The UNESCO convention of the Intangible Cultural Heritage

New Ways and Opportunities to Strengthen and Safeguard Traditional Sports in Europe

Albert van der Zeijden scientific policy advisor

Dutch Centre for Intangible Heritage

Dutch Centre for Intangible Heritage

• Accredited NGO, ‘competent body’, responsible for the coordination and implementation of the ICH convention in the Netherlands

• Advise functions (national + international)• Raising awareness• Knowledge, information, advise, mediating• Supporting the communities in their

safeguarding efforts (eg. Safeguarding methodologies)

and the sports

About the Sport ProgrammeUNESCO is the United Nations’ lead agency for Physical Education and Sport (PES).

This programme focuses on the following diverse themes:Sport for Peace and DevelopmentQuality Physical EducationTraditional Sports and GamesWomen and SportAnti-Doping

and the traditional sports

Traditional sports and games (TSG) can form the backbone of a community, and UNESCO is driven to protect and promote these sports to further community spirit, bring peoples together and install a sense of pride in a society’s cultural roots.

In the Declaration of Punta del Este, in December 1999, ministers emphasized the preservation and the appraisal of traditional and indigenous sports from different regional and national cultural heritages, including the establishment of a World Heritage List of Traditional Games and Sports.

Importance ICH convention for the traditional sports

• ICH convention most effective policy tool UNESCO• Convention is about safeguarding: giving a future

to intangible heritage• Traditional Sports are part of the Intangible

Cultural Heritage• Convention ratified by most countries in the world• Goal: International cooperation and mutual

assistance

ICH Convention ratified by

• Austria • Belgium • Denmark • Finland• France • Germany• Greece• Italy

• the Netherlands• Norway• Portugal • Spain • Sweden• Switzerland• Turkey• several countries in

Eastern-Europe

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.

DefinitionIntangible Heritage

The “intangible cultural heritage” means the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associatedtherewith – 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.

Intangible HeritageDomains

The “intangible cultural heritage” is manifestedin the following domains:(a) oral traditions and expressions, including language as a vehicle of the intangiblecultural heritage;(b) performing arts;(c) social practices, rituals and festive events;(d) knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe;(e) traditional craftsmanship.

Traditional Sports as social practice

Social practices, rituals and festive events involvea dazzling variety of forms: worship rites; rites ofpassage; birth, wedding and funeral rituals;oaths of allegiance; traditional legal systems;traditional games and sports; kinship and ritualkinship ceremonies; settlement patterns;culinary traditions; seasonal ceremonies;practices specific to men or women only;hunting, fishing and gathering practices andmany more.Toolkit Intangible Cultural Heritage Domains

Why is ICH important?

‘Considering the importance of the intangible cultural heritage as a mainspring of culturaldiversity and a guarantee of sustainable development,’ preambule UNESCO convention

‘provides them (=communities) with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity’.Article 2 UNESCO convention

Communities first

Within the framework of its safeguarding activities of the intangible cultural heritage, eachState Party shall endeavour to ensure the widest possible participation of communities, groupsand, where appropriate, individuals that create, maintain and transmit such heritage, and toinvolve them actively in its management.Article 15 – Participation of communities, groups and individuals

Obligations States Parties

Each State Party shall:(a) take the necessary measures to ensure the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage present in its territory;(b) identify and define the various elements of the intangible cultural heritage present in its territory, with the participation of communities, groups and relevant nongovernmental organizations.

• Bottom up approach• Safeguarding: heritage care

plan

Bottom up approach

• Communities / communtiy associations can put forward their tradition for the Inventory

• In the form they should give a clear description of the (history) of the tradition and of the people participating

• The safeguardingplan starts with a swot analysis of the tradition

• Weak and strong points and how to address them

National InventoriesKrulbollen: Flemish Inventory

And on the Dutch ….

Other sports on the Dutch Inventory

Sports on the Dutch Inventory

• Krulbollen Zeeuws Vlaanderen• Valkerij• Schoonrijden• Vierdaagse Nijmegen• Harddraverij Stompwijk• Acht van Chaam

What makes a sport intangible heritage?

• Heritage and cultural identity important• It should be a ‘traditional’ sport with a history

and it should be important for a community who wants to safeguard this tradition

With regard to criterion R.1, the Subsidiary Body was challenged by nominations testing the limits of what can be considered as intangible cultural heritage. The question was posed in particular with regard to organized sports: given that many communities worldwide identify with their local professional sports teams (or even those from the other side of the globe), at what point might organized sports lose any character as intangible heritage? The Body reiterates the importance of providing sufficient explanation under R.1 to demonstrate that an element constitutes intangible cultural heritage in the sense of the 2003 Convention, emphasizing in particular its cultural meanings and social functions.

Report of the Subsidiary Body on its work in 2013 and examination of nominations for inscription on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity , discussed by the Intergovernmental Committee, december 2013

Not every sport is ICH!

Classical horsemanship and the High School of the Spanish Riding School Vienna

In the proposal not enough mention of its cultural meanings, social functions and communities involved

International Inventories

• Representative List • Urgent Safeguarding List• Register of Best Practices

Sports on International Inventories

Taekkyeon, a traditional Korean martial artRepresentative List

Programme of cultivating ludodiversity: safeguarding traditional games in FlandersRegister of Best Practices

Ludo diversityThe non-governmental organization Sportimonium, together with local communities and associations, has taken measures to safeguard the heritage of games and sports in Flanders, Belgium, including twenty-three types of traditional games, among them forms of shooting games, bowl games, throwing games and ball games.

Ludo diversity:interesting example best practice

Safeguarding measures undertaken by Sportimonium include:• support to specialized and umbrella organizations• publications • festivals • demonstrations • exchanges of expertise • promotion activities • loan services providing people with traditional games

equipment• Traditional Games Park.

International treaty with international networks

• Bureau in Paris, General Assembly and Intergovernemental Committee

• NGOs

• Communities: European Sint Maartennetwork, Association Européenne des jeux et sports traditionnels

• International cooperation and mutual assistance

http://www.ichngoforum.org/spiritual-renewal-and-the-safeguarding-of-religious-traditions-in-the-netherlands/

Things to do (some of them already taking care off!)

• SWOT analysis• specialized umbrella organizations• festivals and demonstrations • exchanges of expertise • promotion activities • International cooperation and mutual assistance• Necessary measures to ensure the safeguarding

of the intangible cultural heritage

USE the national AND international UNESCO inventories to safeguard

traditional sports