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"Cultural heritage is not limited to material manifestations; indeed it also includes intangible, living and fragile expressions, such as oral traditions, performing arts,festive events, or the knowledge and skills necessary to produce traditional crafts. This paper focuses on the governance and safeguarding of traditional craftsmanship, which was recognized by the UNESCO Convention of 2003 as being part of intangible cultural heritage. Thus the aim of the research is not to help protect actual craft goods, but rather the skills and knowledge necessary for their ongoing production. In particular, the paper describes the evolution of the concept of heritage towards intangible cultural heritage. Then it illustrates the importance of this heritage from an economic perspective and provides a precise definition of what craftsmanship is. On the basis of this definition, the notions of commons and of cultural commons are examined and three main questions lead the following study: First, can traditional craftsmanship be considered a cultural commons? Secondly, assuming that traditional craftsmanship is a cultural commons, what are the appropriate forms of governance of this intangible heritage expression? Finally, what are the main advantages of a common-based approach in the management of traditional craftsmanship? The methodology adopted is based both on literature survey and fieldwork. About 40 interviews to artisans and 20 interviews to policy makers and organizations have been realized in the past two years. This method provided new research elements and stimulated innovative concrete ideas." |
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