Karolina Sikora "The Human Right to Cultural Heritage – The Social Contract as a Nonlegal Tool"

The focus of this seminar is the Indigenous Izhma Komi people of the Russian North and how they perceive and engage with diverse forms of cultural heritage, such as folklore and reindeer herding, which are governed by formal and informal normative systems. 

International law has recognized the human right to cultural heritage, although its grassroots effectiveness may be hard to achieve. This difficulty is because implementation tools often are not tailored to meet local political and sociocultural conditions. Based on her fieldwork among Izhma Komi of northern Russia, Karolina Sikora has explored the reality of the human right to cultural heritage by analyzing who decides on what is to be protected, why, and for whom. Even though the Russian administration has become increasingly centralized, there is still space for informal arrangements between the people and officials, challenging the state’s overpowering presence in cultural matters. In this regard, the research reveals that Izhma Komi’s cultural heritage is largely driven by the people and cultural intelligentsia, owing to the tacit social contract. Ultimately, the article proposes an alternative implementation of the human right to cultural heritage through culturally sensitive local arrangements.

Find out more about Karolina Sikora here.

Read more about Karolina's dissertation from the University of Lapland, on the Izhma Komi people here.