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This research investigates the role of audio-visual media in the representation of intangible cultural heritage and provides a theoretically and empirically grounded concept of the interrelation of media, ICH and representation. It identifies both the potentials and risks involved in media representation, as well as responding to the question regarding how audio-visual representations can foster the safeguarding of ICH, aiming at its sustained transmission and recreation. The study conceptualizes representation as a process in which meaning is produced and negotiated. It refers to discourse in Social/Cultural Anthropology, Heritage Studies and Cultural Studies, particularly making use of the circuit of culture model, Hall’s encoding/decoding model and Assmann’s concept of memory. As ICH is culturally contextualized, the analysis focuses on one specific heritage manifestation: the Kutiyattam Sanskrit theatre. It explores in detail Kutiyattam’s history, identity, performance practice and transformation, including after UNESCO’s proclamation. It analyses the processes and conditions of production, encoding, circulation, reception, utilization and regulation of audio-visual representation and demonstrates the extent to which these dynamic and manifold reciprocal processes influence Kutiyattam practices and practitioners. In the form of a thick description, the study exemplifies that media and modern technologies foster continuity in practice, revitalization, valorization and self-assertion, that they enable education, research, promotion and dissemination of ICH, and contribute to identity construction and the (re)creation of communities. It shows that audio-visual representations - when produced in collaboration with the practicing communities, thereby facilitating culture-specific coding and community use - constitute significant vehicles within safeguarding measures. Differentiating between horizontal and vertical transmission of ICH as well as micro and macro level consumption, the study further identifies numerous challenges involved in the mediatization and digitization of ICH. It addresses issues of access, participation, appropriation and intellectual property and the conflict-ridden processes of homogenization, fragmentation, commercialization and popularization, among others. It argues that rather than being innocent and neutral reflections of cultural practices, audio-visual representations are actively involved in meaning making and knowledge constitution processes and deeply enmeshed in power. It proves that representations shape memory, cultural identity and history and exercise influence on cultural expressions and communities. The study concludes with the provision of general recommendations, giving guidance regarding the utilization of media as well as the production, consumption and regulation of media work, targeting heritage professionals and media professionals alike.
This study examines the history of the transformation of the intangible cultural heritage of China and the efforts to safeguard it, using the case study of Huanxian Daoqing shadow theatre. A regional style of Chinese shadow theatre, Daoqing has undergone dramatic transformation from 1949 to 2013, from being labeled in socialist China as a form of “feudal rubbish” to be eradicated, to being safeguarded as “national treasure”. The changes in Daoqing’s social identity, function, value, interpretation, transmission and safeguarding efforts can be observed in the discourses of both the authorities and the practicing community. These changes may be understood as part of three different stages in the political and economic transformation of socialist China.
The researcher has collected governmental archives and conducted semi-structured interviews with Daoqing inheritors in an interpretative phenomenological analysis approach. This thesis analyses how, following Hobsbawm’s argument, Daoqing as an intangible cultural heritage involves an “invention of tradition” through joint actions of the Chinese government and the Huanxian community.
This research can help provide heritage policy makers, the community and other stakeholders with insights into challenges that may be faced in the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage. The theoretical framework, the methods and the research results from the government archives and interviews will hopefully serve to provide some new ideas as a prototypical approach to help future research on other forms of cultural heritage in China.