About the Project
The Documentation Project
The Article 13 of the 2003 Convention requires States Parties to take effective actions in fostering “scientific, technical and artistic studies, as well as research methodologies” to safeguard and promote the intangible cultural heritage in their territories.
This project entitled “Documentation of Children’s Traditional Games in the Asia-Pacific Region” is directly in line with the above recommendation.
The main objectives of this project are:
- To encourage experts, scholars and educators to document and revitalize children’s traditional games;
- Through the documentation processes to be undertaken by the country partners, to reinforce the awareness of the significance of safeguarding children’s traditional games;
- To promote information sharing and permit future comparative studies among experts, scholars and educators on the basis of the documentation work of the project.
Project sites were identified in order to encompass a range of diversity in terms of cultures, ethnic groups, socio-economic status, and development settings. These include five sites in four countries in Southeast Asia covering communities of 14 different ethnic groups:
- Greater Phnom Penh area, Cambodia
- Greater Luang Prabang area, Lao PDR
- Greater Penang area, Malaysia
- Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Mae Hong Son Provinces (Northern Region), Thailand
- Greater Bangkok area, Thailand
Given their proximity, these five sites also provide the possibility for exchanges of cultural influence to be manifested through the games. Furthermore, the sites were also chosen in order to provide urban and rural comparators in order to capture the situation of traditional children’s games in highly-urbanized settings (such as Bangkok) versus in a more rural context (such as the sites in northern Thailand).
Within each individual project site, a number of communities were selected from a range of ethnic groups, featuring both urban centers as well as rural settings for additional cross-comparative purposes (such as games of Khmer children in urban Phonm Penh compared to games of Khmer children at the rural periphery).
