Grants:Impact/Cultural Heritage

Impact of Grants

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“ Heritage constitutes a source of identity and cohesion for communities disrupted by bewildering change and economic instability. ” — UNESCO

Culture is at the core of human identity. Every human society throughout history has had a culture, a collection of things - ideas, habits, perspectives, rituals, artifacts - which are learned, shared and transmitted from one generation to the next.

In its transmission, cultural heritage serves as an intergenerational link to both tangible and intangible aspects of identity. Tangible culture heritage might be photos and descriptions of buildings, monuments, landscapes, books, works of art and other specific artifacts. These are all things that are documented. Alternatively, intangible culture heritage must be experienced; the documentation of such intangible heritage does not compare to the experience. Such heritage might be food, folklore, traditions, rituals and colloquial language. Here's an example: eating food is a very different experience than seeing a picture of food. The picture of an example of tangible heritage, while the experience of eating is an example of intangible heritage.

While heritage is typically described at the community level, humanity also has collective cultural heritage. It's the long arch of human history that helps us understand who are are as a society, relative to who we were. But within that long history, the cultural heritage of a particular community can feel - and oftentimes has been - ephemeral. Rituals, food, beliefs, and even monuments can be here today, and gone tomorrow.

Grants highlighted in this category have documented or liberated cultural heritage from around the world, so that present and future generations have a foundation for understanding who they are.

“ Cultural heritage is the legacy of physical artefacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations. ” — UNESCO

Case studies

Script encoding for Nepal

Enabling the millennia old language Newar (or Nepal Bhasa, नेपाल भाषा) to participate in the digital age

Lingua Libre and Wikimédia France

Offering oral cultures and minority, regional, or marginalized languages a way to circumvent exclusion

Atikamekw Nehirowisiw & Wikimedia Canada

Partnering with the Atikamekw Nehirowisiw in order to achieve their strategic goal of restoring cultural pride.

Wikimedia Argentina and Human Rights

Trauma as kind of collective cultural heritage, and the Argentinian fight for their trauma to be acknowledged, reconciled and healed.

Trace of a Soul

Documenting heritage in the Republika Srpska, home to many civilizations over the last 10,000 years, including the Illyrians, the Celts, and the Ottomans.

Ethnography of the Carpathians

Creating a mechanism for sustainable stewardship of folklore in a digital age.