Measuring the vitality

In this Lecture, Dr. Catherine Grant speaks about Music Endangerment and ‘Vitality Framework’, and suggests how it may be relevant to the Cambodian context. First presented in her book “Music Endangerment, How Language Maintenance Can Help” the Music Endangerment and Vitality Framework is the first in-depth model for measuring the strength of music traditions across the world. It is closely based on UNESCO’s international framework for measuring language endangerment. In Cambodia, some music traditions are still endangered while others are being very successfully revitalized. Catherine Grant argues it is important to be able to measure the vitality of Cambodian (and other) music traditions for three reasons: to identify when a tradition is endangered; to make sure the right action is taken to strengthen it; and finally, to allow us to know when efforts to support it are successful. The Music Endangerment and Vitality Framework may help musicians, community members, non-government organizations, cultural policy workers, and others to know how best to support the valuable and beautiful musical heritage of Cambodia.

Student Monks, Temples, Pilgrims and Donors by Prof. John Marston

This talk explores the transnationalism of Cambodian Buddhism by looking at a number of inter-related phenomena taking place since the early 1990s in Sri Lanka and India:
– Cambodian monks pursuing education,
– Buddhist pilgrimage by Cambodian groups,
– the building of Cambodian-style temples,
– and, underpinning all of this, religious donation – by
Cambodians from Cambodia itself as well as the overseas Cambodian community.
The talk asks: to what extent do these transnational processes tell us something significant about the direction of contemporary Cambodian Buddhism?