Why categories are not enough
The five UNESCO domains are helpful for organizing intangible cultural heritage, but many researchers and communities point out their limits. Heritage is not static – it is dynamic, hybrid, and deeply contextual. When we try to “box” traditions into a neat list, we sometimes lose what makes them unique.
Think of a wedding ceremony. Is it a ritual? Yes. But it also involves oral traditions (songs, blessings), performing arts(dance, music), craftsmanship (costumes, decorations), and even knowledge of nature (choosing the right season). A single event can cut across multiple domains.
This overlap reveals the first problem: categories simplify a reality that is much more complex.
Critiques from research
Scholars such as Gireesh & Anand (2022) argue that UNESCO’s framework is too broad to reflect cultural diversity. In India, for instance, oral traditions include proverbs, riddles, myths, epics, folk songs, and chants. Putting all of these under “oral traditions” hides their variety and meaning.
Similar problems appear in other domains:
- Rituals range from small family traditions to nationwide celebrations.
- Crafts include everything from pottery to digital embroidery.
The risk is that heritage becomes standardized for international recognition but loses its depth and specificity.
Who decides the categories?
Another challenge is about power. Classification is not neutral.
- Governments may prefer categories that fit policies or tourism promotion.
- International organizations may emphasize “universal” categories.
- But communities may understand their traditions differently – not as “performing arts” or “oral traditions,” but as ways of life or sacred practices.
When classification is imposed from outside, it may clash with how communities themselves value their heritage.
Alternative approaches
To address these limits, some scholars propose new models. Fredheim & Khalaf (2016) suggest looking at heritage not only as categories, but as:
- Forms – the visible expressions (a costume, a dance, a song).
- Practices – the actions and performances (singing, weaving, celebrating).
- Relationships – the meanings and connections created (identity, memory, solidarity).
They also emphasize different values of heritage:
- Associative (links to identity or history).
- Sensational (emotions and embodied experience).
- Evidential (proof of continuity).
- Functional (practical use in daily life).
This perspective shifts the focus from what heritage is to what heritage does for people.
Example
Take the Junii Brașovului spring feast.
- As a form, it is a parade with costumes and rituals.
- As a practice, it is the collective act of riding, dancing, and celebrating.
- As a relationship, it creates bonds between generations and strengthens community identity.
- In terms of values, it is associative (identity with Brașov), sensational (joy, pride), evidential (continuity from medieval times), and functional (community cohesion).
Clearly, no single UNESCO category can capture all this richness.
CASE STUDY 1 — The Drăguș community event: heritage in action
The commune of Drăguș in Brașov County, Romania, is an example of good practice in preserving and promoting intangible cultural heritage. A small rural community at the foot of the Făgăraș Mountains (971 inhabitants, 2021 census), it is culturally very active.
On 22 October 2023, the writer and former mayor Vasile Pop organised the launch of one of his books at the local Cultural Center — but the event quickly became a real celebration of local intangible heritage.
How the community got involved:
- The secondary school folkloric ensemble performed costumes, dances and wedding/winter/harvest customs.
- The church women’s choir contributed authentic folk and religious songs.
- The local high-school headmistress delivered an educational speech linking literature and ICH.
- Neighbours and relatives prepared a buffet of homemade sweets and drinks following traditional recipes.
- Guests from outside the community (academics from Romania and the USA, journalists, priests, artists) gave feedback.
- Most locals attended in folk costumes recognised as unique in Romania.
- Zorița Poparad, 91, sang very old doinas (a Romanian ICH oral tradition) live on stage.
- Vasile Pop’s wife dedicated a poem (“Simple Story”) to Zorița as a modern feedback mechanism to the event, raising awareness of intangible heritage as a source of community identity and solidarity.
Drăguș illustrates exactly what Lesson 2 is about: a single community event combines four UNESCO domains at once — oral traditions (doinas, the dedicated poem), performing arts (choir, folk dances), social practices and festive events (the gathering itself), and traditional craftsmanship (folk costumes, traditional recipes). It also shows what Fredheim & Khalaf (2016) mean by “relationships” and “functional value”: the event builds trust, social capital and community resilience that no single UNESCO category can capture.
Exercises and applications
xercises and applications (INTHRACE Pedagogical Model — Component 02 Community Involvement, Component 03 Interpretation & Promotion, Component 04 Policy & Governance)
- Exercise 1 — Multiple fits (Component 03): Choose one tradition from your region. Place it into one UNESCO category. Now think again: in which other categories does it also belong? Write down all possible fits.
- Exercise 2 — Alternative model: Fredheim & Khalaf (Component 03): Describe the same tradition using Fredheim & Khalaf’s three layers (forms, practices, relationships). Which description feels closer to the community’s reality?
- Exercise 3 — Community interview: “How would you categorise your tradition and why?” (Component 02): Drawing directly from the INTHRACE Application Example for Chapter 3: each student interviews one community member (artisan, elder, performer) and asks them how they themselves categorise their tradition. Compare the answers in class against UNESCO’s framework. Where do the community’s categories diverge from the experts’?
- Exercise 4 — Mapping workshop with locals using Fredheim & Khalaf’s model (Component 02): From the INTHRACE Application Example: organise (or simulate) a small workshop with 3–5 community members and co-create a cultural map of your locality. Use Fredheim & Khalaf’s three layers (forms / practices / relationships) instead of UNESCO categories. What surfaces that UNESCO categories would have hidden?
- Exercise 5 — Drăguș-style event design and feedback mechanism (Component 02 + 03): Working in pairs, design a Drăguș-style community event for your own locality. Identify: the informal leader who could initiate it; three sub-groups (school, church, neighbours) that could contribute; one elder who could share a piece of oral tradition; one modern “feedback mechanism” (a poem, a short film, a social-media post) to thank the participants — directly inspired by the dedicated poem “Simple Story” used in the actual Drăguș event.
- Exercise 6 — Debate: UNESCO categories vs. local cultural frames (Component 03): From the INTHRACE Application Example: divide the class into two groups. One defends UNESCO’s five-domain framework as necessary for global recognition; the other argues for flexible, values-based, community-defined models (Fredheim & Khalaf). Use the Drăguș event and Junii Brașovului as your evidence. Which side gives a more convincing case?
- Exercise 7 — Comparative reflection essay (Component 03): From the INTHRACE Application Example: write a 500-word essay titled “Can we create alternative classification systems?” using one tradition from your own community. Reinterpret the tradition using at least two different categorisation models.
- Exercise 8 — Policy brief: a hybrid category proposal (Component 04): Drawing directly from the INTHRACE Application Example for Chapter 3: research your country’s national ICH registration policy. Then draft a one-page policy brief proposing one specific reform — for example, allowing hybrid categories (“festive craftsmanship”, “oral knowledge of nature”) so that complex traditions like the Drăguș event are not flattened into a single UNESCO domain.
Reflection questions
- Can classification ever capture the full “living” dimension of traditions?
- Who should have the final say in categorization – institutions or communities?
- What do we lose when we describe a ritual only as “a social practice,” and not as a relationship full of meaning?
- Should safeguarding focus on categories, or on the values and relationships heritage creates?