Research
Our research projects and teaching correspond significantly to the UN Sustainable Development Goals like, e.g., proactive approach to environmental and climate change challenges, responsible consumption and production, or mutually supportive partnerships. Together with students from all corners of the world, we study and discuss how to employ traditional knowledge and skills for the cause.
Besides furthering international cooperation, the UNESCO Chair aims to locally advance and contribute to knowledge in this globally topical field of research when posing questions on cultural politics and management of heritage in Estonia. Based on studies on the social impact of heritage issues, we draw attention, for example, to the consequences of heritage commoditization or heritage reference in political debates. By combining the academic and the applied approach, we participate in social transformations that depend on research-based guidelines.
Current research agendas:
- intangible cultural heritage and sustainable development
- intangible cultural heritage and social equality: migration, gender, inclusion
- intangible cultural heritage and the challenges of climate change
- intangible cultural heritage and economic relations or activities; the potential and challenges of tourism
- urban space and culture in the context of intangible cultural heritage
We participate in the University of Tartu Committee for the Guidelines on Sustainable Development. We contribute to the creation of an international online bibliography for research references related to the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage and its implementation. We are compiling an online publication in Estonian to assist those working in the heritage field. This publication draws upon research carried out in the framework of the project “Cultural heritage as a socio-cultural resource and contested field“. The controversial aspects studied focus on the heritage policies on national level that have glossed over the issues of contrasting rural and urban cultures, of ownership, of inclusion or exclusion of social groups.
Ongoing projects
Title: Crises Established Singing: Investigations into the Inherent Potential of Collective Singing in Times of Social Crises in the Scandinavian and Baltic Regions
Funder: jointly funded by the CHANSE program and the HERA network - as part of the Crisis call.
Project webpage | Estonian Research Information System
Summary
The project focuses on the potential of collective singing in times of social crises.
Our role
The UNESCO Chair is in charge of the work package titled "A Cultural Theoretical Exploration of Collective Singing and Societal Bonds".
News articles related to the project
26.01.2025 New international research project of the UNESCO Chair is about collective singing
Title: Collaboration and exchange of UNESCO Chairs on Living Heritage and UN Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Instruction to UNESCO Living Heritage Entity organisation
Funder: PARROT French-Estonian science and technology cooperation programme
Summary
In the framework of this project the UNESCO Chair from the University of Tartu explores paths of cooperation with the UNESCO Chair on Intangible Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development (CY Cergy Paris Université, France).
The cooperation focuses on two topical and tightly interrelated subjects in the framework of intangible cultural heritage – sustainable development and inequalities.
News articles related to the project
08.10.2025 The UNESCO Chair partners up with its French counterpart
09.05.2025 Workshop about living heritage and sustainable development
Title: Cultural Heritage in Rural Remote Areas for Creative Tourism and SustainabilIty
Funder: European Commission, Horizon Europe program
Project webpage | Estonian Research Information System
Summary
The main objective is to promote cultural tourism in a creative way, taking into account local capacities, resources and specificities. It aims to boost the sustainable development of isolated rural areas, in particular through job creation and the reduction of emigration.
Our role
The University of Tartu is in charge of the work package titled "Field work and data collection for roadmap development".
For this project the UNESCO Chair works together colleagues from the University of Tartu Viljandi Culture Academy.
News articles related to the project
17.09.2025 UNESCO Chair at the Viljandi Repair Festival
18.04.2025 Fieldwork is well underway in the CULTURALITY project
19.04.2024 New Horizon Europe project of the UNESCO Chair was kicked off with an exhibition
18.11.2023 UNESCO õppetooli uus konsortsiumileping on jõustunud
Title: Revitalising Languages and Safeguarding Cultural Diversity
Funder: European Commission, Horizon Europe program
Project webpage | Estonian Research Information System
Summary
The main aim is to to empower endangered language communities. The focus is on five language communities from different parts of Europe, including the Seto language from Estonia.
Our role
The task of the University of Tartu working group is to analyze language policies and their impact on endangered languages in Europe, both historically and in the present day. We also look at the ways how stakeholders from minoritised language communities can influence language policy.
For this project the UNESCO Chair works together with the Department of Applied Linguistics.
News articles related to the project
22.11.2025 The RISE UP project is coming to an end
01.10.2025 UNESCO Chair to open an exhibition in Setomaa
10.06.2025 UNESCO Chair invites to a policy round table around minority languages
21.05.2025 Webinar: AI and minoritised languages on May 22
19.03.2025 Research project of the UNESCO Chair took Seto language and art to Cornwall
11.10.2024 The RISE UP consortium met in Setomaa
18.11.2023 The consortium of the language revitalization project RISE UP met in Spain
The partnership of the University of Tartu with the New European Bauhaus is organized through the UNESCO Chair on Applied Studies of Intangible Cultural Heritage. While actively participating in NEB activities itself, the Chair will coordinate and engage other interested UT research groups and "inject" NEB spirit and agenda into planned activities in the span of the project.
Past projects
Photo by Robert Sjöblom
Living heritage holds many possibilities for sustainable and ethical practices that support the livelihoods and well-being of communities. Led by the Finnish Heritage Agency, the project "LIVIND – Creative and living cultural heritage as a resource for the Northern Dimension region" (2021-2024) concentrates on recognizing the practical ways in which living heritage can support sustainable development and how it could be developed and used in sustainable ways. The project is mainly funded by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland.
The project envisages multidisciplinary webinars, facilitated workshops, expert lectures, and training in the Northern Dimension Cultural Partnership area on international, national, and local levels. The target groups for these events are relevant NGOs, governmental and other institutions, such as museums and archives, bearer communities, groups and individuals, and private sector partners active in the field of living heritage. Good practices will be collected, shared, and developed through the project events. Small-scale pilot projects will be implemented. The project includes research activities led by the UNESCO Chair. A concrete result will be an online platform, a multidisciplinary resource bank of methods, and good practices.
The project PHVKU21920 "Research and development at the UNESCO Chair on Applied Heritage Studies" supports the development of the international and domestic network, launching of social media communication channels, participation in joint research projects and convention of relevant seminars.
The interdisciplinary project IUT34-32 "Cultural heritage as a socio-cultural resource and contested field" was an ethnological study of the process where cultural expressions and practices are designated (intangible) cultural heritage and converted into a socio-cultural resource. We proposed a reflexive critical analysis of heritage construction and community revitalisation when examining cultural heritage interpretations or applications from four perspectives: heritage conceptualisation and policy-making on international, national or local community level; remembrance of difficult pasts and commemorative practices on collective and individual level; cultural heritage as resource in rural entrepreneurship; aspects of exclusion and contestation of the prescriptive heritage framework.
Recent publications (choice):
Kuutma, Kristin; Seljamaa, Elo-Hanna (2025). Intangible Heritage and the Complexities of Inequality in the Politics of Belonging. In: Wulf, Christoph (Ed.). Handbook on Intangible Cultural Practices as Global Strategies for the Future: Twenty Years of the UNESCO Convention on Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage. (179−191). Cham: Springer. (Heritage Studies).
Kuutma, Kristin (2023). Ownership and rights: Sustainable Development ideals with inequalities of recognition and resource management. In: Chiara Bortolotto, Ahmed Skounti (Ed.). Intangible Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development. Inside a UNESCO Convention London: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781003244158-7.
Kuutma, Kristin; Annist, Aet (2020). Home and heritage out of place: the disjunction of exile. International Journal of Heritage Studies.
Annist, Aet 2020. Introduction: Performance, Power, Exclusion, and Expansion in Anthropological Accounts of Protests. - Conflict and Society, Vol 6 (1), 183-200.
Kuutma, Kristin 2019. Conclusion: The Politics of Scale for Intangible Cultural Heritage - Identification, Ownership, and Representation. - Tuuli Lähdesmäki, Suzie Thomas and Yujie Zhu (Ed). Politics of Scale: New Directions in Critical Heritage Studies. New York-Oxford: Berghahn, 156-170.
Kuutma, Kristin 2019. Inside the UNESCO Apparatus: from Intangible Representations to Tangible Effects. - Natsuko Akagawa, Laurajane Smith (Eds). Intangible Heritage: the practices and politics of safeguarding. Routledge, Taylor&Francis Group, 68-83.
Kuutma, Kristin; Annist, Aet 2020. Home and Heritage out of Place: The Disjunction of Exile. - International Journal of Heritage Studies, Vol 26, 10, 942-954.
Kuutma, Kristin; Vaivade, Anita 2021. Political Imperatives in the Heritage Regime and the Emergent Collaborative Scenarios on the Ground: Case Studies from the Baltics. - Slovenský národopis/Slovak Ethnology, Vol 69, No 4, 519-533.
Plüschke-Altof, Bianka; Annist, Aet 2021. Populism of the Dispossessed: Rethinking the Link between Rural Authenticity and Populism in the Context of Neoliberal Regional Governance. - Pavel Pospech; Eirik Magnus Fuglestad; Elizabete Figueiredo (Eds). Politics and Policies of Rural Authenticity, Routledge, 42-59.
Seljamaa, Elo-Hanna 2021. Diversities claimed, displayed and silenced: Encounters at the new Estonian National Museum. - Ethnologia Europaea, 51 (1), 72−98.
