community event
ICH Exhibition 4
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EVENTS
Inviting New Partner Organizations for ichLinks
ICHCAP invites the new partner organizations for the ichLinks, an Integrated ICH Information-Sharing Platform in the Asia-Pacific Region (www.ichlinks.com).
The partner organizations are key actors who collect and share the ICH information in their respective countries and utilize the shared information to enhance the visibility of ICH and cultural diversity.
Last year, ICHACP designated five partner organizations in Malaysia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. The selected partner organizations shared their ICH data through the ichLinks, and ICHCAP supported them to build their own ICH database as well as to develop digital content.
This year, ICHCAP will designate the 2nd group of partner organizations. The selected organizations are supposed to share their ICH information and may get the financial and/or technical support upon their requests.
Those who wish to be the ichLinks’ partner organization, please send us your application (attachment 3) with the recommendation letter from the related government authorities by 15 June 2021. Among the applied partner organizations, those who need financial and/or technical support, please send us your project proposal (attachment 5) by the same date as above.
For any inquiries on the project, please contact the ichLinks secretariat at ichlinks.secretariat@gmail.com.
04/09/2021
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NEWS
People on Vanuatu’s Malekula Island Speak More than 30 Indigenous Languages. Here’s Why We Must Record Them
: Indigenous languages preserve ways in which people engage with their environment. CCBY Royce Dodd, Author provided
Malekula, the second-largest island in the Vanuatu archipelago, has a linguistic connection to Aotearoa. All of its many languages are distantly related to te reo Māori, and the island is the site of a long-term project to document them.
Vanuatu has been described as the world’s “densest linguistic landscape,” with as many as 145 languages spoken by a population of fewer than 300,000 people.
Malekula itself is home to about 25,000 people, who among them speak more than thirty indigenous languages. Some are spoken by just a few hundred people.
Indigenous languages around the world are declining at a rapid rate, dying out with the demise of their last speakers. The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues estimates one indigenous language dies every two weeks. As each language disappears, its unique cultural expression and world views are lost as well. Our project in Malekula hopes to counter this trend.
Malekula Languages
The work in Malekula began in the 1990s when the late Terry Crowley hosted a Neve’ei-speaking university student from a small village. The encounter inspired his interest in the island’s many Indigenous languages.
The Malekula project works with communities to facilitate literacy initiatives, often in the form of unpublished children’s books and thematic dictionaries. The research highlights the value of Indigenous languages as an expression of local cultural identity. The Malekula project is a response to the urgent need to record the island’s indigenous languages in the face of significant changes to almost every aspect of traditional life. These changes have brought indigenous languages into contact and competition with colonial English and French and the home-grown Bislama, a dialect of Melanesian pidgin. From education to religion, administration, and domestic life, Bislama is now often the language of choice.
Why is that a problem? The value of indigenous languages lies in the fact that they articulate the way in which people have engaged with and understood their natural environment.
Malekula has a 3,000-year history of human settlement. Each language spoken on the island encodes unique ways in which its speakers have sustained life. Indigenous languages preserve ways in which people engage with their environment.
Another fundamental aspect of indigenous languages is their direct link to cultural identity. In a place where distinctive local identities are the norm, the increasing use of Bislama reduces the linguistic diversity that has been sustained for millennia.
In recent times, the way of life for the people of Malekula has shifted from intensely local communities to broader formal education. Imported religions have similarly influenced local belief systems.
The same centralized governance that facilitates infrastructure development and access to medical care also affects the autonomy of small communities to govern their affairs, including the languages in which children are taught.
Traditionally, linguistic field research has produced valuable research for a highly specialist linguistic audience. Most scholars had no expectation of returning their research to the community of speakers. We initially followed this tradition in writing about the Neverver language of Malekula but grew increasingly dissatisfied with the expectations of the discipline. Looking to modern decolonizing research methodologies and ethical guidelines in Aotearoa, we developed the “first audience principle.” This means indigenous language communities should be the first to hear about any field research findings.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and travel bans brought linguistic fieldwork to an abrupt halt. During this unwelcome hiatus from fieldwork with Malekula communities, it has been tempting to focus on more technical analysis for our fellow academics. But our obligation to communities remains, and we are developing new ways of working with our archived field data in preparation for the time when we can return to Malekula.
This article is based on the free flow of information, the creative commons from https://theconversation.com For the original source with additional links, please visit https://theconversation.com/people-on-vanuatus-malekula-island-speak-more-than-30-indigenous-languages-heres-why-we-must-record-them
03/12/2021
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NEWS
Polima Universal Values of the Buton Community
Dr. H. AS. Tamrin MH, Mayor of Baubau City, SE Sulawesi, Indonesia © Gaura Mancacaritadipura
POLIMA (or PO-5 = 5 PO) is an expression containing five universal values: 1) PO-maamaasiaka, 2) PO-piapiara, 3) PO-maemaeaka, 4) PO-angkaangkataka, and 5) PO-bincibinciki kuli. These values or principles fall within the ICH domain of customs and traditions. The philosophical basis in found in the SARAPAANGUNA (Laws of the Buton Sultanate)
These are messages from the Founding Fathers of the Buton community as guidance in social life interaction They are given to create a peaceful, stable, and conducive atmosphere among the people. It is in such a way that government, development, and social life may go on smoothly in a way that is more effective and successful.
Dr. H. AS. Tamrin MH, Mayor of Baubau City, SE Sulawesi, Indonesia © Gaura Mancacaritadipura
The understanding of these five values may be elaborated as follows:
PO-maamaasiaka (root word maasi, meaning affection or love): understanding mutual love and affection,
PO-piapiara (root word piara, meaning to maintain): understanding mutual maintaining, mutual protection, and mutual nursing.
PO-maemaeaka (root word: maea, meaning shame): understanding mutual feelings of shame. The meaning is that if we do something scandalous or improper, we will surely feel ashamed. In our hearts we must be conscious, and feelings must be cultivated so that it is not just ourselves alone who feel shame, but also our parents, our family, our ethnic community, and the school or university where we studied—all will feel contamination and shame for the improper act that we have done. Therefore, we should not dare commit scandalous or shameful acts in any form.
PO-angka-angkataka (the root word is angka, meaning to lift): understanding to mutually lift up, mutual appreciation, and mutual respect. The day to day implementation of this principle is in the form of politeness, good character in the form of speech, behavior and action that are the measure of a person’s personality.
PO-binci-binciki kuli (the root word is binci meaning to pinch, and kuli meaning skin.) Thus binciki kuli means to pinch the skin) This is a figurative expression for an action that causes pain. We certainly don’t like to be pinched. So, therefore, we should not pinch other. Whatever action that causes pain to others and that we don’t like, we should not do to others. If we don’t like being the object of a hoax, we should not pull a hoax on others. If we don’t like to be the object of false accusations, then we should not target false accusations towards others. If we don’t like being cheated, we should not cheat others. In short, actions that we do not like when done to us, we should not do to others. Everything should be evaluated honestly in our deepest heart.
The word “PO” is a prefix meaning “mutual”, or “a reciprocal action”. This implies the principles of equality, equanimity, honesty, and mutual justice.
The relevance of the application of POLIMO principles is quite broad, for example upliftment of peoples’ mentality, and it has been elaborated in a book POLIMA Gema Pancasila dari Baubau (Polima, the Echo of Pancasila from Baubau), now in its second edition.
03/12/2021
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NEWS
2021 Jeonju International Awards for Promoting Intangible Cultural Heritage
2021 Jeonju International Awards for Promoting ICH
The citizens of Jeonju are fully aware of the significance of intangible cultural heritage and its need for safeguarding. In particular, they have long recognized and emphasized its power as a resource for enhancing the social, economic, environmental, cultural conditions, as well as tending to the aspirations of all the people living in the global community.
The purpose of the Jeonju International Awards for Promoting Intangible Cultural Heritage is to encourage the model safeguarding practices of intangible cultural heritage in the global community regardless of nationality, ethnicity, religion, race, age, gender, or any other political, social, economic or cultural orientation. The model safeguarding practices of intangible cultural heritage shall include any effective method or approach.
The awards are open to Living Human Treasurers (practitioners), groups, communities, administrators, researchers, NGOs, and those who have made substantial contributions for promoting Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Eligibility Criteria
The awards shall go to individual or groups that practice good safeguarding practices of ICH.
Or the awards shall go to local communities, administrators, NGOs or other institutions that practice the modeling development, social solidarity, and cooperation throughout safeguarding practices of ICH.
Or the awards shall go to the individual or groups that have contained international visibility by raising cultural pride of their community during transmitting of ICH.
Or the awards shall go to the individuals or groups that achieve exemplary outstanding performance by practicing cultural diversity through the safeguarding and transmission process of ICH. The awards shall go to the individuals or groups that take the lead in good safeguarding practices of ICH in the global community regardless of nationality, ethnicity, religion, race, age, gender, or any other political, social, economic or cultural orientation.
Important Dates
February 1, 2021: Open to download 2021 JIAPICH application
March 1, 2021: Start of the application submission date
April 30, 2021: Due date for the application
July 1, 2021: Start of the verification process
July 30, 2021: End of the verification process
August 1, 2021: 2021 JIAPICH Finalist(s) Announced
September (dates TBD), 2021: JIAPICH Award Ceremony (online ceremony TBD)
Adjudication Criteria
Efficient cases of safeguarding practices of Intangible Cultural Heritage and of activating the power and its significance for the future development of the global community as well as for social cohesion, cooperation, and visibility of identity. A good example that has made a significant contribution to the viability of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Additional information about submitting applications and other important information is available here.
03/12/2021
