Complexity and uncertainty often animate the desire for regulatory approaches seeking to fix, limit and constrain. But what if, instead of doubling down on ‘solid’ regulation, we also make room for ‘liquid’ regulatory approaches? We interrogate this question through deep empirical analysis of the developing regulatory framework around a form of Melanesian cultural property known as water music. We argue that, although both solid and liquid regulatory forms exist in all normative orders, we have recently seen an increasing emphasis on solid forms of regulation (legislation, registers, etc.) with respect to cultural property. As an effort to consider alternative approaches, we identify a range of liquid regulatory strategies drawing from our case-study. We show how attention to temporality, relationality and situatedness can impact upon the degree of liquidity of individual regulatory approaches, and how they can cumulatively impact the solidity or liquidity of the overall regulatory system. Finally, we identify the different ways in which gendered power and forms of accountability emerge in contexts of solid or liquid regulatory strategies.

复杂性和不确定性常常激发对寻求修复、限制和约束的监管方法的渴望。但是，如果我们不是加倍加强“坚实”监管，而是为“流动”监管方法腾出空间呢？我们通过对围绕一种被称为水音乐的美拉尼西亚文化财产形式的发展中的监管框架进行深入的实证分析来询问这个问题。我们认为，尽管在所有规范秩序中都存在实体和流动的监管形式，但我们最近看到越来越强调与文化财产相关的实体监管形式（立法、登记等）。作为考虑替代方法的努力，我们从我们的案例研究中确定了一系列流动性监管策略。我们展示了如何关注时间性，相关性和情境性会影响个别监管方法的流动性程度，以及它们如何累积影响整个监管体系的稳固性或流动性。最后，我们确定了在坚实或流动的监管战略背景下，性别权力和问责形式出现的不同方式。