Panas Karampampas

Η πολιτισμική κληρονομιά βρίσκεται στον πυρήνα πολλών ζητημάτων που απασχολούν τη δημόσια συζήτηση, τόσο σε εθνικό όσο και σε διεθνικό επίπεδο, ενώ η διαπολιτισμική της διάσταση είναι εξίσου ορατή. Η UNESCO ξεχωρίζει ως ο κύριος παγκόσμιος θεσμός σε αυτόν τον τομέα και το 2023 συμπληρώνονται είκοσι χρόνια από την υιοθέτηση της Σύμβασης για τη Διαφύλαξη της Άυλης Πολιτιστικής Κληρονομιάς (UNESCO 2003), η οποία έχει ήδη αφήσει βαθύ αποτύπωμα στις παγκόσμιες (και τοπικές) πολιτιστικές πολιτικές. Καθώς η Σύμβαση, όπως και η ίδια η έννοια της άυλης πολιτιστικής κληρονομιάς, ενσωματώνεται σε διαφορετικά εθνικά θεσμικά πλαίσια, προκύπτουν ποικίλες αμφισβητήσεις και εντάσεις σχετικά με την ερμηνεία και την εφαρμογή της σε τοπικό επίπεδο.

Αυτός ο συλλογικός τόμος αναδεικνύει τον δημιουργικό διάλογο που προκύπτει από τη συνάντηση των γενικών αρχών της Σύμβασης με τις δημόσιες πολιτικές για την άυλη πολιτιστική κληρονομιά, όπως αυτές σχεδιάζονται και εφαρμόζονται από θεσμούς, πρόσωπα και συλλογικότητες, ειδικά για την αντιμετώπιση διαφόρων ειδών «κρίσεων». Ταυτόχρονα, οι εθνογραφικές μελέτες που παρουσιάζονται στον τόμο, οι οποίες πραγματοποιήθηκαν σε χώρες, όπως η Βραζιλία, η Ελλάδα, η Ιταλία, η Κίνα και η Τουρκία, διερευνούν πώς οι πολιτικές διαφύλαξης της άυλης πολιτιστικής κληρονομιάς ενδυνάμωσαν την σύνδεση της άυλης πολιτιστικής κληρονομιάς με την αγορά και τον τουρισμό, στην προσπάθειά τους να ενισχύσουν ποικίλες μορφές ανθεκτικότητας (resilience).

In this introductory discussion, we argue that uncertainty can be seen as a common feature of Mediterranean countries beyond their varying histories and social realities. Such sense of uncertainty regarding the present and the future-strongly linked to economic instability and political turbulences-is analysed in this special issue through examples from the South and the North of the Mediterranean. A particular focus is laid on innovative forms of resilience, understood as actors' capacities to adapt or deal successfully with change, or with challenging circumstances. However, we also discuss the limitations and potential misuses of the concept when applied uncritically. Equally important in the case studies presented here, in Greece as in Portugal, in Morocco and Tunisia as in the Italian case is the investigation of social actors' perception of the future. Times of crisis and the capacity to aspire, anticipation and the individual or collective imagination: these are topics also investigated by the articles of this special issue, which are not only contributions to Mediterranean anthropology but also to the anthropology of the future. Altogether, the articles scrutinise how powerful imaginations of potential futures and orientations to the yet-to-come are in structuring individual and collective experience in times of political and economic uncertainty.

This paper investigates the bureaucratisation of the (utopian) ideal of community participation in Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) safeguarding and management. The analysis considers the whole 'policy life' of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of ICH. Our ethnographic examples from UNESCO, Brazil, China and Greece illustrate how bureaucratic operations often disenchant the participatory ideal, alienating it from its original intention. At the same time, driven by their commitment to 'good' governance and informed by sentiments of frustration and disappointment with actual policy results, vocational bureaucrats at different administrative levels experiment with and conceive of new tools in order to produce evidence of participation. We demonstrate how this bureaucratic creativity has concrete consequences, which may differ from the intended utopia, but nevertheless bring to life particular interpretations of the participatory principle among the recipients for whom heritage policies were originally designed. Thus, we present a more nuanced picture of bureaucratisation in which officials' emotions and engagement sustain their agency against structural constraints as well as the futility and fragility of administrative procedures.

"Consistent with the view that dance is directly related to the formation and negotiation of identity, in this study our interest is focused on the dialectical relationship between dance and “refugee” identity at Simantra in Chalkidiki. In this village, refugees were settled from Artaki (Asia Minor) in the year '22, while later Karamanlides from Simantra (Cappadocia). This paper focuses on the study of the practical revival of “refugee” identity of today's inhabitants of Simantra. In this context we argue that through “on stage” dance performances, the people from Simantra aimed at creating a “transcendental character” of collective refugee identity interweaving elements from Artakis' and Karamanlides' traditions which for years had been left in margin. The collection of this data derived from the ethnographic fieldwork conducted at Simantra Xalkidikis in two phases (winter 2009 and Spring 2010). In this context we combine data from interviews with villagers, videos and photos of dance events, as well as written sources. Consistent with the view that visual documents can be viewed as ethnographic material, we include the visual material in our study. This approach enables a deeper understanding of the ways in which people constitute images of how they perceive the world around them. In this case the way they compose the stage representations of the village's dance events, highlights their views for the “refugee” identity. The data analysis shows that people from Simantra, at the recent years, almost since the mid 90's form a “transcendental character” collective refugee identity by selecting a homogeneous repertoire for the official staged dance performers. However, the gaps with a broader repertoire extending from local to national level, causing tension between the involved members of the cultural association for what is “pure and genuine refugee” in their staged dance performances."