Evaluating Patterns of Research Publications in the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Sri Lanka : a Bibliometric Study

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.