Deacon, Harriet and Rieks Smeets. 2013.The use of expertise in the examination of nomination files under the Intangible Heritage Convention. Report of the researchers meeting on Evaluating the Inscription Criteria for the two Lists of UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention, IRCI (International Research Centre for ICH in the Asia-Pacific Region). 10-11 January 2013: Tokyo, Japan.

Cultural policy can contribute to social and economic development by growing our cultural capital, promoting local identity and promoting global cultural diversity. Tangible and intangible heritage forms a crucial part of this cultural capital and needs to be safeguarded. At the International Network on Cultural Policy (INCP-RIPC) meeting in Cape Town in October 2002, member states decided to adopt and to implement national policies to protect and promote cultural heritage. South Africa and Senegal agreed to write a research report analysing the legal and financial instruments currently employed by countries and regions to safeguard their intangible heritage.

Beazley, Olwen and Harriet J. Deacon. The Safeguarding of Intangible Heritage values under the World Heritage Convention: Auschwitz, Hiroshima and Robben Island. In J.E. Blake (ed.) Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage – Challenges and Approaches. Builth Wells: Institute of Art and Law. pp.93-107.

The world is scattered with jewels from our collective pasts. From the glittering Mogul mausoleum of the Taj Mahal in the heart of northern India, to the Neolithic stone huts on the remote, windswept island of Orkney in the Outer Hebrides. Material remnants remind us of extinct civilizations, forgotten people and lost worlds. What then of the things for which there are no material remains? What of the memories, ideas, beliefs and events that shaped the lives of these civilizations and of our own? What of this intangible heritage? We can record, preserve and protect for posterity the material leavings; can we do the same for the shadows that form the intangible associations with these places?

Truscott, M. 2011. Peopling Places, Storying Spaces: Heritage Sustaining Human Development? Heritage & Society 4(1): pp. 125-134.

The celebration of the milestone of the fortieth year since the adoption by UNESCO of the World Heritage Convention provided a global stimulus for reflection that included activities in Australia. Four decades of experience of implementing the idealistic and international notions that underpin the Convention had demonstrated the distinctiveness of the potential contributions from Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. With that in mind, the starting premise of this volume of Historic Environment has been to provide a snapshot of the experiences of World Heritage in Australia – essentially the view from ‘here’, and a specifically oriented view based on the experiences and priorities of cultural heritage practice.

Emphasizing intangible and tangible expressions of heritage in a publication on World Heritage and Cultural Diversity presents the opportunity to discuss a variety of current and potential future challenges. These can be either epistemological concepts that promise potential for scientific investigation and reconstruction, professional challenges in the application of models and guidelines, or educational needs for the heritage community, and its academic development in the early twenty-first century. The difficult and often contested role of intangible heritage expressions in the context of World Heritage Sites is one of the aspects triggering ongoing discussion. Equally, the section heading invites an exploration of the interrelation of the two relevant UNESCO instruments, the 1972 Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention)(UNESCO, 1972) and the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (Intangible Heritage Convention)(UNESCO, 2003). Such explorations could be aimed at evaluating their early attempts at cooperation and their potentials for mutual enforcement. However, these aspects seem to have been discussed previously at a number of international university seminars, such as the University of Montreal round table–“Tangible and intangible heritage: two UNESCO Conventions”(Cameron and Boucher, 2007), or the Cambridge Heritage Seminar–“Tangible-intangible cultural heritage: a sustainable dichotomy?”(Baillie and Chippindale, 2007). Yet another focus could be on cultural diversity and the processes which link the representation of intangible and tangible heritage expressions to the promotion of cultural diversity under the auspices of UNESCO. It is this aspect which this …

Deacon, Harriet. 2012. Inventory-making according to the Convention for the Safeguarding of the ICH (in Chinese). Cultural Heritage (Institute of Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage, Sun Yat-sen University) 3: pp. 11-14.

Le patrimoine culturel immatériel représente aujourd’hui un enjeu majeur dans les manières de penser et de pratiquer le patrimoine en Amérique du Nord francophone et ailleurs dans le monde. Il tend à renouveler le mouvement du patrimoine ethnologique et à s’imposer comme référence incontournable aux praticiens et penseurs de tous les patrimoines. Il trouble les classifications établies et les cadres de pensée de la culture administrée. Il provoque des réaménagements dans les structures gouvernementales de gestion et de direction, et dans les programmes de formation universitaire qui doivent désormais en tenir compte. Il bouscule les règles canoniques de la conservation et participe largement à la définition des nouvelles politiques patrimoniales. Il renouvelle les débats sur le droit d’auteur, les droits humains, les pratiques muséologiques et le patrimoine matériel. Il invite à une réflexion de fond sur le sens du patrimoine lui-même.