the performativity and dynamics of intangible cultural heritage

Recommendations

Info

which is meaningful, as tradition and history, to the community. Practices of intangible cultural heritage evolve because they can never be performed as an exact reproduction. Rather, they are always mimetic, and in these mimetic processes, the creative potentialities are, through repetition, already built-in (Gebauer/Wulf 1995, 1998). 5. Overcoming crises When communities experience differentiation and face situations of crisis, many practices of intangible cultural heritage can contribute to channelling and even overcoming the crisis scenarios. They may promote a communicative mediation and understanding of a novel situation experienced as threatening and as rupturing the framework of the everyday. These practices do not form instrumental blueprints for action and cannot serve as technical means to solving concrete problems. The force achieved in communal cultural action exceeds the possibilities of the individuals and leads to the creation of community and solidarity. 6. The relation to the sacred in practices of intangible cultural heritage In many practices of intangible cultural heritage, situations are rehearsed and practiced which escape comprehensive control in "real life" contexts. For that reason, practices of intangible cultural heritage can serve to relate the self to its "externality", by drawing dividing lines, by bridging distances and by believing that the mimetic and performative forces unleashed in cultural practices act not just inwards but also outwards, upon "reality". In this way, in certain practices of intangible cultural heritage one becomes someone entirely "different", that is to say relates as such, transformed, to the "utterly different", to the sacred. The sacred provides cultural interactions with an organising solidarity, endows them with taboos and draws borderlines which in turn imbue time, space, objects and actions with extraordinary significance. The sacred may be understood as the idea of a specific form of transcendental effectiveness and power relating to objects, actions, writing, people and communities etc., shrouded with sentiments of diffidence and awe and surrounded by a codex of norms, rules and taboos (Eliade 1959). The community depends upon the sacred, in the sense that the cultural relatedness to the sacred fulfils the function of governing integration, delimitation and exchange within the community. By the same token, many practices of intangible cultural heritage are based upon a specific belief in the transcendent, in the sacred dimension of community, hence the significance of sacred holidays and festivities for communities (Durkheim 1968, Kamper/Wulf 1998). 7. Practices of intangible cultural heritage as media for dealing with difference Many practices of intangible cultural heritage, and rituals especially, are action-guiding systems for dealing with difference. By guaranteeing the integration of an interactive context for action, rituals aim at integration and the formation of community. The concept of a community of performance does not refer to a prior, organic or natural entity, to an emotional sense of belonging, to a symbolic system of significance or to collective value-consensus, but rather to cultural patterns of interaction. The question how communities engender, assert and transform themselves brings to the fore cultural forms of mise-en-scène, bodily and linguistic practices, spatial and temporal frameworks as well as various forms of mimetic circulation. Community from this perspective appears less as a THE PERFORMATIVITY AND DYNAMICS OF INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE 8/14
homogenous, integrative and authentic sphere of proximity but rather as an experiential range of tensions, limitations and processes of mediation and bargaining. We term a community of performance a cultural sphere of action and experience characterised by stage-like, mimetic, playful and power-related dimensions (Wulf et alii 2004a, 2004b, 2010, 2011). 8. practices of intangible cultural heritage as initiators of mimetic processes Cultural action does not bring forth a mere copy of actions undertaken previously. Each performance of a cultural practice is based upon a new mise-en-scène which leads to modifications of prior cultural actions. Between past, present and future cultural actions a mimetic relationship exists, within which new actions are produced with reference to previous ones. In mimetic processes, a relationship to an existing cultural world is established, frequently based upon a link of likeness: a likeness of occasions, of protagonists or of the social functions of the cultural actions. The decisive element is not, however, the likeness, but producing a relationship to the other world. When a cultural action is linked to a previous one and performed in likeness to it, a wish exists to do something like the protagonists to whom this relationship refers, to liken oneself to them. This wish is rooted in the desire to become like the others, but at the same time to differentiate oneself from them. In spite of the desire to become alike, a desire for difference and autonomy persists. Many practices of intangible cultural heritage tend, simultaneously and with equal urgency, towards repetition and difference, thus setting free energies which drive the staging and performance of cultural actions, and from this dynamic stems their productivity. Whilst maintaining continuity, they offer scope for discontinuity and open up a field for the negotiation of the relation between continuity and discontinuity. 9. Practices of intangible cultural heritage as progenitors of practical knowledge In order to act with cultural competence, not so much theoretical as practical knowledge is necessary. This is what enables people to act in accordance with the respective requirements in various social spheres, institutions and organisations. In large parts, such practical knowledge is acquired in mimetic processes, through which the actors integrate images, rhythms, schemes and movements of ritual patterns into the world of their imagination. Mimetic processes are the conduits for staging and performing the cultural action required in new contexts. Mimetic acquisition engenders a practical knowledge within the protagonists which can be transferred onto other situations. As a consequence of this knowledge, the mimetically acquired practical knowledge is practiced, developed and adapted through repetition. Practical knowledge, thus incorporated, is historical and cultural in character and as such intrinsically open to change (Wulf 2002a, 2002b, 2013). 10. Practices of intangible cultural heritage as means for producing subjectivity For a long time, traditional cultural practices (such as rituals) and individuality/ subjectivity were held to be contradictory. It is only recently that it has become accepted that this is not the case in modern societies. The actions of individuals are the result of practical knowledge, for the development of which numerous cultural practices are essential. That is not to say that there are no tensions and conflicts between community and individuals, the irreducible difference between the two is too marked. Nevertheless, the two are mutually THE PERFORMATIVITY AND DYNAMICS OF INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE 9/14
Page 1 and 2: Introduction THE PERFORMATIVITY AND
Page 3 and 4: play along" in a cultural community
Page 5 and 6: performances. As such, they are the
Page 7: As cultural templates for action, t
Page 11 and 12: availability are efficient - and ye
Page 13 and 14: Durkheim, E.

the performativity and dynamics of intangible cultural heritage

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?