House-Guarding: Spatial Insights into UNESCO’s Intangible Heritage Safe-Guarding

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This paper is a spatial ethnography of UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage conceptualization by tracing the ground implementation of the universal humanistic notions of culture and the arts as substances of and forces for the advancement of spirituality and human development. It is a product of research carried over the course of two years in Brazil, Bulgaria, and Cuba that develops the theory of heritage "house-guarding" as the material, spatial implementation of the immaterial heritage “safe-guarding” strategies vaguely defined by UNESCO but rarely in terms of the construction of physical places for artistic rehearsals, performances, and socialization. What is the relationship between practice and space, performed heritage and lived culture? How do the humanistic values of human cultural rights evolve at the national (Ministry of Culture) and trans-national (UNESCO, European Union) levels and how are these global discourses being imagined and negotiated at the ethnographically lived and embodied community hopes for development, creativity, and quality of life? This is a paper where tangible practices dwell in intangible houses.

Stream: Globalisation

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

Nadezhda Savova is a doctoral candidate from Bulgaria in Cultural Anthropology at Princeton University, also taking classes at the Woodrow Wilson School for Public Policy and developing work with the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Research. She holds a BA in International Relations and Spanish Literature from Furman University, and is currently conducting research comparing the community cultural center networks in Cuba and Bulgaria. She also does research on the cultural initiatives in the favelas in Rio de Janeiro and the cultural policies on samba as heritage of humanity in Brazil, being generally interested in the socially transformative role of the arts.