Thesis (M.P.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 113).

This thesis argues that there is an emerging field of international cultural policy in Canada informed by ongoing changes in the pattern of policy making. Caught between old nationalist discourses of a unified Canadian nation, and the rapidly changing global environment, the Canadian cultural policy makers struggle to make Canadian culture survive both at home and abroad. In this research, international cultural policy will refer to cultural policy designed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the Department of Canadian Heritage. Moving beyond a simple empirical analysis of policy, this thesis adopts Tony Bennett's definition of the governmentalization of culture applying a Foucauldian governmental rationality line of thinking. Looking at how cultural creation is being governed through discursive formations, various conceptualisations, techniques, institutional arrangements, participating actors and government initiatives, this thesis maps out international cultural policy as an emerging governmental practice in Canada.

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This research is concerned with how cultural policy is made in contemporary Scotland. Focussed on deciphering and understanding the actions, behaviours, meanings and performances of those involved in cultural policy making and how a cultural policy community is created and maintained, a qualitative research approach was adopted. As such, the research is based on semi-structured interviews with fifteen key players from the cultural policy community The influence and application of a range of theoretical perspectives shaped my data analysis and research outcomes in significant ways, leading me away from an initial positivist approach - where I had hoped for a ‘cultural policy making toolkit’ to emerge from the data - to a more nuanced understanding of the complex and unpredictable dynamics at play in cultural policy making. In particular, writings broadly defined as within the postmodern camp - namely those of Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze and Guattari - provided the possibility of new paradigms for the discussion and understanding of cultural policy making, leading me to unexpected insights into cultural policy making processes. Key findings relate to the characters and their performances within the cultural policy community as well as the spaces where cultural policy is created. Firstly, the significance and impact of key players emerged as having less to do with their perceived status, influence or professional positions, than their ability to construct a ‘cultural policy’ identity, attune themselves to, engage with and affect an ever changing and fluid policy environment. Paradoxically, the data revealed that those who appeared at first sight to be the most powerful and influential often emerged as the least so. Notably, the most effective players seemed to be those who invested in their sense of self and social identities and roles, clearly articulated values, principles and beliefs, bringing an authenticity to their performances in the cultural policy sphere. In addition these players demonstrated an almost intuitive understanding of the power of myth and storytelling in the construction of cultural policy. Similarly, the most significant cultural policy spaces were not where I had thought them to be - for example, public agency boards and political committees - but rather in the more amorphous spaces of gossip, ‘off-the-record’ comments, newspaper commentary and opinions, networks and the assumed meanings in both the said and unsaid. My data also reveal an active engagement in the ‘public domain’ by the cultural policy community, a space that is constructed and defined by meanings, signs and values - the substance and language of cultural policy. Finally, it is the performances of actors in the cultural policy spaces that bring cultural policy into being. The data disclose the power of speaking and writing in shifting and disrupting perceptions, views and interpretations, and in creating different spaces of encounter and creativity, leading to new understandings and unintended cultural policy directions. Indeed, my data suggest that it is more often than not the accidental happenings, productive outcomes of inadvertent actions, incubation of ideas and serendipity, that lead to the most effective and affective cultural policy outcomes - rather than the formulaic and process driven approaches required of local and national government and its agencies in the name of public accountability. The main implications of my research and recommendations for future action include: the desirability of wider dissemination of cultural policy research to practitioners, and an increase in practitioner-led research; recognition of the diversity and potential of atypical and informal cultural policy spaces; and the need for professional development opportunities and programmes to take cognisance of the latent resource inherent in practitioners who, with some encouragement, confidence-boosting and on occasion guidance in developing themselves as ‘readers’ of cultural policy discourse, could contribute to a more active and engaged cultural policy community.

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In the early 2000’s Canada and France were at the forefront of what appeared to be a counter-hegemonic movement in the rapid creation of the Convention for the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions at UNESCO to perceived US cultural hegemony at the World Trade Organization. However, the final Convention lacks the fundamental protections it set out to create and reinforces the commodification of culture and the promotion of cultural industries, rather than challenging commodification or supporting arts and culture. This thesis uses Marxian critical theories to interrogate the nature and form of the Canadian government’s involvement in the creation of the Convention and posits Gramscian evidence of the presence of behaviours of hegemony and resistance to hegemony, the formation of a Weltanschauung (common sense world view) led by organic intellectuals in civil society and demonstrates important instances of trasformismo (absorption of counter-hegemonic ideas) at work. / Graduate

published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

This thesis is an investigation into the terms of cultural change in north central Namibia. I am primarily concerned with issues of agency in the processes which result in cultural change, and look at both historical and contemporary agents of change in order to determine who and what impacts cultural dynamism, and what implications this has for a newly independent country within a globalised world. These issues are presented through the lenses of Identity, Power and Politics and Globalisation. In this thesis, I posit that traditionally, Ovambo people have not been empowered in decisions regarding cultural change, which has resulted in a sense of cultural 'loss'. This sense exists within the context of culture being seen as strongly associated with the past - past practices, activities, traditions and customs, as well as early development theory which insisted that such things were indicative of a backward and primitive society at odds with the principles of modernisation. In order to progress, such practices were, with and without reticence, abandoned or changed. Contemporary Ovamboland, however, represents a dynamic cultural mélange of traditional and modern life, which co-exist whilst negotiating issues such as the impact of HIV/AIDS and neo-liberal style of post-independence democracy. Therefore, by investigating the cultural shortfall in traditional development theory, and using examples of different forms of cultural development, I suggest that when culture is seen as an important consideration of development, as well as supported as a field of development in its own right, cultural identity becomes clearer, and cultural futures are determined more democratically. In order to demonstrate these ideas, I am drawing from a number of case studies in which I was professionally involved, as well as through interviews conducted in the field. By presenting the differing agendas of international engagement in development work as well as different types of cultural development projects, I will highlight the complexities of development theory in practice, particularly when capital is involved, and how these relate to the wider issues of cultural preservation versus cultural change. / This thesis is an investigation into the terms of cultural change in north central Namibia. I am primarily concerned with issues of agency in the processes which result in cultural change, and look at both historical and contemporary agents of change in order to determine who and what impacts cultural dynamism, and what implications this has for a newly independent country within a globalised world. These issues are presented through the lenses of Identity, Power and Politics and Globalisation. In this thesis, I posit that traditionally, Ovambo people have not been empowered in decisions regarding cultural change, which has resulted in a sense of cultural 'loss'. This sense exists within the context of culture being seen as strongly associated with the past - past practices, activities, traditions and customs, as well as early development theory which insisted that such things were indicative of a backward and primitive society at odds with the principles of modernisation. In order to progress, such practices were, with and without reticence, abandoned or changed. Contemporary Ovamboland, however, represents a dynamic cultural mélange of traditional and modern life, which co-exist whilst negotiating issues such as the impact of HIV/AIDS and neo-liberal style of post-independence democracy. Therefore, by investigating the cultural shortfall in traditional development theory, and using examples of different forms of cultural development, I suggest that when culture is seen as an important consideration of development, as well as supported as a field of development in its own right, cultural identity becomes clearer, and cultural futures are determined more democratically. In order to demonstrate these ideas, I am drawing from a number of case studies in which I was professionally involved, as well as through interviews conducted in the field. By presenting the differing agendas of international engagement in development work as well as different types of cultural development projects, I will highlight the complexities of development theory in practice, particularly when capital is involved, and how these relate to the wider issues of cultural preservation versus cultural change.

Throughout its history as a nation, Canada has had a culturally diverse population. For much of this time education has been one of the principal means through which the state and society have addressed the concerns associated with cultural diversity. From the early 1900s onward local and provincial educational authorities have developed and implemented a variety of policies and programs designed to address these concerns. In the 1940s, as the federal government started to develop its first policy and programs to address cultural diversity, it also found itself involved in the field of cultural diversity and education. This study examines how the federal government became interested in cultural diversity and education and how it continued to work in this field despite the fact that education is an area of provincial jurisdiction. In 1940 federal authorities began to lay the groundwork for a cultural diversity policy designed to foster support for the Canadian war effort among members of non-British, non-French ethnic groups. Education was initially to have been one of the strategies through which federal authorities implemented their cultural diversity policy but cultural diversity and education became an area of federal policy separate from yet related to the cultural diversity policy. Throughout most of its history, the two main objectives of the cultural diversity and education policy were education of immigrants for assimilation and education to promote effective intergroup relations. By the late 1960s tentative steps were being taken in the direction of education for cultural retention. Over the period from 1940 to 1971 a policy community of individuals and agencies with interests in cultural diversity and education evolved. Members of this community influenced the development of the federal policy by working on specific initiatives with the federal agency responsible for cultural diversity and education. Each of those initiatives became a site for negotiation on the direction of the policy. Thus the policy developed in an unplanned and ad hoc manner and grew to incorporate contradictory objectives. In addition, some of the work in cultural diversity and education also undermined the goals of the federal cultural diversity policy.