Cultural Strategies for Hong Kong: Reframing why policy matters through West Kowloon

Notes for an agenda

Cultural Strategies for

Hong KongProf Stephen Chan Ching-kiu

Dept of Cultural Studies Lingnan University

Reframing why policy matters through the West Kowloon proje

ct:

I.URBAN CULTURAL STRATEGIES TOWARD GLOBALIZATION

II. From ART to CULTURAL CITIZENSHIP STRATEGIES

I. Urban Cultural Stratgies toward Gloalization

•Aim To examine the opportunities

for local cultures (cultures of the people) by considering possible strategies to take by government and the community in light ofongoing cultural globalization.

•Lead Question Does the existence of global

cultures imply homogeneity in the tastes of publics located in different countries? What policies, if any, should government undertake in order to adjust, adapt, or resist the effects of global cultures?’ -- D. Crane (2002)

I. Urban Cultural Stratgies toward Gloalization

•Key Task To identify and examine

strategies urban governments and cultural organizations can use to preserve, protect, and enhance their existing cultural resources.

Three Kinds of Public Cultural Strategies

•Preserving and protecting national and local cultures

•Resisting global culture•Globalizing national or lo

cal cultures

3 Kinds of Public Cultural Strategies

Strategy 1:

Preserving, protecting and developing national and local cultures

Preserving and developing local cultures

Strategy 1:

Regeneration of cultural resources in grassroot local cultures and non-mainstream urban neighborhoods, as a way of reacting to the currents of globalization.

Preserving and developing local cultures

E.g., Museum as cultural strategy:

can be developed as a repository of cultural heritage and cultural memory, hence a sustainable alternative and social partner to commercial culture.

3 Kinds of Public Cultural Strategies

Strategy 2:

Resisting global culture

Advanced and developing countries alike adopt strategies to resist the total impact of global media cultures (on grounds of ‘free trade’, ‘free speech’; cultural sovereignty, and cultural diversity).

3 Kinds of Public Cultural Strategies

Strategy 3:

Globalizing national or local cultures(A)Transforming cultural sites in order to p

roject new images (e.g., Re-framing for cultural tourism, Disney-fication).

Globalizing national or local cultures

Strategy 3:

(B) Re-creating national or local cultural items for global circulation

(e.g., Negotiated modification, Glocalization).

II.

From Art to Cultural Citizenship Strategies

Three Stages in the Development of Cultural

Policy• (1) ‘To bring arts to the people’ by over-coming social barrier.• (2) To question what counts as ‘art’/ ‘culture’; to explore community-oriented and multi-perspectival dimensions in it.• (3) To address issues of cultural diversity and identity by taking into account the changing terrain of popular taste and lifestyle.

Key factors in the shaping of local, city-based cultural

policies

•Everyday creativity and cultural meanings in a glocal city

•Commodfication of culture and the agency of young people

Key factors in the shaping of local, city-based cultural

policies

•Local strategies to diversify the cultural/ economic base of the city

•To decentralize cultural policy …

Key Factors in Cultural Citizenship

To decentralize cultural policy is …

- to develop ways of consolidating local social memories in the cultural fabric of our society;

- to foster the development of more inclusive civic identities, and

- to introduce cosmopolitan definitions of urban civil life into our life-world.

Cultural Policy as Cultural Citizenship

Stance 1:

Our ‘common culture’ concerns the ordinary ability of people to contribute, criticize and re-interpret aspects of their culture.

Cultural Policy as Cultural Citizenship

Stance 2:

This ‘culture in common’ will have to be formed as an instituted culture of dialogue and negotiation, rather than agreement.

Cultural Policy as Cultural Citizenship

Stance 3:

- A culture held in shared ownership by the community should allow adequate participation by the public---in the process of developing the rich cultural meanings needed for any collective shaping or up-take of identities.

Cultural and educational institutions should allow citizens to develop their own arguments and perspectives in this process; to transmit knowledge, skills and resources that facilitate such public cultural participation (e.g., access to a wide range of cultural repertories and ‘cultural literacies’, self-confidence and intellectual resources fo

r full cultural participation, etc…

Cultural Policy as Cultural Citizenship

Cultural policy …

should secure the material and institutional means in sustaining such participation,

so as to promote a deep sense of citizenship across a broad cultural field of life we hold ‘in common’.

References:

Diana Crane (2002) ‘Culture and Globalization: Theoretical Models and Emerging Trends’, in Global Culture: Media, Arts, Policy and Globalization, London & New York: Routledge, pp. 1-25.

Nick Stevenson (2003) Cultural Citizenship: Cosmopolitan Questions, Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press.

“I said, I see a … compassionate and democratic society … I see … affluent

and well-educated population, proud … I see Hong Kong, as a SAR of China, making significant contributions …

With such a high degree of autonomy, it is up to us to determine how well we perform and whether we can continue to progress in the 21st Century. Indeed, Hong Kong has achieved remarkable

success …”

Tung Chee-hwa (2000):

Hong Kong

HK SAR, PRChina

the World City of China

the World City of Asia

…

ppWK 23.1.2005

Cultural Strategies for HK