Cultural Heritage

Tangible Cultural Heritage’ refers to physical artefacts produced, maintained and transmitted intergenerationally in a
society. It includes artistic creations, built heritage such as buildings and monuments, and other physical or tangible
products of human creativity that are invested with cultural significance in a society. ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage’
indicates ‘the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts
and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of
their Cultural Heritage’ (UNESCO, 2003). Examples of intangible heritage are oral traditions, performing arts, local
knowledge, and traditional skills.
Tangible and intangible heritage require different approaches for preservation and safeguarding, which has been one of
the main motivations driving the conception and ratification of the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the
Intangible Cultural Heritage. The Convention stipulates the interdependence between intangible Cultural Heritage, and
tangible cultural and natural heritage, and acknowledges the role of intangible Cultural Heritage as a source of cultural
diversity and a driver of sustainable development. Recognizing the value of people for the expression and transmission
of intangible Cultural Heritage, UNESCO spearheaded the recognition and promotion of living human treasures, ‘persons
who possess to a very high degree the knowledge and skills required for performing or recreating specific elements of
the intangible Cultural Heritage’.
Thick stewardship and climate change
Recall my example of Qhapaq Ñan. The practice of heritage stewardship is about saving traces of peoples’ lives in
connection to the site, and their narratives as they can be interpreted via material and non- material traces. If we accept
this understanding of stewardship, their heritage is not anymore something that belongs to the past, but it becomes
alive and is able to be active in the present, addressing the idea that heritage is in transit, and has the ability to shape
people’s lives who currently live on the site. The impact of the site on the present is what leads to an answer to the
question ‘for whom do we steward?’
The caretaker approach to heritage is informed by the idea that stewardship is practiced for the sake of future
generations, making it a plausible answer to the question. Given that the Qhapaq Ñan, Andean Road System has an
impact on the present and plays a role in the lives of local people, heritage should be saved for them as well. We cannot
give priority to ‘what we steward’ overlooking ‘for whom we steward’. If we do this, we simply do not allow all possible
stakeholders to play their role as stewards and we seem to ignore the relation between heritage and people, which is
reciprocal.
Current people located in the route of Qhapaq Ñan have been living there for a long time. Heritage, with its impact on
their everyday life has enriched their lives and has contributed to their incessant living around this site. If local people
and their heritage are so interconnected, they should be given more room to participate in the stewardship role, and
should be encouraged to take an active part in the protection of that heritage. Otherwise, they may come to feel
alienated from the landscapes and cultural traditions with which they associate their everyday lives. The account of thick
stewardship I have briefly sketched expands the action-guiding framework of stewardship because it makes room for the
lives of local communities and it stresses the significance of the relationship between communities and their heritage. It
links heritage with human well-being.
Heritage plays a significant role here by consolidating and illuminating our relationships with past, present and future
generations. For a thick account of stewardship, what drives our understanding of the past is the contribution heritage
makes to human well-being. Heritage provides us with a sense-of-life narrative that is central to our understanding of
ourselves, and our lives as a whole. It also contributes to our identity and how we perceive the world which, to a large
extent, shapes our conduct in smaller and larger communities.
Let me return to my example of the Qhapaq Ñan. The account of thick stewardship that I discussed earlier makes room
for non-experts to exercise their responsibilities for this site and accords local people with the platform to voice their
preference about how the site is to be treated in the face of the threat of climate change. They are able to exercise their
right to their heritage by getting actively involved in decision making for the present and the future of the site. And they
exercise their right by applying their knowledge of living with Qhapaq Ñan, and taking into consideration the
contribution the site has made to their lives. Thick stewardship cannot guarantee protection of the right to heritage
from threats related to climate change. However, it does highlight that in order to safeguard our right to heritage we
should pay attention to the relationship and the interaction between local people and their heritage. What sustains
communities at certain places is their heritage, and the associations they have developed with it. What keeps heritage
‘alive’ is their link with people in the present.
Immigrants and refugees of the environmental crisis have not yet been the topic of debate in the media, but like other
any other immigrant or refugee, they will be missing their heritage. To sustain their right to their heritage we should
remember the contribution heritage has made to their lives and well-being, or so I have argued.
 
Andreas Pantazatos is Co-Director of the Centre for the Ethics of Cultural Heritage and teaches and researches normative
and professional ethics at the Philosophy Department of Durham University. His interests are philosophy of cultural
heritage and archaeology, ethics of stewardship and trusteeship, and epistemic injustice and museums, and ethics of
heritage and immigration.

ACTIVITY:

1. Classify the different places, symbols, persons, customs, etc in Batangas into TANGIBLE or INTANGIBLE Heritage.

TANGIBLE HERITAGE INTANGIBLE HERITAGE

2. Compare the roles of a LITERARY ARTIST and an ENVIRONMENTALIST as stewards of CULTURAL HERITAGE.

The LITERARY ARTIST as STEWARD of The ENVIRONMENTALIST as STEWARD of

cultural heritage. cultural heritage.

3. Recall the different elements and features of short story, poetry and drama.