Huib Schippers and Anthony Seeger, eds. Music, Communities, Sustainability: Developing Policies and Practices. Oxford University Press, 2022. 290 Pages. Hardcover, £105.00.

To what extent does cultural policy shape the future of music communities? When policymakers intervene in the musical life of a community, are they protecting and guiding it, or are they invisibly reconstructing its ecosystem? Music, Communities, Sustainability: Developing Policies and Practices addresses these questions through a multidimensional dialogue on music communities, cultural policy, and sustainability. It traces the context and negotiation process of the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (hereafter “the ICH Convention”) and closely examines its implementation and transformation in different social contexts. Adopted in 2003, the ICH Convention is UNESCO’s treaty that defines intangible heritage as living practices and knowledge and requires states, in partnership with communities, to identify and safeguard them through instruments such as national inventories and international lists. This book is divided into three parts: “Foundations,” “National Case Studies,” and “Forward-Looking Approaches,” demonstrating how the ICH Convention reshapes relationships between states, institutions, and communities, and how community actors respond to these changes. Oxford University Press also provides an open-access companion website that includes two additional chapters, a documentary, and related video and image collections, designed for use alongside the book’s chapters (https://www.oup.com/us/musiccommunitiessustainability).

In chapter 1, Anthony Seeger and Huib Schippers introduce the book by tracing the genealogy of the ICH Convention, clarifying contested notions of intangible heritage and situating music within global cultural governance debates. Linking institutional and policy dimensions with community practices of sustainability, they show how the ICH Convention reshaped relations between states, institutions, and communities, while outlining the book’s three-part structure.

Part 1 outlines the origins and theoretical foundations of the ICH Convention. In chapter 2, Richard Kurin traces the political dynamics that led from postwar cultural instruments to the 1989 Recommendation, the Masterpieces program, and ultimately the ICH Convention, offering an insider account of how heritage became a vehicle for cultural diversity, soft power, and international cooperation. In chapter 3, Noriko Aikawa-Faure examines the shifting role of community participation, showing how the bottom-up vision of the 1999 Smithsonian meeting, communities themselves identifying and safeguarding their heritage with prior informed consent, was diluted in later negotiations. In chapter 4, Wim van Zanten explores the definitional ambiguities of “community” and “sustainability,” which are also the subject matter of this book, showing that unclear terminology can broaden participation yet also be instrumentalized by state or commercial actors, evident in national debates over Sinterklaas and in cultural-tourism pressures on the Baduy people. Finally, in chapter 5, Naila Ceribašić highlights the gap between participatory ideals and bureaucratic practice, pointing to the role of NGOs in reclaiming community voices. Collectively, these chapters reveal both the conceptual innovations and the unresolved tensions underpinning the global ICH regime.

Part 2 presents country-level experiences in safeguarding musical ICH. In chapter 6, Xiao Mei and Yang Xiao provide one of the book’s most substantial empirical studies, framing China’s ICH movement as the institutional and social forces reshaping traditional music, and arguing that sustainability depends on balancing static preservation with dynamic forms of transmission. In chapter 7, Olcay Muslu’s highlights tensions between Turkey’s state-led and grassroots models, particularly around autonomy, visibility, and gender. In chapter 8, Tan Sooi Beng shows how community engagement in Malaysia is shaped by both restrictions, exemplified by Mak Yong in Kelantan, and opportunities in George Town, where heritage initiatives are entangled with tourism and gentrification. With the volume’s musical focus in view, she demonstrates that governance directly reshapes musical practice, who performs, what is performed, and where, reconfiguring ensembles, repertoires, gendered roles, and performance settings, from Kelantan’s Mak Yong to George Town’s heritage programming. In chapter 9, Logan Elizabeth Clark illustrates how UNESCO recognition of the Achí-Mayan dance-drama in Guatemala translated rather than displaced local meanings, strengthening community agency. She shows how communities leveraged recognition to secure locally controlled resources and visibility, even as new organizational demands emerged. Finally, in chapter 10, Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco examines the cante of Alentejo, a cappella choral singing from southern Portugal performed by men’s and women’s community choirs without instrumental accompaniment, which is practiced informally in private gatherings, fiestas, and taverns. Castelo-Branco argues that its sustainability rests less on heritage politics or tourism than on community life, intergenerational transmission, and collective practice.

Part 3 looks to the future, discussing new strategies and emerging issues for the sustainability of music. In chapter 11, Gao Shu examines China’s experimental National Cultural Ecosystem Conservation Areas (NCECA), placing them within the evolution of national ICH policy and global debates on cultural ecology. She highlights the role of people, knowledge systems, and regional contexts in reconciling state policy, community practice, and cultural sustainability. In chapter 12, Seeger explores the intricate relationship between archives and communities, considering how new technologies can contribute to the continuity of musical and performing traditions. The author argues that the sustainability of music and sound heritage cannot rely solely on archival or technological solutions but must instead be grounded in the dynamic interplay of archives, technologies, and the communities that sustain their meaning. In chapter 13, Catherine Grant assesses the potential and limits of comparative models for mapping musical vitality, drawing on three frameworks she developed over the past decade: the Music Vitality and Endangerment Framework (MVEF), the Map of Music Endangerment and Vitality (MapMEV), and the Authenticity–Transmission–Sustainability (ATS) Model. She cautions against applying such positivist tools uncritically to complex musical practices, yet argues that, used reflectively, they can guide the evaluation of endangered traditions and support more effective decision-making and resource allocation. Finally, in chapter 14, Rebecca Dirksen critiques UNESCO interventions in Haiti, contrasting elite and community traditions and calling for “sound(er) futures” grounded in justice, equity, and resilience. Together, these chapters broaden the discussion from policy and case studies to methodological and ethical challenges for the future of music sustainability.

Music, Communities, Sustainability will attract the attention of folklorists, anthropologists, and ethnomusicologists alike. Its arrangement is flexible and logical, but each chapter still retains the author’s individual perspective and field details. Among the fifteen authors are both researchers who have been deeply involved in academia for many years and cultural practitioners who have been directly involved in the formulation and implementation of ICH policies. Its most notable achievement is the way it brings the ICH Convention, typically discussed as an abstract instrument of global governance, into dialogue with the micro-level dynamics of musical practice, including social relations, political negotiations, and technological change. The book’s structure, moving from insider accounts of the Convention’s drafting to comparative case studies across continents and finally to forward-looking proposals, is coherent without being rigid, which also makes it suitable for teaching: individual chapters can be assigned for class reading at both undergraduate and graduate levels, while groups of chapters lend themselves to comparative coursework. This is especially true when read alongside works such as Jeff Todd Titon’s “Music and Sustainability: An Ecological Viewpoint” (2009) and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums and Heritage (1998), which together encourage critical dialogue between global frameworks and local practices.

Although Africa is nearly absent, and only a few cases represent Latin America and Southeast Asia, scholars interested in comparative views will still find valuable insights in the chapters on China, Turkey, Malaysia, Guatemala, and Portugal. These chapters highlight the diverse ways UNESCO frameworks intersect with local musical practices. For these reasons, it will become essential reading for folklorists, scholars of cultural heritage, and students alike.