Traditional Knowledge,Thoughts and Practices Concerning Nature and Humanity

2022 ICH World Forum: Intangible Cultural Heritageand Traditional Knowledge

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Hostedby the National Intangible Heritage Center (Director-General Yi, Kyunghoon) under the Cultural Heritage Administration and overseen byUNESCO ICHCAP (Director-General Ji Sung Kim), the 2022 ICH World Forum will begathering together global experts in one place online from September 21 to 23. 

The ICH World Forum celebrates itssixth year in 2022 under the theme of “Traditional Knowledge, Thoughts and Practices ConcerningNature and Humanity” and promises to be a valuableopportunity for around 30 experts from 12 countries worldwide to collectivelyshed new light on the importance of traditional knowledge and re-examine thevalue of traditional knowledge as a form of intangible cultural heritage. 

Hosting a total of three sessionsacross three days, the forum will open with keynote presentations by ProfessorLaurajane Smith of the Australian National University, who is a world-renownedscholar in the field of intangible cultural heritage, and Secretary-GeneralKyung-Koo Han of the Korean National Commission for UNESCO. Session 1 on the21st will be titled “Safeguarding and Transmitting Traditional Knowledge asIntangible Cultural Heritage” and seek to discuss various perspectives on thepreservation and transmission of ICH.  

On the 22nd, Dr. Hahn-Sok Wang, aprofessor emeritus of the Seoul National University Department of Anthropology,will open Session 2 of the forum with a special lecture. The theme for Session2 is “Traditional Knowledge andSustainable Water Management,” with the aim to introduce traditional irrigationtechniques such as Japan’s traditional irrigation methods and Indonesia’s Subak irrigation system, as wellas the “water judge” system of Corongo Province, Peruand Sri Lanka’s traditional water management knowledge.  

On the final day of the forum,September 23, Session 3 of the forum will unfold under the theme “Understanding and DevelopingTraditional Medicine as Traditional Knowledge,” which seeks to addresstraditional medicine from the perspective of intangible heritage to bring thethree-day event to a close. Starting with a special lecture by Professor EmeritaJudith B. Farquhar from the University of Chicago in the United States, Session3 will examine traditional medicine of Guam, Thailand, Colombia, and Vietnam aswell as related cases from the perspective of intangible heritage.

In pursuit of survival andprosperity amid relentless changes in the natural environment and progress insociety, humanity has constantly accumulated, systematized and transmittedknowledge and wisdom regarding methods to deal with the environment, medicalknowledge, customs, and lifestyles to successive generations. In the face ofvarious crises, humanity has also used traditional knowledge to form effectiveresponses and strengthen social solidarity within communities. Traditionalknowledge is humanity’s intellectual creation, which was accumulated byutilizing limited resources to the maximum extent for the purpose of survival.However, amid modern progress in science and technology, as well as rapid wavesof globalization and urbanization, the value of traditional knowledge has lostthe attention it deserves. At the 2022 ICH World Forum, traditional knowledgewill be re-examined from the perspective of intangible heritage in order toshed new light on its value and importance. 

This forum will be held online andlivestreamed on the YouTube channels of the Cultural Heritage Administration,UNESCO ICHCAP, and Jeonju MBC. It will also be livestreamed on the onlinemetaverse ZEP (https://zep.us/play/2mYqBe). 

The2022 World Forum is open for participation by all those who are interested inthe topics addressed by the forum. Participation requests can be registeredonline on the forum’s portal site (https://ichworldforum.org). For more details on the forum, please inquire with theICH World Forum team by telephone (☎ 063-230-9745/6).