Abstract:
This bibliometric study analyses the characteristics of research publications in the field of
Intangible cultural heritage of Sri Lanka between the years of 1998 to 2018. The study is limited
to investigate the research publications in traditional dance and folk drama in Sri Lanka. Library
catalogue of the University of Visual and Performing Arts, Google Scholar and Emerald database
were utilized by this study to examine research publications. Accordingly, 164 publications, both
books and journal articles were investigated to find different characteristics such as fields of the
study, geographical distribution (nationally, internationally), language wise and year wise
distribution, coverage of sub aspects. The results indicate that the majority of publication type is
journal articles (51%) published in nationally and internationally. Nevertheless, the study shows
that the knowledge in intangible cultural heritage has not been widely distributed internationally
since 90% articles found as local publications. And also majority of books (91%) has been
published in local language (Sinhala). Rituals is the most popular field of study (49%) of the
publications while the research in folk drama, traditional dance, traditional percussion music and
allied arts are reported respectively . The study reveals that most of publications in rituals focused
on low country rituals practicing in southern part of Sri Lanka. According to the findings, Kolam
was the most published research field of folk drama in Sri Lanka and highest number of
publications in cultural heritage has been found in years 2000 to 2001 and 2006 to 2007.
