2024 starts with a bit of long-awaited good news that the United Kingdom intends to finally sign the 2003 UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention. Once ratified, we will join a large community of 182 other nation states around the world who have formally recognized their ‘intangible’ cultural heritage.

What does this mean?

‘Intangible’ means cultural heritage that exists in human practice and performance rather than buildings, objects, or natural features. In this way, this is the key international agreement that focuses upon traditional music, dance, crafts and storytelling (now usually discussed as the ‘traditional arts’ in Scotland). I define ‘traditional arts’ which is corollarous with ‘intangible cultural heritage’ as practices that have grown out of oral/historical traditions or are newly created, but shaped by characteristics derived from historical practices, or those defined as traditional by the practitioners themselves. That is the definition we used in our published research on the impacts of Covid on traditional arts but there are many alternative definitions in the academic and policy literature around the world. See link here to longer blog discussion of how traditional music and folk music have been historically understood here.

The Convention itself has had quite different historical implementation across different parts of the world but particularly different has been the European approach versus the Asian approach. Although problematic to generalize–in general–Asian countries have tended to enthusiastically adopt the convention safeguarding and operationalize it with top-down regional structures for state-organized collection, documentation, archiving, broadcast, tourism and educational activities. More broadly, in Europe (particularly in Baltic and Eastern European states) the convention has tended to be used for nationalistic (often but not always) state-organized archiving, documentation, research and increasingly, for tourism, festivals and educational initiatives.

One of the great difficulties for the UK has been the long-term historical place of the BBC as the default proxy for ICH: The huge annual £4.5 billion we spend on the BBC via the licence fee, has most always been used as the justification for not providing any other state-funding for the archiving, documentation or educational initiatives involving traditional arts. The problem of course with this position has historically been that BBC executives, commissioners and programme makers do not have the specialist knowledge of traditional arts that is normally fulfilled by academics and state-funded arts officers in other European countries such as France, Spain, Portugal or in the Baltic states. This new settlement has the potential to really transform the institutional structures and support for traditional arts in the UK, and crucially to move into an arena of thinking about how we recognize traditional arts as a public good, rather than simply as entertainment and audiences.

What are the opportunities for the musical heritage traditions across the four nations of the United Kingdom? England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland? Without going into a very long-winded discussion, my own view is that the medium-term opportunities particularly for traditional and folk musics in the UK might involve:

• Accessing and justifying some state-funding for public archiving, documentation and safeguarding of traditional arts.
• ‘Inscribing’ with international recognition some of the absolutely key indigenous forms of traditional arts from the four nations of the United Kingdom: What could be first? Obvious candidates might include piobaireachd, ballad singing, Morris dancing, strathspeys, Welsh wood carving, English carolling, Orain Luaidh (waulking songs), Pitmen Poetry, Camanachd (Gaelic hurling), sea shanties, Up Helly Aa, mumming plays??? These are just some of the many and rich traditions that have long and established oral traditions in the UK. Inscription under the convention brings with it expectations for the state (i.e. the UK) and a lot of international exposure. There are many good examples of individual musical, dance, craft and narrative traditions around the world that have really benefitted from their ‘inscription’ under the 2003 convention (there are also some great case studies in the academic literature of traditions that have stagnated with ‘inscription’ largely because of top-down initiatives).
• There is now with an international convention, a much improved potential for non-BBC actors in this space to implement media for ICH for education, archiving and broadcast. There is great potential for some academics and public folklorists working across the UK to make a much more visible contribution to the public value for traditional arts if we get the structures right.
• Use the convention to establish a more sophisticated understanding and debate about our unique traditions in each of the four nations of the UK. Could this be a moment where we begin to recognise our very complex yet unique cultural heritage and which in turn, might lead into a conversation about traditional and immigrant traditional cultures within the UK. The convention allows space for this key debate which has been either non-existent or highly polarized in recent years in the UK. By simply recognizing the existence of English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh traditional arts as well as the ICH traditions of minority ethnic groups within the UK we should be able to emerge with better policy around diversity in festivals, education and archiving. It could also provide a useful platform for thinking in a renewed sense about what English, Scottish, Northern Irish and Welsh identities mean in an ever more plural, and ageing society.
• The Convention might also allow a new platform for debate about cultural property rights in the digital era. Might the historical fudge for ‘traditional’ songs, tunes and performances be somewhat improved by recognizing community agency and authorship in English and Scots Law? Traditional and folk music have suffered badly in the move to streaming, and the disappearance of the physical product of the LP, cassette, and CD have led to a hollowing out of previous forms of sustainable revenue for professional musicians. Reconfiguring the digital ‘mechanical’ rights for ‘traditional’ items and their performance rights might provide a collective new source of income for traditional and folk musicians across the UK from the global tech platforms. Indeed, it could be an opportune time for us to discuss traditional musics with the global tech platforms and how they might invest in community learning and practice.
• Might the Convention provide a platform for reinvigoration of previously dead traditions? In some countries this has worked well, could we be talking about new (old) traditions such as funereal songs, epic poetry performance, harvest traditions, and other ‘survival’ traditions, e.g. agricultural and industrial traditions where the practices have died out and the musical traditions have survived such as Bothy Ballads.

Next steps

In my view–we could do a lot of initial learning from Chile’s example–they signed the convention in 2008 and they have really used it in a very positive way to promote indigenous craftspeople, to support national cultural tourism, but also to protect and preserve their cultural heritage. I think a visit to learn from the Chileans and perhaps other Latin American colleagues could be a great place to start with our journey on the implementation of the 2003 ICH convention in the UK.

There are problems of course with ICH convention–these mostly lie in the arena of ‘heritagization’ of different traditional performances and practices centering around arguments about ‘interference’, ‘authenticity’ (yes, that old chestnut), ‘paternalism’ and so on–where sometimes practitioners have been pushed out in favour of civil servants’ views of what’s important, or in some cases where the dance, song tradition or other ICH has become narrowly defined and therefore creates tensions in the performing community around who and what is seen as ‘authentic’ or ‘traditional’. Catherine Grant has demonstrated some of these problems in case studies of Vietnamese and other musics and there is much to be learnt from the literature on language safeguarding and maintenance in this field. Will we in the UK take an activist stance? Or a more preservationist stance to implementing and inscribing traditions? Which traditions will be inscribed? One of the other key dangers is that when traditions are inscribed and accepted as ICH internationally–they often gain resources and become focal points for cultural tourism and more visible profiles for their communities of practice. This can devalue the tradition for practitioners–turning traditional events into ‘plastic’ events that risk prioritising the outsiders’ points of view. None of this is insurmountable with careful stewardship however.

And therefore, the benefits in terms of public value, recognition and policy for the UK and the individual nations in signing the 2003 ICH Convention far outweigh possible problems and I am hopeful that this is the start of a newly plural era growth for the traditional arts, that will provide a platform for much greater educational and archival activity that will enrich our lives and those who come after.

Traditional Arts and Culture Scotland (TRACS) have been involved with other actors in planning for this and you can read more about their work here.

The UK Government consultation is still available here–do fill it out if you are interested/work in this field.

APPENDIX–THE TEXT OF THE PURPOSE AND DESCRIPTION OF THE UNESCO CONVENTION ARE BELOW

Article 1 – Purposes of the Convention

The purposes of this Convention are:
(a) to safeguard the intangible cultural heritage;
(b) to ensure respect for the intangible cultural heritage of the communities, groups and individuals concerned;
(c) to raise awareness at the local, national and international levels of the importance of the intangible cultural heritage, and of ensuring mutual appreciation thereof;
(d) to provide for international cooperation and assistance.

Article 2 – Definitions

For the purposes of this Convention,
1. The “intangible cultural heritage” means the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. This intangible cultural heritage, transmitted from generation to generation, is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature and their history, and provides them with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity. For the purposes of this Convention, consideration will be given solely to such intangible cultural heritage as is compatible with existing international human rights instruments, as well as with the requirements of mutual respect among communities, groups and individuals, and of sustainable development.

2. The “intangible cultural heritage”, as defined in paragraph 1 above, is manifested inter alia in the following domains:
(a) oral traditions and expressions, including language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage;
(b) performing arts;
(c) social practices, rituals and festive events;
(d) knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe;
(e) traditional craftsmanship.

3. “Safeguarding” means measures aimed at ensuring the viability of the intangible cultural heritage, including the identification, documentation, research, preservation, protection, promotion, enhancement, transmission, particularly through formal and non-formal education, as well as the revitalization of the various aspects of such heritage.

4. “States Parties” means States which are bound by this Convention and among which this Convention is in force.

5. This Convention applies mutatis mutandis to the territories referred to in Article 33 which become Parties to this Convention in accordance with the conditions set out in that Article. To that extent the expression “States Parties” also refers to such territories.