Jamaica’s Revivalism Submitted for UNESCO Inscription Consideration – Grange

The Honourable Olivia Grange, Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, has announced that the Ministry has submitted yet another Jamaican cultural form, Revivalism, Religious Practice of Jamaica, to UNESCO for Inscription on its prestigious Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Minister Grange said, “Since the Inscription of Reggae in 2018, I instructed my Technical Committee that going forward, Jamaica should submit one or more of its cultural practices for Inscription by UNESCO. Everyone would remember the worldwide celebrations after Reggae was inscribed at the meeting in Mauritius. We are hoping for the same result with our file on Revivalism.”

Inscription is a much sought after designation and States Parties to the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage need to demonstrate that they have put in place strategies to document and inventorise their cultural elements. State Parties also need to ensure that safeguarding initiatives are undertaken with the full and prior consent of communities associated with the cultural practice.

Notable Inscriptions include Rumba in Cuba and India’s Yoga.

“Jamaica’s dossier on Revivalism is currently under review for an announcement in 2021 at the 16th Session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.

“I am encouraging Jamaicans at home and in the Diaspora to learn more about the process,” said Miss Grange, who was a protégé of late former Prime Minister the Most Honourable Edward Seaga, whose extensive research in the area of Revivalism and Afro-Jamaican traditional religious forms is well known.

She invited members of the public and members of the Revivalism community, who were very engaged and who contributed so much to this submission, to view a 10-minute video and high quality photographs of Revivalism on-line using the https://ich.unesco.org/en/files-2021-under-process-01119. “I believe this is also a good resource for students doing their SBA’s, as well as theologians, and is a useful way to create more awareness of Revivalism.” 

Minister Grange’s announcement comes ahead of the virtual staging of the 15th Session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity from December 14 to 19, 2020. She has the distinction of being only the fourth woman selected to Chair the Intergovernmental Committee which first met in November 2006.

During the meeting, the debates will be transmitted by webcast in their original language as well as their interpretation into English and French in real time from 7:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. (Jamaica time) on the UNESCO website https://ich.unesco.org/en/15com.