The Seminar will bring together actors of culture and social
development from various backgrounds (including representatives
of local authorities, NGOs, foundations, research centers, universities,
international organisations as well as artists and cultural practitioners).
The objective is to exchange the latest ideas and practices on culture
as it relates to community development in both developed and developing
environments.
The sessions will be held in the city of Lille, France, in collaboration
with the M.A. programme “Culture and Development” at
the Institute of Political Studies of Lille.
Background
Amongst the most charged problematics found in the “politics
of sustainable development” is the tension between international
and state-based agencies and the multiplicity of local actors to
which they relate. While it is generally assumed that this space
of antagonism is purely oriented around policy issues, what is overlooked
is the centrality of “culture” to the politics of development.
In essence, “culture” functions as the primary substrate
upon which developmental policy is built. Moreover, it is both a
tangible and intangible aspect that is “put into play”
in both developmental theory and practice. What remains to be seen
is whether “culture” survives use as a policy tool with
the positive attributes intact that make it attractive in the first
place.
Hence, eschewing a purely policy-oriented approach to the question
of development, the ARCADE seminar in Lille will telescope the role
of culture in developmental schemas from both the north and the
south with a special focus on urban contexts. Our key concern will
be to examine precisely how culture is used and misused in the quest
for sustainable development.
The currently fashionable notions of building capacity and fostering
autonomy pose the questions of “dependency”, of the
silencing of “cultural” voices on the ground, of the
misappropriation of the “cultural” in the name of sustainability,
and of the manufacturing of “cultural” consent in conditions
where resistance is equivalent to disenfranchisement.
Lille , France , where the seminar will take place, was the 2004
“European capital of culture”. Hence, our primary focus
will be that of “evolving cities” as paradigms for dynamic
cultural development. Lille will thus serve as a model to test,
examine, and evaluate cultural developmental practices and aid participants
in rethinking the conditions that bring a city to capitalize on
culture.
Conference outline
I. Culture and Urban Development in the North/South Perspective:
Case Studies
II. Cultural Projects: Scalability, Sustainability, and Transferability
III. The Cultural, the International, the National, and the Local:
Critical Questions and Conflicts
IV. Workshop: Cultural Indicators, Tools, Impact, Methods
Call for proposal ARCADE Seminar in Lille
Ideally based on case studies, papers should engage one or more
of the following axes:
- the North/South divide: new paradigms of cultural cooperation
and sharing;
- culture, international organisations and local movements: tensions,
debates, reconciliations;
- cities and local urban cultural developmental models;
- tools, indicators, impact – cultural good practices.
Particular emphasis will be given to the analysis of impact indicators
for the case studies.
Abstracts should be sent to arcade@acted.org by October
10th 2008
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