In recent decades, intangible cultural heritage (ICH) has become one of the most consequential arenas of contestation, interaction, and cultural diplomacy in the international system. Unlike tangible heritage, which is defined through physical, site-based, and measurable elements such as historical monuments, palaces, or archaeological sites, intangible heritage is fluid, living, and profoundly social—directly intertwined with collective memory, cultural identity, and the everyday ways of life of human communities. These characteristics have made ICH not merely a cultural issue, but also a political, social, and even economic one: a field where governments, local communities, international institutions, and cultural actors are engaged in a complex process of competition and cooperation.
Within this landscape, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has played a pivotal role, and the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage has functioned as a global framework for protection and safeguarding.
The present interview with Dr. Atousa Momeni, Director General of the Regional Research Centre for Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage in West and Central Asia (Tehran ICH Centre), under the auspices of UNESCO (Category II), offers an opportunity to examine these complexities through the lens of an academic and executive practitioner. With a background spanning archaeology, cultural studies, and international heritage governance, Dr. Momeni explains the philosophy behind UNESCO’s 2003 Convention, its fundamental distinction from the 1972 World Heritage Convention, the centrality of communities in safeguarding processes, and key challenges related to ownership, narrative-making, joint nominations, and the commodification of culture. The importance of this dialogue lies in its effort to move beyond purely descriptive or emotional accounts of “heritage,” and instead to analyze ICH through concepts such as sustainable development, cultural governance, community-based diplomacy, and global peace.
Interview Details
- Interviewer: Marzieh Tajmiri, PhD Candidate in International Relations, University of Isfahan
- Interviewee: Atousa Momeni, Director General of the Regional Research Centre for Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage in West and Central Asia (Tehran ICH Centre), under the auspices of UNESCO (Category II)
- Date of Interview: Sunday, November 30, 2025
- Main Topics:
- Origins of the 2003 Convention and its distinction from tangible heritage
- Intangible heritage, sustainable development, and the creative economy
- Dr. Momeni’s Professional Experience and the Transformation of Her Perspective on Culture
Note: In order to preserve academic independence and diversity of perspectives, it should be emphasized that the opinions expressed in this interview reflect solely the personal views of the interviewee and do not necessarily imply endorsement or adoption of a position by the Human Rights Institute of the University of Isfahan.
Interview Report
- Origins of the 2003 Convention and Its Distinction from Tangible Heritage
Dr. Momeni argued that a proper understanding of intangible cultural heritage is not possible without understanding why UNESCO created the 2003 Convention. She explained that the Convention emerged in continuity with UNESCO’s earlier experiences—especially those related to protecting culture in times of armed conflict and the development of global heritage mechanisms—yet it ultimately advanced a fundamentally different philosophy. In the aftermath of the world wars, the international community became increasingly attentive to the need to protect human creativity. Earlier UNESCO instruments emphasized safeguarding in wartime, while later frameworks elevated heritage protection to a global level. Over time, the 1972 model—centered on state-led nomination, management, and protection—became widely institutionalized.
However, Dr. Momeni emphasized that the 2003 Convention deliberately rejects the logic of ranking heritage through “the oldest,” “the largest,” or “the most unique.” Instead, it is grounded in cultural equality: no intangible heritage is inherently superior to another, and its value lies not in grandeur or antiquity but in being living, transmitted across generations, and meaningfully responsive to contemporary community needs. She framed the Convention as a conscious response to heritage narratives that had historically privileged certain cultural frames while marginalizing others—particularly within processes of globalization that can produce cultural homogenization. UNESCO’s 2003 Convention defines intangible cultural heritage as living practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, and skills, continually recreated by communities in interaction with their environment and history.
A further foundational distinction, she stressed, concerns the role of people in inscription and safeguarding. Drawing on UNESCO’s framework, she described five broad domains in which ICH is manifested:
- Oral traditions and expressions (including language)
- Performing arts
- Social practices, rituals, and festive events
- Knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe
- Traditional craftsmanship
These domains are so extensive, she argued, that few cultural phenomena fall outside them—because they flow through human memory, emotion, skill, and social practice. She further noted that safeguarding criteria emphasize compatibility with human rights, sustainable development, and mutual respect. In her framing, intangible heritage must be living; if a practice has ceased to exist, it can only be revitalized through sustained transmission—so that it returns to lived social reality rather than remaining a static archive.
Dr. Momeni emphasized that in ICH, states are not the absolute owners or sole custodians. Rather, communities, groups, and heritage bearers are central: they determine what constitutes “their” heritage and how it should be safeguarded. In this sense, authenticity and legitimacy are anchored primarily in community recognition and continuity, not only in external verification mechanisms. She contrasted this with tangible heritage, where international evaluation missions assess authenticity and integrity through site visits and technical inspection.
This community-centered approach, she argued, means that the 2003 Convention is not designed to sharpen identity boundaries or institutionalize exclusions; it is intended to “connect.” It creates a normative space for multinational and joint inscriptions, enabling heritage to operate as an instrument of cultural convergence rather than rivalry.
One of the most sensitive issues in the ICH sphere, she noted, concerns ownership and narrative-making in joint nominations. Cases such as Nowruz, Yalda, musical instruments, and athletic-ritual traditions illustrate that living heritage often exceeds contemporary political borders. Dr. Momeni emphasized that the 2003 Convention does not endorse exclusive ownership in a strict sense; a single element may exist across multiple countries with varying narratives and modes of performance without that plurality undermining its legitimacy.
In this context, she discussed Nowruz as a major example of multinational inscription. Nowruz was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List in 2009, and later extended in 2016 through the participation of additional countries—an illustration of how a shared living tradition can be documented through joint initiative rather than exclusive claims. She noted that forms of celebration can differ across societies—whether more family-centered in one context or more public in another—and that such variation signals vitality rather than deficiency.
She also referenced how living traditions can take root in multiple cultural contexts without being reduced to rigid nationalist frames. In her analysis, the classic notion of “authenticity” as fixed form is inadequate for intangible heritage. Here, authenticity relates primarily to social function and continuity. A living tradition must be able to adapt to changing community needs; otherwise, it risks becoming museum-like and frozen. Changes in performance, the addition or removal of elements, and shifts in the spaces of celebration do not necessarily threaten heritage; they can be conditions for its survival. Therefore, inscription should not be understood as freezing culture. Rather, it provides a supportive framework for the creative continuation of heritage. Over-prescriptive approaches—museumization, staged performances detached from lived time and place, or forcing “traditional” forms in artificial contexts—risk severing heritage from its living essence.
- Intangible Heritage, Sustainable Development, and the Creative Economy
A central axis of the interview concerned the relationship between intangible heritage and sustainable development and the creative economy. Dr. Momeni framed this relationship not as incidental but as intrinsic: ICH is grounded in local knowledge, respectful engagement with nature, community-based livelihoods, and social participation. Sustainable development—understood as balancing human needs, the earth, and natural resources—often finds concrete expression in living heritage practices.
She argued that intangible heritage can serve as a powerful instrument for sustainable tourism, local employment creation, creative economy growth, and even community-based diplomacy—without necessarily producing environmental destruction or cultural alienation. At the same time, she stressed that within the safeguarding framework, one key benchmark is alignment with sustainable development principles: a heritage practice that structurally destroys resources—such as crafts that depend on unchecked deforestation—cannot be defended as sustainable safeguarding.
Using practical examples, she highlighted how traditional skills such as carpet weaving, pottery, or local healing knowledge preserve intergenerational expertise while organizing resources in renewable, socially embedded ways. These skills can generate marketable products, create stable income, and strengthen social cohesion. She also described how rituals such as Nowruz or Yalda—through their symbolic engagement with nature and seasonal cycles—can embody models of sustainable living, while remaining responsive to contemporary community needs.
At the same time, Dr. Momeni offered a strong warning about the risks of excessive commodification of culture. Since the 1980s—alongside the intensification of economic globalization—culture increasingly became treated as an income-generating commodity. Yet if commercialization proceeds without the oversight and agency of heritage bearers, it can lead to distortion, alienation, or even the destruction of heritage. In her view, intangible heritage differs from tangible heritage in that communities remain central decision-makers: it is the bearers who determine whether, when, and how economic use is appropriate.
She described, for example, how in traditional food festivals, communities may share aspects of ritual practice with visitors while safeguarding the recipe, meaning, and cultural logic of the practice. But if market logic dominates—forcing ritual performance outside its cultural time, place, and community will—heritage becomes a commercial spectacle lacking spirit. In that sense, she argued, the appropriate solution is a participatory model of cultural governance: states should provide enabling frameworks, while communities remain the principal decision-makers.
In this framework, inscription can “keep the space open”: communities and states can document contextual changes, update safeguarding approaches, and benefit from global visibility and branding—without collapsing heritage into tourism-only performance. Ultimately, she emphasized, intangible heritage can contribute to global peace through shared inscriptions and transnational traditions, strengthening community-based diplomacy and building creative economy pathways grounded in mutual respect. Yet if commodification advances without communities, heritage risks becoming a short-term profit instrument that undermines sustainable development.
- Dr. Momeni’s Professional Experience and the Transformation of Her Perspective on Culture
Dr. Momeni explained that the Tehran ICH Centre—under her leadership—functions as a UNESCO-affiliated Category II centre and plays a strategic role in advancing the implementation of the 2003 Convention across West and Central Asia. According to her account, the centre works across three principal areas: research, education and capacity-building, and networking. She emphasized that unlike some centres that focus on a single area, the Tehran centre follows a comprehensive and strategic approach.
A key dimension of its practice, she stressed, is the avoidance of conflicts of interest and direct intervention in preparing nomination files. The centre’s role is not to serve as a dossier writer, but rather to act as a facilitator, coordinator, and capacity-builder for countries in the region—an approach that, in her view, strengthens its professional credibility and positions it as an effective actor in regional cultural diplomacy.
In the final segment of the interview, Dr. Momeni reflected on her personal intellectual journey and the deep transformation of her understanding of culture—shaped by both academic and executive experience. With reference to her background in prehistoric archaeology, she argued that while classical archaeology remains valuable, it does not always respond directly to contemporary challenges such as sustainable development or global peace. This realization led her, as she described it, toward recognizing the “penetrative power” of culture—its capacity to expand beyond conflict, and its embeddedness in geography, belief, and lived meaning.
She emphasized that the greatest soft power is culture—not primarily in material artifacts, but in human meaning. For this reason, she explained, she entered the field of living heritage more than fifteen years ago in order to connect data about the past to the needs of the present. She referred to her engagement with translating and working on specialized heritage literature and to how this contributed to the evolution of her thinking.
Her concluding insight was that culture is not merely a collection of artifacts or rituals, but rather accumulated wisdom formed through human interaction with nature, society, and history—wisdom that can guide responses to contemporary crises, from climate change to social conflict. In her framing, archaeology reveals that layers of the past can be “turned once,” but living heritage shapes the layers of tomorrow: it remains responsive, future-making, and socially generative.
Policy Recommendations
- Institutionalizing Community-Based Governance in Intangible Heritage
Policymaking on intangible heritage should be structurally grounded in the genuine participation of local communities and heritage bearers—not merely in state oversight. States should move away from assuming the role of exclusive “owners” or absolute custodians and instead act as facilitators, supporters, and guarantors of people’s cultural rights. This approach is consistent with the philosophy of the 2003 Convention and helps prevent heritage from being instrumentalized for exclusive identity-making or political contestation. Community participation is the essential guarantee of ICH vitality, dynamism, and social legitimacy.
- Systematically Linking Intangible Heritage with Sustainable Development and the Creative Economy
Intangible heritage should be treated as part of sustainable development strategy—not as decorative culture policy. Through targeted support for creative industries, sustainable tourism, and local knowledge systems, policymakers can convert ICH into a resource for local employment, poverty reduction, and strengthening the social economy. This linkage remains sustainable only when economic use preserves meaning, time, place, and the agency of heritage bearers. Otherwise, excessive commodification can erode identity and destroy cultural capital.
- Strengthening Cultural Diplomacy through Joint and Transnational Inscriptions
Multinational and joint inscriptions should be strengthened as active tools of cultural diplomacy and community-based peacebuilding. States and academic institutions can leverage UNESCO’s frameworks to transform shared heritage into platforms for dialogue, trust-building, and regional cooperation. This approach weakens exclusive-ownership logic and identity rivalry, emphasizing shared cultural and historical continuities. In such a model, intangible heritage shifts from an object of dispute to an instrument of convergence.
- Investing in Education, Capacity-Building, and Indigenous Knowledge Production
Sustainable ICH policy requires long-term investment in education, research, and specialized capacity-building. Training experts familiar with the philosophy of the 2003 Convention, sustainable development, and cultural diplomacy strengthens countries’ effective presence in international processes. Universities, research centres, and UNESCO Category II centres should serve as hubs for theory production, documentation, and knowledge transfer. Without strong indigenous knowledge and human capital, ICH is easily reduced to symbolic performance or commercial product.
Conclusion
This interview with Dr. Atousa Momeni offers a comprehensive, multi-layered account of intangible cultural heritage as one of the most significant forms of human social capital. The central message is that ICH is not a static, nostalgic phenomenon; it is a living, dynamic, and social process whose meaning is generated in people’s everyday lives. UNESCO’s 2003 Convention—by rejecting hierarchical and competition-driven logics—creates a normative space for recognizing all cultures, regardless of size, power, or historical status.
Iran, given its rich cultural history and experience with national and multinational inscriptions, occupies a particularly significant position in this field. Yet, as Dr. Momeni emphasized, meaningful use of this capacity depends on a deep understanding of the conventions’ philosophy, avoidance of ownership-based approaches, and strengthening cultural diplomacy grounded in participation and mutual respect. Intangible heritage can serve as a powerful instrument for sustainable development, global peace, and regional convergence—provided that cultural prescription is avoided, excessive commodification is resisted, and local communities are empowered as primary bearers and decision-makers.
Ultimately, culture stands as humanity’s greatest civilizational asset—rooted not in short-lived technologies, but in the accumulated wisdom of human engagement with nature and history.
