EdX

Living Heritage and Sustainable Development (edX)

Offered by SDGAcademyX, SDG Academy,
Living Heritage and Sustainable Development (edX)

How is intangible cultural heritage – or ‘living heritage’ – related to sustainable development? Why is it important to keep heritage alive? By taking this course students and other interested learners and professionals will gain a better understanding of intangible cultural heritage and its relationships with sustainable development, exploring examples and experiences of communities from around the world.

Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see EdX's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.

How is intangible cultural heritage – or ‘living heritage’ – related to sustainable development? How is it relevant for addressing today’s development challenges in areas such as health, education, gender, natural disasters and conflict? Why is it important to keep this heritage alive? Communities around the world are transmitting their living heritage, which gives meaning to their lives, strengthens resilience, and contributes to their well-being. In this way intangible cultural heritage and sustainable development are closely linked. The international community made a commitment to safeguarding living heritage when it adopted the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2003 and it set itself ambitious goals by adopting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This course helps to understand the connections between the two.
This MOOC was developed by UNESCO in collaboration with the International Information and Networking Centre in Asia and the Pacific under the auspices of UNESCO (ICHCAP) and the SDG Academy. It brings together a diverse group of lead experts in the field of intangible cultural heritage and development who collaborated closely with the UNESCO Chair for Research on Intangible Cultural Heritage and Cultural Diversity of the National Autonomous University of Mexico as lead faculty to develop the content of this course. The course draws on their longstanding expertise, the experiences of communities engaged in transmitting their living heritage and ten years of implementing UNESCO’s global capacity building programme for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage.

What you'll learn

  • Knowledge about living heritage and the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage;
  • The role of communities in keeping their heritage alive;
  • The relationship between intangible cultural heritage safeguarding and relevant development areas such as gender equality, cultural diversity and creativity, education, health, income generation and natural disasters and peacebuilding;
  • The interdependence between the safeguarding of living heritage and sustainable development;
  • Communities’ experiences of safeguarding their living heritage for sustainable development in diverse cultural contexts.

Syllabus

Module 1: What is intangible cultural heritage?
Chapter 1: Intangible cultural heritage as living heritage
Chapter 2: Key concepts of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage
Chapter 3: The Convention’s Lists and Register
Chapter 4: Comparing the Convention for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage with other related UNESCO conventions

Module 2: Communities and their intangible cultural heritage
Chapter 1: Who are the communities
Chapter 2: Intangible cultural heritage as the living heritage of communities
Chapter 3: Community participation: communities at the centre
Chapter 4: Community-based approaches

Module 3: Safeguarding intangible cultural heritage
Chapter 1: The concepts of transmission and safeguarding
Chapter 2: Safeguarding measures
Chapter 3: Inventories and safeguarding plans
Chapter 4: Ethics in safeguarding intangible cultural heritage
Module 4: Intangible cultural heritage and gender
Chapter 1: Intangible cultural heritage shapes gender identities
Chapter 2: Gender roles and relations evolve
Chapter 3: A gender-responsive approaches to safeguarding intangible cultural heritage

Module 5: Intangible cultural heritage for sustainable livelihoods and inclusive social development
Chapter 1: Intangible cultural heritage and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
Chapter 2: Intangible cultural heritage and education
Chapter 3: Intangible cultural heritage and health
Chapter 4: Intangible cultural heritage and income generation
Chapter 5: Intangible cultural heritage, food security and agriculture

Module 6: Intangible cultural heritage for resilience, environmental sustainability and peacebuilding
Chapter 1: Intangible cultural heritage, natural disasters and climate change
Chapter 2: Intangible cultural heritage in conflict-related emergency situations
Chapter 3: Intangible cultural heritage and preventing and solving disputes
Conclusion: Intangible cultural heritage for building a sustainable future for humanity

Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

Feeding a Hungry Planet: Agriculture, Nutrition and Sustainability (edX) EdX
SDGAcademyX,SDG Academy

Feeding a Hungry Planet: Agriculture, Nutrition and Sustainability (edX)

How do we create a healthy and sustainable diet for the growing world population? Agriculture is more than waving fields of wheat; our ability to grow food from existing natural resources – and without decimating those resources – is key to sustainably feeding the world. In this course, learn about food security worldwide, the effects of malnutrition, how we manage ecosystems that provide food resources and more.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
Cultural Heritage in Transformation (edX) EdX
RWTH Aachen,RWTHx

Cultural Heritage in Transformation (edX)

Learn how to define, explore, conserve, utilize and manage cultural heritage. In recent decades the sustainable conservation of cultural heritage has become a crucial global challenge. In this context, the trend towards largescale urbanization raises questions as to how new development can take place which respects and maintains the intrinsic values and unique qualities which have been handed down from previous generations, particularly within urban areas.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
Laudato si': On Care for Our Common Home (edX) EdX
SDGAcademyX,SDG Academy

Laudato si': On Care for Our Common Home (edX)

A mini-course on the urgent call to action: protect the earth and its inhabitants from ruin. What is “Laudato Si”? First presented by Pope Francis – spiritual leader to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics – to his faith-based cohort, it is a call to action addressed not only to Catholics, but to all people of the world. Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home raises the profile of the grave ecological crisis that humanity has created and issues a moral clarion call for urgent action to protect the earth and its inhabitants from ruin.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
Anthropology of Current World Issues (edX) EdX
University of Queensland,UQx

Anthropology of Current World Issues (edX)

Learn to use anthropological ideas to see the world from a range of perspectives and points of view. This course will allow you to better understand the world around you through utilising the anthropological lens. You will learn about the way in which anthropology as a discipline can shed new perspectives on current world issues, from indigeneity to migration and material culture.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
Europeana Space: Creative with Digital Heritage (edX) EdX
KU Leuven University,KULeuvenX

Europeana Space: Creative with Digital Heritage (edX)

Learn how to creatively reuse digital cultural content from professionals of the Europeana Space network. How can you engage with and reuse the wealth of digital cultural heritage available online in many repositories such as Europeana? How can you become an active user of this content, using, remixing and reinventing it for your research, lessons, and development?

No sessions available
5-12 Weeks
Ethics in Action (edX) EdX
SDGAcademyX,SDG Academy

Ethics in Action (edX)

What do the world’s great religious and secular philosophies have to say about ethical conduct? Which virtues are common across faiths? And what role do religious communities have to play in building a more just and sustainable world? The challenges of sustainable development are more than technical or political—they are also moral, calling on us to examine who we are as human beings, and who we want to be going forward.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
Sustainable Development: The Post-Capitalist Order (edX) EdX
SDGAcademyX,SDG Academy

Sustainable Development: The Post-Capitalist Order (edX)

Sustainable development represents a shift from our current system of inequitable capitalism to one that prioritizes prosperity for all, while remaining conscious of its environmental impact and sustainability for future generations. Learn why sustainable development has been adopted by countries and multilateral organizations around the world, and how this approach is transforming the way we live, work, and govern our planet.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
Globalization: Past and Future (edX) EdX
SDGAcademyX,SDG Academy

Globalization: Past and Future (edX)

Is globalization a new phenomenon or a cyclical pattern throughout human history? In this four-part mini-course, Professor Jeffrey Sachs argues that we have always lived in a global world. He takes students on a historical and anthropological tour of six distinct waves of globalization and outlines the key factors that drove innovation, technology dispersal and development during these epochs.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
From the Ground Up: Managing and Preserving Our Terrestrial Ecosystems (edX) EdX
SDGAcademyX,SDG Academy

From the Ground Up: Managing and Preserving Our Terrestrial Ecosystems (edX)

How can we preserve, restore, manage and sustainably use terrestrial ecosystems? Join us as we explore this question in the Brazilian Amazon and around the world. In this course, you’ll learn the science behind the capacities of various ecosystems including extinction rates, desertification and how their physical makeup has evolved with environmental shifts. You’ll experience the lives of local populations dependent upon these resources, from their economic activities to their societal norms.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
Natural Resources for Sustainable Development (edX) EdX
SDGAcademyX,SDG Academy

Natural Resources for Sustainable Development (edX)

Explore the sustainable development opportunities and challenges in using oil, gas and minerals. Natural resources represent a potentially transformational opportunity to support development but are ultimately finite How do we make the most of them without destroying the planet? In this 12-week course, produced by the Natural Resource Governance Institute, the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment and the World Bank, learn about efforts to sustainably manage extractive industry investments.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
Sustainable Urban Development (edX) EdX
Wageningen University,Delft University of Technology,DelftX,WageningenX

Sustainable Urban Development (edX)

Learn why cities are key in resolving global urbanization and sustainability challenges and how you can engineer tomorrow’s cities today. Did you know that cities take up less than 3% of the earth’s land surface, but more than 50% of the world’s population live in them? And, cities generate more than 70% of the global emissions? Large cities and their hinterlands (jointly called metropolitan regions) greatly contribute to global urbanization and sustainability challenges, yet are also key to resolving these same challenges.

Self Paced
Self-Paced
Water Works: Activating Heritage for Sustainable Development (edX) EdX
Delft University of Technology,DelftX

Water Works: Activating Heritage for Sustainable Development (edX)

Address contemporary challenges from a socio-spatial and cultural perspective, and activate water heritage for decision-making in water management. Water has served and sustained societies throughout history. Understanding the complex and diverse water systems of the past is key to devising sustainable development for the future with regard to socioeconomic structures, policies, and cultures. Today, past systems form the framework for preservation and reuse as well as for new proposals.

Self Paced
Self-Paced