The participation in the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage: The role of communities, groups and individuals.

Under the DCHPII project ― Digital Cultural Heritage: Platforms and Inventories of the Intangible1 ― the Map of e-Inventories of the Intangible Cultural Heritage was published in 2017. In a preliminary analysis, it was concluded that among the 158 inventories registered in this Map, only 22 (14\%) clearly announced the collaborative nature of the inventory, calling for direct participation of "Communities, Groups and Individuals" (expression hereinafter often replaced by the acronym CGIs).2 This call referred to the submission of elements to be inscribed in the inventories and instructions for filling in the online database. With few exceptions, we did not find in these platforms references to participation in other phases of the inventory, namely in the planning, structuring and evaluation of the process. Since the application of participatory methodologies is one of the research lines of the DCHPII project, and considering that CGIs’ participation has a central role in the implementation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (UNESCO, 2003) – i.e., in all measures of safeguards invoked in it, and not only in the inventory - the results of the Map analysis activated in the project the need to elaborate the state of art of the use of these methodologies. For this reason, a comprehensive perspective is presented in this publication, a work that addresses the issues of inventory and digital platforms, but supplants them by analysing the overall safeguarding process.