Museums, Diasporas and the Sustainability of Intangible Cultural Heritage

Naguib, Saphinaz Amal

doi:10.3390/su5052178

Cited by 31 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 23 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…More recently, Naguib (2013) argued that tangible and intangible aspects of heritage are tightly interwoven. For Naguib (2008, 278): 'The tangible is transfused into the intangible, and concrete objects evoke historical events, ways of life, social structures and practices, religious systems and beliefs.'…”

Section: Unesco and Other International Organisations Such As The Inmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Binarism: Exploring a Model of Living Cultural Heritage for Dance

Iacono

Brown

2016

Dance Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

UNESCO's effort to include many different types of human expression on its lists is commendable and an important attempt to safeguard aspects of the world's cultural heritage.However, we agree with Naguib (2008) that the use and interpretation of the term intangible is problematic to describe the complexity of human practices, because of the polarities implied by the notions of tangible/intangible, which insert a false distinction, in the form of a binary opposition, between the material and immaterial elements of culture. Instead, building on insights from Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (2004) and Ruggles and Silverman (2009), we argue that practices and the artefacts that surround them are embodied heritage, internal to all human beings and affecting us at physical and emotional levels. Therefore, the intangible and 3 tangible are indissolubly linked and a preferred definition might be developed around the idea of "living cultural heritage."The label of intangible is particularly problematic when considering dance as heritage, given the central role that the human body has in the practice of dance, and because the phenomenon of dance is simultaneously emergent from, and constitutive of culture and society. Buckland (2001, 1) confirms the increased social science interest in the body and performance has 'helped to raise the profile of dance as a significant academic site for cultural investigation'. This development has opened up channels for dialogue with other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. In recent years, embodiment has been explored sociologically through dance in a range of ways including: cultural theory and everyday life (Thomas 2003(Thomas , 2013 bodylore and bodily knowledge (Sklar, 1994(Sklar, , 2001, bodywork (BraceGovan, 2002), embodied identity (Dyck & Archetti, 2003) and ageing, injury and identity (Wainwright & Turner, 2006). There are some notable early exceptions, Novak (1988) for example, incorporated dance as a key exemplar in her work on culture. One reason for this, Buckland argues, drawing on Connerton's (1989) distinction between incorporated and inscribed practices, is that dance 'has a particular propensity to foreground cultural memory as embodied practice by virtue of its predominantly somatic modes of transmission', thus making dance strongly relevant to discussions of cultural heritage through the incorporation of specific cultural elements (such as artefacts and movement vocabularies) into its practice.Dance is also an inscribed practice as Blacking (1983, 97) illustrates, 'the bodily experience of performance can also stimulate the imagination and help to bring new coherence to the sensuous life, which in turn could affect motivation, commitment and decision-making in other spheres of social life.' Therefore, while culture is incorporated within dance, such dances are also inscribed with layers of shared meanings (which may be symbolic, narrative, 4 emotional, aesthetic depending on the genre) making it not only a site of cultural reception but also a site of cultura...

show abstract

Section: Unesco and Other International Organisations Such As The Inmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Binarism: Exploring a Model of Living Cultural Heritage for Dance

Iacono

Brown

2016

Dance Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A ideia de incluir as populações em movimento no discurso do património e dos museus permite ir além das associações territoriais do património, facilitando a articulação com a esfera pública (Barrett 2011). Os museus podem funcionar como «zonas de contacto» (Pratt 1991;Clifford 1997) de encontro cultural para os públicos e de reflexão para imigrantes e diásporas sobre o significado e o valor do seu património (Naguib 2013(Naguib , 2184. Para além do simples legado colonial patente na maioria dos museus portugueses, importa promover a participação das próprias comunidades no discurso sobre património, permitindo trazer as margens para o centro (Hall 1990).…”

Section: Midas 8 | 2017unclassified

As histórias alternativas do objeto: o cofre-relicário de São Francisco Xavier e a identidade religiosa dos goeses em Portugal

Lourenço¹

2017

midas

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Este artigo pretende explorar as potencialidades que os objetos e os museus têm de gerar narrativas alternativas, através da análise da forma como as pessoas usam os objetos para as contar. Com base numa recolha etnográfica, este texto centra-se no cofre-relicário de São Francisco Xavier do Museu de São Roque da Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa para refletir sobre os processos identitários dos goeses em Portugal. Observar objetos associados ao passado colonial português à luz do pós-colonialismo implica também estudar as características da sociedade contemporânea resultantes dos processos de descolonização, de forma a reconciliar esta herança histórica com as exigências de uma sociedade contemporânea multicultural e pós-colonial. A relevância da relação entre pessoas e coisas é exemplificada pelo peso simbólico dos objetos religiosos, como é o caso do cofre-relicário de São Francisco Xavier. É precisamente a esta identidade complexa que se pretende aceder, para além da retórica do Museu, nomeadamente às particularidades do catolicismo goês, que apontam para a manutenção de elementos identitários específicos com origem em Goa e no encontro colonial que, em conjunto com outras práticas, contribuem para a reprodução de uma identidade cultural e religiosa específica. Este exemplo empírico pretende demonstrar como determinadas narrativas institucionais excluem as histórias alternativas que emanam dos objetos, permitindo os contextos migratórios o desafio de usar os objetos e os museus como veículos para pensar não só o passado das trajetórias migratórias, mas centrar-se nas dinâmicas complexas das sociedades contemporâneas, desafiando as narrativas dominantes.

show abstract

“…Participation by way of provision depends largely on the active commitment of communities and the informed voluntary consent of individuals to share their life stories with others. The engagement of the different communities and their close interaction with the museums may develop in a more sustainable manner into what I have described elsewhere as participation by endowment, where donations become sources of income for a museum (Naguib ). Thus, the collections of life stories from various migrant communities and diasporas may, as is the case of the Musée de l'Immigration in Paris and the Museo dell'Emigrante in San Marino, serve as resources for the museum's activities.…”

Section: Gifts and The Road To Recognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Collecting Moments of Life. Museums and the Intangible Heritage of Migration

Naguib

2013

Museum International

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Over the past three decades, a number of museums of cultural history in Europe have positioned themselves as arenas for debate and for addressing current social and political issues. One of these issues is migration and finding ways of integrating the narratives of immigrants and emigrants into the wider national history and cultural heritage. Migrants’ life stories are among the main recurrent items collected by these museums. These ‘moments of life’ are recorded, archived, edited and put on display both in the exhibition galleries and in online exhibitions. They express a sense of dislocation, exile and prismatic identity. They share a common focus on small details of daily life and memories surrounding processes of departure, arrival and settling down. They retrace the various trajectories of individuals, convey the special knowledge carried by them and provide the basis on which the intangible cultural heritage of migration and diaspora is being shaped. This article posits that in terms of Aleida and Jan Assmann, these narratives pertain to the communicative memory of different migrant groups and diasporas. Communicative memory pertains to episodic memory, and as such, is autobiographical and based on personal experiences. It has a short time span and links three to four generations together. I argue that by recording, safeguarding and displaying the life stories of migrants, museums are gradually transforming them into the intangible heritage of migration and diasporas. In my view, this will not only impact the sustainability of this heritage but also establish museums of cultural history as active agents of social cohesion and mediators of transcultural knowledge.

show abstract

Museums, Diasporas and the Sustainability of Intangible Cultural Heritage

Cited by 31 publications

References 23 publications

Beyond Binarism: Exploring a Model of Living Cultural Heritage for Dance

Beyond Binarism: Exploring a Model of Living Cultural Heritage for Dance

As histórias alternativas do objeto: o cofre-relicário de São Francisco Xavier e a identidade religiosa dos goeses em Portugal

Collecting Moments of Life. Museums and the Intangible Heritage of Migration

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About