Aet Annist member of a group of experts convened by UNESCO

Aet Annist from the UNESCO Chair participates in the work of an expert group convened by UNESCO. The aim is to increase the capacity of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage to protect living heritage in the face of climate change.

An expert meeting on intangible cultural heritage and climate change was held at UNESCO headquarters in Paris on 19-20 June. From Estonia, Aet Annist from the University of Tartu (UNESCO Chair in Applied Studies of Intangible Cultural Heritage) had been selected to contribute.

This is how Aet Annist herself describes this experience: 

UNESCO has brought together this group of experts working on the interface between intangible cultural heritage and climate change to update the guidance note for the Intergovernmental Committee working on the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). 

The group was incredibly diverse geographically, including participants from Brazil to Botswana, from Nepal to Nigeria, from Seychelles to Sweden, etc. The discussions focused on changes that were seen to be needed for making the convention able to account for various ways in which climate change might be interfering with or exaggerated by intangible cultural heritage. 

The aim of the changes is to increase the convention's capacity for safeguarding the living heritage. Many changes were suggested, for example

• a more contemporary approach to heritage which recognises its living, responsive nature and its capacity to evolve, adapt, and include new ideas and people;
• a better recognition of the relations between different groups within and around the heritage area or community;
• recognition of the potential dangers to living heritage that (institutional) responses to catastrophes can have, for instance in the form of (forced) relocations or the disaster capitalism evolving in catastrophic spaces. 

The expert group will reconvene online in September, and presents their final suggestions to the committee before its next meeting in December in Paraguay.

Read more on the webpage of UNESCO.

See also the homepage of the UNESCO Chair on Applied Studies of Intangible Cutural Heritage. And follow us on Facebook.

Image