One part of the theme ”ethics and folklorism” concerns the ethnologist and his/her research, the other one folklorism itself.
Ethics is not a frequented word in the other part, although this
phenomenon - because of its importance it has in the society -
would deserve it. In the dominating part of the entire phase of
folklorism, there is no extensive awareness of ethical effect of several activities. Today, it is very difficult to differ in particular regions or locations, what has survived as a relic of older
traditions, what has been included in them for various reasons, how the first arrangers, choreographers, whose results were often passed off as transmissions of original materials, proceeded at their flights of imaginations. The phenomenon that we could call as “folk culture free for use” remains big problem as well. Here we are also missing an ethica codex that, however, does not concern just ethnology. The general need for ethics in relation to cultural tradition is not deep-rooted at all by us. It is a widely social matter and it should concern cultural tradition in the legal sense of the word - not to exploit it, not to misuse it commercially, to understand it as a part of national culture. In addition to the research principles, it is thus necessary to promote generally the fact that nobody may behave destructively or unethically to cultural heritage of any nature.
The issue of ethics is reflected in all UNESCO conventions.
For ethnology, Convention on Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, Convention on the Protection and Promotion of
the Diversity Cultural Expressions, Convention on the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage are the most important ones. UNESCO is based on faith in universal values on which it also builds itsattitude to ethical aspects of the research. It tries to establish common values and criteria for all countries, taking into a
special account the development countries. It is the World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) that deals with the issue
of ethics in relation to traditional knowledge, traditional cultural
expressions, and folklore. The most important aspects for the
protection of cultural heritage include the respect for cultural
diversity among nations, and the protection from the misuse of
traditional knowledge and awareness including their
commercialization.
Open-air museums are very popular in the Czech Republic now. Besides the permanent popularity of these institutions, they attract more and more criticism - not only from the professional public - for their today’s condition. Attention is paid mainly to the insufficient level of authenticity, which causes the public to be misinformed about historical reality. The degree of how the depicted facts are truthful constitutes the basic problem. Considerable danger also insists in hiding or non-admission of non-identical materials and
techniques. When using intended deceits, the open-air museums
as cultural and memory institutions can easilyl and in conflict with
museum ethics.
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The article opens the basic issues of ethics in the case of
collection-creating and presentation activity of museums. It defines the contemporary position of museums within the modern information society as a space for memory transformation. It points out the ethical dimension of curator’s work, whose presentation and interpretation results are connected with the institution
more than elsewhere. The interpretation as well as the involvement
of the public into this activity is a fundamentally ethical task of the museum as a memory institution. In this connection, the running discussion concerns the model of the community museum or “eco-museum” as an institution that is defined by its relation to the organism (the museum) and its environment (the society). This institution distinguishes itself by the ability to respond to or to adapt itself to the conditions and to create a wide network of social relations.