Intangible Heritage as Metacultural Production

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, a world-renowned anthropologist, is a professor at thePerformance Studies Department of the Tisch School of the Arts, New York, where sheteaches the history and theory of museums, world fairs and tourism in conjunction with theschool’s Museum Studies programme. Her work,Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums andHeritage (1998) explores the museum as a historical formation and emergent medium inrelation to its changing role in society. Barbara Kirshenblatt also consults for many museums,most recently the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Museum of the History ofPolish Jews (Warsaw).Intangible heritageSince the Second World War, UNESCO hassupported a series of world heritage initiatives,starting with tangible heritage, both immovableand movable, and expanding to natural heritage,and most recently to intangible heritage.