The possibility of the third: Intangible cultural heritages of the city

• Main Author: Gavrilović Ljiljana
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Institute of Ethnography, SASA, Belgrade 2015-01-01
• Series: Glasnik Etnografskog Instituta SANU
• Subjects: the city; intangible cultural heritage; romanticism
• Online Access: http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0350-0861/2015/0350-08611501073G.pdf

The paper considers the basic concepts of perceiving the city, first and foremost its polarization against the country or the village and (much later) polarization between the old "solidary" and contemporary anomic cities. Aside from this, the paper considers the basic premises and practice of the application of the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, which are mostly based on safeguarding/protecting premodern cultural elements and - mostly essentialist - group identities, in order to highlight the possibilities of reworking the conceptual framework for the application of the Convention to - heretofore unknown - urban heritages which originated on completely different premises, as well as the issues and dilemmas which can arise from such attempts. The paper considers the relationship between the Convention and the Modern age, the perception/perceptions of the city, the city as palimpsest, and, ultimately the relationship of the Convention with the city and (potential/possible) intangible urban heritage. Attempts to safeguard specific forms of urban intangible heritage have, heretofore, been faced with a slew of problems, stemming first and foremost from the insistence on "backwardness" as authenticity (Hafstein 2013, 45), but also the insistence on exoticism: that which is safeguarded is completely different from contemporary western civilization, completely in line with the definition of the exotic as aestheticization which makes pain (of contemporary poverty as opposed to colonial conquest of yore) into spectacle, and into culture (of global society as opposed to the former colonial empire) (Arac and Ritvo 1991, 3). Every city ever was and always is a crossroads of cultures - in space (those with exist simultaneously), as well as in time (past and future). Of course, the reading of such complex heritage, which constantly changes meaning even if it retains the same or similar appearance, is a daunting task, while its "safeguarding", whatever that may entail in the bureaucratic sense, is almost unfeasible. Culture, definitely cannot be copyrighted (Brown 1998), so neither can "tradition" - not even its material remnants - it cannot stay unchanged whatever we may try. But this does not mean that we should not attempt and keep discovering new ways in which heritage can be built into our everyday lives - safeguarded in spirit, however much the form may vary.