Living Heritage and Sustainable Development (edX)

How is intangible cultural heritage – or ‘living heritage’ – related to sustainable development? How is it relevant for addressing today’s development challenges in areas such as health, education, gender, natural disasters and conflict? Why is it important to keep this heritage alive? Communities around the world are transmitting their living heritage, which gives meaning to their lives, strengthens resilience, and contributes to their well-being. In this way intangible cultural heritage and sustainable development are closely linked. The international community made a commitment to safeguarding living heritage when it adopted the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2003 and it set itself ambitious goals by adopting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This course helps to understand the connections between the two.
This MOOC was developed by UNESCO in collaboration with the International Information and Networking Centre in Asia and the Pacific under the auspices of UNESCO (ICHCAP) and the SDG Academy. It brings together a diverse group of lead experts in the field of intangible cultural heritage and development who collaborated closely with the UNESCO Chair for Research on Intangible Cultural Heritage and Cultural Diversity of the National Autonomous University of Mexico as lead faculty to develop the content of this course. The course draws on their longstanding expertise, the experiences of communities engaged in transmitting their living heritage and ten years of implementing UNESCO’s global capacity building programme for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage.

What you'll learn

• Knowledge about living heritage and the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage;
• The role of communities in keeping their heritage alive;
• The relationship between intangible cultural heritage safeguarding and relevant development areas such as gender equality, cultural diversity and creativity, education, health, income generation and natural disasters and peacebuilding;
• The interdependence between the safeguarding of living heritage and sustainable development;
• Communities’ experiences of safeguarding their living heritage for sustainable development in diverse cultural contexts.

Syllabus

Module 1: What is intangible cultural heritage?
Chapter 1: Intangible cultural heritage as living heritage
Chapter 2: Key concepts of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage
Chapter 3: The Convention’s Lists and Register
Chapter 4: Comparing the Convention for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage with other related UNESCO conventions

Module 2: Communities and their intangible cultural heritage
Chapter 1: Who are the communities
Chapter 2: Intangible cultural heritage as the living heritage of communities
Chapter 3: Community participation: communities at the centre
Chapter 4: Community-based approaches

Module 3: Safeguarding intangible cultural heritage
Chapter 1: The concepts of transmission and safeguarding
Chapter 2: Safeguarding measures
Chapter 3: Inventories and safeguarding plans
Chapter 4: Ethics in safeguarding intangible cultural heritage
Module 4: Intangible cultural heritage and gender
Chapter 1: Intangible cultural heritage shapes gender identities
Chapter 2: Gender roles and relations evolve
Chapter 3: A gender-responsive approaches to safeguarding intangible cultural heritage

Module 5: Intangible cultural heritage for sustainable livelihoods and inclusive social development
Chapter 1: Intangible cultural heritage and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
Chapter 2: Intangible cultural heritage and education
Chapter 3: Intangible cultural heritage and health
Chapter 4: Intangible cultural heritage and income generation
Chapter 5: Intangible cultural heritage, food security and agriculture

Module 6: Intangible cultural heritage for resilience, environmental sustainability and peacebuilding
Chapter 1: Intangible cultural heritage, natural disasters and climate change
Chapter 2: Intangible cultural heritage in conflict-related emergency situations
Chapter 3: Intangible cultural heritage and preventing and solving disputes
Conclusion: Intangible cultural heritage for building a sustainable future for humanity