Intangible heritage in Algeria

The project on Intangible Heritage extends and broadens a previous project undertaken within the framework of the National Research Program on Population and Society (Cultural Heritage in Algeria). It aims to identify, collect, and analyze intangible productions that support, accompany, and express social behaviors and interactions in Algeria. Recall that: “For anthropologists, objects have no intrinsic value; they acquire it through technical knowledge, skills, memories, environmental contexts, ceremonies, ways of thinking and living, and the values involved.” (Pietro Clemente, Knowledge and Hurdy-Gurdies. Notes on ‘Intangible Goods’, p.31)Even though the first phase focuses on the oldest expressions, which are the most threatened with disappearance, attention will also be given to forms of expression emerging today, particularly in the development of new urban socialities and through the use of new communication technologies. The focus will be on modes of interaction in symbolic practices via mobile phones, SMS, participation in various Internet forums, consumption of music, video films, and different radio and satellite channel practices (linguistic uses, social appearance strategies, ways of constructing social bonds, etc.). What matters are primarily specific and more or less lasting symbolic indicators that characterize the meaningful practices of social actors collectively or within more individualized social categories. The research will always aim to observe how symbolic practices inform affirmed or emerging identities from a socio-anthropological perspective.The research to be undertaken will combine the collection and compilation of materials belonging to Intangible Heritage with the study of both their symbolic and formal manifestations and their anthropological foundations and consequences. In this context, results may lead to the creation of a database (atlas of cultural practices, oral literary myths, specific linguistic uses, specific oral productions—by region, gender, rural/urban, groups or communities, etc.) as well as the publication and dissemination of some results: books, anthologies, CDs, CD-ROMs, films, exhibitions, etc.