When the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage was adopted by UNESCO's General Conference in 2003, the international community accepted the revolutionary notion that intangible cultural heritage was no longer something to be identified, documented, catalogued, categorized and archived by external experts - as had been done for centuries by folklorists, musicologists, ethnologists and others - but was instead something that could only be correctly valued and adequately safeguarded by its own communities. How did this simple but ground-breaking premise come to be the guiding principle of the Convention? What are the logical and practical consequences of taking the Convention and its definition of intangible cultural heritage seriously, as they demand? As we shall see below, the Convention defines intangible cultural heritage as a phenomenon that exists only if and when it is recognized as such by communities, groups or, in some cases, individuals, and that in turn provides those same people with a sense of identity and continuity. This definition - seemingly modest, even circular, but in fact profoundly radical - up-ends the customary relationship between the owners of heritage (that is, its bearers and practitioners), and those who would seek to safeguard it on their behalf. In this context, communities have a decisive role at every stage of the process of determining what value should be attached to particular expressions, practices, knowledge and skills and how they should be perpetuated - or not-for future generations