ABSTRACT
The principle of identity underpins the ostensibly distinct categories of folk music, heritage music and traditional music. The epistemology and axiology of identity is also implicit in the criteria used by UNESCO to designate music traditions as intangible cultural heritage. Since UNESCO adopted the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2003, critics have drawn attention to the unintended impacts of its traditional music safeguarding initiatives. Despite good intentions, UNESCO interventions can transform living traditions into museum pieces, tourist traps or symbols of national identity. It is also troubling that music traditions that hold national significance have been prioritized in applications for intangible cultural heritage listings. Most ethnomusicologists would distance themselves from celebratory or exclusionary discourses of nationalism, as would many practitioners of various styles of traditional music. However, notions that traditional music expresses authentic cultural or ethnic identities have been a compelling justification for the revival of endangered music practices and for the inclusion of ethnomusicology in the academy. This chapter argues for the necessity of understanding and valuing traditional music without recourse to the principle of identity, which allows it to be co-opted as a national symbol for political and commercial interests.
