Intangible Cultural Heritage, Sustainable Development, and the Integrating Role of Music

Abstract

With the ratification of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) in 2003, an expanded concept of cultural heritage came into play three decades after the World Cultural and Natural Heritage Convention of 1972. With its intangible perspectives on cultural expressions, the 2003 Convention from was able to stand up to the material conception of cultural heritage of the older Convention on equal footing. This initially led to a polarization of two conceptions of cultural heritage that were treated as opposites. Now in its 20th year of existence and already looking back on a diverse and inspiring debate, the ICH convention is expanding the understanding of cultural heritage by emphasizing the interplay of materiality and immateriality. In light of the intellectual imaginings of music, the knowledge underlying its performative practices, and artistic-musical practice itself, this paper argues for an all-embracing single conception of cultural heritage. Unlike almost all other cultural manifestations, music illustrates, in its historical and contemporary practices, the integration of the material and the intangible in the conception of heritage, both on the local and global level.