Samba de roda, supernal heritage of humanity

In 2005, samba de roda, a music-dance form from the Recôncavo region of Bahia, Brazil, was included in UNESCO s Third Proclamation of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity. This award was the result of a twenty month-long journey in which public policy makers, anthropologists, ethnomusicologists and, especially, samba practitioners from the Recôncavo were brought together. This included the writing of a Plan of Action, scheduled to span five years, to safeguard samba de roda. In this paper, after a brief introduction about the process leading to UNESCO s award, I will address several questions raised by the implementation of the Plan, which was built around four main themes: the organization of the sambadores; the transmission; diffusion and documentation of samba de roda.