ABSTRACT
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) World Heritage project in Djenn is faced with two great challenges. First, there has been a failure in communication. Second, UNESCO is reviewing its position toward the management of historical urban landscapes. In terms of cultural transmission, the recent creation of UNESCOs programme of Living Human Treasures, which has seen the declaration and protection of people considered to be in possession of a high degree of cultural knowledge, is an additional step away from the material toward the human actors that give the tangible/intangible heritage its meaning. UNESCOs recent focus on intangible heritage is conceptually useful, since perhaps Djenn's architectural heritage could be constructively conceived of as intangible cultural heritage because it is the regular process of crpissage that maintains the buildings as viable structures. UNESCOs approach to the protection of intangible cultural heritage still operates broadly within a Eurocentric conceptualisation of archivisation and transmission.
