An important question to address here is: what does this mean for the role of museums in contemporary life? Experience from the Periodic Reporting by States Parties the 2003 Convention over the 2012–14 reporting cycles has shown that there are a number of different actors that serve as important vec- tors for implementing ICH safeguarding policies and measures (Torggler & Sediakina-Rivière, 2014). These include: local authorities; community centres; non-governmental organisations active in the field of ICH; cultural associa- tions; the private sector. Added to these, museums can be pivotal actors in helping to integrate ICH into society and policies for sustainable communities. Interestingly, this endeavour has occurred in tandem with a growing interest in community museums, museums of minority and immigrant cultures and, in the UK, the US and West Africa, museums addressing the slave trade. One notable community-based project has been the London Museum Hub Pro- ject to record Refugee Heritage (2004–6) (Lohman, 2007). This was aimed at confronting the alienation and marginalisation of refugees in London while, at the same time, making local people more aware of the refugees in their community and their shared humanity expressed through their (mostly intan- gible) cultural heritage. The projects included collaboration between Hack- ney Museum in North London with the Halkevi Turkish-Kurdish Community Centre to organise exhibitions of their heritage and their lives in Britain and their home countries, accompanied by traditional songs, drumming and kilim weaving. This endeavour raised the question as to how a practice, performance and enactment can be presented and interpreted in the museum context. Fin- ding new ways to present and interpret ICH in museums is, therefore, part of a wider movement towards a more community-based and less elitist conception
of the museum that is mirrored in the previously mentioned developments in international cultural heritage law.
To do this, museums need to be able to reconsider their role within the local society and how they engage with local communities and groups, and expand their range of activities accordingly. Local museums can be central to safe- guarding specific ICH elements, often in working cooperation with cultural communities, and can, for example, provide communities with the educatio- nal, social and spatial capacities necessary to participate effectively in ICH safeguarding (UNESCO, 2013). At times, museums may collaborate with lo- cal cultural NGOs, offering training courses on ICH management and inven- torying, or in ICH skills and practices. Also, by establishing documentation centres in local museums and cultural centres, some of which may be custom built for specific elements, access to information about their ICH is made pos- sible for local (cultural) communities (UNESCO, 2013). There are, however, challenges in harnessing the role of museums, especially given a general ten- dency in ethnographic museums (often those that hold collections of ICH) to place a heavy emphasis on documentation and recording (UNESCO, 2012), rather than on seeking to enhance the function of ICH within society and the community. Moreover, the requirements of ICH as a living heritage means that museums have to reconsider how (and whether) to hold the tangible elements associated with ICH – masks, musical instruments, costumes, looms, cooking utensils etc. – or not, in order not to restrict their use by the ICH holders. An interesting illustrative case relates to the utensils required for performing the Jongmyo element in South Korea, and the performance and transmission of its associated ritual and Jerye music. These are held in a local museum and released to the community for use when this periodic element is performed (Republic of Korea, 2012).
The Recommendation concerning the Protection and Promotion of Museums and Collections, their Diversity and their Role in Society (UNESCO, 2015) is an important departure since it aims to address these questions and to place the museum at the forefront of the paradigm shift occurring in international cultural policy- and law-making. In this Recommendation, a museum collec- tion is defined as ‘an assemblage of natural and cultural properties, tangible and intangible, past and present’, and heritage is understood as ‘a set of tan- gible and intangible values, and expressions that people select and identify, independently of ownership, as a reflection and expression of their identities, beliefs, knowledge and traditions, and living environment’ (UNESCO, 2015). These two definitions demonstrate clearly that the understanding of heritage represented in museums through their collections has evolved greatly, with an emphasis not only on the intangible character of much of what is now consi- dered as heritage but also, significantly, its contemporary character. It is no longer something stuck in the past but has a contemporary relevance, just as ICH is a living tradition in the sense that it is based on traditions passed on through generations but has a contemporary role and meaning for each one. According to the Recommendation, museums are ‘spaces for cultural trans-
mission, intercultural dialogue, learning, discussion and training, [and] also
play an important role in education (formal, informal, and lifelong learning), social cohesion and sustainable development’ [emphasis added] (UNESCO,
2015). This can be seen to mirror closely the core notions of safeguarding ICH and the understanding expressed in the 2003 Convention that ICH contri- butes both to social cohesion and ‘truly sustainable development’ (UNESCO, 2003, Preamble). Moreover, ICH is seen in the Convention as a ‘well-spring of cultural diversity’ (UNESCO, 2003, Preamble) and this is again mirrored in the Recommendation as follows: ‘The diversity of museums and the heritage of which they are custodians constitutes their greatest value’ (UNESCO, 2015, Paragraph 23).