ABU DHABI // A workshop to help cultural anthropologists, academics and researchers better understand the emirate’s “intangible” heritage is being organised by the Tourism and Culture Authority.
Identifying Community-Based Intangible Cultural Heritage is aimed at heritage enthusiasts, including teachers and researchers at the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Community Development, heritage departments and NGOs.
The workshop, starting on Saturday and running until September 4, will be supervised by Dr Nasser Al Humairi, heritage director and Unesco international files co-ordinator at the TCA.
“This is a very important workshop because the process of identifying community-based intangible cultural heritage is a fairly new practice that does not have a fixed form yet,” Dr Al Humairi said.
“It draws on different experiences and tools used in multiple research areas.”
He said those included rural appraisal, approval from local communities for decisions that affect their future, ethnographic studies, folklore and oral history studies.
Those taking part will receive theoretical training for five days in Abu Dhabi, followed by five days of practical training in Al Ain.
That will include training to collect documented information on three pieces of culture that will be added to Unesco’s Intangible Heritage List next year.
They are Harbiyah dancing, community majlis gatherings and Arabian coffee.
The TCA has previously organised workshops in identifying, collecting and documenting heritage.
But this workshop draws on the process of community involvement spelt out in Unesco’s 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
It aims to give participants the knowledge and skills needed to design a heritage identification process that suits the circumstances in which they work.
Unesco is seeking to develop new topics, while keen on updating the curriculum’s materials with the support of its trained experts. By the end of the workshop, trainees are expected to be able to design and identify community-based heritage.
They should be able to prepare identification frameworks or develop applied ones using the different research methods and skills.
Trainees will also be able to operate documentation equipment.
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