Cultural heritage is more than pyramids and palaces

Professor Trummer, what exactly is intangible cultural heritage?

Trummer: Intangible cultural heritage is a category that focuses primarily on living cultural traditions and practices, including knowledge, skills, and ways of doing things. UNESCO introduced this category in 2003 to complement its existing approach to tangible World Heritage. The central idea is to empower people to decide for themselves how they want to be represented as a group and which cultural traditions and practices they want to pass on to future generations.

Can you give us some examples of these cultural traditions and practices in Germany?

One example included in Germany’s national inventory is Berlin’s techno culture, which has played a defining role in shaping the city’s cultural identity and image since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Its significance is not just historical but also political.

Another example is the Chinese Carnival in Dietfurt, a town in Bavaria’s Altmühl Valley. This is a tradition that became firmly established in the 1950s and has since evolved into an international celebration that welcomes a delegation from China every year.

A third example is the Queich meadows in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. This is a place where a traditional meadow irrigation system is maintained and operated collectively as a form of common land management. For a number of years now, this form of cooperation has also become a practical lesson in participation and democracy.

You mentioned that, when it comes to intangible cultural heritage, it is not UNESCO that makes the initial selection, but rather the people who practice and maintain these traditions. Is that right?

Exactly. With the concept of intangible cultural heritage, UNESCO has essentially turned the traditional top-down approach on its head. Instead of experts or policymakers deciding what deserves protection, the focus is much more on local people, who are encouraged to determine for themselves what is worth preserving within their culture.

This represents a fundamental shift in perspective: away from outstanding physical monuments and masterpieces to which UNESCO attributes “Outstanding Universal Value,” and toward forms of cultural expression and representation whose significance is defined by the people who practice them.

The category of intangible cultural heritage was introduced in 2003, several decades after UNESCO adopted its World Heritage Convention. What prompted this decision?

The approach to World Heritage that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s was shaped by a Eurocentric understanding of culture. World Heritage sites were heavily concentrated in Europe. There were also sites in China, which had long been recognized in the European educational tradition as one of the great civilizations of human history, along with a number of sites in Central and South America. Africa, by contrast, was largely overlooked.

However, over time this perspective has changed for a variety of reasons. A growing number of voices questioned whether the traditional concept of World Heritage could truly be applied worldwide, and how the universal value of culture should be assessed in the first place. The aim was also to give cultural traditions and practices that did not fit the prevailing, European-dominated understanding of World Heritage a chance to be recognized as worthy of protection. Examples include wooden architecture in Japan and earthen buildings in West Africa, particularly the knowledge and skills associated with constructing and maintaining them.

How were these concerns addressed and translated into practice?

There is a story closely associated with the emergence of intangible cultural heritage as a category. It relates to Jemaa el-Fnaa, the famous square in the center of Marrakesh. The square was threatened by a construction project, even though it had long served as a traditional gathering place where people like to meet, eat, drink, tell stories, and watch street performers and acrobats. Its stalls and buildings are examples of everyday architecture and have little in common with the traditional understanding of World Heritage. Yet the square is hugely important to the city, its community, and its sense of identity.

This led to the development of mechanisms designed specifically to protect places and practices that help shape a community’s identity. It also prompted a shift in thinking at UNESCO: the goal was no longer simply to preserve humanity’s greatest historical achievements, such as the Pyramids of Giza or the Acropolis. It was also to recognize and highlight other cultural traditions and practices that are really important to people.

You described one of these traditions as a practical lesson in democracy. How important is this communal and democratic dimension when selecting which projects should be recognized?

This is an absolutely key question because it goes to the very heart of UNESCO’s mission. UNESCO was founded after the Second World War. One of the key principles enshrined in its Constitution is that wars begin in the minds of human beings, and that preventing them therefore requires us to focus on the human spirit as well. Culture plays a crucial role in this effort. Through education, shared experiences, and common ground, it brings people together, bridges divides, and encourages dialogue, so that culture can become a force for safeguarding peace.

We find this very idea reflected in intangible cultural heritage. In essence, it is also a means of strengthening democracy and promoting peace by bringing people together in all their diversity, including in rural regions that face structural and economic challenges. In these areas, living cultural traditions and practices are extremely important for cultural resilience.

How do people, for example in rural communities, come to realize that a local tradition or a collaborative craft project might qualify for inclusion in the intangible cultural heritage inventory?

Within these communities, there are often people who are familiar with the application process and know that it is possible to receive recognition from the German Commission for UNESCO. In some cases, cultural management professionals, museum experts, or local policymakers will also encourage communities to apply.

What does the application process entail?

In Germany, individuals and groups can apply to have a cultural tradition or practice included in the National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage. As the number of applications is so high, some German states have also established their own inventories. Bavaria, for example, has maintained a state inventory since 2013. One of the institutions responsible for this process in Bavaria is the Advisory and Research Center for Intangible Cultural Heritage at the Institute of Folklore Studies of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

The center also advises applicants on the correct procedure to follow. Every two years, five cultural traditions or practices that have been successfully added to Bavaria’s state inventory are selected as candidates for nomination to the national inventory. The final decision rests with the Expert Committee on Intangible Cultural Heritage, which is meeting at LMU this week.