Summary Report of International Events / Meetings of Interest to the INCP

Introduction:

INCP members mandated the Liaison Bureau to follow and attend when possible, international meetings related to the work undertaken by the INCP and prepare a comprehensive summary analysis to support discussions.

This year, the Liaison Bureau identified five international meetings with themes of interest to the INCP. This document contains a brief summary of each meeting and issues to consider for the network. A conclusion/trends section identifies overarching themes or ideas which appeared at several of the conferences.

31st UNESCO General Conference: Cultural Diversity and Heritage Preservation at the Heart of Mutual Understanding - Paris, France, October 15 to November 3, 2001

Description:

Two hundred and thirty ministers and vice-ministers of culture attended the 31st UNESCO General Conference and approved the organization's priorities which include basic education; preserving fresh water resources and ecosystems; promoting ethics of science and technology, diversity, intercultural dialogue and universal access to information.

The General Conference participants approved a Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, which emphasized the values of respect, sharing, tolerance, dialogue and cooperation between different peoples and different cultures. Also, this declaration is to be accompanied by a twenty points action plan.

Finally, a Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage was approved and participants requested that UNESCO prepare a draft Declaration against the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage to reinforce provisions contained in existing international cultural heritage conventions.

Issues to Consider:

The issues raised during the debates and in the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity focus on questions such as:

• How important is cultural diversity for humanity?
• What is the relationship between cultural diversity and human rights?
• How can cultural diversity lead to creativity?
• How to harmonize cultural diversity and international solidarity?

The main lines of the Action Plan suggest some directions for inquiry:

• What is the impact of cultural diversity on national policy-making?
• How to encourage linguistic diversity while respecting the main vernacular?
• How to encourage "digital literacy"?
• How to counter the "digital divide"?

More generally; how can states cooperate with UNESCO to develop strategies for the promotion of the cultural diversity principles set out in the Declaration?

The Declaration emphasizes the following core principles:

• cultural diversity is the common heritage of humanity. In this way cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature;
• it is essential to ensure harmonious interaction in our increasingly diverse societies; inclusion and participation are important elements of social cohesion;
• cultural diversity is a factor in development;
• all cultures should be allowed to express themselves;
• cultural heritage must be seen as the wellspring of creativity;
• cultural goods and services, as vectors of identity values and meaning, must not be treated as mere commodities or consumer goods;
• it is important to build partnerships between the public sector, the private sector and civil society.

II Euroamerican Campus of Cultural Co-operation, Cartagenas de Indias, Columbia, December 10-14, 2001

Description:

The Ministry of Culture of Colombia in collaboration with Interarts, the Organization of the Iberoamerican States (OIS) and the Andrés Bello Convention organized the II Euroamericano Campus of Cultural Co-Operation. It brought together approximately 175 participants from the private, public and academic sectors to discuss cultural policy issues of the Americas and Europe.

One of the main themes of the conference was interculturality, "the process of improving, increasing and maintaining dialogue between different cultures within and between nations". Participants spoke about strengthening cultural dialogue and co-operation to ensure that all cultures are respected and shared in an increasingly globalized world.

Other themes discussed at the conference included minority cultural rights and the need to empower minorities to manage their own cultural industries. The role of the arts in developing economies and employment opportunities in this field were also considered.

Participants recommended that Networks from various fields exchange information and ideas, and explore linkages and interactions between various issues.

Issues to Consider:

Several questions can be raised. First, on the issue of interculturality:

• How can national governments improve intercultural relations in their respective countries?
• How can governments create opportunities for intercultural dialogue, which includes minorities?

Regarding the other topics of the forum, such as globalizing cultures, cultural rights, cultural industries and markets in cultural exchanges and cultural policies; the key questions are:

How to adapt ourselves to the new reality of globalization? Globalization is an important thing for whom?

• How can cultural rights protect cultural diversity and minorities' right to expression?
• How do cultural industries impact on the world cultural heritage? Is it possible to have a balanced relationship between the two?

Conclusions:

From this Forum, the main conclusions are:

• Multiculturalism versus Interculturalism - all societies today are increasingly multicultural with the movement of people and immigration, and we now need to address interculturality - the dialogue between all cultures - in a defined common space.
• Education and culture need more action programs, as cultural diversity should be addressed from the bottom-up and not top to bottom. At the same time, culture has to be brought back to the center of the society and accessible to all, which can be done by the democratization of culture.
• The importance and the necessity of Networks and the Networks' interaction should be addressed. It is for one's Network to link with other Networks, of the same nature or not, in order to exchange ideas and experiences. This will ensure an ongoing dialogue and a full participation of all levels of actors in the society.
• On the impact of globalization on culture and cultural policies, there was a general sense that it is necessary to address the challenges facing culture and how can cultural policy address them.

The First Hemispheric Experts Seminar on Cultural Diversity For the Organization of American States, "Prosperity, Development and Peace: Cultural Diversity in the Americas", Vancouver, Canada, March 17-19, 2002

Description:

The First Experts Seminar on Cultural Diversity in the Americas was hosted by Canada as a follow-up initiative to the 2001 Summit of the Americas. Experts from twenty-nine countries of the hemisphere discussed ways to foster national cultural policies in a globalized environment and looked at cultural policy as a key component of development strategies.

The purpose of this seminar was to provide experts from the Americas an opportunity to exchange information, opinions and concerns related to key cultural diversity policy issues in the hemisphere and submit recommendations to the OAS Working Group on Culture to be considered at the Meeting of Ministers of Culture in July 2002 in Cartagena, Colombia.

The experts agreed that states have an important role in the development of successful cultural industries and they have the right to develop instruments to protect their cultural diversity and heritage. They also called for more cooperation in the Americas on issues related to culture and recommended that a cultural policy observatory, a cultural heritage databank and a cultural map of the Americas be developed.

Issues to consider:

A first set of issues was related to fostering national cultural policies in a globalized environment. Here key questions mentioned were:

• How can governments strengthen their partnerships with the private sector and civil society to develop successful cultural policies?
• How to devise cultural strategies aimed at increasing awareness, understanding and respect of diverse cultures within the hemisphere? How to create cultural democracies?
• How to develop international enforceable instruments to preserve and promote cultural diversity in the hemisphere?
• How can cultural policy-makers integrate culture in development initiatives?
• Cultural industries play an important role in developing economies. How can the economic growth generated by cultural industries be used to increase creative opportunities and access to cultural goods and services?

Conclusions:

Culture is seen as a national policy priority. Therefore policies should be concerned with the preservation of tangible and intangible cultural heritages in the Americas and the promotion of diversity, tolerance and respect of cultures in the hemisphere.

In addition, the protection and promotion of culture at large calls for the strengthening of existing laws to preserve tangible heritage and the illicit trade of cultural goods; 2) current and future government policies seek to promote cultural identities and facilitate the integration of all peoples in society; 3) specific actions such as the development of legally binding instruments, the creation of an intra-American cultural policy observatory, hemispheric research institutes be undertaken to protect cultural rights and promote diversity in the hemisphere.

There is a widely acknowledged need to increase cooperation between the states of the Americas in the cultural policy field. The next step will be a meeting of ministers of culture of the Americas in Colombia in the summer of 2002.

Panam: Cultural Industries Dialogue Between Civilizations in the Americas, Montreal, Canada, April 22-24, 2002

Description:

This pan-American conference was organized by GRICIS a Montreal-based interdisciplinary research group on communication, information and society. This group focuses on the role and impact of culture and communication programs and policies on society.

The purpose of this conference was to foster dialogue and cooperation on cultural and communication industries between academics, researchers and representatives of the public and private sectors of the Americas.

The conference was based on four main themes which included the role of the state in relation to cultural diversity; languages in cultural exchanges; culture in the economy and participation of the First Nations in cultural exchanges.

Issues to consider:

The issues related to the themes mentioned above can be formulated in the following set of questions. On the first theme of the state and cultural diversity, we could ask:

• What is cultural diversity?
• How can states develop and implement national cultural policies to promote an preserve cultural diversity?
• How can the complexities and different interpretations of cultural diversity be included in an international, legally binding instrument?

The debate on languages of communication and cultural exchanges gave birth to the following questions:

• How to preserve linguistic diversity by promoting languages and preserving accents?
• How to counter the homogenizing trend in media coverage of different language artists?

On the topic of economy and culture, the questions discussed were:

• What is cultural differentiation?
• What is diversity of content?
• What is diversity of choice?

Lastly, the main issues raised by the debate on First Nations' participation in cultural exchanges in the Americas focused on:

• How aboriginal peoples are living their identity?
• How are aboriginal people capable of and increasingly asserting control over their own cultural development?

Conclusions:

During this colloquium, participants agree that cultural diversity is important and that states have an important role to play in the promotion and preservation of cultural diversity.

Several panellists and participants spoke of an international instrument on cultural diversity. They agreed that cultural goods should not be regarded as mere commodities in trade agreements. Debate was about where such an instrument should be housed and when governments should be asked to sign on to such and instrument.

One of the most important conclusions that emerged was related to cultural identities and their importance in becoming global citizens. Two of these themes were linguistic diversity and representation of minorities on the Internet, as well as in the overall process of globalization.

Another underlying theme of the conference was interculturality and intercultural relations, which seem to be increasingly important in policy and program considerations in multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-lingual societies.

Conclusion / Trends

Recurrent themes at the different meetings were that:

• interculturality, or the need for dialogue, exchange and harmonious interaction both between and within nations must be encouraged;
• there is a necessity for partnership and cooperation between states on the cultural diversity agenda;
• creation of observatories on cultural diversity should be encouraged, with observatories being invited to share their experiences and act as interrelated networks.
• democratization of culture is seen as a bottom-up process and respect for cultural diversity, with a particular emphasis on the respect for minority cultural diversity is strongly emphasized;
• culture is important, both tangible and intangible cultural heritages should be protected, therefore, culture should find its place on top of the policy agenda to be considered a national priority.

Therefore, a correlation can be observed at the international level between the cultural diversity agenda and the proliferation of cultural observatories, where the latter are geared towards fulfilling a global clearing house responsibility in the cultural policy field or to anticipate the possible development of cultural conflicts and alert decision makers, or to help countries bridge the educational gap between informational 'haves' and 'have-nots'. The cultural observatories can be seen as important mechanisms through which diverse cultures can learn about each other, and thereby help to facilitate interculturality.

As the cultural diversity issue and the creation of international observatories emerge as inescapable topics on the international agenda, some additional background will be provided to INCP members.

Back to Top