TY - JOUR
KW - Chagos Archipelago
KW - Justice and Strong Institutions (ICH\_1394)
KW - Loss of knowledge (ICH\_1304)
KW - Mauritius
KW - Mauritius (MU)
KW - Migration (THE\_5771)
KW - SDG 16: Peace
KW - Seychelles (SC)
KW - UNESCO urgent safeguarding list
KW - Intangible cultural heritage (ICH)
KW - sega music
AU - Laura Jeffery
AU - Rebecca Rotter
AB - This article explores two related efforts to transmit and inscribe the knowledge and practices of the Chagossian community in the context of forced displacement to Mauritius and Seychelles, and geographical dispersal between Mauritius, Seychelles, and the UK. The first is the Mauritian government’s nomination of Chagossian sega (an Indian Ocean genre of music and dance) to the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding. The second is an AHRC project entailing a series of heritage transmission workshops with the Chagossian communities in Mauritius and the UK and an open access website hosting instructive cultural heritage materials generated at the workshops. Safeguarding sega offers the possibility of political, social, and financial benefits such as increased legitimacy, strengthened collective identification, and funding for cultural activities. It also risks loss of control over community knowledge and products. We show that efforts to transmit and inscribe do not necessarily ‘freeze cultural change’ into a ‘static element’, not least because there are limits to the extent to which people use a list, an inventory, or a recording as a guide to ‘living’ cultural practice.
DO - 10.1080/13527258.2018.1555671
M1 - 10
N1 - Publisher: Routledge
N2 - This article explores two related efforts to transmit and inscribe the knowledge and practices of the Chagossian community in the context of forced displacement to Mauritius and Seychelles, and geographical dispersal between Mauritius, Seychelles, and the UK. The first is the Mauritian government’s nomination of Chagossian sega (an Indian Ocean genre of music and dance) to the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding. The second is an AHRC project entailing a series of heritage transmission workshops with the Chagossian communities in Mauritius and the UK and an open access website hosting instructive cultural heritage materials generated at the workshops. Safeguarding sega offers the possibility of political, social, and financial benefits such as increased legitimacy, strengthened collective identification, and funding for cultural activities. It also risks loss of control over community knowledge and products. We show that efforts to transmit and inscribe do not necessarily ‘freeze cultural change’ into a ‘static element’, not least because there are limits to the extent to which people use a list, an inventory, or a recording as a guide to ‘living’ cultural practice.
SP - 1020
EP - 1033
TI - Safeguarding sega: transmission, inscription, and appropriation of Chagossian intangible cultural heritage
UR - https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85058697024&doi=10.1080%2f13527258.2018.1555671&partnerID=40&md5=88f45b1b4736984e2f126b091bbb6b24
VL - 25
SN - 13527258 (ISSN)
ER -