With the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003), the recognition of a new dimension of heritage, associated with traditions, expressions, and knowledge transmitted from generation to generation, whose value would not lie in their "exceptional universal" status, but in the role they play in the identity of their bearer communities, is established at a global level. By doing so, UNESCO stresses that these cultural manifestations, rooted in people's history and experience, are living testimonies of human creativity and diversity and their capacity to adapt over time.

The Convention and the concept of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) have not been free from criticism. However, its impact on cultural policies is evident and its implementation, at the same time, has entailed significant challenges for the different actors involved in the practice and safeguarding of ICH. In this regard, there is an extensive literature on the successes, critical knots and contradictions arising from the different experiences of its valorisation, as well as from its political, identity and economic uses. Some of these debates have given rise to a reflection on the future of the ICH and how its safeguarding should be rethought from a perspective that takes aspects such as accessibility, inclusion, diversity and sustainability into account.

Some of these approaches are included in the works that make up the monograph.