Abstract
This chapter discusses insights from a project in India that speak to the challenges and benefits of co-creation and collaboration in situations where communities work with academics and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in heritage safeguarding projects, communicating across language, cultural and disciplinary differences and managing diverse interests.
Purulia Chau (or Chhau) dance is a dynamic acrobatic dance with elaborate masks performed in India for ritual purposes as well as to paying audiences for entertainment. The dance practice was inscribed, alongside two other Chau styles, on the UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010. In the heritage-sensitive intellectual property and marketing strategies (HIPAMS) India project, funded by a three-year British Academy grant (2018-2021), a group of Chau dancers and mask makers collaborated with a team of researchers from Europe specialising in heritage, marketing and intellectual property law, and a local NGO in West Bengal. The project co-created and implemented heritage-sensitive intellectual property and marketing strategies, or HIPAMS, to maximise sustainable development and heritage-safeguarding benefits for artists.
The HIPAMS specifically sought to address problems identified by the artists, such as lack of proper attribution in films, and the need to expand their markets. Strategies implemented as part of the project included developing artists' digital storytelling skills and creating a common online promotional platform for dancers and mask makers, drafting a code of ethics based on intellectual property rights and designing new packaging and labels. The project helped artists to develop their online markets in a time of COVID-19, assert their rights and interests more effectively with customers and communicate better to customers about the heritage attributes that the community valued.