Acquiring the Tools for Safeguarding Intangible Heritage: Lessons from an ICH Field School in Lamphun, Thailand

The 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) represents a significant milestone in the field of cultural heritage management, insofar as it shifts attention to the importance of the intangible dimensions of culture, which has long been overshadowed by international heritage treaties focused on conserving material heritage. Apart from drawing attention to the oral narratives, performing arts, social practices and local knowledge and skills that constitute a vital source of the world's cultural inheritance, the ICH Convention also marks an important turning point with regards to the approach to heritage management, inasmuch as it explicitly calls for the participation of local culture bearers in the safeguarding process, from identification of elements of intangible heritage to the development of programmes and activities to revitalise ICH. For all of its promise, however, when it comes to the practicalities of implementation, the ICH Convention presents a host of formidable questions and challenges, arguably one of the biggest challenges being how to equip the different parties involved at the national and subnational level with the concepts, methods and skills that are necessary for undertaking such an ambitious and complex project. In response to this need, and as part of its commitment to the expansion of anthropological research and knowledge in Thailand and the Greater Mekong Sub-region, in August 2009 the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre (SAC) in Bangkok, Thailand, launched an Intangible Cultural Heritage Field School programme open to recent university graduates, mid-career professionals, educators and others involved in the heritage field in Asia.