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Blake, Janet --- "Anthropology in international law: the case of safeguarding intangible cultural heritage" [2017] ELECD 1599; in Nafziger, A.R. James (ed), "Comparative Law and Anthropology" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 135

Book Title: Comparative Law and Anthropology

Editor(s): Nafziger, A.R. James

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781955178

Section: Chapter 8

Section Title: Anthropology in international law: the case of safeguarding intangible cultural heritage

Author(s): Blake, Janet

Number of pages: 18

Abstract/Description:

The interactions of gender with the performance, enactment, practice and transmission of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) are complex and, to some degree, mutual. As a consequence, safeguarding approaches have the potential to impact on these factors in both positive and negative ways. Unfortunately, the safeguarding actions proposed for this heritage tend to miss the larger, holistic aspect of culture of which gender dynamics form a part. Not only do we express our gender identities through ICH, but they are also shaped to some degree by it, and this process can be affected by safeguarding practices and interventions. This underlines the necessity both of applying a gender-sensitive approach to safeguarding and, as this chapter seeks to demonstrate, for striking an appropriate balance between legal and non-legal (anthropological) experts in this process in order to ensure a sufficiently nuanced but well-grounded approach towards gender. Such an inter-disciplinary approach is a prerequisite for ensuring the proper and successful operation of UNESCO’s 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Heritage over the long term.