Creativity as development : discourse, ideology and practice

What the new global policy imaginary of "creativity" has amounted to is, on the one hand, a profoundly disintegrated research landscape with a heavy interest in creative “industries” (Cho, Liu, & Ho, 2018) and, on the other hand, an approach to development framed by a somewhat more general and hegemonic global ideology on culture, the arts, and development (Garner, 2016; Stupples, 2014). This “ideology” is mediated by global or UN-level policy and indeed specific to an age in which the neoliberal global economy has established an unprecedented degree of certitude and political consensus across the world on how we develop a prosperous society. Creativity has become a powerful signifier around which a rhetoric of dynamic trade, growth, and opportunity has evolved, and is subject to a broad assessment in this chapter

Developing Cultural Industries: Learning from the Palimpsest of Practice

Exploring the connection between culture and broader goals of human development, this research focuses on cultural and creative industries in what is commonly referred to as 'developing countries'. Christiaan De Beukelaer offers a thorough exploration of how the concepts of cultural and creative industries are constructed and implemented across African countries and evaluates various policy implications of his findings. Combining an empirical study of the cultural industries of Africa with an understanding towards broader insights regarding global implications of the European debate surrounding creative industries, De Beukelaer's work will greatly benefit our thinking on cultural policy. This publication is the result of the 9th Cultural Policy Research Award in 2012. It was presented in Amsterdam at the Boekman Foundation on 23 March 2015

Mobilising African music: how mobile telecommunications and technology firms are transforming African music sectors

This paper explores the role of mobile telecommunication and technology firms (MTTs) in the distribution of recorded music in Ghana and Kenya. These countries both have vibrant music markets with weak formal distribution networks. Limited enforcement of copyright regimes and weak market regulation created new entrepreneurial business models. While ‘big tech’ dominates this space elsewhere, in African contexts the main players are mobile service providers (e.g. MTN, Vodafone, Tigo) and digital content firms (e.g. Liberty Afrika, MTech, Cellulant). These transnational players cater to fast-growing consumer markets that do not have easy access to major music distribution platforms such as iTunes and Spotify (which tend to provide very limited access to ‘local’ content, in any case). Despite their particular and increasingly significant roles, very little empirical attention has been paid to the activities of mobile telecommunication and technology firms (MTTs) in music sectors. This paper takes stock of why and how MTTs have entered into the business of recorded music distribution in Ghana and Kenya, and assesses the ramifications of their entry for the music sectors in these and other African countries as part of broader global shifts in the production, distribution and marketing of recorded music

Cultural Human Rights and the UNESCO Convention: More than Meets the Eye?

Shortly after the adoption of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions Donders analysed to what extent this Convention could play a role in the advancement of human rights in general and cultural rights in particular, despite the fact that cultural rights are not explicitly included in this treaty. She concluded that ‘…for those who expected a new international instrument promoting and protecting cultural rights, the Cultural Diversity Convention is clearly a disappointment. Although the human rights framework in relation to cultural diversity is recognized, cultural rights are not reaffirmed as the enabling environment for cultural diversity and are not further advanced.’ At the same time, she argued that several provisions in the Convention elaborate on possible measures to be taken by States parties to protect the diversity of cultural expressions, which resemble measures to be taken to protect and promote cultural rights. Ten years after the adoption of the Convention she assesses to what extent these conclusions are still valid. She analyses the question as to what the Convention has to offer in practice for the promotion and protection of human rights, in particular cultural rights, on the basis of the practice of the Convention as expressed by the Operational Guidelines and States Parties reports. To what extent do States Parties use the Convention as a tool to promote human rights, in particular cultural rights? Is the human rights relevance of the Convention perhaps more than meets the eye