During the period 2011–2013, the Chinese Folklore Society and the American Folklore Society jointly organized four China-US Intangible Cultural Heritage Forums. These forums were held in China and in the United States as part of the China-US Folklore Society’s Collaborative Project on intangible cultural heritage (ICH). The twenty-eight articles collected in this book are from this initiative and highlight interesting information and research exchanges between the two nations’ scholars on the theme of ICH. This book, published in 2017, is also a celebration of a ten-year collaboration (2007–2017) in folklore studies between the American Folklore Society and the Chinese Folklore Society.
UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003) laid out new perspectives and strategies for identifying, preserving, protecting, revitalizating, and transmitting the world’s intangible cultural heritage, which led to a new wave of engagement among nations in the world in the realms of policy-making and project development. However, each nation has devised different responses to the UNESCO Convention. The book under review here opens a window for readers to learn about responses in China and in the US. It contains rich information, interesting descriptions, and insightful discussions, and is a valuable and useful resource for ICH workers, cultural policymakers, government agencies, and folklorists, for understanding the theory, challenges, and practices related to safeguarding ICH in China and the US.
The introduction, by editors Song Junhua (China) and Bill Ivey (United States), gives an overview of the collaborative project carried out by the AFS and the CFS and by the China-US ICH forum. It also helps readers understand the background of the Convention and how the forum uses the Convention as a framework to describe and compare the situation in two countries—China became the earliest member of the Convention, but the United States has not entered the Convention. The introduction also remarks on the essential features of Chinese and US cultural histories, ethnicities, and folklore studies.
The reports that follow are grouped into three subsections: Theoretical Approaches; Case and Technical Studies; and Ongoing Considerable Issues. The first section, with eight articles, addresses mainly the national policies, laws, methods, and challenges in preserving and safeguarding ICH in the US and China, from a macro point of view. Chinese scholars introduce the top-down operational model in the nationwide ICH Protection Project in China as well as the development of policy and legislation to support this project. They examine the significant phenomena in this project, such as the productive protection model, the role of government in ICH protection, and the relationship between transmitters of heritage and the original ecologic performance environment. From the US side, American folklorists introduce national and local community cultural-preservation programs, including festivals, folk arts, and archival projects and exhibitions, discussing how these programs have networked to promote continuity of tradition and the building of community. Considering the decentralized situation of the US in administrating heritage programs and cultural policies, one American scholar calls for “renewing leadership at the federal level to move toward a more integrated federal policy on cultural heritage” (209).
The book’s second section, with fourteen case studies, reveals the different research interests of Chinese and US scholars and also the different trends in the study and practice with ICH. Chinese scholars draw on case studies related to ancient ritual and belief, traditional dance, and ethnic epic poetry, focusing on their transformation in contemporary practice and performance. One case study deals with the three protection models applied to outstanding storytellers in Hubei province, examining how these ICH masterpiece representatives have been differently transformed as the result of the new protection policies, the change of living environment, and the culture industry. American folklorists, we learn, introduce active programs and strategies for promoting the authenticity of cultural heritage and public education, for documenting heritage and living community events, and for building healthy community and identity, with reports on the Smithsonian Folklife Festival Program, on the Cowboy Poetry Gathering, on hurricane disaster narratives, and on the American quilting tradition, among others. Scholars from both countries share the idea of using digital technology to enhance the preservation, presentation, accessibility, and sustainability of ICH.
The last section, with five articles, focuses on fundamental and critical issues for the safeguarding of ICH, such as the criteria in identifying ICH, protection and development, and the contemporary social functions of ICH. These authors call for continued discussion on identifying ICH and on the best ethnographic practices for safeguarding and using ICH.
Overall, the articles in this collection, though concise, are resourceful and insightful. The contributors come from diverse backgrounds and include leaders of organizations, researchers, professors, museum curators, archivists, and community cultural workers. The topics addressed cover a broad range, from theory to practice, from macro to micro, from ancient to contemporary, from the rural to modern urban, from local to international, from state-level projects to museum, archive, and community programs. They also take into account the level of individual experience. This book brings out differences in the way folklorists in China and the US are dealing with ICH protection. In China, a massive national project for protecting ICH has been supported by centralized national cultural policies, laws, and government funds. The term ICH is popularly used and tagged in cultural activities, commercial products, on media, and in the tourism industry. In this circumstance, Chinese folklorists are keen on studying such matters as state policy, the relationship between protection and development, and the positive and negative effects of the protection policy with regard to the original cultural ecology. In the United States, the state is not bound by the Convention, and we see instead a decentralized approach to ICH program implementation. However, many organizations, communities, and folklorists have been actively involved in various ICH projects, both within and outside of the US, and there has been good progress in such areas as ethnographic documentation, digital archives, social action, and community programs.
One point of regret is that the book does not note the date and place for each report that is presented. Such information would help readers to better perceive the context and the progress in the dialogues presented on the four forums on the theme of safeguarding ICH.
Still, this volume reveals a common playbook for American and Chinese folklorists on such matters as authenticity and development, traditional techniques and modern technology, protection and production, digital preservation, and use of ICH. In a word, this volume has unique value in gathering Chinese and American folklorists’ work on ICH in one place, to promote exchange and understanding beyond nations and boundaries, for folklorists and for other readers in the world.
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[Review length: 1097 words • Review posted on April 22, 2019]