Global and local: Rethinking multicultural citizenship in art and visual culture education

Elizabeth Garber Reaching out to a diversity of socio-cultural contexts and specificities: 2.1 Global citizenship, cultural identities and arts education University of Arizona, United States [email protected]

We are all familiar with the global colonization of first world cultures, especially that of the U.S.: Burger King restaurants found from Helsinki to Seoul to Quito, US sit- coms and blockbuster films dubbed in Chinese, Estonian, and Farsi; Microsoft as the prevailing software in Ankara, Makarora, Nuuk, and Tierra del Fuego. Participatory democracy is threatened by globalization because international corporations are beyond the control of nation-states. Thinking of globalization as bad or the local as remedy is overly reductive. Societies and cultures are not only in a constant state of change, but influence each other continually—historically as well as now. Cultures are varied and complex and in flux. Based on these theoretical premises, four themes are developed that provide a basis for my multicultural teaching practice: identity, understanding beyond ourselves, racism, and becoming political subjects. I conclude with some thoughts on the importance of imagination in developing into a multicultural artist and teacher citizen. These principles are largely supported in multicultural education in North America and Europe through promoting local and regional cultural traditions, geographic and cultural distinctions, and artists. In my teacher preparation classes, I work to teach the value of overlooked culture; to help students see how their identities get caught up in consumer ideals; to find ways to understand how culture influences our values, experiences, and understandings of the world; and to inspire students to find ways to become proactive in a corporately controlled and racist culture. We look particularly at regional and local culture: Chicana/o art, art by Arizona Native Americans, and public art as well as at material and visual cultures. But there is more work to be done. The work of postcolonial theorists leads to questions such as: What definitions of art, culture, and region underlie such teaching? Which art and visual culture is chosen for study and why? What underlies categories such as race, nationality, ethnicity, and gender that surround the art and visual culture studied? Who is the public in public art? For whom are art and visual and material culture made and what values do these objects embody? These and other questions lead towards the possibility of incorporating concepts that extend beyond the Europeanized values of art and education that underlie the multicultural and local curricula that we teach.

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