A rapid perusal of the usual sources provides definitions of ‘intangible’ as ‘incapable of being perceived by the sense of touch’;’incorporeal or immaterial’;’vague, elusive, fleeting’; ‘not definite to the mind’. Perhaps more arresting is the idea that intangibility applies to assets in the good will of a business. Amusingly, if you search for the term ‘intangible’ on Dictionnary.com, it offers you the option to ‘see images of intangible’. A quick click on that link gives you images relating to intangible cultural heritage in Estonia, Fiji and Vietnam, among other places. A series of further clicks on randomly chosen images from among the same set inevitably results in the response ‘website could not be found’! The intangible appears and disappears, but what remains is a series of questions worth exploring about the links between intangibility, culture, and assets. […]
Moore, H. L. (2011). Intangibles: Culture, heritage and identity in H. Anheier and Y.R. Isar (eds.) Heritage, Memory and Identity, (pp. 273-280). London, UK: Sage Publication.
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