21 September 2019
First National Intangible Cultural Heritage Forum, At Bahrain National Museum
Bahrain Authority for Culture & Antiquities (BACA) will host the first Intangible Cultural Heritage Forum at Bahrain National Museum, for two days 22 & 23 September 2019.
The two-day event is part of BACA’s strategies and plans to enrich the scientific research movement and interact with the large audience in the Kingdom of Bahrain with regard to cultural heritage in general. The forum also aims to study ways of implementing the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, adopted by Bahrain, and update national inventory of cultural heritage. Indeed, the Convention is a permissive document and the majority of its articles are worded in a non-prescriptive language, allowing governments to implement it flexibly. However, drawing up inventories is one of the specific obligations outlined in the Convention and in the Operational Directives for its implementation. The efforts deployed by Bahrain Culture Authority to abide by the requirements and obligations of the UNESCO convention reflect its keenness to value the components of Bahrain’s intangible cultural heritage.
During these two days, speakers will shed lights on the role of inventory list and explain how Inventories are integral to the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage because they can raise awareness about intangible cultural heritage and its importance for individual and collective identities. The process of inventorying intangible cultural heritage and making those inventories accessible to the public can also encourage creativity and self-respect in the communities and individuals where expressions and practices of intangible cultural heritage originate. Inventories can also provide a basis for formulating concrete plans to safeguard the intangible cultural heritage concerned.
The forum will also highlight the elements of Bahraini intangible cultural heritage, that can be nominated for the Representative List and their identification, which is a process of describing one or more specific elements of intangible cultural heritage in their own context and distinguishing them from others by experts. This process of identifying and defining should lead to ‘inventorying’, which should be done ‘with a view to safeguarding’ – that is, inventorying is not an abstract exercise but an instrumental one. Therefore, if a certain number of elements of intangible cultural heritage have already been identified, States may decide to start implementing safeguarding projects for those elements. The forum events will include also field visits and live shows.
Worth to mention that the 2003 UNESCO “Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage”, a tool for sustainable development and firmly grounded in a human-rights based approach, was aimed at promoting cultural diversity and protecting traditional practices, belief systems, knowledge & skills of communities, amidst the formation of homogenous global societies. This convention became an equivalent counterpart of the World Heritage Convention, which identifies global representative lists, lists which highlight the need for urgent safeguarding, creates international cooperation, and provides assistance mechanisms to State Parties that need such support. each State Party is required to take the necessary measures to ensure the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage present in its territory and to include communities, groups and relevant NGOs in the identification and definition of elements of that intangible cultural heritage.
