Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage and the Inevitability of Loss: a Tibetan Example

This paper takes a look at the idea of the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage as an initiative of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization by first exploring the definition of culture and then looking at the case of Tibetans as an ethnic minority population. It suggests that the initiative is problematic in a number of ways and may inadvertently contribute to the further marginalization and demise of the very culture it aims to safeguard.