Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage

"In recent years an increasing number of state-based heritage protection schemes have asserted ownership over traditional medical knowledge (TMK) through various forms of cultural documentation such as archives, databases, texts, and inventories. Drawing on a close reading of cultural disputes over a single system of TMK—the classical South Asian medical tradition of Ayurveda—the paper traces some of the problems, ambiguities, and paradoxes of making heritage legible. The focus is on three recent state practices by the Indian government to protect Ayurvedic knowledge, each revolving around the production of a different cultural object: the translation of a seventeenth-century Dutch botanical text; the creation of an electronic database known as the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL); and the discovery of an Ayurvedic drug as part of a bioprospecting benefit-sharing scheme.

Examined together, they demonstrate that neither TMK, nor Ayurveda, nor even the process of cultural documentation can be treated as monoliths in heritage practice. They also reveal some complexities of heritage protection on the ground and the unintended consequences that policy imperatives and legibility set into motion. As the paper shows, state-based heritage protection schemes inspire surprising counterresponses by indigenous groups that challenge important assumptions about the ownership of TMK, such as locality, community, commensurability, and representation."

Ayurveda, the classical South Asian medical tradition, was first introduced to American audiences in the mid-1980s as a holistic alternative to biomedical orthodoxy. This article argues that transplanted Ayurveda is shaped not only by aspects of American medical culture, but by millennial, heterodox elements of American religious culture, such as the loose cluster of beliefs and practices known as the New Age. Because New Age Ayurvedic practices occupy the ideological and statutory middle ground between medicine and metaphysics, they face a unique professionalizing dilemma: whether to present themselves as
healing religions or as practicing branches of medicine.

Drawing on an ethnographic study of this professionalizing dilemma in legal, clinical and popular arenas, this article shows that New Age Ayurveda--far from being a monolith--reveals a wide-ranging plurality of sub-traditions in practice. Taken together, they suggest multiple modes of reinvention and a variety of professionalizing routes that Ayurveda follows other than licensing and institutional credentialization.

Terroir and Nostalgia: Putting Medical Heritage in its Place
(Or The Remembrance of Things Past in Museum Repatriation)

While much has been written within sociology and anthropology (and gastronomy) on terroir as the intangible ‘heritage of place’, there has been little work on the place of terroir in the larger theoretical discourse of intangible cultural heritage and museums.  Cultural heritage, after all, has been defined more by the continuity of culture over time, rather than space; the historical memory of materiality rather than its spatial diffusion.  And yet, terroir - the mysterious ‘taste of place’ that links cultural identity (and wine) not only with geography but with the ineffable, set-apart quality of the Durkheimian sacred – provides the perfect heuristic to describe recent, contradictory trends in heritage practice and place-making, especially within repatriation law and museum repatriation. The paper will focus on a contradiction at the heart of ‘musealization’ – the unintended consequences of heritage repatriation efforts especially as they deal with pinning or ‘fixing’ intangible heritage in place.
Even as the scope of global heritage interventions has expanded from tangible to intangible culture in the twenty-first century, actual disputes over ownership are marked by an increasing re-localization of heritage from universal museums to source nations and communities of origin. Even as heritage protection efforts worldwide now call for the rationalization of culture through national lists, inventories and registries, museum repatriation manages to re-sacralize heritage, pointing to specific ways in which to accommodate intangibles such as sacred or ceremonial content as grounds for repatriation. 

Using terroir as conceptual guide, and recent repatriation case law as archive, this paper suggests new ways in which heritage practice reconciles geographical origin with religion; place with ritual, turning culture into sacred property in order to be returned to its rightful owners, users or worshippers.  In the expanding realm of cultural rights and adjudication, terroir-ism - the practice of putting heritage back in place – thus offers a powerful alternative narrative of ‘giving back’ to the rhetoric of cultural ‘takings’ by Western museums and cultural institutions, ranging from loot and theft on the one hand to ethnocide and biopiracy on the other.  The paper will rely on case studies of repatriated museum artworks, medical traditions, songs, and ritual objects to make its point.

"Traditionally, archives have been seen as preserving memory and holding the past. This presentation questions this orthodoxy, relying on the ways in which botanical archives may construct, sanctify, and bury colonial pasts (keeping in mind Derrida’s formulation that archival ‘remembering’ can never be separated from ‘forgetting’), just as they ignore indigenous plant collectors and communities whose knowledge constitute these archives. Digitization of botanical texts in the 21st C., even as they aim to preserve cultural and natural heritage, leads to a series of unintended consequences on issues of access, use, and ownership, opening up these archives to new problems of bioprospecting, cultural appropriation and patent claims that dictate not just pasts but archival futures, trajectories and biographies.

My case in point is an extraordinary 17th C. botanical from the Malabar (present day Kerala, India) – the Hortus Indicus Malabaricus (Garden of Malabar), described as the oldest intangible natural heritage archive in Asia. A monumental 12- volume project compiled by the Dutch East India Company governor of Cochin Hendrik van Reede in collaboration with indigenous plant collectors and Ayurvedic physicians, Hortus Malabaricus tells a powerful cultural heritage story: it is at once art object, scientific archive, and ethnographic record of cultural encounters between colonial Dutch center and Indian periphery. It is also a cautionary tale about indigenous medical knowledge in which the protagonists tragically ended up being written out of history itself. Thus while van Reede himself paid homage to his lower-caste Ezhava plant collectors and physician collaborators (naming an entire genus, Achudemia, after one of them), their role has remained invisible and unsung.

The presentation will trace moments in the 400 year old history of Hortus Malabaricus, to show how translation into English (2003) and subsequent digitization creates unprecedented heritage dilemmas about the public display of medico-botanical knowledge. At one level, it reveals the political story about intangible heritage contests in the wake of the 2003 UNESCO Convention, seen in contemporary Ezhava demands to repatriate the original Hortus as a symbol of Kerala’s lost heritage. In turn, historicizing the archive reveals multiple ways in which cultural heritage itself can be politicized – as colonial tool, scientific text, biodiversity map, national or subnational icon, or even as global heritage that belongs to humanity.

http://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2013/12/chas2013/#comments

Intangible cultural heritage archives face a dilemma when it comes to repatriation. Claims and counterclaims from source communities must be balanced within legal frames and ethical obligations of museums to give back, restitute, or redress past perceived injustices, while maintaining the essential preservation functions of a heritage archive. This paper examines this dilemma through the illustrative case study of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, a unique collection that is at once an archival collection of traditional music and recorded sound from all over the world, and a nonprofit record label housed in the U.S. national museum since 1987.With a duty to keep its catalogue available in perpetuity, a mandate to pay its own way, and a mission of cultural documentation, collaborative curation, and broad appeal to global audiences, Smithsonian Folkways practices digital repatriation (of audio recordings) and circulation of indigenous knowledge (through publication, payment of royalties and license fees). The paper describes four cases of returns from Folkways’ evolving repatriation practice, offering useful ways of thinking about museum obligations with intangible heritage returns, and several ways of redistributing individual artists’ rights and their communities’ rights to control use of their music even when legal rights of ownership remain with the institution.

As a public folklorist, N'Diaye projects like the African American Crafts Initiative and Will to Adorn are inseparable from her practice as an interdisciplinary artist and maker. Both are research-based, collaborative in spirit, and draw on notions of identity, craft, and ideas of social justice. She began this quilt as an artist-in-residence at Michigan State University in 2009. It was inspiring to work right in the gallery surrounded by the powerful quilts assembled for the exhibition and publication Quilts and Human Rights, curated by Dr Marsha MacDowell. She was honored that the university chose to acquire the finished work "Baron Samedi Visits His New Orleans Cousins". She thanks Patricia Turner from the University of California, Davis, for including the piece-in-progress in her presentation "From Katrina Shrouds to Obama Quilts: Threads of Worldview" at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the American Folklore Society and Dr Marsha MacDowell for showing interest...

With only the fractional "exceptional" and the "quaint" portrayed, a true picture of Negro life in America cannot be.-Zora Neale Hurston ([1950] 2015:123-4) "Black Men Don't Shuffle Like They Used To" When I was in graduate school and attending my first academic conferences, I had two encounters with a major figure from one of the legacy families in the study of African American folklore. His statement to me upon hearing about my scholarly interest in the study of the expressive culture of communities in Africa and the African diaspora was that he didn't think that Black people were equipped to study their own culture. The second encounter, also at a conference, was one in which he observed with nostalgia that "Black men don't shuffle like they used to. " What I learned from these two encounters is that there are folklorists who want to tell our story for us and take proprietary rights over our stories just as white people once claimed over our bodies. The second lesson was that of nostalgia for a certain image-a folk epistemology-about who I, my father, my mother, and my ancestors were supposed to have been. "Black men don't shuffle like they used to. " Not everyone is so blatant or honest, and I wish I could say that the views of this esteemed folklorist were aberrant in US society. If it were only an anachronism, 61 million people might not have voted in 2016 for Donald Trump, a candidate who ran on a platform that, among other empty promises, held out the dream of an America that would be "great again, " referencing a fantastical historical past when Black men (and women) stayed in their places-either as the docile, pleasant servants, or exotic savages. Trump's was a vision of America in which African American expressive culture was anonymous and where a Black man or

With only the fractional "exceptional" and the "quaint" portrayed, a true picture of Negro life in America cannot be.-Zora Neale Hurston ([1950] 2015:123-4) "Black Men Don't Shuffle Like They Used To" When I was in graduate school and attending my first academic conferences, I had two encounters with a major figure from one of the legacy families in the study of African American folklore. His statement to me upon hearing about my scholarly interest in the study of the expressive culture of communities in Africa and the African diaspora was that he didn't think that Black people were equipped to study their own culture. The second encounter, also at a conference, was one in which he observed with nostalgia that "Black men don't shuffle like they used to. " What I learned from these two encounters is that there are folklorists who want to tell our story for us and take proprietary rights over our stories just as white people once claimed over our bodies. The second lesson was that of nostalgia for a certain image-a folk epistemology-about who I, my father, my mother, and my ancestors were supposed to have been. "Black men don't shuffle like they used to. " Not everyone is so blatant or honest, and I wish I could say that the views of this esteemed folklorist were aberrant in US society. If it were only an anachronism, 61 million people might not have voted in 2016 for Donald Trump, a candidate who ran on a platform that, among other empty promises, held out the dream of an America that would be "great again, " referencing a fantastical historical past when Black men (and women) stayed in their places-either as the docile, pleasant servants, or exotic savages. Trump's was a vision of America in which African American expressive culture was anonymous and where a Black man or

Since Indonesia began transitioning to democracy in 1998, the government has solicited an unprecedented number of cultural heritage nomination proposals to the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for international recognition. The accelerated frequency of solicitations coincided with the development of UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage profile. Under the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity program (predecessor to the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage), The Wayang Puppet Theatre and The Indonesian Kris were both recognized as "universally valuable." In 2009, UNESCO added the inscription of Indonesian Batik to the intangible cultural heritage list.

This paper investigates how global and local priorities became enjoined by UNESCO's inscription of Indonesian Batik. Unlike earlier 'intangible elements' from Indonesia, the batik proclamation sparked heated reactions from politicians and media outlets, which hailed the proclamation as a victory for Indonesian national interests. While much literature exists about the politics of built heritage,1  surprisingly few works have documented the reception of intangible cultural heritage policy. Utilizing Joseph Nye's notion of soft power and Regina Bendix's conception of authenticity, this paper represents an interdisciplinary perspective of heritage politics in the context of regional rivalry and globalization processes. Drawing upon three months of fieldwork in 2010, I investigate how the meaning of international cultural heritage policy is co-­‐produced by diverse actors; including, but not limited to, media outlets, UNESCO, the Indonesian state, and local populations.

Her Muslim name is Ainur Rokhimah, meaning “eyes of blessed love”. Her stage name is Inul Daratista, meaning “the girl with breasts”. Before she ever recorded an album, her music and concerts were in high demand, and an estimated three million pirated VCD’s circulated throughout the region. But what made this young star so popular, and controversial, is her style of musical performance, which includes skin-tight outfits and her signature goyang ngebor (“drill dance”). Goyang ngebor consists of intense gyration of the hips, which many associate with decidedly sexual implications. Although this style of dancing is typical for many from her region in East Java, Indonesian conservatives have condemned her performances...

In 2005, Malaysian authorities targeted black metal music as a source of satanic cult rituals. Officials announced an investigation of “heavy metal cult” members, who they believe “practice animal sacrifices and destroy religious texts including the Koran." This piece summarizes the media coverage surrounding these claims and reports divergent responses by politicians, arts professionals, and academics.

The combined summer school and conference "Heritage Conserved and Contested: Asian and European Perspectives" took place in Leiden, the Netherlands, from 20-25 June 2011. Directed by Professor Michael Herzfeld (Harvard University) and Professor Nira Wickramasinghe (Leiden University), the seminar brought together twenty-four doctoral and master’s students from fifteen countries across Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia. The aim of the program was to shed light on the various definitions, interests, and practices associated with cultural heritage in Asia and Europe...

He’s been called a legend, a visionary genius, and a “wizard of oddsville [who] confronts the challenges of satire and sound.” Henry Jacobs’ pioneering work in sound collage, humor, and ethnomusicological radio broadcasting has influenced eminent artists and paved the way for innovations in sound performance. He has worked closely with artists such as John Cage, Jordan Belson, Ken Nordine, Ali Akbar Khan, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, and philosopher Alan Watts. His radio satire work with Woody Leafer, notably the fake interviews of Sholem Stein and Shorty Petterstein, have inspired comedians such as Lenny Bruce and George Carlin.

Jacobs’ seminal, early work can be found on three Folkways albums. In January of 2013, Meredith Holmgren was able to speak with Jacobs about his work. She found that, at 88 years-old, Henry Jacobs is still full of surprises...