Managing Culture. Reflecting on Exchange in Global Times

I remember well my first meeting of the network Brokering Intercultural Exchange. I had already been involved in international arts and cultural management for several years, but until then from an admittedly very German perspective, so I only had a naive idea of how the cultural sector works in other regions of the world. This meeting with international professionals and researchers was a strong trigger to change and broaden my perspective on arts and cultural management. The anthology "Managing Culture. Reflecting on Exchange in Global Times”, published in 2020 by Palgrave Macmillan, summarizes the first three years and reflections of the network, and covers and deepens the issues that were developed together by different and always new participants during that first meeting and the ones afterwards. 

 

The book, edited by the network’s founders Victoria Durrer and Raphaela Henze, focuses on hierarchies and power relations on a global scale, especially between Western countries and the Global South. It consists of 14 contributions from almost all continents, and a lot of backgrounds and academic disciplines. They unfold that - despite best intentions, international cooperation and internationalization - practical, research and educational approaches in arts and culture are still often characterized by inequality and the domination of European cultural traditions. Until today, the assumption prevails that globalization has assisted in `spreading´ modernity - and with it `culture´ - from the West into `backward` parts of the world. 

 

The book deals with these admittedly very comprehensive and difficult matters in four large chapters on conditions, practice, education, and future directions. These approach the named problems based on smaller topics and best practices, suggest solutions and thus make the subject more accessible and tangible. 

 

The book also highlights the role and the influence of the individuals in the field, of networks and social interactions. With this perspective, the editors underline that arts and cultural managers can also challenge existing inequalities by investigating and reflecting that "policies and practices in relation to arts and cultural management are dominated by a `cultural elite´ existing in small, exclusive and self-legitimising networks of influence” (p. 8), which results in a paradox of representation, perception and competition. Thus, as a direct corollary, the editors start their and the book's reflection process by confessing their own one sidedness, being also influenced by a Western perspective.

 

 

The Conditions chapter focuses on basic approaches that shape the practices in arts and cultural management. Raphaela Henze discusses the juxtaposition of a necessity of a common language for international arts and cultural managers on the one side and the dominance of English as a perpetuator of Western knowledge systems on the other. Based on a qualitative study with arts management researchers and practitioners from 25 countries, she shows that this language dominance fosters a diminishing of advances from the Global South. Moreover, it "equally deprives those originating from Western narratives of the chance to learn new methodologies and approaches” (p. 53-54) that could help them find solutions for the current challenges of Western societies. 

 

The contributions by J.P. Singh and Kayla Rush address the fact that arts and cultural management approaches from Western countries are often shaped by biases and hubris towards the way of working and thinking in other world regions. J.P. Singh illustrates this by the means of the encouragement of cultural diversity, freedom of cultural expressions and cultural infrastructures in international development and international relations. He discloses the focus on artistic and cultural products as development goal as an adaption of the operating modes of the Western cultural sector. As an alternative, he proposes the importance of cultural production and reflection processes, grassroot initiatives, and participatory processes as more up-to-date and less biased basis concepts.

 

Kayla Rush especially questions the streamlining of values and practices of arts and culture, determined by Western funders as `universal´. Instead, she proposes the concept of a `cracked art world ´ with conflicts as an inherent part of art and arts management. 

 

Practice 

 

The Practice chapter offers insights into the roles, goals and influences of arts and cultural managers in the context of international cooperation. The articles by Lisa Gaupp and by Ruhi Jhunjhunwala’s and Amy Walker both focus on the influence of Western networks and funding schemes and how they dominate the programming, formats, topics and project management approaches in international projects. Based on an empirical study on the gatekeeper role of Western performing arts festivals with a focus on diversity, Lisa Gaupp shows how curators continue to create an opposition between what they think of as Western and non-Western art. Thereby, they have to replicate the non-diverse canon they intend to challenge because they cannot break from the power relations and conventions of informal networks without risking their career. The result is that "the conventions defining the boundaries of socialcultural diversity at these festivals are mostly oriented towards the norm that art should be different, but not too different” (p. 128). 

 

Ruhi Jhunjhunwala’s and Amy Walker present personal experiences from India and the UK and underline how, to propose diversity, project participants can become stereotyped cultural ambassadors of an entire country. They also state that "cultural diplomacy is frequently a one-way flow of resources that create unbalanced partnerships and hierarchies” (p. 160). That means Western institutions financing international projects undermine diversity by trying to create homogenous working practices in a paternalistic way. Instead, the authors propose the fostering of mutual understanding and appreciation, the joint development of project formats, the support of local cultural infrastructures in non-Western countries, and the opening up of Western art markets for non-Western art. 

 

Maruška Svašek contribution is focused on the softening of the art canon and the necessity to give a chance to artists who do not fit into Western art criteria. On the example of the Egon Schiele Art Center in Český Krumlov in the Czech Republic, she highlights the role of arts managers and the opportunities an environment characterized by transition can open up for artistic and cultural careers and hierarchies. This article is a special one in the context of this anthology as it focuses on a country of the former Soviet Union.

 

Education 

 

The Education chapter deals with increasing internationalization of arts and cultural management higher education programs and trainings, and the missing of critical examinations of stereotypes or power hierarchies in curriculum design, teaching and learning practices. 

 

The articles on higher education underline that even international study programs with an increasing geographical and social diversity of students are based on Western literature and approaches of management as `betterment´. In her contribution, Victoria Durrer highlights the characteristics of international arts management programs, which emphasize so-called transferable skills, but do not take advantage of the "mutual exchange of ideas, the development of trans- or international relationships and greater empathy and understanding among ethnicities, cultures and nations” (p. 187). Durrer instead would like to see classrooms as a place of learning for educators as well as students, and underlines that people tend to "emphasise what education can do for practice, rather than putting the critical lengths on education as a practice itself” (p. 191).

 

Melissa Nisbett’s research shows that although spending time abroad is seen as an enriching personal experience, there is almost no deeper understanding and no adaption to the positive and negative effects of the internationalization of study programs. She highlights the often only superficial interaction between international and local students as well as teachers, which result in a learning shock similarly to a culture shock. "In my experience, (even cultural studies) students can be strikingly unaware of their own cultural biases” (p.240), while they expect foreigners to acculturate. Thus, guest students can even increase stereotypes. Yet, there is only little guidance at universities - or in arts management practice - to deal with `unlearning´ one’s own culture in international contexts. In order to create deeper intercultural experiences, Hilary Carty suggests to create open spaces for dialogue on diversity topics in higher education classrooms and to normalize them as part of everyday learning in genuine, long-term interactions. She describes that she, working and living in the UK for a long time, still feels foreign as an arts management educator of color in the `monocultural classrooms´ of Western Europe. 

 

The contribution by Milena Dragićević-Šešić and Nina Mihaljinac presents a research on arts management training initiatives in the Middle East and North Africa, funded by the European Union MET culture program. They show how content and structures of such programs are often not adapted to local context or needs. In addition, they still intend to "encourage non-Western cultural professionals to `modernise´ their cultural systems by adopting and implementing Western operational modes and concepts” (p. 206). Thus, with trainers pushing forward seemingly `universal practices´ without questioning their own position, the programs have only a marginal impact and often mainly serve as a means of soft power. Thus, they facilitate the division between those with Western knowledge and those without. Therefore, the authors propose the importance of train the trainers and advanced skill programs developed collaboratively on eye-level. 

 

 

After the prior criticism and disclosure of underlying misconceptions and flaws, the final chapter on Future directions opens up the discourse towards positive examples and new approaches in international arts and cultural management. 

 

Javier Hernández-Acosta’s contribution introduces the perception of arts and cultural management as cultural agency, prominent in Central and South America, as complimentary to the Western perception as arts administration. This concept proposes a role of arts managers and cultural production as a means for community impact, based on the broader social, economic and political context. Here, Hernández-Acosta like Henze sees great potential for the current challenges of Western arts and cultural institutions of becoming more diverse, strengthening civil society, and tackling discrimination and educational inequality. In this context, he promotes a model consisting of three circles of influences that combines the cultural mission of an arts organization with its territory, local development and broader sustainable development goals.

 

The contribution of Shun Shiun Ku and Jerry C. Liu describes the co-governing and co-managing processes behind the 2017 Taiwan National Cultural Congress and Culture White Paper. In Taiwan, cultural citizenship and the democratization of culture have been adapted in the form of mixed top-down and bottom-up approaches: Cities and counties hosted regional cultural forums open to the public, followed by a National Congress that resulted in the cultural White Paper. This has led to an increased understanding of the relevance of the cultural sector, to new guidelines for its development and to an empowerment of people regarding their cultural rights. But the authors also remark that such processes are still dependent on the Ministry of Culture, and that the connection and exchange between the different groups has again significantly decreased since then. Thus, cultural participation has to be a combination of democratic mechanisms, empowering strategies, and regular connections between various groups.

 

In the final paper, Carla Figuera and Aimee Fullman underline the relationship of arts and cultural management to their environment. They introduce the concept of the Critical Zone, an interdisciplinary framework for the study of the impact and the identification of solutions for climate issues. They argue that thinking and action guided by arts and culture can support interventions to tackle the ecological crisis. To the authors, promoting the transformation and re-imagination of ways of life should be at the heart of cultural policy, higher education and arts and cultural management to reflect on cultural activities that are ecologically dangerous or destructive, and to propose eye-level participation of affected communities, especially from the Global South.

 

 

The book is very critical and sometimes may be uncomfortable for arts managers especially from Western countries. It illustrates how they benefit from existing power hierarchies, albeit unconsciously, and that their professional success, the impact of their ideas and the artistic canon they follow are not necessarily a sign of quality alone - which is surely an unpleasant, but necessary realization. Nonetheless, the book creates a positive image of arts and cultural managers in international contexts as active agents for ideas, values and practices, who are part of the spreading of new social processes. 

 

Next to its theoretical and practical approaches, the book contains helpful and necessary definitions of basic terms by each author, which can have different notions when used in certain contexts and regions. This idea alone makes the book worth reading because it makes the reader aware of his or her own subjectivity.

 

All together the contributions, examples and studies are as eye-opening as the first meeting of the network Brokering Intercultural Exchange. Thus, the anthology is a have-to-read for arts and cultural managers, researchers and educators with a mainly national working context, as well as for those who hope to gain new insights on their international work.