I've definitely met people in most of these categories.
The guy who had written that paper was from India. He had worked for the part of UNESCO in charge of preserving intangible cultural heritage, and he mentioned two culturally painful things in particular: one was the fact that part of the UNESCO mandate was that you had to translate the phrase "intangible cultural heritage" into the local language and then use it, but in many situations he'd been in (he had also worked in Cambodia and Sri Lanka), the concept was exceptionally alien, and while you could twist the language to express the concept, it was basically nonsensical and provoked resistance/resentment. More broadly, in that case and others, he talked about the painful irony of UNESCO employees not showing awareness and respect for local behavioral customs, when their very mandate was to help people preserve them.
The one speaker from Timor had a lot to say about colonization of the mind, and how it was no good, after 400 years of colonization, during which time the colonizing force is deriding local traditions and customs, and then 25 years of genocidal occupation, to come in and blithely ask people to tell you what traditions they think are part of their heritage and should be preserved. It's like asking an abused wife to tell you her good points.
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momijizukamori
no subject
Date: 2022-03-13 08:58 am (UTC)The guy who had written that paper was from India. He had worked for the part of UNESCO in charge of preserving intangible cultural heritage, and he mentioned two culturally painful things in particular: one was the fact that part of the UNESCO mandate was that you had to translate the phrase "intangible cultural heritage" into the local language and then use it, but in many situations he'd been in (he had also worked in Cambodia and Sri Lanka), the concept was exceptionally alien, and while you could twist the language to express the concept, it was basically nonsensical and provoked resistance/resentment. More broadly, in that case and others, he talked about the painful irony of UNESCO employees not showing awareness and respect for local behavioral customs, when their very mandate was to help people preserve them.
The one speaker from Timor had a lot to say about colonization of the mind, and how it was no good, after 400 years of colonization, during which time the colonizing force is deriding local traditions and customs, and then 25 years of genocidal occupation, to come in and blithely ask people to tell you what traditions they think are part of their heritage and should be preserved. It's like asking an abused wife to tell you her good points.