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The Cultural Age

The Cultural Age Picture
Online and in the streets we encounter a more diverse range of cultures than ever before. Culture is a space in which values are expressed and interpretated. In partnership with the AHRC, Demos is hosting two seminars to investigate how policy-makers can link up with academics to think about what this means, and how the understanding of complex cultural issues can be brought into different policy areas.
Online and in the streets we encounter a more diverse range of cultures than ever before.  Mass immigration, the permanent settlement of diaspora communities and the global media have brought different cultures into greater proximity; even those not living in the places of highest immigrant population encounter new levels of diversity and difference. Since the advent of cheap air travel and satellite television, diaspora communities themselves are able to stay in closer touch with friends and relatives at home.  Such changes add new layers of depth and complexity to senses of identity.

As we argued in Cultural Diplomacy, culture is a space in which values are expressed and interpreted.  It is also a means of forming communities and of distinguishing between different groups of people. Culture can provide a safe space and mechanism to confront difference and has proved to be a useful means through which to resolve tensions, even mediate during conflict. However, it can also be a space in which values are contested.

Building on our work on in this area and in partnership with the AHRC, we are hosting two seminars to investigate what this means in specific policy areas, and bring policy-makers and academics into discussion around how thinking about complex cultural issues can be brought into different policy debates, and how academic study of those issues can work with policy-making in the future.

  • Seminar 1, The Cultural Age and Integration and Citizenship -  How can cultural practitioners and academic thinkers work with policy-makers to come to terms with the challenges that an intercultural world throws up, and develop the opportunities for integration that it offers? The Commission for Cohesion and Integration flagged up the potential role for culture, but how do we make this a policy reality?
             You can download Samuel Jones' presentataion here.
  • Seminar 2, The Cultural Age and Education – as cultures meet, merge and, on occasion, clash with increased frequency, there is a need for young people to grow up with the skills to interpret the different cultures that they encounter.  Until now, those skills have too easily been seen as the preserve of academic and professional training.  We need to think now about how to broaden curricula to include not only knowledge about the many different cultures we encounter, but also the skills to think about cultural forms from the objects we see in museums, to the media we see and the food we eat in the streets, as conveying something of people’s identity and attitudes.  This will require greater interaction between cultural institutions, academics and education at all levels. 
             You can download Samuel Jones' presentation here.

Together, these seminars will raise a challenging agenda that will mean reconceptualising the cultural professional as an enabler as well as an authority.