Intergenerational dialogue constitutes a critical mechanism for sustaining intangible cultural heritage in South Asia, yet its dynamics and vulnerabilities remain under-studied in sociological literature. Addressing this lacuna, this article presents a qualitative study of fourteen folk artists and their family members – practitioners of hereditary arts such as Kasuti hand embroidery, Pabu-ji ki Phad bard performers, and Ajrakh printing in rural India – to examine how cultural transmission is a dialogic, co-creative endeavour. When a grandfather and grandson sit together to embellish a panel, each interprets and modifies the design in the light of age and experience; far from static, the transmission process is an evolving conversation, keeping culture relevant. Elders impart narrative templates, technical repertoires, and affective models of emotional intelligence, while younger kin recalibrate these legacies in response to digital exposure, schooling, and market volatility. Such reciprocal re-articulation sustains cultural identity and social cohesion and enables communities to mobilise ancestral wisdom against caste discrimination and existential erasure.
Yet this dialogue is increasingly fragile. The loosening of joint-family architectures in India and the aspirational pull of credentialled urban employment compress the time-space coordinates in which apprenticeship can occur. Smartphones broaden aesthetic horizons while normalising consumerist subjectivities that devalue artisanal labour. Gendered labour, often undertaken by grandmothers and mothers, remains undervalued despite its centrality to cultural continuity. As youth negotiates emergent identities – class mobility, caste dissent and gender equity – ancestral repertoires risk being reframed as burdensome markers of marginality rather than sources of pride.
The study therefore lays emphasis on cultural identity and resilience as a community-level achievement derived from sustained intergenerational relationality. It positions intergenerational dialogue as indispensable both to preserving intangible cultural resources and cultivating harmonious social cohesion, while fostering a sense of belonging and continuity.
