Culture and the Right to the City: Diversity in the Cultural Ecology of Cape Town

CULTURE AND THE RIGHT TO THE CITY Isandla Institute PO Box 12263 Mill Street Diversity in the cultural ecology of Cape Town Gardens, 8010 South Africa DISCUSSION DOCUMENT - 2008 Tel: 021 465 8751 Fax: 021 465 8769 Email: [email protected] www.isandla.org.za CULTURE AND THE RIGHT TO THE CITY Diversity in the cultural ecology of Cape Town DISCUSSION DOCUMENT - 2008 Acknowledgements This discussion document was written by Zayd Minty, with contributions to an earlier Contents draft by Julian Jonker. Research support was provided by Sivuyile Maboda. The authors would like to thank Mokena Makeka, Frank Meintjies, Edgar Pieterse and Executive Summary i Mirjam van Donk for commenting on earlier drafts of the document, and Karen Press for editing the final draft. 1) Introduction 1 Thanks are also due to all those who participated in interviews and focus group discussions that have informed this discussion document: 2) Culture and cultural diversity 3 Sandile Banda (actor/filmmaker) 3) Cultural diversity and cities 7 Zipho Bayile (artist) Bonita Bennet (District Six Museum) 4) Cape Town – A culturally diverse and creolised African city 9 Andrew Boraine (Cape Town Partnership) Zavick Botha (artist) 5) Cultural policy and the intrinsic value of culture 12 Josette Cole (Mandlovu Institute) Yasmine Colley (City of Cape Town) 6) Culture and social inclusion 16 Delecia Forbes (Provincial Government of the Western Cape Economic Development and Tourism) 7) Culture, the economy and the creative industries 21 Iain Harris (Coffee Beans Routes) Mwenya Kabwe (Theatre and Performance/MA student) 8) Culture and public space 24 Valmont Layne (District Six Museum) Rashid Lombard (ESP Africa) 9) Culture and governance 29 Mandla Mbothwe (Magnet Theatre/UCT) Isandla Institute Trevor Mitchel (Creative Capsule) 10) Principles to guide recommendations: Intercultural practices and Cindy Poole (cultural worker) urban connectivities 34 PO Box 12263 Tamsin Relly (artist/student) David Schmidt (City of Cape Town) Mill Street 11) Six critical areas for consideration 37 Jean September (British Council) Gardens, 8010 Koketso Sichone (Heart FM/Out-the-Box Productions) South Africa 12) Key short-term recommendation 38 Councillor Siljeurs (City of Cape Town) Tel: 021 465 8751 Melissa Steyn (iNCUDISA-UCT) 13) Proposed new interventions 40 Fax: 021 465 8769 Isandla Institute specifically expresses thanks to the Africa Centre for providing financial 14) Bibliography 43 Email: [email protected] support for the research and seminar that have informed this discussion document. www.isandla.org.za Cover picture by Rodger Bosch/String Communication. Case Studies 47 This discussion document argues that culture, viewed in terms of its intrinsic value, has a vital role gested that South Africa’s unique history of racialised economic oppression and its i to play in animating cities and, in so doing, addressing issues of polarisation. It asks the question: cultural implications require particular vigilance and suitable responses from all areas of how can we realise the right to the city culturally in ways that lead to an apprecia- society. A particular issue that warrants attention is the lack of coordination within and tion of cultural diversity and a more inclusive sense of city-ness in a divided and between spheres of government and with civil society when it comes to issues of culture polarised Cape Town? and urban transformation. The right to the city suggests a set of notions: the right to be in the city; the right to enjoy all that Cape Town is a culturally diverse and creolised city, rich in cultural resources, the the city has to offer in terms of its social, economic, political and cultural opportunities; the right result of unique movements and mixings of peoples, forms and practices. There are a large number to express oneself in accordance with tradition and values; and the right to create, mould and of important institutions, projects and programmes in the city, each engaged in important, recreate the city in accordance with collective norms, values and aspirations for current and future relevant and necessary intercultural work, but they are working in isolated ways against the generations. backdrop of a weak policy arena. Understanding the city in respect of its cultural ecology and its specific local cultural resources will enable us to better engage with its realities as a Culture is increasingly recognised as a critical element in sustainability globally. Cultural diversity unique African City. This knowledge will enable us to effect meaningful mindset changes. The policies, which incorporate notions of human rights, are useful tools in this respect. UNESCO’s role of culture in the spatial development of the city needs to be recognised and approaches Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (UNESCO 2001) and the Convention on the Protection should be fostered that make engagement with city, culture and space and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (UNESCO 2005) are some of many policy transformative. and legal instruments available to this end. UNESCO suggests that any policy work in specific locations must have context-specific responses, and provides the tools to engage with A number of principles relating to intercultural practices and urban connectivities are global frameworks for local specificities. A local response is needed to the global discourse on proposed. These suggest the need to recognise and understand diversity locally; to promote culture and its impacts. This report proposes that a strong engagement with local resources is interculturalism and foster practices that cross boundaries and borders; to promote debates, necessary in thinking about local responses to culture. dialogue and research and to promote local role models; to develop locally relevant best-practice models of training and education; to foster the development of convivial and interactive spaces; to Facilitating intercultural communication and greater urban connectivity has become a support creative practices that work with the symbolic; to foster sustained and ongoing critical necessity for cities grappling with the impacts of a rapidly globalising and diversifying engagement rather than only one-off projects; to target youth; to make positive mindshift change world. Central to urban transformation is the necessity for mindset changes. Equally important happen through supporting progressive networks; and to recognise the importance of necessary is the need to recognise and foster connectivities in our societies as a response to cities that are infrastructure such as good public transport and affordable communication to make better becoming increasingly segregated and fortified in the global world. The divided city is a phenom- connectivity a reality. enon not unique to South Africa, although our country’s history of inequality and Cape Town’s specific histories require locally specific considerations. In South Africa in general and in Cape Short-term recommendations are formulated around four broad areas: Town in particular, where deep-seated divisions in the city’s cultural ecology threaten to disrupt 1. hastening the completion of policy reviews involving culture at a local and provincial important processes of social change, cultural diversity and intercultural communication are government level, and ensuring new models of effective implementation of these policies; important issues to engage with. 2. recognising that the creative industries can be effective implementers of state programmes This discussion document argues that cultural diversity in the South African context is a and so urgently address barriers to the development of a more vibrant creative industries poorly developed area in terms of state strategy and implementation. This has to do in sector; Executive Summary Executive part with the complex issues of race and inequality that the country has had to deal with; in part, 3. beginning a more extensive and clear process of research and mapping for definite it is also due to a low level of engagement with global discourses on cultural diversity. Cultural purposes, aimed at developing a more intercultural city; diversity in South Africa is generally understood too narrowly along problematic ethnic/ 4. developing a spatial framework and approach for promoting cultural diversity in anthropological lines that limit the ways in which it could be positively mobilised. the city. Other than race and class, issues such as size of organisations, disciplinary subsectors (for example The discussion document culminates in the proposal of three new interventions that will heritage, performing arts, etc.) and the diversity of actors in the cultural ecosystem (such as those make the intercultural city a real possibility. These are: working with disabilities, children and alternative sexualities) are equally important. 1. setting up a specialised funding and research unit on cultural diversity and the intercultural Adopting a diversity approach provides opportunities for opening up new channels of implementa- city (financing change); tion. 2. creating an institute of intercultural thinking (fostering change); The document argues that the local cultural context is poorly researched and understood and that 3. creating a high-profile cultural complex to promote the intercultural city (a place for engagements with cultural diversity are usually tokenistic and narrowly nationalistic, change). The Athlone Power Station is proposed as an ideal space for such

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