REFRAMING LEGAL EDUCATION FOR HERITAGE PROTECTION: A CRITICAL LEGAL STUDIES PERSPECTIVE ON INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE IN MALAYSIA
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35631/IJLGC.1145002Keywords:
Critical Legal Studies, Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), Islamic Law Administration, Legal Education, MalaysiaAbstract
Intangible cultural heritage (ICH) is living, community-based heritage that is continuously practised, recreated, and transmitted. In Malaysia, its protection operates within a legally plural environment in which civil law coexists with Islamic legal administration. This study aims to critically examine the limitations of existing legal and educational approaches to ICH protection and to propose a transformative legal education framework. The study adopts a qualitative design combining doctrinal analysis of the National Heritage Act 2005 (Act 645) and relevant UNESCO instruments with qualitative content analysis of selected publicly available Malaysian law curricula and syllabi. Critical Legal Studies (CLS) is used as the analytical lens to examine how legal and educational structures may reproduce state-centric, formalistic, and fragmented approaches. Three interrelated limitations are identified: state-centric heritage governance that can marginalise community agency; limited integration between civil and Islamic legal perspectives; and predominantly doctrinal legal education that provides insufficient attention to the socio-cultural, religious, and interdisciplinary dimensions of ICH. The study develops a context-sensitive, transformative framework that integrates ICH across the legal curriculum, socio-legal and interdisciplinary learning, Islamic jurisprudential perspectives, experiential and clinical learning, digital and technological literacy, and institutional reform. The framework extends CLS scholarship into ICH governance and legal education while offering practical directions for more inclusive and culturally responsive heritage governance in Malaysia and comparable plural legal settings.
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