AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST BOOK REVIEWS Single Reviews Intangible Heritage and the Museum: New Perspectives on Cultural Preservation by Marilena Alivizatou. Critical Cultural Heritage series. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast 2012, 225 pp. Natsuko Akagawa Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University As its title suggests, Intangible Heritage and the Museum is about the practice of museums. The crux of Marilena Alivizatou’s argument concerns establishing a productive link between the emerging discourse on intangible heritage and the role of the modern museum. This, the author suggests, is not so much an exercise in reimagining the role of the museum as in recognizing current trends in museum practice. Focusing on “the participation of Native groups” in some recent museum practice, Alivizatou defines this new trend in museology as a “postcolonial reinvention of museum practice centered on providing space for cross-cultural communication” (p. 21). This practice is demonstrated in the book’s presentation of five exemplary contemporary museum projects, each of which concerns the preservation of indigenous heritage. While grounded in an examination of five case stud- ies demonstrating the evolution in contemporary museum practice, the theoretical argument is substantiated by a de- tailed examination of the emerging discourse on the concept of intangible cultural heritage. Intangible heritage is distin- guished by “its inclusiveness and its living and constantly evolving nature as opposed to the more static nature of monuments and archaeological sites” that preoccupied older understandings of heritage (p. 35). The link between in- tangible heritage discourse and contemporary museology turns on two characteristics that the author proposes they have in common: a focus on “‘dialogue’” with communi- ties (p. 20) and an apparent concern with “preservation” and avoidance of “loss.” It is this fear of loss underlying the concern of intangible heritage discourse and museol- ogy that provides the pivot in both cases for engaging lo- cal community, the living custodians and transmitters of tradition. In chapter 2, Alivizatou provides a succinct overview of the development of the theory and global interpretation and implementation of the concept of intangible heritage within the context of UNESCO. Contrary to what she sees as the “mostly conservationist approach” of UNESCO in response to fear of loss, the author posits “an alternative framework for negotiating ideas of identity and contemporary engage- ments with past” (p. 47). The author’s thesis of creative AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Vol. 116, No. 4, pp. 862–897, ISSN 0002-7294, online ISSN 1548-1433. C  2014 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/aman.12162 destruction holds that rather than attempting to preserve in the face of imminent loss, the implications of intangible heritage and museology identify their roles in supporting cultural transformation and renewal: “in this sense, globali- sation is not a threat to cultural distinctiveness, but rather an opportunity for cross-cultural innovation and fertilization” (p. 47). The accounts of the five museums examined in this book unravel the implications of this thesis. The case studies all in- volve institutions that have engaged indigenous community representation but have done so in politically, culturally, and socioeconomically diverse contexts. Although the author has sequenced her discussion of these cases differently to build her argument, the examples could be characterized as follows: three examples of museums working to include representation of formerly colonized, minority indigenous Native cultures (the institutions administered under the National Museum of the American Indian Act [NNAI], U.S.; the Horniman Museum, U.K.; and the Mus´ e Quai Branly, France); one example in which the indigenous community also has considerable political representation in civil society (Te Papa Tongarewa, New Zealand); and one example that involves a case of a postcolonial national museum project (Vanuatu Cultural Centre, Vanuatu). Each represents a museum evolving out of some former manifestation of traditional (colonial) museum practice. On the evidence presented, to argue that these are examples of opportunities “for cross-cultural innovation and fertilization” or as cases of “postcolonial sensibilities” would seem, to this reviewer at least, to be at best optimistic. Even on the author’s own terms, and on the basis of reports by Native community representatives themselves, they remain ambiguous and incomplete realizations of their aims. What these examples have in common, however, is a concerted effort to interface and act with the communities who own the cultural heritage, a bottom-up approach focus- ing on “the native,” which Alivizatou interprets by recourse to postcolonial theory. Secondly, rather than focusing on “objects, places and practices that provide an unbroken con- nection with the past and need to be preserved intact for the future” (p. 189), the author highlights the fact that the new concept of museum privileges the intangible heritage of performance.