Cultural Dynamics 2 Cultural Dynamics Table of Contents
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Cultural Dynamics 2 Cultural Dynamics Table of Contents page 5 Preface 25 Appropriation and Belonging in the Colonial and Postcolonial State 8 Overview 26 Sensations and Design 28 The Dynamics of Memory 11 Intermediality 12 More than Cheese, Clogs, Tulips and Windmills? 29 Canon Formation 13 Rereading the Book of Nature 30 Soundscapes of the Urban Past 14 Narrative Fan Practices 32 Citizenship, National Canons and the Issue of Cultural Diversity 34 Muslim Women in the Modern World 15 Popular Culture 16 Islamic Inspirations 35 Innovation/Creative Design 17 The Future is Elsewhere 36 Dutch Clogs on High Heels 19 Think Positive: Make Negatives 38 New Islamic Ethics and Aesthetics 21 Always the Same Story? 22 Cultural heritage/Citizenship 23 Our History on Display 4 Cultural Dynamics 5 Cultural Dynamics Preface In past years, the perception of societal dynamics has gradually are wrestling with their identities, with their place in the world, undergone fundamental change. While renewal and innovation and with their contribution to overall happiness. It was not that in society were until recently seen as politically and socio- long ago that the solutions to problems of national cohesion and economically driven processes that could be realised on a cultural identity were assumed to lie in the expansion of Western world-scale given the right parameters, things are now less market economies, in Western models of societal order and certain. The homogeneity of national societies is breaking down, civilisation, and in political values like freedom, tolerance and the importance ascribed by societal partners and other players democracy. The linear view of history that dominates Western to cultural differences and diversity is being given greater thinking appeared to guarantee a durable and problem-free weight, and globalisation seems to be generating unexpected process of modernisation in which upscale diffusion and effects on societal integration and social cohesion. Doubts are globalisation would be able to solve every aspect of regional being expressed about the degree to which such processes and national problems by having local societies conform to an can be steered. The perception of differences in group cultures, idealised societal model that had historically evolved in Western of historic identity and of the cultural dimension of innovation societies. That feeling of societal crisis requires a scientific processes has gained a growing significance in the analysis analysis. Where does it come from? What does it mean for of this problem. Culture has crept unnoticed into the heart of the cultural identity of the societies involved? And how can the problem, not just as a deciding factor in shaping society, but it be converted into socially productive solutions? as a central dimension of perception, analysis, and prospecting of social development. From now on, societal dynamics will also, Starting from this diagnosis, the Netherlands Organisation for and in many respects first and foremost, be recognised as a Scientific Research NWO has developed the ambitious research cultural dynamic. The programme proposed here attempts programme Cultural Dynamics, regarding culture, with its to embody such an analysis and lay down academic conditions dynamism, as central to the solution. The Cultural Dynamics under which the societal debate about cultural dynamics can programme attempts to locate the analysis of this feeling of crisis be conducted meaningfully and deliver lasting results. in cultural dynamics itself, implying that culture also is where the solution is to be looked for. Indeed, virtually unnoticed, The background to the rediscovery of the cultural dynamics of culture has not only become the heart of the problem, but our society is the experience of a sudden feeling of crisis. It is not emerges at the same time as the privileged instrument for its just society in the Netherlands that has lost its self-assurance: analysis. In this programme, culture is conceived as a multitude the same applies to almost all Western societies. Western societies of interwoven social processes by which identities are formed 6 Cultural Dynamics and appropriated, whereas cultural dynamics can be defined and so dynamic per se. Therefore, the appropriation of heritage as the interaction, over time, between cultural inheritance and supposes a continuing process of selection from the past in view collective identity. All culture comes to us from the past, as a of the future design of society. Every individual has to rediscover, diverse and changing complex of traditions, heirlooms, memories represent and re-appropriate his/her identity as a person and and ongoing practices. Our appropriation of that cultural a citizen time and again. Moreover, globalization and the digital inheritance, in all its diversity, reflects and affirms our collective revolution have made the trend irreversible. identity and situates us in a world of differences and choices, exchanges and conflicts. Our cultural choices and traditions – The multidisciplinary Cultural Dynamics programme is therefore language, religion, manners and customs, history and collective conceived as a research instrument to address the dynamism memories, heritage, the value we attach to certain landscapes in present-day culture and to develop tools for shaping new and public spaces – all this defines who ‘we’ are as societies cultural identities in the field of scientific research and, where and nations. Although the legitimacy of this programme is found applicable, of cultural policy. The outcome of these projects not just in the social valorisation of such scientific insights, it is should help to inform policy decisions. The problems and obvious that cultural dynamics is closely involved with societal analyses involved are shared internationally, but the solutions reality and that the validity of cultural analyses is part of that. have to be tailored to the cultural practices and the specific problems of the communities under scrutiny, regional, national, Social integration is always rooted in a historical perspective: or international. The programme has been conceived with the past – real or imagined – plays a guiding role as a driver a particular emphasis on the Netherlands, but this focus is by of culture and identity for every group. Our cultural choices and no means exclusive. Several of its projects focus on multinational traditions – language, religion, manners and customs, history themes or comparative research. Indeed, Western societies have and collective memories, heritage, the value we attach to certain become multifarious and multicultural as never before, and they landscapes and public spaces – all this defines who ‘we’ are as are profoundly marked by cross-cultural relations in time and societies and nations. Failure to understand that confounds the space. Moreover, the historical development of the West and its development of culture and society. Historical self-awareness and present-day cultural identities cannot be properly understood the management of its cultural heritage remain important assets without taking into account the continuous, ever changing for every society. However, they are no longer enough to provide relations of its constituents – whether populations, governments, social cohesion and cultural identity. Culture must not be institutions, or companies – with non-Western nations fastened down by the past and its heritage: in the definitions and societies. used for this programme, culture is praxis and interpretation, 7 Cultural Dynamics On the basis of its dynamic definition of culture, the Cultural which is financed by the VSB Foundation). After the programme’s Dynamics programme design is structured around five focal formal kick-off conference on May 27, 2008, a second call for areas or lines of approach, each of them fit for international proposals was held in 2009, adding another six projects to the and comparative research, and always including a historical main programme. Finally, a sub-programme entitled Dynamics dimension. At a meta-level above the five lines of approach, of War Heritage, Memory and Remembrance: the Netherlands there is room for the necessary reflection on the terms that are in the Second World War with five smaller projects – on post-war used in the field of cultural heritage as well as on the theories Jewish memory, the future of war heritage, sites of terror and methodology in the field of cultural dynamics. in Europe, camps in the Netherlands, and war prisoners – was included, which may be considered as a sixth line of approach The five lines of approach are as follows: focusing on contemporary cultural memory. Following a second - ‘intermediality’, involving forms of migration of heritage conference held on April 9, 2010, the programme has entered between the media (old as well as new) and the significance a new phase, focusing on a growing interaction between ascribed thereto; the selected projects, in view of a more global outcome. - ‘popular culture’, involving forms of widely-supported cultural Besides its scholarly output, every individual project aims at participation, and focusing on present-day cultural practices achieving several forms of knowledge dissemination and public and the new media, ranging from radio, film and TV outreach, in conformity with the overall design of the programme. to computer games and the Internet. According to the nature of the project, this may be an exhibition, - ‘cultural heritage/citizenship’, involving