Outward-facing intangible cultural heritage
―Transmission of attractiveness and external power
1. Restoration of intangible cultural heritage after the Great East Japan Earthquake
Here, we shall discuss the theme “Outward-facing intangible cultural heritage—Transmission of attractiveness and external power.” This theme was selected with heed to the Great East Japan Earthquake and the restoration of intangible cultural heritage in its wake. The term “external power” in the subtitle refers to the situation we have observed within our post-disaster activities where intervention by external power has helped to restore various performing arts, festivals, and traditional techniques. Moreover, this external power not only included the limited scope of communities that support intangible cultural heritage successors, the government, researchers, and other experts as it would have in the past, but it also included the involvement of the wider public, such as devotees and fans, tourists and mass media. Their combined power has actively pushed forward the restoration of intangible cultural heritage after the earthquake disaster.
Let me give a few examples. Among various forms of support, such as financial assistance and physical aid, there has also been a large degree of human support. Volunteers who took part in the restoration of festivals continued to be involved in them even after their restoration, by going to the festivals year after year to carry the mikoshi palanquins and pull the festival floats. Eventually, the continuation of the festivals per se have come to depend on these former volunteers, in many cases. There have also been cases where widespread efforts have been made to use performing arts and traditional techniques as tourism resources to attract people from Tokyo, and where people who have relocated or returned to the regions on occasion of the earthquake disaster have become new bearers of the local culture.
In these ways, regions that have suffered devastating damage in the disaster have gotten back on their feet by skillfully incorporating external power, and have come to inherit the local culture. By witnessing such processes, I gained the impression that the incorporation of external power could become a new approach to cultural inheritance.
At the same time, however, “transmission of attractiveness,” as given in the subtitle, surfaced as an issue after the earthquake disaster. Organizations and regions that were able to aptly transmit their attractiveness achieved restoration relatively quickly, but places that lacked sufficient capacity to transmit information attracted little attention. This situation reaffirmed the importance of giving due thought to what kinds of schemes and frameworks are needed such as for the transmission of information, when considering incorporating or utilizing external power.
Another large issue was how to interpret change. Up to now, only government officers and researchers who understood the cultural history and situation of each property to a certain extent were involved in cultural inheritance. However, if the doors to public involvement are to be opened more widely, there emerges the need to address persisting concerns that the essence or tradition of inheritance would perhaps change or become lost. Thus, I think an issue lies in how to address and interpret the possibility of change.
2. Present situation regarding intangible cultural heritage
I have just spoken about the present situation in disaster-affected regions, but this is a theme that should be expanded to the nationwide level. That is, the problem I have described is not limited to disaster-affected regions. Needless to say, intangible cultural heritage is in an extremely severe situation. It is becoming ever more difficult to maintain a culture by the efforts of a single region alone, due to changes in people’s lifestyles and the declining population, among other factors. Even the declining population is draining out to more urban areas and aggravating the depopulation and aging of regional societies. Under this situation, many regions are giving a scream that even if they wish to hand down their culture, there is practically no one in the region to do so.
Even amid this bleak situation, however, there is also some bright news. In recent years, there have been active moves to newly reconsider intangible cultural heritage as regional resources. I have the impression that there is a growing common awareness regarding intangible cultural heritage as something that could form the core identity of local residents. There also appears to be increasing moves to promote regional rediscovery via intangible cultural heritage and to link that rediscovery to regional development or to tourism.
It could perhaps be said that such moves have emerged in conjunction with the recent rise of many systems that use the term “heritage.” These heritage-related systems have come to be widely known by the public, owing to the inscription of Washoku on UNESCO’s representative list of intangible cultural heritage last year.
This concept of heritage differs slightly from the conventional concept of cultural heritage protection. For example, the Agency for Cultural Affairs has commenced the designation of properties under the Japan Heritage system this year. The system aims to promote the utilization of cultural heritage for tourism purposes, at least superficially. The concept of cultural properties up to now has been strongly influenced by the concept of the protection of tangible cultural properties, and took the stance of “preserving” the old and “protecting” properties. It more or less looked backward to the past. The concept of heritage, on the other hand, tends to be more future-oriented. It embodies the aim of even more actively utilizing cultural heritage or to link it to regional revitalization. In conjunction with this change in administrative framework for cultural properties, there is a heightening interest in traditional culture, Japanese culture, and traditional Japanese culture in society at large.
Another backdrop to today’s theme that I wish to note is the reality in which means of communication and information sharing have largely diversified mainly via the Internet. Thus, when talking about opening intangible cultural heritage to external power, it is important to consider how and whom to reach out to and transmit information in reference to diverse means and targets.
In other words, in today’s society, it is easy to transmit information, and the transmitted information is readily accepted. However, on the other hand, I feel this is giving rise to a situation where people and organizations that can aptly transmit information could continue to survive, but those that cannot, might possibly vanish.
3. The meaning of “opening” intangible cultural heritage to the outside, and regional power
In the light of the above, I believe it is now necessary to discuss ways to get external power more actively involved in the transmission of cultural heritage. Here I use the word “open.” It is an extremely abstract word, but I use it in a wide sense, such as to “open” intangible cultural heritage to the outside, so to speak, and to change, or to link, the power of “outsiders” to the power of transmission. Outsiders refer to various levels of people and include people who have relocated or returned to the regions and people who have left their regional hometowns but return only to participate in festivals. By deeply involving themselves in their home regions, these people play an important role in the transmission of cultural traditions in many cases. Additionally, there are people who become involved in cultural heritage as devotees and fans who visit the regions only when festivals or performing arts are held, or who buy products in the case of traditional techniques. Furthermore, there are even more highly transient people such as tourists, and various media such as mass media. “Open” represents the image of flexibly opening up to such external power.
Therefore, “open” as I use it here refers to the regions or intangible cultural heritage successors. This conference has a hidden theme every year, and this year’s theme is regional power. Case studies from four regions have been introduced in this conference, but interestingly, all four regions firstly took the initiative to seriously address their cultural heritage on their own before taking advantage of external power.
Let us take, for example, the Mibu no Hana Taue rice planting ritual in Hiroshima, which is a performing art that has been nationally designated as an intangible folk cultural property and inscribed on UNESCO’s representative list of intangible cultural heritage, and the Shinaori weaving technique in Yamagata, which uses bark fiber from the Japanese lime tree and has been designated a national traditional craft and a municipal intangible folk cultural property. They have both received endorsement in the form of designation, but have also struggled with how to preserve their culture through region-wide efforts and made various choices in that process. In Hachinohe city, Aomori prefecture, the cultural facility called Hacchi aims to be a facility “by the citizens, for the citizens.” Taketomi Island in Okinawa prefecture is a well-known tourist island where the entire island is designated a Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings, but it has chosen not to cater to tourists during festival times and to intentionally close their festival to the outside in order to continue their tradition.
In these ways, diverse initiatives are being made from diverse standpoints. It is firstly important here that as many people as possible recognize what kinds of initiatives have been made in regions throughout Japan. Secondly important is for us to collectively think what kinds of issues and problems exist, where they exist, and whether there are prospects of addressing them. Thirdly important is to also consider how administrative bodies and researchers can become involved and provide support in their respective capacities. Such initiatives can only be taken on a case-by-case basis. There is no cure-all, and there are no superior or inferior initiatives. Rather, I hope that by gaining knowledge of specific case examples, you might obtain hints that could be applied back in your regions.
IMAISHI, MIgiwa (Department of ICH, Tobunken)