Safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage (ich) and the role of community

This article discusses how the UNESCO Convention on Safeguarding of Intangible Heritage is applying the concept of community participation in its work. One challenge is to balance scope of the elements constructed with the possibility to engage the practitioners and their communities in meaningful and significant ways. This seems difficult with projects that have very large number practitioners. Another connected challenge is how the Convention can navigate in relation to globalisation processes. Some nominations are already part of such processes, which represent threats to the cultural diversity as well as to safeguarding of ICH.