ABSTRACT
Cultural heritage embraces the significant artworks, rituals, stories, practices, festivals, archaeology, cities, landscapes and sacred places of a people, especially where they are vulnerable or at risk. Intangible heritage can be a source of ontological security for minorities in a society where other citizens have distinct physical characteristics, cultural beliefs, informal practices, religions and languages. The sceptical liberal will point to both members of ethnic minorities and indigenous communities who have rejected their heritage in order to pursue individual life projects of their own. This chapter examines a distinct candidate value to help ground the interest in intangible cultural heritage (ICH): self-respect. Unlike cultural identity, cultural meaning and communal continuity, whose value is disputed by some liberals and cosmopolitans, self-respect commands wide support across the liberal/communitarian divide. The chapter focuses on the ICH of ethnic minorities in liberal democratic states, and indigenous peoples who survive in liberal democratic states that were colonised by Europeans centuries ago.
