Defining cultural heritage in Tonga: from local concerns to global policies Featured
Dr. Helu, Dr. Aurelie Condevaux, Dr. Viliami Latu and students of Tonga International Academy (Moana Unitech) after Dr. Aurelie Condevaux's Lecture
27 July, 2016. “Cultural heritage” - tangible as well as intangible - has become a major concern in Tonga as well as in many other countries worldwide was the topic of Dr. Aurelie Condevaux talk at Tonga International Academy yesterday evening.
Dr. Aurelie Condevaux is here in Tonga to conduct research on the development of heritage policies in Pacific countries goes hand in hand with the expression of concerns about intellectual property and commercial misuses of cultural practices. Condevaux works at the Institute for Research and Studies in Tourism at Paris, 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne in France.
One of the responses to these concerns has been to set up new legislations, under the advice of regional and/or international organisations. This has resulted in the implementation of new legislations and/or public action oriented towards heritage conservation, on national as well as international levels.
On the international level, UNESCO policies are probably the best known, in particular the World Heritage Convention from 1972 and the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage from 2003.
Social sciences have paid much attention to this phenomenon in the past decades. Social scientists' concern is not so much to define what is heritage, or how it should be safeguarded, but rather to understand why it has become a matter of such importance for peoples and governements.
The anthropological approach to heritage is based on the analysis that, among all the cultural practices that are passed on from generation to generation, only some of them are labelled as “heritage”.
The recognition of Tongan lakalaka as a masterpiece of oral and intangible heritage of Humanity in 2003 by UNESCO and then its inscription on the representative list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2008 is one example of this process of selection.
Among the ten or so existing faiva fakatonga, lakalaka is the one that has been chosen for an inscription on the UNESCO representative list of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Sociological or anthropological approaches of heritage are based on the idea that these choices are not neutral, but they reflect political and social concerns.
This lecture aims to examine how the safeguarding process of lakalaka both enlightens and reflects some aspects of social and political dynamics in Tonga, such as changes occuring in the hierarchical relationships and the Monarchical system.
Students and staff of Tonga International Academy (Moana Unitech) and members of the public attended Dr. Aurelie Condevaux's talk as part of Tonga International Academy (Moana Unitech) public lecture series.
2 comments
-
Si'oto'ofa 'Etita: Dear readers please take note that: (that is, what culture is over what culture does) at the end of paragraph 2 in bracket should now correctly read: (that is, what culture does over what culture is). Malo fau and my sincere apologies for the trouble. 'Ofa lahi moe hufaki. Hufanga.
On the Matter of Cultural Heritage: Tangible, Physical or Material Versus Intangible, Nonphysical or Nonmaterial?
Tongan arts are classified either as body-centred or non-body-centred into three genres, namely, faiva (performance), tufunga (material) and nimama'a (fine) arts as opposed to their classification into tangible and intangible arts over the physical and nonphysical or material and nonmaterial, strictly problematised and imposed by UNESCO.
In Tongan philosophical thinking of the practice of art, the performance art of poetry (faiva ta'anga) is considered as tangible, physical or material as the material art of boat-building (tufunga fo'uvaka) and fine art of bark-cloth-making (nimamea'a koka'anga) -- all three are taken from a philosophical point of view as far from being intangible, nonphysical or nonmaterial.
As far as this problematics, as well as many such distinctions between art and craft and customary and contemporary, are concerned, a consistent yet constant call for a radical shift in the axis of the praxis of UNESCO, where they are transformed from a condition of imposition to a state of mediation. The state of affairs thus envisioned is the true spirit of freedom.
'Ofa lahi moe tapuaki,
Hufanga -
Many thanks go to Moana University of Technology (MUT), formerly Tongan International Academy (TIA), generally and Dr Aurelie Condevaux specifically for keeping with great sacrifice, passion and interest the intellectual, cultural and artistic and literary life of Tonga actively critically thriving. Herein, MUT and Dr Condevaux, supposedly yet purposely like all universities and academics alike, actively play a pivotal or vital role as critics of society and physicians of culture.
While the foresight of UNESCO, as in the formation of the 1972 World Heritage Convention and 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, is well-received and duly celebrated, there are however grave reservations as to their overemphasis on the utility of culture over its quality (that is, what culture is over what culture does).
If culture is to be taken seriously, then UNESCO must see to it that it puts the order of precedence correctly, where its quality is made to precede its utility, in that logical order -- as opposed to putting its utility before its quality, like putting the cart before the horse. Quite simply, we have to thoroughly know culture first before it can be of effective, creative and innovative use to us (that is, what culture is or cultural knowledge taking the lead over what culture does or cultural use).
This points to the inseparability or indivisibility of knowledge ('ilo and skills [poto]) acquired in education (ako) as an intellectual (and practical) process, which are then historically constituted or composed in culture (fonua / kalatua) as a social receptacle and dialectically transmitted or communicated in language (tala / lea) as a human vehicle in time (ta) and space (va).
By the same token, it therefore tells us that both the 1972 World Heritage Convention and 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage are immediately or primarily concerned with knowledge and skills (that is, quality or the question what is) and remotely or secondarily with either both culture and language merely as vehicles, devices or means or their use for people (that is, utility or the question of what does).
'Ofa manatu & manatu 'ofa,
Hufanga Dr 'Okusitino Mahina
Professor of Art, Culture & Critical Anthropology &'
Dean - Inquiry & Research, MUT