21 May 2025
2.30 pm to 4 p.m. CEST
via zoom
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88167198923
Dialogue on action research experiences in tourism and living heritage
- with Ruzanna Tsaturyan (My Armenia Program, Armenia),
- Ketevan Gurchiani (Georgia),
- moderated by Michele McKenzie (international Tourism expert, Canada),
- Chaired by Halle M. Butvin (Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, ICH NGO Forum)
Drawing from their experiences with the Smithsonian’s My Armenia and Mukhrani Village projects, anthropologists Ketevan Gurchiani and Ruzanna Tsaturyan will explore the critical role of research in cultural tourism development.
They will reflect on the importance of community engagement, the need for sensitivity toward cultural practices, and the often-overlooked value of research in shaping respectful and sustainable tourism initiatives.
The conversation will be moderated by former President and CEO of Destination Canada Michele McKenzie, bringing insights from her extensive international experience in tourism development and cultural heritage programs.
This ICH Tourism Dialogue is part of the ICH Tourism Dialogues Series and the web dossier on ICH and sustainable tourism by the ICH NGO Forum.
SPEAKER BIO’s
Ketevan Gurchiani is a professor of anthropology and head of the Research Center for Anthropology at Ilia State University in Tbilisi. Her work explores urban anthropology, everyday religion, and the negotiation of heritage in post-Soviet spaces. In 2024, she led ethnographic research for the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage in the Republic of Georgia in support of new tourism experiences based on living culture in the Mukhrani region. Following her 2015–2018 research on religion among young Georgians, Ketevan has managed the “Tbilisi as an Urban Assemblage” project since 2020 and curated several related exhibitions. She has held fellowships at the University of California, Los Angeles, Columbia University, New York University, and the University of Frankfurt and has taught at Cornell University. She currently collaborates on international research projects supported by the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Canadian Research Council and serves on the scientific board of the Frobenius Institute and the Central Eurasian Studies Society.
Ruzanna Tsaturyan is a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences, Armenia and lecturer at Yerevan State University and a co-founder of the Culture for Sustainable Development NGO. Her research focuses on intangible cultural heritage (ICH) in sustainable development and community vitality. As a member of Armenia’s Expert Council on ICH, she has contributed to multiple nominations for UNESCO’s Representative List and the national ICH registry. In 2018, Ruzanna collaborated with the Smithsonian’s My Armenia program to develop community-based tourism models and co-curated the “Armenia: Creating Home” program at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. More recently, she has focused on the vulnerabilities of ICH in contexts of forced displacement, working with displaced communities to document practices and resilience strategies. She shared early findings at the 2025 Conference on Armenian Cultural Heritage at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Michele McKenzie is an international tourism and development expert with over three decades of leadership experience. The former President and CEO of Destination Canada and Deputy Minister of Tourism for Nova Scotia, she most recently served as Chief of Party for the USAID-funded South Caucasus Regional Tourism Program—operating across Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Previously, Michele led major tourism development initiatives in Jordan, Tunisia, and Canada. A Harvard Advanced Leadership Fellow, her research focused on the impact of tourism on Indigenous communities in the Middle East and North Africa region and Canada’s Arctic. She currently chairs the board of Trans Canada Trail and serves on the boards of Invest in Canada and several federal government audit committees. Her contributions have been recognized with numerous awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Tourism Industry Association of Canada.
Contact: ICH NGO Forum Working Group Research <ichngoforum.research@gmail.com>
