Tradition in Transition - Schützenwesen in Westphalia as Intangible Cultural Heritage

The "Tradition in Transition" project examines the significance attached to social rituals, customs and festivities in contemporary society, the extent to which the relevance and acceptance of traditional Schützen associations’ values are subjected to change as well as the relationship between tradition and societal transformation. In the various phases of the project, historical lines of development and transformation processes of Schützenwesen are shed light on, current risks affecting the cultural phenomenon are identified and future perspectives and concepts are analysed in cooperation with the clubs and associations.

Scholarly and methodological orientation

Within the project, economic approaches to risk analysis (Centre for Risk Management, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics) are interlinked with cultural science methods from the fields of cultural heritage research, empirical cultural studies and cultural history (Competence Centre for Cultural Heritage, Faculty of Cultural Studies).

Research relevance

As the research results to date reveal, the examination of the Schützenwesen heritage offers a projection surface on which socio-cultural developments can be investigated and visualised. Against this background, the research project was expanded at short notice with the outbreak of the Covid 19 pandemic in 2020 in order to investigate the consequences of that crisis for intangible cultural heritage in general and Schützenwesen in particular in a special study.

The research project is based on the assumption that customs always reflect social developments, expectations and needs, react to them and can therefore act as indicators for social transformation and negotiation processes. In this sense, the study aims to incorporate the current approaches in custom and ritual research, which understand customs as a "cultural pacemaker" (Hirschfelder 2023) and "substantial component of ongoing modernisation processes" (Drascek 2016) in light of current developments. The study also looks at metacultural attributions and reflections that go hand in hand with the application and inscription process for intangible cultural heritage. This takes into account a "central pillar of contemporary cultural heritage research" (Tauschek 2013).