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: issues and interrogations in an international perspective by Yudhishthir Raj Isar

This essay was supposed to be a review of long-term entities) envision and enact in terms of cultural affairs, the trends in ‘international cultural policy’. Although it has latter understood as relating to ‘the works and practices of turned out to be something else, it is still worth pausing intellectual, and especially artistic activity’ (Williams, 1988: to inquire what that original brief might mean. ‘Interna- 90). Its analysis means studying how governments seek to tional cultural policy’ could denote two different things: support and regulate the and heritage. It also means ana- first, the evolution of norms and frameworks articulated lyzing how the latter are seen as ‘resources’ and used in the by international organizations and/or considered to be service of ends such as economic growth, employment, or good practice internationally; second, the emergence of social cohesion. Increasingly, this instrumental view of cul- different ‘cultural policy’ stances and measures in dif- tural assets means that the attention lavished on them and the ferent countries and regions (this second reading could money spent are increasingly justified in terms of ‘protect- of course subsume the first). Interested principally in the ing’ or ‘promoting’ the ‘ways of life’ that audiovisual second reading, I am in fact beginning to envisage a book- in the European Union setting for example, is considered to length cross-cultural survey of the topic. This project is express, shape and represent (Schlesinger, 2001). still only half-formed, however. What is more, neither my Yet such analysis insufficiently recognizes that official decades of direct experience in the policy-making arena, policy is far from being the only determinant of what we particularly at UNESCO, nor my current co-editorship might call the ‘’, as different economic of The and Globalization Series of publications, forces, such as the marketplace, or societal dispositions have (yet) afforded me scope for first-hand research. So and actions, notably civil society mobilization around cul- rather than generalize in ways that could only be im- tural causes and broader quality of life issues, impact on pressionistic, I have chosen to discuss not the ‘long term the cultural in ways that are often far more powerful than trends’, but rather some necessary preliminaries to a the measures taken by ministries of culture… At the fore- systematic inquiry into ‘cultural policy’ worldwide, in front of India’s contemporary cultural system, for example, the hope that my reflections may provide some useful ele- stands the generated and disseminated by ments of ‘global’ context for the Swedish national ‘cul- ‘Bollywood’ and centres of film and television pro- tural policy’ exercise now under way. duction. The ‘policies’ of the ministries concerned impinge but superficially on this universe. Instead, they support in- Several issues concern me. First, the divided nature of re- stitutions of ‘’, offer awards and prizes to search on ‘cultural policy’: on the one hand policy advisory and writers, and pursue efforts of (the work that concerns itself little with higher ends and values, latter in particular pales into insignificance in comparison and on the other so-called ‘theoretical’ analysis which has to the international reach of the private film industry). Fur- little or no purchase on policy. Why not bridge the divide, by thermore, in India as in many other multi-ethnic nations, combining the two streams? How to do so? My second set of cultural issues across the board are inscribed in terms so interrogations concerns ways of comparing ‘cultural policy’ narrow that they miss both the ways in which discourses trans-nationally. I shall suggest several axes of differentia- of , development, modernization and citizen- tion that appear relevant, but only tentatively, as I have yet ship have mobilized different forms of cultural expression, to settle on an overarching analytical framework. and the ways in which subtle hierarchies in these discourses trump officially sanctioned notions of ‘authenticity’ or ‘tra- A house divided dition’ (Naregal, 2008). What is understood by ‘cultural policy’ and ‘cultural po- It is not surprising, therefore, that the culture of the ‘cul- licy research’? My use of quotation marks so far signals my tural policy researchers’ – more often than not working as concern with the semantic bivalence of these terms, both of consultants for a public authority – is a mostly unproblema- which are deployed, broadly speaking, in two distinct sets of tized object, analyzed in more or less functionalist terms. ways by two different families of researchers, and for quite The critical elements in such analysis tend to concern the divergent purposes. delivery or non-delivery of outputs (in turn generally just The first and most common understanding of ‘cultural the outputs of governmental action), but the premises on policy’ was neatly encapsulated many years ago by Augus- the basis of which those outcomes are defined, the values tin Girard (1983: 13) ‘as a system of ultimate aims, practical they embody, or the sometimes covert goals they pursue – in objectives and means, pursued by a group and applied by an other words the outcomes – are rarely questioned. authority [and]…combined in an explicitly coherent system. Totally different is a field of academy-driven scholarship Here ‘cultural policy’ is what governments (as well as other for which ‘cultural policy’ means

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swecult_final.indd 74 08-10-28 13.15.29 ‘the politics of culture in the most general sense: it is licy’ remains deep. This divide was addressed by another about the clash of ideas, institutional struggles and power Bennett, Oliver, in an essay reviewing both the Lewis and relations in the production and circulation of symbolic Miller Reader cited above and the late Mark Schuster’s meanings…issues of cultural policy may usefully be con- book Informing Cultural Policy: The Research and Infor- sidered from the point of view of a critical and communi- mation Infrastructure. Each work represents a world ‘lar- cative rationality’. (McGuigan, 1996:1) gely oblivious to the preoccupations of the other’ (Bennett, 2004: 237), the first limited by ‘an uncritical attachment to In the same vein, Lewis and Miller see ‘cultural policy’ as a simplistic notion of the progressive’, while for the second ‘a site for the production of cultural citizens, with the cul- ‘what constitutes both cultural policy and cultural policy tural industries providing not only a ream of representations research seems broadly to be what governments, their mi- about oneself and others, but a series of rationales for par- nistries of culture, arts councils and related organisations ticular types of conduct’ (Lewis and Miller, 2003: 1). This determine them to be’ and is limited to ‘the investigation academic emerged relatively recently – only in the of instrumental questions through empirical social science’ 1980s in fact, with the shift from analyzing the ‘culture’ of (ibid.: 242). Although he is happy to recognize multiple ap- ministries of culture within a primarily aesthetic paradigm proaches because of the ‘intellectual vitality’ that could be to doing so within a paradigm of representation and power. engendered by their encounter, Bennett still sees an unavoi- Influenced largely by (as well as by critical dable ‘clash’ between two worlds that are, adapting Adorno, , e.g., that of – who, paradoxically, the torn halves that can never add up to a whole. The arena disparaged cultural studies), this perspective is inherently for the clash in question is the English-speaking West; Ben- contestatory and critical: cultural policy is ‘cultural politics’ nett (with Ahearne, 2004) contends that it does not exist – and hence broadens its remit to include the workings of in France and Germany, where many public intellectuals the marketplace, usually in condemnatory terms as well as have contributed to cultural policy debate. His point is made the increasingly vigorous claims of ‘cultural civil society.’1 principally to challenge the claim to representativity of the As the ideological moorings of much of this work are radical Lewis and Miller Reader. Yet there is little evidence that, on leftist and/or libertarian in inspiration, constructive engage- the ‘continent’, the conversation between academic inquiry ment with policy-makers themselves is rarely on the agenda. and policy-oriented advocacy work is in reality less divided, In some cases, such engagement is deliberately shunned. despite Ahearne’s evocation, for France, of collaborations Not surprisingly, the findings of such scholarship tend to be between government and the likes of Bourdieu and de Cer- unpalatable to policy-makers; most of them cleave to overtly teau. These, he claims, ‘have played an important part in instrumental agendas. Also, it must be said, much ‘cultural the elaboration of what one might call a nationally available theory’ often expresses itself in terms so abstruse and con- critical cultural policy intelligence’ (Ahearne, 2004: 11). voluted to be incomprehensible to the policy-making au- Perhaps. But which policy-makers have attended to such dience. There are of course other, humanistic of intelligence? How did they learn from it and change their research that do not involve the ‘flattening of human com- policy? Here cases are indeed scant… plexity and meaningfulness’ as Rothfield put it (1999: 2); yet he too rues the limited purchase of such scholarship in the ‘On the one side, then, we see entities such as research face of the political and economic forces that dominate, in funding bodies or councils, departments and programs in his case, the American cultural system. universities having a remit for research on cultural issues, It is possible nevertheless to apply a critical rationality to university-level programmes in and/or pu- the ‘broad field of public processes involved in formulating, blic administration (or other fields) that include a focus implementing, and contesting governmental intervention in, on the culture and media sectors, or dedicated university- and support of, cultural activity’ (Cunningham, 2004: 14). based or independent research centres. On the other (and This is the triple wager set out two decades ago by Tony Ben- only sometimes do they involve the same people), stand nett. First, to understand how cultural policies are ‘parts of the researchers who provide paid analytical services to a distinctive configuration of the relations between govern- ministries and councils; to government-commissio- ment and culture which characterise modern societies’; se- ned survey bodies; to agencies in , cultural and cond, to encompass ‘complex forms of cultural management media industries; to private foundations and to regional and administration’ in ways that deliver adequate historical and international organizations, such as the Council of understanding and theoretical purchase; third, to forge ‘effec- Europe and UNESCO’ (Bennett, 2002). tive and productive relationships with intellectual workers in policy bureaux and agencies and cultural institutions – but as While it may seem inevitable that the two camps will con- well as, rather than at the expense of, other connections and, tinue to advance in parallel, should we not try to find ways indeed, often as a means of pursuing issues arising from those of bridging the gap? The cultural economists appear to other connections’ (Bennett, 1988: 4). doing so already, engaged by necessity with market forces, Winning Bennett’s bet is still somewhat out of reach, it informing policy-making for culture like their colleagues seems. The divide between the two versions of ‘cultural po- dealing with money, employment or industrial development

1. While politique culturelle in the Francophone world concerns the taken-for-granted role of the public authorities in cultural provision, and their role alone, the German notion of Kulturpolitik is inherently ambiguous; it could be the one or the other. KULTURSVERIGE 2009 75

swecult_final.indd 75 08-10-28 13.15.29 are doing, or like sociologists and political scientists whose what ministries of culture do that embeds these activities in findings are being translated into guidelines for the gover- broader societal dynamics. It is a step towards doing cultural nance of various social and political sectors. But analogies policy inquiry that addresses: i) the ways in which processes in other domains where cultural policy may be informed within the arts and culture sector interact with social, eco- by research are hard to find. Most ‘cultural’ research seems nomic and political forces; ii) how the cultural in the social only to enjoy purchase on policy when done in the name science sense elicits different forms of public intervention; of boosterism or advocacy. To be sure, is in- iii) the ways in which categories of public intervention are trinsically instrumental in nature. Clearly, in the current constructed at both levels and domains of action are divided climate, it would be difficult for it to be otherwise, as neo- up; iv) how the objects and practices of intervention brought liberal frameworks favour privatisation and deregulation, together and conceptualised conjointly; v) how principles of threatening in the process hitherto secure funding levels of coherence are arrived at (Dubois, 2003). the subsidized cultural sector: witness the proliferation of Such research would do justice to two dimensions of the ‘economic impact studies’ in the 1980s, the ‘social impact’ centrality of culture. On the one hand it would allow the work of the 1990s (Bennett, 2004), and all the boosterism analyst to capture the epistemological weight of culture to- around the ‘creative industries’ today. day, its position in relation to knowledge and concepts, how ‘culture’ is used to transform people’s understanding, expla- How to bridge the divide? nations and visions of the world. On the other it would help A way out of this quandary would be to privilege a line of her uncover the substantive centrality of the cultural: the inquiry that analyzes the ‘arts and heritage’ both in rela- actual empirical structure and organization of cultural acti- tion to the institutional terms and objectives of these fields vities, institutions and relationships and their ‘significance but also within a broader ‘cultural system’ whose dynamics in the structure and organization of late-modern society, in can only be properly grasped in terms of the social science the processes of development of the global environment and or ‘ways of life’ paradigm that embraces state, market and in the disposition of its economic and material resources’ civil society together so as to encompass the constitutive (Hall, 1997: 236).3 position of culture in all aspects of social and public life Such an approach could also do much, it seems to me, to (Hall, 1997). This has its dangers. There is the problem of reduce the gap between what governments frame as cul- over-extensivity, of a definition so broad that it is of limi- tural policy and the realities of a that is ted analytical usefulness, leading to the kind of generali- increasingly dominated by both the global market-driven zed confusion that Marshall Sahlins warned about “when cultural economy and civil society activism. The activities culture in the humanistic sense is not distinguished from and processes of the former in particular ‘sit uneasily within ‘culture’ in its anthropological senses, notably culture as the public policy framework’, as Pratt points out (2005: 31). the total and distinctive way of life of a people or society. Policy-makers have engaged in very limited ways with From the latter point of view it is meaningless to talk of ‘the market-driven culture, whether ‘high’ or ‘low’, focusing relation between culture and the economy’, since the eco- instead on support to expressive cultural forms as public nomy is part of a people’s culture…” (World goods. Thus the mainly for-profit cultural industries exist on Culture and Development, 1996: 21). Yet in reality, since in increasing tension with the mainly not-for-profit cultural the adoption of the totalizing grab-bag definition proffered sector that remains the principal object of cultural policy. by MONDIACULT, the 1982 World Conference on Cultural As I have observed elsewhere (Isar, 2000), most ministries/ Policies held in Mexico, not just international organizations departments responsible for cultural affairs have neither the such as UNESCO and the Council of Europe, but also most mandate nor the technical expertise to grasp the complexi- national governments would now claim, rhetorically, that ties of cultural production, distribution and consumption. the true cause of culture today is this impossibly expansive, A great deal of the latter is market-driven; outputs do not so-called ‘anthropological’ definition.2 conform to traditional canons of valuation and valorisation We know of course that this particular rhetorical trope is and they requirement measurement in terms that challenge honoured far more in the breach, but there are significant the assumptions, such as market failure or public goods, on exceptions such as the advocacy of a ‘’ which policy rests. Conversely, cultural sector find (now transmuted into ‘’) for audiovisual that their environment and needs are simply not understood goods and services. The argument is made for the latter not by the policy-makers. In culture as in other fields, the state principally for their own sake, qua the sector of audiovisual needs to play the role of interlocutor, advisor, honest broker, production, but because they are seen to embody the distin- persuader and incentiviser, to coin a term… ctive ‘soul and spirit’ or ‘’ of different peop- Policy-makers face three further interconnected sets of les or nations. The champions of this reading of ‘cultural challenges; each demands an analytical response (Pratt diversity’ are on to something though, for their perspective 2005). First, the challenge of a transversal approach that does oblige us to begin to articulate a critical discourse on embraces different agents (the public authorities at diffe-

2. The MONDIACULT definition: ‘…culture may now be said to be the whole complex of distinctive spiritual, material, intel- lectual and emotional features that characterize a society or social group. It includes not only the arts and letters, but also modes of life, the fundamental rights of the human being, values systems, traditions and beliefs’ (UNESCO, 1982). 3. And in so doing also compensate for the persisting anomaly of restricting cultural policy to arts policy, thus excluding from 76 KULTURSVERIGE 2009 the analytical remit media and communications, arenas that are so intricated with the substantive centrality of the cultural…

swecult_final.indd 76 08-10-28 13.15.30 rent levels of government; the private sector; civil society) developed tools of cultural ‘modernity’ tied to nation-buil- and different domains of action such as tourism, education, ding. The budgets of the cultural ministries responsible environment, foreign affairs and labour, amongst others. Se- for such bodies are minute; their action too is often largely cond, the need to conceptually equipped to address strate- rhetorical. Many societies have not experienced the societal gic longer term questions, in other words to dispose of the changes that have made ‘culture’ a recognized domain of information needed for some degree of indicative planning public intervention.4 In America, cultural ministries of future policy, particularly as regards the ways cultural pro- are equally marginal (excepting perhaps Brazil, Colombia duction and consumption are organized. Third, the need for and Mexico), although the institutionalized cultural sector new infrastructures of public participation in order to sustain does have deeper roots. In these settings, where the state a sufficient momentum in favour of this holistic approach, in has played a role in broader cultural policy debates, the other words a more open and democratic form of decision- question, as García Canclini asks, is how different groups, making. The cultural policy ‘consultants’ cannot provide the ethnic communities, and regions have been represented. In analytical tools required for such purposes; nor will policy- many ways, the process of definition of national cultures makers obtain them from the academic world, for want of the has ‘reduced their local specificities to politico-cultural ab- right theoretical and methodological frameworks. stractions in the interest of social control or to legitimate a The challenge therefore is to be able to inform both poli- certain form of nationalism’ (García Canclini, 2000: 303). cy-makers and academia through research that has sufficient Yet cultural ministries have been relatively weak in pursu- conceptual and empirical purchase on the cultural systems ing goals such as these, ill-equipped in terms of regulatory of today and tomorrow. This is the horizon identified back instruments, incentives and the like. in 1996 by the World Commission on Culture and Develop- Throughout the world, political rhetoric uses the ‘ways ment, which devoted a chapter of its report, Our Creative of life’ notion: the ‘cultures’ of different nations, as in the Diversity, to the idea of ‘Rethinking Cultural Policies’ (World MONDIACULT definition already cited. But in every case, Commission on Culture and Development, 1996: 231–253). ‘high’ culture is the real remit. The issues arising from the Meeting the challenge would contribute to reconciling Tom broader notion are addressed by other departments than the O’Regan’s four purposes for cultural policy studies, viz. state, ministry of culture or not at all. Recently, however, ‘ways reformist, antagonistic and diagnostic (O’Regan, 1992: 418). of life’ notions are beginning to receive policy attention to It is also why, for the purposes of The Cultures and Globali- the extent to which the latter are perceived as threatened zation Series, we adopted the following working definition of by global forces. These anxieties have given a bit of edge the ‘culture’ for our publication: to cultural policy. The rapidity and intensity of the flows of cultural content and products present new challenges to ‘Culture in the broad sense we propose to employ refers ‘cultural identities’, clearly enhancing the salience of do- to the social construction, articulation and reception of mains of public intervention such as culture, tourism and meaning. Culture is the lived and creative experience for sports – in all of which we can observe a range of different individuals and a body of artifacts, symbols, texts and domestic pressures to stem, encourage, or take advantage objects. Culture involves enactment and representation. of culture flows (Singh, 2007). There is another sense in It embraces art and art discourse, the symbolic world of which the issue of context arises: these recent developments meanings, the commodified output of the cultural indu- also challenge the relevance of the nation-state ‘container’. stries as well as the spontaneous or enacted, organized or As a result of globalization, as I have observed elsewhere unorganized cultural expressions of everyday life, inclu- (Anheier and Isar, 2008: 1), ding social relations.’ (Anheier and Isar, 2007: 9) ‘the nexus of culture and nation no longer dominates: the What axes of differentiation? cultural dimension has become constitutive of collective If cultural systems – government, market, civil society – identity at narrower as well as broader levels… What is are to be analyzed comparatively in meaningful ways, what more, cultural processes take place in increasingly ‘deter- axes of differentiation might we use? On what basis to con- ritorialized’ transnational, global contexts, many of which struct a typology of stances and situations? Before addres- are beyond the reach of national policies. Mapping and sing this question, let me first take up a more general need, analyzing this shifting terrain, in all regions of the world, which is to take into account a range of contexts in which as well as the factors, patterns, processes, and outcomes cultural systems exist. By ‘context’ I mean the overall eco- associated with the ‘complex connectivity’ (Tomlinson, nomic and socio-political environment in which policies 1999) of globalization, are therefore key challenges.’ are articulated and enacted, as well as the histories within which these have developed. In much of Asia and Africa, for Returning now to the possible bases for cross-country example, the institutionalized cultural sector is small and of comparison, I have revisited the five axes of state/culture relatively recent origin; most of cultural life does not take relations defined by Raymond Williams in 1984 (see also place in venues and spaces such as and . McGuigan, 2004) and find them fit for purpose. On the basis Such institutions exist, together with bodies devoted to he- of the distinction between ‘cultural policy as display’ and ritage preservation, both as colonial legacies and recently ‘cultural policy proper’ Williams suggested the following

4. I am of course not referring here to the situation in the United States, where the same applies, but for totally different reasons. KULTURSVERIGE 2009 77

swecult_final.indd 77 08-10-28 13.15.30 articulation: under the first category, ‘cultural policy as dis- augment and diversify access to the means of cultural pro- play’: 1) national aggrandizement and 2) economic reductio- duction and distribution, to involve people in fundamental nism; under the second, ‘cultural policy proper’; 3) public debates about the of cultural identity and expression of the arts; 4) media and 5) negotiated while also giving them agency as regards the means of cul- construction of cultural identity. This template remains ger- tural production, distribution and consumption. mane. All five imperatives are even more salient than when Given the prevalence of instrumental rationales for cul- Williams first articulated them and as central (yet media tural policy already discussed, a second useful axis of diffe- policy all too often eludes the analytical grasp of cultural rentiation is between culture for its own sake or for the sake policy studies). Perhaps nowadays one would simply want to of other benefits. The option here is between intrinsic ‘qua- add to the understanding of both 2) economic reductionism lity of life’ arguments for cultural expression and other rela- and 4) media regulation the policy issues raised by the much ted cultural values versus the idea that they should be tools more prominent place of the cultural industries, as discus- or instruments for other social and economic purposes. The sed in the previous section. instrumental position is now challenged in both Western As regards 3), public patronage of the arts, Hillman- Europe and North America (Holden, 2006); in many set- Chartrand and McCaughey’s typology of State stances (1989) tings elsewhere, it has not yet taken hold to anywhere near – the Facilitator State, the Patron State, the Architect State the same extent, if at all. and the Engineer State – also retains its relevance, although Other choices explored in the volume are also relevant; recent developments, particularly multiple convergences and these include in addition to the four ‘framework’ issues, 17 the growth of the cultural industries, have complexified the ‘strategic dilemmas’ in various other areas: implementa- landscape. Briefly put, the Facilitator State funds the arts es- tion, social development, economics and management re- sentially through foregone taxes or tax deductions, provided spectively. Most of these, although presented as choices to according to the wishes of individual and corporate donors, be made within cultural administrations, could also be the the marketplace being the main driver. The United States alo- basis for comparisons between them, e.g. in the realm of ne embodied this when it was first proposed; perhaps implementation, the options between consultation or active today other countries are approaching it. Most, however, re- participation, between the search for prestige as opposed to main the Patron State (the Nordic countries) that honours the community development, or between national (local) visibi- ‘arm’s length’ principle, or the Architect State that constructs lity or international; in the realm of social development, the an official system of support structures and measures (France definition of the ‘community’ in singular or plural terms, a and The Netherlands). The last type, the Engineer State, ideo- monist definition of culture vs. a pluralist one, a privileging logically driven and owning the means of cultural production, of the past (heritage) or of the present (contemporary arts), is no doubt an almost extant species, yet many aspects of the of visitors (tourists) over residents, of an external image in Engineer role are aspired to in a number post-colonial cultural favour of internal reality. systems, which practice a dirigiste cultural discourse. Another analytical grid could be built on the basis of the International Agendas in cultural policy? binaries put forward some years ago in a Council of Eu- Finally, what leading agendas internationally might be fo- rope publication: choices between which the policy-maker regrounded for comparative purposes, or to discern major performs a ‘balancing act’ (Matarasso and Landry, 1999), long-term trends? I would suggest two, both of which re- between competing visions, imperatives or priorities. Two quire clarification and unpacking, as they are now used as of the authors’ ‘framework’ choices – so-called because catch-words in a plethora of ways. These are i) cultural di- they determine cultural policy’s positioning in relation to versity and ii) the cultural and/or creative industries. political, social and ethical values – would serve the purpose As a consequence of the of our time, which well.5 One is the distinction between the democratization of Appadurai nicely characterized as being ‘the conscious mo- culture and cultural democracy: either giving people access bilization of cultural differences in the service of a larger to a pre-determined set of cultural goods and services or national or transnational politics…’ (1996:15), cultural di- giving them the tools of voice and representation in terms of versity is no longer just a given of the human condition but their own cultural expressions. The first approach assumes has become a globally shared normative meta-narrative. In that a single cultural canon determined on high can be pro- addition, the debate at UNESCO around the 2005 Conven- pagated to ‘the masses.’ Nor has it been successful, as the tion on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of unequal distribution of ‘’ in society has made Cultural Expressions has transubstantiated the notion into access to culture either problematic or unsolicited by the the right and responsibility of nation-states to support the intended beneficiaries, while the scale of market-driven cul- production of cultural goods and services that express their tural industries has reduced the reach of subsidised cultural ‘national identity’. This rather reductive understanding of provision.6 Cultural democracy on the other hand, seeks to a hitherto more capacious theme emerged through a discu-

5. The authors list the narrower and broader notions of culture as their first overarching ‘framework’ choice (their word is ‘dilemma’), but in actual practice there is no such duality: cultural policy still deals preponderantly with ‘high’ culture. Apart from this, the challenge is to get beyond the dichotomy. 6. In the 1970s, both Pierre Bourdieu and Michel de Certeau among others were commissioned by Augustin Girard at the French ministry’s Département des etudes et de la prospective to do research that would enrich official reflection. What use was made of their findings is another question. Much of it was most probably never even reviewed by ministers 78 KULTURSVERIGE 2009 and senior officials (cf. Ahearne, 2004).

swecult_final.indd 78 08-10-28 13.15.30 rsive reframing of the ‘exception culturelle’ that had been of activities and professions, many of which are far removed the rallying cry of the Canadian and French governments from artistic creation. In this capacity, the ‘cultural’ has be- since the end of the Uruguay Round in the mid-1990s. The come a key issue. Witness the 2006 study shift from ‘exception’ to ‘diversity’ as the master concept The Economy of Culture in Europe done for the European allowed their cultural diplomacy to move from a negative to Commission and the subsequent foregrounding of the field a positive stance; more importantly, it enabled it also to tap in EU policy. into a variegated range of anxieties everywhere, stemming The question is whether all types of cultural production from the real or perceived decline in ‘cultural diversity’, this can be justified in terms of economic gain. While the cul- time understood very much in the anthropological sense. tural sector itself may find it opportune to do so rhetorically, Thought to be dramatically accelerated by globalization, if only to garner support for its activities and institutions, this decline has, dialectically, generated a dynamic of cul- this opportunism pinions it to neo-liberal understandings. It turalist repluralization. is therefore crucially important, as a range of cultural eco- Unsurprisingly, multiple interpretations of its scope now nomists, geographers and other social scientists are already appear to be crystallizing around the UNESCO Convention, doing, to explore this segment of the ‘cultural system’ more as different constituencies, including sub-national commu- deeply. In eliciting contributions from such researchers for nities and minorities, see the treaty as a powerful tool to the 2008 volume of Cultures and Globalization on ‘The Cul- advance cultural claims other than those of ‘cultural goods tural Economy’ we asked them to address questions such and services’ or for that matter, just States alone. There is as the following. How do commercial viability and artistic a growing awareness, as Stolcke has put it (1995: 12), of creativity relate to each other in this context? To what de- the ‘political meanings with which specific political con- gree do the imperatives of the market threaten (or possibly texts and relationships endow cultural difference. It is the foster) collaborative or process-based arts activity? How do configuration of socio-political structures and relationships market-driven phenomena create new figures of the creative both within and between groups that activates differences in increasingly hybrid and precarious working envi- and shapes possibilities and impossibilities of communica- ronments? What are the current and emerging organizatio- tion.’ It is for these reasons, then, that in our Brief for the nal forms for the investment, production, distribution and 2009 volume of Cultures and Globalization devoted to the consumption of cultural goods and services? As cultural topic ‘Cultural Expression, Creativity and Innovation’ we production becomes part of a mixed economy at the natio- ask contributors to address questions such as the following. nal level, what are the emerging patterns transnationally? What are the dimensions of diversity in cultural expression: Who are the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ as the cultural economy artistic languages, repertoires and practices? Are there di- becomes globalized? Are some art forms and genres being versifying genres, fields, regions and localities, or professi- marginalized, becoming increasingly excluded, while others ons and organizational systems, or certain types of clusters? move to the centre of transnational cultural attention and Conversely, are there other areas that show less diversity or economic interests? appear to be either stable or regressive? How is diversity in cultural expression being communicated and exchanged on Concluding thoughts the global canvas? Both sets of questions just raised concern ‘big’ issues. We Finally, some reflections on the cultural/creative indu- tabled them as part of a strategy to overcome the two major stries, simply because this sector has become a, if not the, shortcomings of ‘cultural policy studies’ that I have deli- dominant paradigm in Western European cultural policy neated here, namely, i) the divide between ‘theoretical’ and discourse. It sits so well with the instrumentalizing fram- ‘applied’ research and ii) the quasi-exclusive focus on go- eworks of the reigning neo-liberal capitalist system that vernmental agency in the analysis of cultural systems. Both its hegemonic status is being extended elsewhere, notably lacunae must be transcended if cultural policy research is to in Brazil and China. The ubiquity of the new ‘creative in- rise to the challenges of our time. For ‘culture’ today crys- dustries’ hype needs to be deconstructed, if only to better tallizes great expectations and great illusions. The two go grapple with the very real issues that lie behind it. Today, together; both stem from visions yet at once overblown and an ever-increasing range of economic activity is concerned truncated, from simplifications that are both partial and re- with producing and marketing goods and services that are ductive, and ultimately from readings that are excessively permeated in one way or another with broadly aesthetic or instrumental. The agenda adumbrated here is designed to semiotic attributes. The aesthetic has been commodified; escape these pitfalls, but it is no doubt easier to advocate and the commodity has been aestheticized. While the in- than to accomplish… ■ dustrial and the digital mediate practically every cultural process, ‘cognitive-cultural’ goods and services have be- come a major segment of our economies; their production and distribution mobilize considerable human, material and technical resources. In the process, the idea of ‘creativity’, that till recently artists had the principal claim on, has been vastly expanded and is applied today to a very broad range

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