus T. Peralta’s presentation is based on the Pagdiwata Ritual of the Tagbanwa tribe of Palaan, the house blessing ritual of the Kaling family, and the harvest ritual of the Ipugao tribe. Through this presentation, though indirectly, I experienced the precedures, principal agent, and the characteristics of these three rituals. I’d like to know more about the details of the rituals themselves (the alcoholic drink used in the Pagdiwata ritual, the nature of the chicks sacrificed, etc) but I’ll check more about them on my own time. I’d like to ask two questions. As we can see in the title, the paper focuses on “Culture Change,” and my questions pertain to this subject.

Since the organizers of this international academic conference sent the four essays to be featured in Session 1 in advance, I will present my opinions and questions regarding the said four essays and end by opening shared agendas for discussion based on the aim of this international academic conference, which was organized as a way to contribute to the transmission and growth of traditional maritime culture in the Asia-Pacific region.

A treasure trove of both natural and cultural diversity, India is home to innumerable rural and indigenous communities dotting its varied geographical landscape. One such community—the Manganiyars—is a clan of hereditary professional musicians residing in the villages of the Thar desert in western Rajasthan. Their oral legends say that these communities settled in different villages of Barmer and Jaisalmer around a thousand years ago. \n\nThe Manganiyars hold a vast repertoire of folk songs integral to their ways of life and significant to their social systems. For centuries, their music has been supported by their traditional patrons, called Jajmans, who usually live in the same or nearby villages and engage the Manganiyars to sing at various life events and celebrations of their families in exchange for money, land, and gifts. A distinctive feature of this patron-server relationship is the Manganiyars’ exclusive and vital role as genealogists of their patrons’ families that can go back to fourteen or eighteen generations, such record keeping being entirely oral. The Manganiyars belong to the Mirasi (entertainers) community. They are Muslims but sing for both Hindu and Muslim patrons, performing songs of Hindu gods and goddesses as well as Muslim Pirs and \nFakirs (Sufi saints or spiritual guides). The melodic structure of their music resembles classical traditions, but in reality, is very different in terms of the raagas (combination of notes) and associated time theory. The Manganiyars believe that their children are born with an inherent sense of music that is naturally transmitted to subsequent generations through some magical non-formal framework that is undefined and innate. Unlike many other indigenous communities, they themselves have kept their tradition alive, believing that music is fundamental to their ‘being.’