Protecting intangible cultural heritage

Preserving non-physical culture

Description

Protecting intangible cultural heritage involves identifying, documenting, and safeguarding traditions, practices, expressions, and knowledge that communities recognize as part of their cultural identity. Essential actions include supporting transmission through education, legal recognition, and community participation, as well as mitigating threats from globalization, neglect, or misappropriation. This strategy aims to ensure the continuity and vitality of living heritage, remedying loss of cultural diversity and strengthening social cohesion across generations.

Claim

Women are central to the maintenance and vitality of culture in societies worldwide. Their roles in relation to intangible heritage are of particular significance, and encompasses what may be described as fundamental realms of culture, which are often indispensable in maintaining and transmitting traditional knowledge, cultural identity and familial and cohesive social relations. They include, but are not restricted to language, codes of ethics, behavioural patterns, value systems, and religious beliefs. In most cultures, women play the principle role in raising children through which the intergenerational transmission and renewal of many forms of intangible heritage occurs.