Welcome word

Welcome to the Princess Basma Center for Intangible Cultural Heritage. On this site, we present to you and all those interested and researchers the oral heritage of local communities in the Ma’an Governorate. As we are interested in collecting and documenting the oral heritage of the region, we share part of the ethical and scientific responsibility in safeguarding and protecting oral heritage and protecting the right of generations. It is an important part of the identity and cultural specificity of societies and people, and it is the outcome of human experience, and it is the living memory of people.

We at the Princess Basma Center for Intangible Cultural Heritage are concerned with collecting and documenting heritage according to modern technological tools. We employ audio and video techniques in the production of short video films in the heritage fields. We are keen to produce scientific research on various topics of intangible cultural heritage. As part of the center’s work philosophy and objectives, we advance With research projects that support oral heritage collection efforts and provide funding opportunities to implement projects and programs in the center’s field of work.

In conclusion, we are pleased to cooperate with researchers and those interested in oral heritage, and we put in their hands a set of scientific and audio materials, and we believe in the center that working in the field of oral heritage is a mission and a national message that we hope to succeed in carrying it out.

Center glimpse

Al-Hussein Bin Talal University

Princess Basma Center for Intangible Cultural Heritage

The center was established in 2009 and is the headquarters of the Petra Brigade. The idea of ​​the center came at the initiative of Al-Hussein Bin Talal University to be the first scientific center in Jordanian universities specialized in intangible cultural heritage, and in response to the efforts made by UNESCO in safeguarding intangible cultural heritage, especially after the Universal Declaration by UNESCO In 2005, considering the cultural space of the Petra and Wadi Rum Bedouins as one of the masterpieces of the intangible oral heritage in the world, and Jordan signed several agreements related to the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage, including the Convention on the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2003 and the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions in 2005 Since the credit goes to Her Highness Princess Basma for supporting national efforts in the field of cultural heritage, the University was honored that the Center bears the name of His Highness.

The center's mission and goals

The center's mission is to preserve and document the intangible cultural heritage in Jordan, specifically in the south of the Kingdom, in order to enhance cultural diversity within the framework of national identity and support sustainable development.

Through this center, the university seeks to achieve the following goals:

1- Contribute to the preservation and protection of the intangible cultural heritage in Jordan in general and in the south of the Kingdom in particular.

2- Documenting the intangible cultural heritage in the areas of competence in a scientific manner and establishing a library specialized in oral heritage.

3- Conducting field scientific research in the field of intangible cultural heritage using appropriate scientific methods.

4- Awareness of the importance of intangible cultural heritage and its role in preserving the cultural peculiarities of local communities in Jordan and preserving the Jordanian cultural identity.

5- Reproducing the intangible cultural heritage to serve the goals of national development, specifically in the areas of marketing and tourism promotion, and in the fields of national cultural industries.

The center's mechanism of action

The Center sought to achieve its goals through multiple work mechanisms, and through a set of means, tools and methods, the most important of which are:

1- Establishing the use of information technology and multimedia to preserve, produce and document intangible heritage, through the establishment of a specialized unit in this field.

2- Training and qualification to provide qualified human resources in the fields of collecting and documenting oral heritage and intangible heritage in general.

3- Developing the capacities of local communities and enabling them to benefit from intangible heritage by introducing them to ideas and proposals for development and tourism projects based on intangible cultural heritage, which contributes to the development of these communities on the one hand and to the safeguarding of intangible heritage.

4- Conducting a series of field research to collect and document heritage and employ intangible heritage to become a part of tourism development and part of marketing for cultural tourism in Jordan and linking it to the definition of cultural identity.