Intangible heritage as diagnosis, safeguarding as treatment

Reading across the six essays in this special issue on “UNESCO on the ground,” this commentary argues for an understanding of intangible heritage as a diagnosis for a cultural condition that is increasingly common in industrial and postindustrial societies under circumstances of economic, political, technological, and demographic change—for which the shorthand is globalization. Safeguarding emerges, then, as a form of treatment, administered by experts, combining new social institutions (councils, committees, commissions, networks, foundations, etc.) with certain expressive genres (lists, festivals, workshops, competitions, prizes, documentaries, promotional materials, etc.). The former administer the latter in practices that are jointly termed safeguarding. If intangible heritage is a diagnosis and safeguarding is the treatment, however, it is not without side effects. Some of the case studies in this issue give warning that the side effects may sometimes be worse than the condition.