Research Proposal: Exploring Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Age of the Belt and Road Initiative

Introduction

Intangible cultural heritage refers to the fundamental nature of the exceptional culture of the Chinese nation. Bonn et al. (2016) argued that most people have recently developed various innovations as well as designs based on intangible cultural heritage. Besides, the Chinese government has established corresponding measure and policies to help in the enhancements of innovation and design as well as protection of intangible cultural heritage. For instance, various intangible cultural heritages at different levels have published in batches and inheritors recognized and offered financial support.

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It is, however, worth noting that advancements in technology and changes in the peoples' lifestyle and production have helped in coming up with innovation and design on intangible cultural heritage hence making more of cultural heritage to come into the attention of most individuals. Bonn et al. (2016)referred to Belt and Road as "Silk Road Economic Belt" and "21st Century Maritime Silk Road". He further argued that since the implementation of the Belt and Road initiative on 2013, China has registered an increase in the corporations and exchanges with regions and countries along the Silk Road in economic, political, as well as cultural fields. Such improvements have encouraged cultural and economic integrations in different. The innovative and design study can help in stimulating the economic value of the intangible cultural heritage and transform it into an economic benefit to the nation; this is, therefore, one of the most effective and direct ways of integrating intangible cultural heritage into the living practice as well as the modern production. Innovation and design study on the perspective of Belt and Road initiative has helped in the protection of intangible cultural heritage. The main focus of this paper is, therefore, to propose various innovations and designs studies on intangible cultural heritage from the perspective of the Belt and Road initiative.

Research Questions

What is the impact of the Belt and Road initiative on the intangible cultural heritage?

Has the "the Belt and Road" offers vigour and opportunities for the development in the protection of the intangible cultural heritage of china?

What is the market pressure resulting from innovation and design on intangible cultural heritage?

Research Objectives and Statement of Problems

To investigate the impact of "the Belt and Road" initiative on intangible cultural heritage.

To investigate the vigour and opportunities that "the Belt and Road" have offered for the development in the protection of the intangible cultural heritage of China.

To investigate the market pressure resulting from innovation and design on intangible cultural heritage.

The researcher will focus on meeting the above objectives as a way of addressing the research questions. Ultimately, the study will have succeeded in solving the main research problem; Research on innovation and design study on intangible cultural heritage from the perspective of the Belt and Road initiative.

Literature Review

The Impact of the Belt and Road Initiative on the Intangible Cultural Heritage

Chantas (2018)argued that the proposals of "the Belt and Road Initiative" has widened the diffusion of China's intangible cultural heritage and developed favourable conditions for distribution. Before the implementation of "the Belt and Road" initiative, China used to export mainly Europe and other developed nations. Under the influence of inherent cultural preference as well as some other factors, cultural communications of China American and European countries can be termed as being relatively weak. Along "the Belt and Road", it occupies over sixty countries, most of which are developing countries. Su et al. (2019) argued that the cultural exchange under "the Belt and Road" initiative has significantly improved along the border. The innovations have made the intangible cultural heritage of China to attract more recognition, dissemination as well as promotion in those regions and countries, and have helped in effective promotion of the development of non-heritage products from their marketing and production to international developments.

Vigour and Opportunities by "The Belt and Road" for the Development in the Protection of the intangible cultural heritage of china

The "the Belt and Road" initiative aims at creating cultural and economic cooperation with other nations along the Silk Road. Stefano et al. (2012)argued that as soon as the initiative is implemented, then the regions and countries along the line will register a secession response with the regular cultural exchange as well as closer ties. Quinto (2017) claimed that the core of the traditional culture of Chinese, as well as its intangible traditional heritage, incorporates the richness of culture as well as diversity, which is significant in the modern global integration of economy as and homogeneity of culture. To safeguarding intangible cultural heritage is protecting human cultural diversity. Smith and Akagawa (2009) maintained that implementation of "the Belt and Road" initiative can help in providing recognition to the Chinese traditional culture by most of the countries along the route, offering a wider platform for development for the internationalization of intangible cultural heritage of Chinese.

Market Pressure Resulting from Innovation and Design on Intangible Cultural Heritage

Kim et al. (2019) argued that innovation, as well as the modern civilization, has made intangible cultural heritage to move astray from its original fertile land for survival; especially for the intangible cultural heritage of handicraft, making the system of inheritance to be relatively single. Pocius, (2016) further maintained that oral transmission has been the traditional way of transmission. Because the majority of young individuals are not ready and willing to learn, most intangible cultural heritage has faced embarrassments of unsustainable as well as no one to inherit. Katelieva et al. (2019) argued that even if corresponding financial support is offered by the government, the pressure resulting from high consumption, car loans as well as housing loans have proved it challenging for young individuals to devote themselves to the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage. Iacono and Brown (2016) further argued that even if young individuals can manage to learn arts, the intangible cultural heritage would still be referred to as "bad or good" and it may be challenging for the return to guarantee material life. It, therefore, means that the marginalization and the brain drain of the intangible cultural heritage are inevitable. Akagawa and Smith (2018) further ascertained that certain intangible cultural heritage is gradually getting lost and are thus becoming extinct.

Significance of the Study

The accomplishment of the study will have a considerable contribution to knowledge. The findings on the research problem and the subsequent analysis will provide enlighten to society in several ways. For one, the research will provide more information on various innovations and designs studies on intangible cultural heritage from the perspective of the Belt and Road initiative. This can be considered in terms of the probable application in daily design studies. Besides, Akagawa and Smith (2018) argued that the knowledge gained will be valuable in understanding the interplay between intangible cultural heritage and Belt and Road initiative. This will be important in understating various ways of product design and development.

Research Methodology

The research will use mixed approaches to help in summarizing evidence on creative product design and development for cultural communication. A review of published articles will be conducted to help understand the best of undertaking an effective product design. Furthermore, an in-depth interview will be conducted; according to Ramlo (2015), it helps in obtaining recommendations as well as opinions of various individuals on ways of designing and developing products for cultural communication. To gather sufficient data on the research topic, a systematic review will be important (Mondal et al., 2018). A pilot search will be conducted on various libraries and databases on published articles on the subject matter.

Besides, the researcher will consider using the focus group and the participation of the participants as other possible research methods. A focus group will help the researcher to study the behaviours of various participants and thus makes decisions based on such behaviour (McKim, 2016). The researcher will also consider categorizing participants into two groups. Shannon-Bake (2016) it is important to have one for the product designers and the other one for the product users. The groups will be given the same questionnaires, and their responses analyzed appropriately to evaluate the existence of any gap.

References

Akagawa, N., & Smith, L. (2018). Intangible heritage (2nd ed., p. 285). London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

Bonn, M., Kendall, L., & McDonough, J. (2016). Preserving intangible heritage: Defining a research agenda. Proceedings of the Association For Information Science And Technology, 53(1), 1-5. DOI: 10.1002/pra2.2016.14505301009

Chantas, G., Karavarsamis, S., Nikolopoulos, S., & Kompatsiaris, I. (2018). A probabilistic, ontological framework for safeguarding the intangible cultural heritage. Journal On Computing And Cultural Heritage, 11(3), 1-29. DOI: 10.1145/3131610

Iacono, V., & Brown, D. (2016). Beyond binarism: exploring a model of living cultural heritage for dance. Dance Research, 34(1), 84-105. DOI: 10.3366/drs.2016.0147

Katelieva, M., Muhar, A., & Penker, M. (2019). Nature-related knowledge as intangible cultural heritage: safeguarding and tourism utilisation in Austria. Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, 1-17. DOI: 10.1080/14766825.2019.1693581

Kim, S., Whitford, M., & Arcodia, C. (2019). Development of intangible cultural heritage as a sustainable tourism resource: the intangible cultural heritage practitioners' perspectives. Journal of Heritage Tourism, 14(5-6), 422-435. DOI: 10.1080/1743873x.2018.1561703

McKim, C. (2016). The Value of Mixed Methods Research. Journal Of Mixed Methods Research, 11(2), 202-222. https://doi.org/10.1177/1558689815607096

Mondal, P., & Mondal, S. (2018). QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE RESEARCH: A MIXED METHOD APPROACH IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE. International Journal Of Technical Research & Science, 3(VII). https://doi.org/10.30780/ijtrs.v3.i7.2018.010

Pocius, G. (2016). The Government of Canada and Intangible Cultural Heritage. Ethnologies, 36(1-2), 63-92. https://doi.org/10.7202/1037600ar

Quinto, O.(2017). Acoli Intangible Cultural Heritage Book (1st ed., p. 334). Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press.

Ramlo, S. (2015). Mixed-Method Lessons Learned From 80 Years of Q Methodology. Journal Of Mixed Methods Research, 10(1), 28-45. https://doi.org/10.1177/1558689815610998

Shannon-Baker, P. (2016). Making Paradigms Meaningful in Mixed Methods Research. Journal Of Mixed Methods Research, 10(4), 319-334. https://doi.org/10.1177/1558689815575861

Smith, L., & Akagawa, N. (2009). Intangible heritage (1st ed., p. 336). London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

Stefano, M., Davis, P., & Corsane, G. (2012). Safeguar...