2023:Program/GLAM, Heritage, and Culture/FTDZW3-Ethical Principles for Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage from UNESCO: Wikimedia Commons Perspective

The following is a mirror of what are publicly available details of submission made at the call for proposal platform, Pretalx. Any changes here may be overwritten by a bot while syncing updates from Pretalx (FTDZW3). Changes are monitored and may be updated into Pretalx if they do not change the context of the submission (i.e. correcting typographical errors).

Title: Ethical Principles for Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage from UNESCO: Wikimedia Commons Perspective

Speakers:

Joy

Joy Agyepong outreach coordinator at Wiki Loves Folklore & Feminism and Folklore.

Wikilover90

Founder and Strategy Director for Wiki Loves Folklore

Tiven2240

Chief Coordinator for Wiki Loves Folklore and Feminism and Folklore.

Pretalx link

Etherpad link

Room: Room 307

Start time: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 14:45:00 +0800

End time: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 15:15:00 +0800

Type: No (pretalx) session type id specified

Track: GLAM, Heritage, and Culture

Submission state: confirmed

Duration: 30 minutes

Do not record: false

Presentation language: en

Abstract & description

Abstract

Often Living Heritage or in other words, intangible heritage is documented by people and shared on the Wikimedia Commons project (more in abundance during the photography campaigns). The 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, the Operational Directives for the Implementation of the Convention and national legislative frameworks, these Ethical Principles are intended to serve as basis for the development of specific codes of ethics and tools adapted to local and sectoral conditions. To ensure that the rights of the communities whose documentation is being done, it is essential to ensure all interactions with the communities, groups and, where applicable, individuals who create, safeguard, maintain and transmit intangible cultural heritage should be characterized by transparent collaboration, dialogue, negotiation and consultation, and contingent upon their free, prior, sustained and informed consent.This roundtable discussion will invite experienced and other interested people to share their viewpoints on how we can introduce some regulations to introduce the concept of “Consent” of living subjects in Commons and in Wiki Loves Campaigns at large.

Description

“Note for Program committee: This session could also be presented under GLAM, Heritage and Culture track. Please change our track to GLAM if this topic doesn’t feel suitable for the Equity track. Thanks!”

The dynamic and living nature of intangible cultural heritage should be continuously respected. The twelve Ethical Principles for Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage have been elaborated in the spirit of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage and existing international normative instruments protecting human rights and the rights of indigenous peoples. These Ethical Principles are intended to serve as a basis for the development of specific codes of ethics and tools adapted to local and sectoral conditions. Some essential underlying principles:

• The communities, groups and individuals who create intangible cultural heritage should benefit from the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from such heritage, and particularly from its use, research, documentation, promotion or adaptation by members of the communities or others.
• The dynamic and living nature of intangible cultural heritage should be continuously respected. Authenticity and exclusivity should not constitute concerns and obstacles in the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage.
• Communities, groups, local, national and transnational organizations and individuals should carefully assess the direct and indirect, short-term and long-term, potential and definitive impact of any action that may affect the viability of intangible cultural heritage or the communities who practice it.
• Communities, groups and, where applicable, individuals should play a significant role in determining what constitutes threats to their intangible cultural heritage including the decontextualization, commodification and misrepresentation of it and in deciding how to prevent and mitigate such threats.
• Cultural diversity and the identities of communities, groups and individuals should be fully respected. In the respect of values recognized by communities, groups and individuals and sensitivity to cultural norms, specific attention to gender equality, youth involvement and respect for ethnic identities should be included in the design and implementation of safeguarding measures.
• The safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage is of general interest to humanity and should therefore be undertaken through cooperation among bilateral, sub-regional, regional and international parties; nevertheless, communities, groups and, where applicable, individuals should never be alienated from their own intangible cultural heritage.

The learnings from this Round table will be documented and shared in the form of a journal or a blog post that can later be translated as a source to start forums in Wikimedia Commons by our larger community to ensure these underlying ethics guidelines and principles are brought to the knowledge of our editors. Currently, the knowledge producers aka our editors and uploaders do not have clarity and in-depth understanding of the concept of the subject’s consent and how to record it while taking the photographs, videos and audio. After the end of this session, folks will have a set of recommendations that can be utilized by Wiki Loves campaigns in general and also our Commons community to ensure we safeguard the human rights and the rights of folks who may or may not know they have been recorded and for what purpose.

Further details

Qn. How does your session relate to the event themes: Diversity, Collaboration Future?

The session itself would be interactive, collaborative and open discussions between all participants from diverse backgrounds and communities providing their perspectives and feedback on how to introduce the awareness and the regulations to safeguard the “subjects” and their “human rights” while documenting their intangible heritage in future campaigns and open Wikimedia Commons upload from the community throughout the year. The learnings stemming from this session would be instrumental in ensuring that Wikimedians are “aware” and “proactive” in avoiding situations that can do decontextualization, commodification and misrepresentation of the intangible heritage of the subjects but also respect their ethnic identities, values sensitivity to cultural norms, and their cultural diversity.

Qn. What is the experience level needed for the audience for your session?

Everyone can participate in this session

Qn. What is the most appropriate format for this session?

• Onsite in Singapore
• Remote online participation, livestreamed
• Remote from a satellite event
• Hybrid with some participants in Singapore and others dialing in remotely
• Pre-recorded and available on demand