Tool quiz green book en

TOOL QUIZ

DRAFT PUBLIC GREEN BOOK

Prefiguration model

Imprimé par le Conseil Régional Nord‐Pas de Calais / Copie pour usage personnel

Printed by the Nord‐Pas de Calais Regional Council / Copy restricted to personal use

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TOOL QUIZ project is co‐financed by the European Regional Development Fund and made possible by the INTERREG IVC programme

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A right to culture, a culture of rights

A contribution to a prospective approach to the cultural policies of European territories

December 2011

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Editorial coordination: Laurence Barone, Pascal Brunet.

Also participating in this work: Jacques Delors, Mercédès Bresso, Catherine Lalumière, Pau Raussel Koster, Philippe Aigrain, Saskia Sassen, Jean‐Michel Lucas, Mary Ann Devlieg, Thierry Baudoin, Bernard Misrachi and Madeleine Chiche, Michel Repellin, Patrick Allegaert and Yoon Hee Lamot, Constantin Petcou, Vincent Guimas, Alban Cogrel, Marco Felez, David Joyner, Pascal Brunet, Laurence Barone and the partners of the Toolquiz project.

We would like to thank all contributors to this book who have agreed to participate on a committed and voluntary basis and without claiming rights.

We would particularly like to thank Laurence Barone for directing and coordinating the work.

All connecting texts were written by the Relais Culture Europe.

Graphics: Nord‐Pas de Calais Regional Council

Editorial responsibility: The remarks contained herein are those of the respective authors. Bodies involved in and partners of the Toolquiz project cannot be held responsible for the remarks and opinions presented by the contributors to this work.

Rights of authorship: This publication is subject to French and international legislation on rights of authorship and intellectual property. All reproduction rights are reserved to their respective owners. The reproduction of all or part of this work is subject to authorisation.

This green book has been produced within the framework of the Toolquiz project co‐financed by the European Union’s Interreg IV C programme.

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A right to culture, a culture of rights A contribution to a prospective approach for the cultural policies of European territories

General Introduction Pascal Brunet, director of the Relais Culture Europe..............................................................................p11

Political introduction

Jacques Delors, former president of the European Commission............................................................p15

Mercédès Bresso, president of the Committee of the Regions..............................................................p18

Catherine Lalumière, president of the Relais Culture Europe................................................................p21

Part 1 – Paradigm changes

The human…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…………p29 Laurence Barone

Culture. The intelligent choice? ......................................................................................................p33 Pau RausellKöster

The Cultural Commons and Social Justice: Foundations for a New European Humanism..........p41 Philippe Aigrain

Cities between old frontiers and new partitions of capital.........................................................p49 Saskia Sassen

Part 2 – Public policy practices

Economic rationality and the cultural foundations of the Union................................................p63 Jean‐Michel Lucas

The Cultural Rucksack – A programme for an equal access to culture for children.........................................p70

Time for a NEW EU CULTURAL DEAL?.........................................................................................p73 Mary Ann Devlieg

Reach the Heights ‐ Arts based policy to develop soft skills for young people..................................................p79

Green Cook – For a sustainable food culture………………..………………………………………………………………………………p81

Investing metropolises................................................................................................................p85 Thierry Baudoin

Biblioteca Solidaria – A project by the State Public Library of Cuenca..............................................................p96

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Part 3 – Agents’ practices

Care/respect........................................................................................................p103

Body techniques as a political project....................................................................p105 Michel Repellin ‐ A.I.M.E

Examining the everyday practices of the city.........................................................p109

Madeleine Chiche and Bernard Misrachi

Docteur Guislain Museum ‐ Questioning prejudices.........................................................................p113

Potens – Psychodrama on the Educational Stage..............................................................................p115

Transformation/reappropriation.........................................................................p117

Rhizomatic and translocal cultures.........................................................................p119 Constantin Petcou

The designer creating a new modernity.................................................................p129 Vincent Guimas

Recyclart – Transforming urban dislocation......................................................................................p133

Trajectory/responsibility.....................................................................................p135 Les Articulteurs – A socioeconomic ecosystem serving the territory.....................p141 Alban Cogrel and Marco Felez

Transfer of creativity...........................................................................................................p151 David Joyner, Erik P.M. Vermeulen, Christoph F. Van der Elst, Diogo Pereira Dias Nunes, Wyn Thomas

Thinking in New Boxes........................................................................................................p153 Luc de Brabandère, Alan Iny

Conclusion........................................................................................................p157

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Introduction

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“Public policies and the practices of cultural actors should therefore be redefined as ‘room for redefinition and the utmost in renegotiation’ of these rights imbalances.”

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This green book is the result of a long process of reflection, which began more than three years ago. We were then at the very beginning of what is now agreed to be a systemic crisis.

Our initial intention has only been reinforced: how, in a strong transformational context, should we define the place of the person in public policies on the culture of regional entities?

The question may appear incongruous, at a time when this person has only been indirectly evoked on many public systems, most often by somewhat technical formulations of targets: reinforcement of capacities, human capital, working towards development targets, which more often than not are purely economic.

The crisis/crises have an effect, highlighting ever more emphatically the tensions running through societies. What, then, are Europe’s choices in this interactive world? And more specifically, what are the choices for the regional, political and civil actors?

This green book is based on an assessment and confirms a theory. We are in a time of profound imbalance between political and civil rights, economic rights and, specifically where this book is concerned, the cultural rights of the human being. Public policies and the practices of cultural actors should therefore be redefined as ‘room for redefinition and the utmost in renegotiation’ of these rights imbalances.

Political and civil actors are hard at work rethinking the framework of their actions, trying out new practices and coming up with new ways to govern citizens. In this book, we do not want to compile an inventory of these practices, but rather to show the way in which they plot the parameters for a renewal of public action on culture:

- We must transform our public policies in an open world - We must consider public policies on culture in a world of opportunity - We must reinforce cooperation and solidarity in a united Europe - We can all set out on a new path, in time and as unique cultures and persons, in our chosen area of life - We must, therefore, through audacious public policies on culture, confirm a European principle of dignity, or better still equal dignity, of persons and cultures.

Pascal Brunet Director of Relais Culture Europe October 2011

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Political introductions

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“That is how we will forge an unprecedented version of the union we need in accepted and invigorated diversity.”

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The economic, social and cultural upheavals caused by globalisation call for a new political framework, adapted to their scale. If the solution to European integration is to master flows that straddle national boundaries, infra‐state entities such as regions are also necessary to regain a hold over our destiny. In effect, they offer spaces to respond to the crises of adaptation that run through our societies.

Uniquely in our history, territorial roots and the identity of individuals and groups is becoming dissociated. This phenomenon is linked on the one hand to the unprecedented displacements of populations that we are witnessing, and on the other, to the ability offered by new information technologies to be permanently connected to societies other than those in which we live. This new gift, which favours misunderstandings, is also split along another axis: between the elite, who act and think on a global level, and citizens who think locally. This dichotomy encourages the latter to be distrustful, even to retreat to nationalist sympathies.

Where cultures cohabit without truly mixing, action at territory level is the only conceivable route to relearn how to live together in our interactions and relationships. Because only those places are in a position to reinvent the fundamental links that underpin all of society: trust and conviviality.

Since its first steps, European integration has offered an institutional framework to work towards building bridges between populations. It cannot succeed nor take on the challenges of the twenty‐first century without the strong involvement of the regions and their representatives. Do we need reminding of this? Their motivation is vital as the regions are the lynchpin of economic and social development. The places where both wealth and initiative are created, only the nations themselves can put their endogenous assets to use in global competition or experience sustainable ways of life as a territory. The EU can help them, prompt them, encourage them, offer common frameworks, but it cannot replace them. Whereas competition to attract investment tends to produce large urban centres, the EU can also guarantee a certain amount balance between regions through its policy of cohesion to avoid less dynamic or less advanced zones, like the rural areas which are repositories of our traditions and customs, seeing themselves relegated to the sidelines.

In addition to the impetus given by the Commission, the European regions may cooperate among themselves. The grounds for cooperation are numerous: sharing experiences, defending their common economic interests, values and heritage (peace, the euro, the single market). Whatever the chosen grounds for cooperation, they must be brought together by an objective that goes beyond political divides: to give everyone the chance to develop all of their abilities and to participate in the development of their society, respecting a fair balance between individual freedom and solidarity with the society.

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As necessary as they are, these acts of political cooperation find vital sustenance in cultural dialogue, where this is necessary to counteract isolationist tendencies and to preserve their uniqueness, their languages and their identities. By engaging in public debate, by circulating ideas, the regions will be a part of bringing to life the European project in all its diversity and its pluralism, the EU brand. By offering spaces for meetings, exchanges and creativity, they will give the European project deep roots, that is to say, they will place it at the heart of each one’s identity. That is how we will forge an unprecedented version of the union we need in accepted and invigorated diversity.

Jacques Delors Former president of the European Commission

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“Without culture in public policies and without policies for universal access to culture, a strong and united Europe is not possible.”

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Europe today is in crisis, a multifaceted crisis which threatens the very foundations of the political project that unites the 27 countries of the European Union. But although serious, this crisis is also an opportunity. Both the Greek root of the word itself, meaning “decision”, and the combination in Chinese of characters meaning “danger” and “opportunity to be seized”, clearly demonstrate this duality. The crisis can therefore bring renewal. But we still need a political project! Will we continue down the same road as before? Or can we head towards a model of society that is more sustainable environmentally and socially?

I think it is obvious that Europe has to seize this life‐changing opportunity that it has been offered. In this context, culture is one of the key elements to give back meaning to social connections, to the European project in the territories and to the personal development of citizens. It is also the basis of the European identity, which is diverse, of course, but united in this diversity. Without culture, the European project has neither meaning nor consistency. Of course, the cultural dimension should not obscure the other crucial dimensions of the European project – institutional, economic, monetary, social or territorial – but culture and cultural policies play such a key structuring role that it should remain one of our foremost concerns.

Culture is a condition sine qua none in the implementation of “the competition that stimulates the cooperation that strengthens and the solidarity that unites”, Jacque Delors’ magic triangle of European construction.

A factor in both innovation and creativity, culture plays a large part in the EU’s economic development. The cultural and creative industries are one of its strengths. It is in the territories that these new activities are sustained, as much to aid economic development as to reinforce social cohesion and the fulfilment of their inhabitants. In effect, while it contributes to competitiveness, culture must also stimulate cooperation and solidarity between European populations and citizens. That is why it is so important to provide them with the effective ability to access and fully benefit from the cultural goods thus created. There are still regions and cities that, through voluntarist policies in the cultural, educational and social spheres, render maximum access possible. Cultural policies thus help to make these places more attractive not only to investors, but also to the people who live there or who may settle there. These regions and cities are at the heart of the actions of interregional cooperation most often financed by the European Union, allowing a cultural and intellectual exchange that is vital to the construction of the European project. The promotion of culture is thus an aim to be pursued in and of itself, but also as a prominent factor in the social inclusion, solidarity, alternative economic development and regeneration that are vital to our European societies. Without culture in public policies and without policies for universal access to culture, a strong and united Europe is not possible.

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To achieve harmonious human development, culture is thus as indispensable as health, education, training and a certain quality of life. It is strange but fortunate to see that all these objectives are in fact pursued, in the territories, by the EU’s Cohesion Policy. That is why I am campaigning, as President of the Committee of the Regions, for this policy to be reinforced in the future. Some political leaders with short‐term outlooks, pressured by the financial operators and the pseudo signals of the market, are obsessed with the need to make savings and would reduce the European Union’s budget in general, and the budget for the Cohesion Policy in particular. They do not wish to see that this policy of investment in the support infrastructure for SMEs, addition of value to human resources and exploitation of territorial potential is the only option if we want to come out of this crisis on top.

The European Union therefore has the duty, within this framework, to impose upon the rest of the world and before the markets, new indicators taking into account the well‐being of citizens, as true measure of prosperity. These indicators, based on territorial development, must break with an exclusively financial and materialist vision of progress in order to better comprehend what also makes a society strong: its cohesion, its well‐being and its culture. That is why I believe that we need to reintegrate culture in all our policies. Putting culture back at the centre of Europe’s concerns will certainly help us to better consider our present and to better prepare for our future.

Mercédès Bresso President of the Committee of the Regions

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“But this requires an awareness of the place and role of culture, for decision makers at all levels, for the citizens of the European Union and for the men and women of culture themselves.”

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Now, in 2011, Europe is in crisis. The European Union is struggling, caught in a vice between the need to reduce the abysmal debts of its Member States and the need to kick‐start growth, which is still desperately weak in most States. We regularly talk about rigour, competitiveness, competition on a global scale, profitability, efficiency, the need to invest, to produce, to sell to our neighbours and on the global market. Finance and the economy hold complete dominion over current events.

The Commission’s document for 2020, and in general almost all documents and speeches issued by the European authorities, revolve around these issues, which remain extremely significant.

Despite this, however, we are still dependent on an essentially, even exclusively, market‐ focussed, if not materialist, vision of Europe and the world. We can understand this and in a way excuse it, even approve it, when we consider the urgency.

But it is our duty to also ring the alarm bells because, if this orientation endures for too long, the entire European project will be distorted; Europe risks losing its identity and vanishing as an original political and cultural entity. I am not the only person to say this. But we are still too small a minority today to reorient the European institutions toward priorities other than the economy and the market. There is no time to lose, however. Europe and the EU need once more to find a direction, a sense in which citizens can rediscover themselves. The want prosperity, well‐being, jobs, consumer power; but they also want their persons, the freedoms, their rights, their cultures, their way of thinking and living to be recognised and respected, and for society to encompass all aspects of life so that we can truly live together.

Social tensions, the problems in disadvantaged areas, sometimes violence, are not due only to economic difficulties. They are also due to badly resolved social and human problems. We witness them at all levels of society.

1 – This is the case notably in the territories of cities, counties or regions.

Money is needed for investment, for large‐scale construction projects, to ensure assistance for the most vulnerable: this is evident. But cultural activities also need to be developed in a more long‐term sense: artistic, musical, theatrical and pictorial displays; festivals of all kinds; valuing heritage (monuments, gardens...) through its links to history; developing intercultural exchanges.

Why should we do all this? Obviously to develop the economic activities that create jobs.

But also to give direction to society and the people it is made up of, by developing open‐ mindedness, knowledge and respect for others, allowing people to find their place in relation to others.

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Living together when we are different does not come naturally. It has to be learned.

Culture contributes to this because it can teach us to know ourselves and to know others. And finally, it can allow us to find common values and to work together to achieve common goals.

The populations of our cities and our regions are rich in the diversity of their origins, but this diversity can be their undoing if common life principles are not respected, all the more so if they are not even known. Culture allows us to put things in perspective by looking back at history and finding the life principles and values we hold in common. It is the basis of an organised society where each person has a place and understands the role that he or she can play.

2 – On the European level, it is exactly the same, only even more clear‐cut.

Breaking with centuries of history characterised by constant competition between the European States, those we call the founding fathers of European construction brought about a veritable revolution from 1945 onwards. The broke the mould. For the first time in the history of Europeans, the aim has not been rivalry and conflict, but, on the contrary, reconciliation, peace and the construction of a common project. A project for society including the realisation of a unified market, but going well beyond just that. A project characterised by concerns about cohesion and social justice (even if, evidently, there is still much to be done) and in particular characterised by democratic and humanist principles, inherited from multiple traditions: Greco‐Roman, Judeo‐Christian, Arab‐Islamic, etc... This is a part of our culture. And our writers, philosophers, historians, sociologists and artists in cinema, in theatre... are all bearers, each in their own manner and of their own volition, of this multifaceted and unbelievably rich European culture.

It is that which gives the European project its full meaning.

When, after the horrors of the totalitarian regimes of the thirties, on emerging from the Second World War, our predecessors threw themselves into this unbelievably ambitious project of European construction, it was to realise this project of society and to protect the finest values of European thinking.

These are the same motivations that have lent their strength to those who rose up in the revolutions of Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin wall.

And, today, in the storm in which Europe struggles, facing the return of nationalist sensibilities and retreat into oneself, the aim is the same, or should be the same, if Europeans take stock of the situation and know how to mobilise themselves.

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Recently, France has welcomed the former Brazilian President Lula da Silva. This man, who truly represents emerging countries with their new‐found strength and vigour, has paid homage to the European model by declaring it to be a “universal heritage”. In his mouth, this declaration was not due to the existence of particular economic or military strengths. It was due to the strength of ideas, notably that of reconciliation and freedom, a political philosophy that underpins the European project.

Should Europeans leave it to outsiders to highlight the role of culture in Europe in the twenty‐ first century?

No. Culture is not a marginal sphere that we can worry about when we have the time... and the money. In Europe today, culture, in the broadest sense of the word, is the foundation European construction needs to keep it standing. it is also what provides the content of the European project itself, in particular if, as the philosopher Edgar Morin often reminds us, we know not to stand still but, on the contrary, to evolve towards a new “renaissance”.

But this requires an awareness of the place and role of culture, for decision makers at all levels, for the citizens of the European Union and for the men and women of culture themselves who too often have a narrow concept of culture and do not see that it is what first and foremost defines Europe.

Catherine Lalumière President of the Relais Culture Europe

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Part I Paradigm changes

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“We need to take into account, in this moment of transformation, the world, its lines of tension, its complexity, and reinterpret, explore, redefine it in order to transform humanism itself.”

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The issue of the culture, people and development link poses, first and foremost, the question of what European humanism is and can be today. It is the foundation of a common destiny and conditional for a new European transformation. It is not about “taking into account” people, adapting, accommodating. It is about making people the deciding factor in the redefinition of our economic, societal and political systems, working to build the legal frameworks that are the first of the guarantees this humanity has to offer, and to determine to what extent culture is a constituent part of this. This demands that we re‐ appropriate, in all their breadth, complexity and interrelation, certain paradigms that have structured European and global evolutions. We must look at which lines of tension and which areas of this humanism – such as its cultural dimension – can be redefined and on which we can get to work.

We have chosen here to focus in particular on the following points:

‐ what we understand by human,

‐ what is at stake in relations with the market and off the market,

‐ what transformations and works are underway in the territories and more particularly in global cities.

These different paradigms highlight the importance of the phenomena of globalisation, and their speed and depth, as permanent interactions.

Relais Culture Europe 27

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The complexity of the human being

Laurence Barone

Dehumanisation processes run though all our economic, societal, cultural and political systems.

These processes are broad, sweeping and deep1.

The weight accorded to market relations today has lead us to favour a reading of human nature through the lens of maximisation of personal interest and well‐being through consumption. The growing focus of our systems on performance and competitiveness further encourages us to consider the person as a resource available to be used and exploited in the production of these consumables.

In parallel with this, when safety factors are playing a growing role in structuring out debates and policies, those people labelled as dangerous become the objects of criminalisation procedures, imprisonment, even deportation. This extends from strangers to the sick, from the poor to the homeless, any ‘foreign body’ that risks the safe, serene and homogenous operation of our societies. Alarm systems appear, more and more prematurely. They attempt to measure potential danger, to statistically predict behaviours considered at risk.

Finally, the question is posed today, through selection, cloning and nonsexual reproduction techniques, of acting on human beings themselves, of freeing them from their natural limitations. It is no longer a matter of taking care of humans but, through a new way of using the body, it is about manufacturing – sometimes for others, selecting, perfecting.

Thus, the individual has found itself, at a more or less great distance and in a more or less visible manner, caught in a web of control and surveillance. This loose and many‐threaded web plots our behaviours. It captures actions, thoughts and desires. It formats and directs the choices and imaginations of us all in a vast and often seemingly elusive universe. It weakens humans at a time when more and more intrusive techniques are propagating from one sector to another, rapidly and in ways not always thought to be technologically possible, socially desirable or ethically acceptable.

Interacting, often converging, these processes challenge the concept of the human being and of its value on which our societies and our democracies have been built since the post‐war period.

In the same way that it has distanced itself from nature, the human species is now distancing itself from one another. It lives in a relationship with others founded on competition, indifference or suspicion. It is losing it capacity to think, to imagine, to represent, to desire, to live. It is distancing itself from a vision of life and creating, in its relationship with otherness, a social being and a global being. It is breaking away from an inter‐personal community bringing together individuals in all their complexity and in equal dignity. It is progressively but steadily deconstructing the relationship it holds with what constitutes its indomitable humanity.

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Mireille Delmas Marty, Sens et non sens de l’humanisme juridique, Course at the Collège de France 2011.

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Such processes put our democracies in danger. They delegitimize and trivialise human values.

They functionalize and privatise social relationships. They suck the life out of this human force even while they reflect it, regenerate it and reinvent it. They favour the establishment of a government by numbers and not by right. For such a government, it is no longer a matter of guaranteeing conditions where possibilities are represented, dissent is expressed and compromises are constantly negotiated. It is a matter of adopting a management logic offering functional comprehension, statistical analysis and an efficient resolution of problems.

Between the persistence of the dynamics of political construction used since the post‐war period and the renewal of civil practices, weak and weakened counter‐tendencies and resistance movements are at work.

The Union, like the Council of Europe, remains, even under pressure, a place of protection of fundamental rights. The gains are structured, anchored in our societies for fifty years. The founding texts exist and demand to be put to work, alongside the European Charter of Human Rights.

Civil practices are emerging in the economy, society, the environment, culture and citizenship – from the movement of the “unworthy” to contributory practices. These practices play a part in the construction of other forms of life, of vigilance, of awareness.

They acknowledge these imbalances, and often even denials, of rights, they react, raise the question of humanity and experiment with new routes of action.

Nevertheless, swept away by the accelerating global pace, and notably by the pace of the market and technology, which differs from the pace of rights, these resistance movements, sometimes violent, are themselves in an unstable equilibrium. Fragmented, they seek a common strength and culture in order to create, in a shared consciousness of the moment, the foundation of a vision of humanity and the world, the bedrock of a common destiny.

How, then can we uphold and construct, in an open and globally participating Europe, a new return to humanism?

We cannot, in this moment of transformation, simply return to our post World War II heritage. We need to take into account, in this moment of transformation, the world, its lines of tension, its complexity, and reinterpret, explore, redefine it in order to transform humanism itself.

We also need to set out once more on a process of construction at a time in which, facing an unpredictable future, we must get stuck into that complexity, latch onto movements, rediscover ways to act and to change so that we can seize the opportunities created by globalisation. Reaffirming principles, while necessary, is not enough.

The aim is, therefore, as Mireille Delmas‐Marty1 proposes, of passing from the myth of humanism to a realistic utopia that opens up possible futures, from the figure of the past to that of what is to come, from the vision of power to the vision of work.

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Mireille Delmas Marty, Sens et non sens de l’humanisme juridique, Course at the Collège de France 2011 (Introduction – 28 February 2011).

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We are living in a period of transition, a period of unstable equilibrium, in our societies as well as in the European project. Faced with uncertain globalisation, this could lead to a risk of regression, or to an opportunity for transformation. The human relationship, between a myth under threat and fragmented resistance, is the telltale sign and the deciding factor. It is at this point in the history of Europe and of the “planetary iron age”1 that we must define what we mean by European cultural policy and its foundations. The issue is thus to know whether we accept, in the image of dehumanisation, the processes reducing culture in terms of accumulation, consumption or marketisation, or whether we give it back its dimension as the indispensable and fundamental bedrock of our societies and our democracies, in the form of the cultural rights that “reinforce the indivisibility of human rights by linking them to their common foundation: dignity.”2

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Edgar Morin, Penser l’Europe.

Patrice Meyer‐Bisch, « Une analyse des droits culturels », Droits fondamentaux, n° 7, January 2008 – December 2009 (download at www.droits‐ fondamentaux.org).

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Culture. The intelligent choice?

Pau RausellKöster Econcult. Interuniversity institute for local development Valencia University

Introduction

Over the past 5 or 6 years uncountable academic publications, reports and statistics from European and international organisations have appeared discussing the role of innovation, culture or creativity in development processes. UNCTAD informs us that a "new development paradigm is rising from the links between the economy and culture which covers economic, cultural, technological and social aspects of development, both at macro and micro levels.”1 The EU reports2 that Cultural and Creative Industries help to strengthen declining local economies and the appearance of new economic activities, creating new sustainable jobs and boosting the appeal of European regions and cities. The OECD also emphasises the role of cultural and creative industries as a fulcrumfor social and personal development. These industries generate economic growth and are essentially at the heart of the definition "glocal competitiveness"3.

This phenomenon is not specific to the European and western world but is a discourse that has caught on in different geographical areas. The Organisation of Ibero‐American Statesin its cultural letter highlights the strategic value of culture in the economy and its fundamental contribution to the economic, social and sustainable development of the region;4and the United Cities and Local Government World Forum in its Agenda 21 for culture, approved in 2004, stresses that while cultural goods and services should not merely be perceived as merchandise, " it is necessary to highlight the importance of culture as a generating factor of wealth and economic development.”5

This effervescenceproves, firstly, that the knowledge community, from the Academy to the think‐tanks, as well as the policy‐makers, are perceiving a growing key role of culture in development processes, and secondly, it should be emphasised that these multiple foci are creating, not without difficulties6, certain consensus concerning the concepts. Although culture, innovation, creativity and knowledge are becoming key words, we are still a long way from understanding all the relationships and causalities between these concepts and development.

Consequently, rather than discussions concerning the definition of creative industries and the differing behaviour of each one of the sectors, scientific literature has insisted on the relationship between culture and development.

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UNCTAD (2010): Creative Economy Report 2010.

EUROPEAN COMMISSION (2010): GREEN BOOK. Liberate the potential of cultural and creative industries.

3 OCDE(2005): Culture and Local Development 4 OEI (2006): Carta Cultural Iberoamericana 5 UNITED CITIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS (2004): Agenda 21 of Culture 6 One of the main discussions concerns the scope of the consolidation of the concept of creative industries, as opposed to the concept of cultural industries, which for some authors incorporates a liberal and "market" bias / slant. Garnham, N. (2011). According to Gaëtan Tremblay “the amalgamation of cultural industries and creative industries entails a potential risk: the dissolution of the specifity of cultural industries and the weakening of the argument in favour of the intervention of public powers.“ 2

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From the most generic affirmations of AmartyaSen (1999), through Jon Hawkes (2001) successful formula of the “fourth pillar of sustainability”, to the descriptions with more micro‐ economic concepts of the towns of Florida (2002), certain consensus is forming around the fact that the symbolic dimension of a territory and how cultural and creative activities fits into that dimension affect its social‐economic structure and competitiveness far more than the ornamental aspects of the cultural activity. However, the wording in the end is excessively vague,1and culture appears as a contextual variable which wraps everything up,but for which it is difficult to specify the causality of relationships (Rausell et al., 2007). There are even authors who cast serious doubt on the relationship between creative economy and development2.

Only recently has a theoretical corpus been developed that attempts to deal more precisely (Sacco, P.L, 2009; Florida et al., 2010,Hervás‐Oliver el allí., 2011) with the "black box" that connects cultural and creative activities with the competitiveness and economic results of a territory. The latest contributions focus on the role that creative and cultural industries play in the income level of regions (Hervas‐Oliver et al., 2011), concluding that creative industries are the most relevant explication for the wealth of a region. Other authors emphasise the wide reaching effects of the presence of creative sectors (Baum et al., 2009). Even though a line of discussion that connects creativity and wealthis being rapidly constructed, there are still many angles to be resolved.That is precisely why the current paper seeks to clarify some of these relationships.

From development to sustainable development.

Until practically four decades ago, the concept of development was limited to economic growth.

"Productivity" as a development strategy consisted of trying to maximise production in quantitative terms. However, technology turns out to be less of a miracle than it promised to be. The restrictions it imposes both on natural resources and environmental risks soon became evident. In the decade of the 80's use of the concept "sustainable development",which basically consisted of focusing the concept of development on those social economic processes that enable satisfaction of the needs of present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, intensified. The breakthrough of this approach is that from that moment, the set of needs required to satisfy a specific development process will be the outcome of a social construction process… that has precisely to do with the cultural dimension of a community. This is the dimension which is capable of explaining dreams, wishes and collective desires. AmartyaSen's contribution with his Development as freedom defines development as that process that broadens the degree of freedom of individuals and improves their autonomy through enhancement of their abilities. Another author, Jon Hawkesprecisely situates culture as the fourth pillar of sustainability, alongside social, economic and environmental dimensions. One can therefore speak of a "cultural shift " in the definition of development.

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“In general, the comparative mezzoeconomic techniques these researchers employ are descriptive exercises or correlations that do not build or test causal models of the contribution of culture to development.” (Markusen y Gadwa, 2010). “the creative class model is just as likely as the others to fail to develop specific policies that will lead to the desired end of economic prosperity. We believe that promoting tolerance for diversity is inherently a good thing. Public investments aimed at encouraging interest in arts and cultural activities are also likely to be looked on favorably, but neither of these approaches would seem to be inexorably tied to economic growth.” (Reese y Sands, 2008).

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The leap towards the cultural dimension in the definition of the needs of a community, leads however back towards the field of economics, since as the European Council acknowledges, culture and creativity are intimately linked. Creativity is at the origin of culture which in turn creates an environment that allows the flourishing of creativity; and creativity, in its turn, is at the root of innovation ‐ understood as a successful exploitation of new ideas, expressions and forms, and as a process that develops new products, new services and new kinds of working companies or new ways of responding to social needs. Creativity is therefore of great importance for the innovative capacity of citizens, as well as for organisations, companies and societies. Culture, creativity and innovation are vital for competitiveness and for the development of our economies and societies and are even more important in times of rapid change and serious problems.

Moving onthen fromthe limited economic concept of development, we arrive atculture which finally reveals its ability to set off, through innovation, processes of economic growth.

A systematic view of the role of culture in development processes

The origin. The broadening of cultural rights and needs.

As humans, we universally demonstrate our need to express ourselves symbolically, share values and beliefs and participate in collective cultural life. This institutionalisation of this inherently human need is the formulation of cultural rights and the origin of the desire to expose ourselves to cultural experiences is the materialisation of these rights. In Western societies this arises in different spheres, from the individual ‐ such as writing poems to oneself ‐, to the social – such as participating in the choir of a cultural society ‐ and that of the market – buying a book. The fact we can confirm is that over the past decades there has been a widening of the spaces in which cultural exchanges take place. The "culture market" is today far bigger than 20 years ago and the slice of the culture market out of total market exchanges is also greater. There are so many explanations for demand, which we are not going to consider in greater depth, but which basically refer to the increases in education and income of European citizens over the past decades, but there is also an increase in supply due to the sharp technological shock which has lead to a fall in creation, production, distribution and consumption costs, the appearance of the internet and digitalisation.

The effects on work issues.

The expansion in thecommoditisation of culture demonstrates thatadded value is ever more related to the symbolic content of goods and services and ever less to the functional content.

The central element of creativity is shifting towards creative capacity, and creativity is more an attribute of individuals than organisations. Consequently, we discover the growth potential of organisations in the creative capacity of its labour force. This fact, to a certain extent, implies re‐ humanisation of production since the work factor is no longer only an undifferentiated factor of production. Appearance models of the "creative class" arise around this process, shaping a far more contradictory and diverse work market in the cultural field than the traditional one. We are referring to a much more flexible work market than the traditional one with highly qualified workers in which liberating experiments of flexible working conditions appear alongside work 35

projects that may foster creation and innovation, but also models of self exploitation and extreme precariousness. The differences between personal space and the work place are blurred in this liquid space, mingling with a certain life style. The relevance of creative and cultural industry workers arises not only from their role of human capital in the production function, but also because this group comprises the overall solvent demand for innovative and creative culture related goods and services, as well as being the group of individuals that represent socioeconomic and political activism. Consequently, the size of this demand constitutes the necessary critical mass to articulate markets prone to transformation and change, not only in the field of new products but also in social and political innovations.

The concept of management of human resources and information is also reinforced by models of economic organisations. Cultural organisations; a) find business opportunities from different sources than other (non‐ culture) new companies, b)use new technologies more intensely c) are more innovative than the majority of businesses. The organisations increase their flexibility, define informal relationship models and the dimension related to entrepreneurialship and self‐ employment gains relevance. Abilities become essential and new personal skills related to innovation ‐ such as the ability to become critical of others and with oneself, the ability to come up with new solutions, the capability of moving to new technological and multicultural environments, and so on ‐ appear. All these new and changing skills result in a need for ongoing learning models.

The effects on economic growth.

Numerous recent research papers in the field of economics and regional development have provided growing evidence that creative and cultural activities are of far greater higher relevance to explanations of regional wealth than had previously been believed. We know that culture increases the competitiveness of mature sectors such as tourism or improves the productivity of traditional manufacturing activities such as textiles, furniture or home furnishings. What is more surprising is the close correlation between the richness of European regions and the specialisation in cultural and creative activities. Some authors even indicate that specialisation in creative services is the most important variable when explaining the per capita income of a region, even quantifying the effect in money terms. In fact, the most important variable in the income per inhabitant of European regions is the percentage of workers employed in creative industries. Each 1% increase in the share of creative industries in regional employment correlates with a 0.6% increase in GDP per capita, i.e. an average rise of € 1,424.

A growing body of literature is clarifying the complex relationships between culture and territorial development in such a manner that a process ‐ for which socioeconomic research has demonstrated many theoretical intuitions but provided scarce empirical evidence ‐ is becoming clearer. What is evident is that the symbolic and creative content of a community, especially in Europe, no longer only exclusively represents its cosmetic dimension but also, in some manner, contains the central pillars of the possibilities frontier of competitiveness. The paths of causality are complex and contain certain direct impacts deriving from the greater flexibility of labour relations in the culture sector, more rapid uptake of innovation or greater productivity of the sector, but we suspect that it also reflects certain profound changes to the productive method through the transforming role of culture as an economic and cultural factor of innovation. Given that it is an extremely complex phenomena ‐ since " cultural capital" affects both the conditions 36

and characteristics of demand and its disposition to pay and supply capacities owing to the possibility of transformation through the interiorising of creativity and innovation ‐ the conclusions that been drawn appear tangled and allow differentinterpretations.

The relevance of space

One of the essential characteristics of symbolic production is that the attributes of space are in some way integrated into the production of creative goods and services, such as fashion in Paris, theatre in London, music in Nashville or ceramics in Caltagirone. Cultural and creative activities are particularly sensitive to regrouping and "districting". Space is not only a geographical referent of cultural resources, be they tangible or intangible, but becomes a resource in itself. A cultural district with a creative component is one in which creativity is a relevant input in the creation processes of symbolic goods and services and whose production and distribution is completed through a business web made up of small and medium size companies, whose entrepreneurship is launched by the spinning off of "ambitious operators" and in many cases with common relations and similar models for the running and organisation of work. It also implies a high level of specialisation and continuous innovation, combined with flexible labour relations and diverse professional figures. Another requisite for it to be considered as a cultural district is that information flows and knowledge transfer should be dense. This requires low transaction costs in “erga intra” information transmission processes, informal spreading of Know howand existence of a tacit knowledge base. In addition, it implies the existence of formal and informal spaces of relationships between agents, where "cross‐ fertilisation" processes between different agents and projects are supposed to occur.

This last consideration is especially relevant since cities, from the Athens of Pericles, Florence, Paris or New York, have proven themselves to be in historic terms, melting pots for links between artistic creators. However, from human sizes which permit frequent and casual contact between citizens ( up to 50,000 inhabitants?) to the appearance of bohemian districts associated to the cultural agents of big metropolis, spacial concentration appears to be converting into an essential element to generate processes of " creative eclosion".

New values regarding socioeconomic space.

The most relevant element to consider may be the capacity of the cultural field to export values to the remainder of the socioeconomic reality. Instrumental rationalisation based on profit maximisation has lead us to the dead end of financial and economic collapse so there is an ethical rethinking of individuals' needs, which are linked to the will to participate, communicate, deliberate and express oneself. The culture field is externalising values that are catching on in the socioeconomic area and the crisis is demonstrating that they are far more suited to the concept of sustainable development. They respond to a new hierarchy that includes aspects such as the explicit desire for innovation, relational ( as opposed to transactional ) consumption, and free exchange, critical thinking, personal development, solidarity, cooperation, networking, the value of diversity and beauty, participation, the importance of the ludic and vital dimension in comparison with purely economic profit. In other words, those vectors that guide creative actions are not purely instrumental rationality but operate expressive values of exchange or mutual benefit.

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These new values are spreading from the cultural field through the social space but also from a new ethic that irradiates from social movements articulated through the internet. From the copy left to the commonsthey are drawing a new universe of values that affect economic and social spaces.

Drawing conclusions.

Culture is obviously a resource. A powerful resource.David Anisi said that if someone chose to row in a galley they would do it either because they were paid a good handful of Euros to do so, or because they are obliged to do so by the whip or because they were convinced they were doing what was right. The third case demonstrates the power of culture. And naturally any individual or collective group that is capable of controlling this power, in line with a certain very human constant, will do so to their own benefit. Culture serves to legitimise the capitalist system, to uphold deceitful activities that become instruments of domination and alienation, as seen with religions and political regimes. Culture serves to sell, disguise and redeem. Culture serves to dominate, submit, and segregate and even to fan the worst crimes committed by mankind. However, unlike other people who are paranoid about culture conspiracyand who only perceive new and more neoliberal twists, we also understand culture as a tool in the manner of Sen that can broaden our degrees of freedom and which corresponds to inherently human individual and collective needs to express, feel, share, show emotion, communicate, participate, belong and be different. In this sense, the distribution of the power of culture is more democratic than in the case of other powers that build up and spread out, since it depends on attributes such as talent, creativity, emotions, and the skills to communicate and convince. This is why the origin of all public intervention when allocating resources to provide higher levels of cultural goods and services is justified in order to gain thereby institutionalised cultural rights and owing to the re‐distributional function of the skills to create cultural clout.

This should be the root of all cultural policy and justifies in itself the active intervention of the State in the provision of culture. This does not signify that any State intervention is legitimate, nor that the interventions can only pursue the achievement of other justified collective goals such as economic growth, or other social goals such as the promotion of diversity, redistribution of income, sexual equality or the struggle against any type of social and economic exclusion.

The market, as a method of distributing information through pricing and rewards for producers, is an indispensable instrument for the satisfaction of the cultural rights of citizens, from the perspectives of both supply and demand. The opening up of cultural markets and the commercialisation of cultural experiences over recent decades and especially the growth of exchange spaces since the technological revolution of digitalisation and internet have broadened on an unprecedented scale our degree of freedom. However, we must acknowledge that cultural goods and services cannot easily be considered as ordinary goods and services.

Symbols are receptacles of meanings and significations and these affect our beliefs, values, feelings and emotions, and more importantly, our behavioural patterns. The commoditisation of culture signifies putting at risk these intrinsic values that are not interiorised through the trading price, as well as being submitted to certain dynamics of homogenisation and banalisation.

Furthermore, given that many other social and individual functions are met, for structural reasons art, creativity and culture have difficulties behaving like normal goods. Culture markets 38

will always be distorted markets economically speaking, and its price signals reflect not only relative scarcities but also more or less explicit power relations. But criticism of cultural dynamics cannot be a generic, empty, more or less insincere, denouncement that refers to a culture submitted to the dictates of malign multinational corporations. And this is not altered by using the term "cultural" or "creative" industries.

The analysis of the relationships between the individual and the cultural fact should be studied with greater rigueur to understand the complex relationships between culture and development. At this point, more insistence should be paid to human and social sciences; universities, as hubs to generate knowledge, being called upon to provide empirical theories, models and contrasts that grant us greater control over the causal relations between culture and society. This knowledge should free us from the enchainment to which we have been submitted in Europe by a surprisingly lucid "invisible school" when we the remainder of citizens turn out to be submitted to the manipulation of cultural industries that reproduced hegemonic capitalism. This "invisible school " has used hermeneutic arguments and tautologies to orient collective resources towards cultural agents, with the blessing of a society that shares an uncritical and “do‐gooding” vision of both culture and a political class given a complex by culture's moral superiority. This diversion has hidden the unbelievable ineffectiveness of the majority of cultural policies, its bloody inefficiency and what ismuch more important from the ideological point of view, scandalous fiscal regression.

What we know today is that the concentration of cultural and creative activities in a determined territory alters the logic and workings of its economic dynamics in a more profound and complex manner than was previously supposed. We know that the territory stops being neutral and becomes one more resource that contains values and meanings. We also know that the centrality of creativity and innovation is changing the role of economic organisations and human resources management models and we know that around this fact a flexible work market is developing that combines liberating tendencies for human work and that enables enriching personal development experiences as well as realties that tend towards extreme precariousness and self‐exploitation. The most important issue is that the cultural field exports to the remaining socioeconomic fields a set of values that implies an ethical rethinking and which fits in better with the concept of sustainable development. Culture is an unarguable factor that nurtures economic and social innovation.

However none of these dynamics is autonomous from our individual or collective actions and decisions. The knowledge we acquire concerning the relationships between community and culture, along with greater levels of governance should allow us to increase the social control of those processes to attempt to maximise cultural drives towards development models that broaden our degrees of freedom, either through the satisfaction of our cultural rights, economic growth or the gaining of other social goals, and attempt to limit or control the risks implied by the logic of markets, interest groups, inertia or simple incompetence or ignorance. Clichés regarding the generic goodness of culture should be overcome, but the paranoiac labels concerning corporate conspiracy and the logic of globalisation should alsobe eliminated.

But what is of no doubt is that culture potentially widens the possibility frontier of our future. At the moment, in Europe, not intelligently benefitting from this circumstance would be irresponsible.

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Bibliography

ANISI, D. (1992): Jerarquía, Mercado y Valores. Un reflexióneconómicasobreel poder. Alianza Editorial. Madrid GARNHAM, N. (2011): “De lasIndustriasculturales a lascreativas. Análisis de lasimplicaciones en el ReinoUnido”.In Bustamante, E. (2011): IndustriasCreativas. Amenazassobre la cultura digital.

Edit. Gedisa. Barcelona HAWKES, J. (2001): The Fourth pillar of Sustainability: Culture’s Essential Role in Public Planning.

Vic‐Cultural Development Network. Australia.

HERVAS‐OLIVER, J.L., BOIX, R.,DE MIGUEL MOLINA, B., DE MIGUEL MOLINA, M. (2011): “The Importance of Creative Industry Agglomerations in Explaining the Wealth of European Regions”.

DRUID 2011 INNOVATION, STRATEGY, and STRUCTURE ‐ MARKUSEN A., GADWA, A. (2010): “Arts and Culture in Urban or Regional Planning: A Review and Research Agenda”. Journal of Planning Education and Research 29(3), pp.379‐391.

POTTS, J., CUNNINGHAM, S. (2010): “Four Models of the Creative Industries”. Revue d’ÉconomiePolitique. 120(1), pp 163‐180.

RAUSELL, P., ABELEDO, R., CARRASCO, S, MARTINEZ, J. (2007): Cultura: estrategiapara el desarrollo local. AgenciaEspañola de CooperaciónInternacional al Desarrollo, Madrid.

REESE, L.A., SAND G.(2008): “Creative Class and Economic Prosperity: Old Nostrums, Better Packaging?”. Economic Development Quarterly.22(3), pp 3‐7.

SACCO, P.L., SEGRE, G. (2009): “Creativity, Cultural Investment and Local Development: A New theoretical Framework for Endogeneus Growth” en Fratessi, U. and Senn L., Growth and innovation in Competitive Regions‐ The Role of Internal and External Connections. Springer Verlag, Berlin SEN A. (1999): Development as Freedom.: Oxford University Press.

TREMBLAY, G. (2011): “Desde la teoría de lasindustriasculturales. Evaluacióncrítica de la economía de la creatividad”.In Bustamante, E. (2011): IndustriasCreativas. Amenazassobre la cultura digital. Edit. Gedisa. Barcelona.

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The Cultural Commons and Social Justice: Foundations for a New European Humanism Philippe Aigrain

The European construction is at a crossroads. Faced with a major global crisis that challenges its very existence, it must redefine itself by constructing new directions for its policies. These orientations can no longer be expressed negatively, as the avoidance of war, or as the rejection of National egoisms. They must install a new positive agenda, in which European citizens, and in particular the youth, can recognize what they have already started to build, and which they can trust as enabling them to build it further.

While the finance‐dominated economy is sinking and pulling societies downwards, citizens, advocacy groups and intellectuals have started building new agenda. There will be many paths opened, and this text explores but one of them: the recognition that in the digital era, a huge share of knowledge production, cultural creativity and public expression occurs in a non‐market sphere, where the products of activities are placed under commons statutes. Recognizing it, we outline how the cultural commons can be one of the laboratories of the exploration of a new humanism, and under which conditions it can contribute to social justice.

The non‐market digital sphere For a long time, information technology and networks seemed to result mostly in large organizations being able to develop new management and control mechanisms. From the beginning of the 1980s, the spread of personal computers and the progressive take‐up of the Internet and later of the Web put information technology and networks in the hands of the individuals. The significance of this change was long hidden, partly because it took times for people to realize how to make use of this new potential, and partly because our statistical apparatus has been built to record principally activities that generate monetary transactions.

When Manuel Castells wrote the first volume of his “Information Era” trilogy in 1988, he was aware of the potential of computers and the Internet for civil society cooperation but doubted that it could counterbalance the power of large organizations. 23 years later, he declared about the democratic uprisings in the Arab world: “These popular insurrections in the Arab world constitute a turning point in the social and political history of humanity. And perhaps the most important of the internet‐led and facilitated changes in all aspects of life, society, the economy and culture.” [Rovira, 2011] The potential for democracy is but one illustration of a much more general transformation which is characterized by the birth of a giant sphere of activity and exchanges developing outside markets. “Outside markets” in the specific sense of proceeding without the constraints of price‐mediated monetary transactions and the related contractual arrangements. The predominant economicism in public policy prevented it to recognize the extreme importance of this new “non‐market” sphere. Up to recently, it was almost impossible to find any reliable statistics on time spent by individuals to write texts with computers and on the Internet, or to organize, publish and share digital photographs, while a wealth of indicators were scrutinizing the development of electronic commerce and other transaction‐related activities.

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The development of digital non‐market activities of individuals led to an unprecedented public expression: tens of millions of personal blogs, and hundreds of millions of short messages, comments or social network actions per day. More generally the personal production of publicly accessible contents in many different media has grown explosively, first for texts and photographs, then increasingly for music and moving image. 20% of European (EU‐27) Internet users, that is 14% of Europeans aged 15 or more produce contents for sharing on the Internet [Deroin, 2010]. Interestingly, the development of digital creativity and public expression did not replace existing cultural practice: on the contrary, there was a increase in activities such as playing a musical instrument, visual arts, dance, writing poetry or fiction from 1995 (date at which the Web reached a significant public usage).1 It is difficult to assess qualitatively this change, but there is an increased recognition that one finds more people at all levels of creativity, from the simple interpersonal communication to professional‐level practice.

What we have witnessed is not just the emergence of a new medium where an expanded set of productions would converge. The non‐market digital sphere is the seat of an entirely new mode of production, based on sharing and cooperation. The individuals who engage in this new form of production are no longer reducible to being consumers of products and services or receptors of contents. It makes them very different of what political institutions used to consider as “their” citizens.

The new commons of culture and knowledge Collaborating to produce new artefacts such as software is as old as ... information technology itself. From 1950 to 1970, new algorithms (methods to process information by software) were shared in the open by scientists and engineers who needed every available mind to help exploring this new continent. It simply seemed the natural thing to do with information and everything that could be represented by information.2 Between 1978 and 1984, a number of researchers such as Donald Knuth3 and Richard Stallman made the project of commons‐based collaboration explicit. This happened partly in reaction to the introduction of copyright restraints in the use and copying of software, but it was also simply a reaffirmation of the scientific ethics.4 Richard Stallman went a step further, because he anticipated from the start that in the new era, the freedom to access, use, modify and share information would be relevant not just to technical people, but to humanity as a whole.

It is only from 1995 and the widespread take‐up of the Web that the immensity of the new commons of information, culture and knowledge became evident. Even before the birth of blogging, tens of millions of personal Web pages existed. There were often disregarded as being only the equivalent of family photo albums made public, but some of these pages became key sources of information or specialized knowledge. More generally, despite an overwhelming 1 See [Marta Beck‐Domzalska, 2007, Aigrain, forthcoming November 2011].

2 As examples, see the refusal of John von Neumann in the 1940s to patent his structure of computers and the related programming model, or the fact that significant algorithms such as the Hoffmann code for compression of information were freely disseminated as early as 1952.

3 Author of the monumental “The Art of Programming” from 1969 to this day, see http://www‐cs‐faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/taocp.html, Donald Knuth is also the key force behind the TEX typesetting free software for scientific publication, today used in many other fields, 4

including for writing this text.

Donald Knuth declared in 1996 interview: “I would encourage programmers to make their work known the way mathematicians and scientists have done for centuries. It’s a comfortable, well‐understood system and, you get a lot of satisfaction knowing people like what you did.” Woehr [1996].

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evidence that the Web was successful because it allowed the non‐market sharing of information and knowledge, the predominant economicist view saw this as a sign of immaturity to be removed when the normal economy would impose itself on the Web. The same analysts and policy‐makers endorsed electronic commerce and the .coms as a bright future, until the corresponding bubble pitifully crashed in 2000. Meanwhile the economy of providing means to the non‐market activities of communication, socializing, public expression and creative endeavours proved resilient and accounted for at least a third of growth in developed countries between 1995 and 2005.

As more and more people invested the Web for producing contents of all types, the commons‐ based model of production described by Yochai Benkler [2002, 2011] led to remarkable achievements. In this model, people and organizations co‐operate on producing information artefacts or even physical products by placing the intermediate products under a regime of common property and free use. It has given us Wikipedia, hundreds of millions of photographs shared under Creative Commons licenses, tens of millions of blogs, collaborative innovation in software or biology [Aigrain, 2009], and open data or open access publications in science.

However, in many domains, commons‐based production and non‐market sharing had started colliding with the efforts of the media and information industry to move into the exact opposite direction : making exclusive rights stronger in the digital domain so as to install a new Eldorado (for them) where each copy or even each usage of a digital work could be sold at a monopoly price even though it costs almost nothing to produce a copy. The field in which this clash materialized is entirely new: it is the rights of use of each of us. For the first time in its three century‐history, copyright started regulating the rights of use of individuals including in the non‐ market sphere. This process initiated in the 1980s led to a stronger and stronger effort to eradicate a basic capability of individuals: sharing digital works between themselves.

Use rights: extended or annihilated?

For centuries, works on carriers such as books and later photographs and recordings could be freely shared between individuals without aim at profit. More precisely, what an individual did with a work in his or her possession was none of the business of copyright law, provided it did not constitute a commercial exploitation of the work. Actually, even some forms of commercial exploitation such as reselling and lending were authorized under the first sale/exhaustion of rights doctrines. With the digital era, our societies were faced with a choice: either they decided that when works could be easily copied and shared without the original possessor losing access, the effects of these recognized use rights were so much extended that they could no longer be tolerated. Or, on the contrary, considering that these rights were at the heart of culture itself,1 one could have welcome their extended scope and adapted law and business models to this situation. It turned out that societies and law‐making took totally opposed paths.

At the second half of the 1990s, Internet users started to share digital works (in particular musical recordings) they held in their personal collections. This was first done by simply posting them on Web pages and Usenet news groups, then from 1998 using more sophisticated file

1

A large share of cultural goods are bought for making a gift, and sharing books or other cultural goods is the very mode by which a shared culture is built among friends, communities and societies.

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sharing systems and protocols. Without possible doubt, these individuals thought of such practice as sharing, and they considered what they shared to be theirs even though the work might had been authored or performed by others. Shawn Fanning, who developed the original Napster defined it as a tool for pooling record libraries. The publishers and distributors of music and other media saw the non‐market exchange of works as the public becoming a competitor to their industry. Even though previous examples such as the free‐to‐air broadcasting of music on radio from the 1920s have amply demonstrated that the free access to cultural contents is compatible with a healthy development of a commercial sales economy (in this case of records), they soon staged a war against their consumers, a quite unprecedented business model, but one they have consistently pursued. They obtained law and policy, and put in place technology and contracts to outlaw or prevent sharing. This process, if it is not stopped by a reaction of society and policy‐makers, will not stop short of eradicating the notion of a free sphere of non‐ market sharing of culture. The reader who would find exaggeration in this statement will consider the case of electronic books platforms, where both law and contracts sometimes tend to make the commercial publishing of freely shareable works impossible. France recently adopted a law on the single price for electronic books, the two chambers of Parliament rejecting amendments that simply stated that the single price rule should not prevent authors from authorizing the free sharing of their works. In the US, some key eBook device manufacturers impose contracts on publishers that state that no form of dissemination of the work in electronic form can proceed at a lower price than the one of the commercial eBook, in effect preventing the licensing of commercial eBooks under Creative Commons licenses and the development of a hybrid economy of commercial sales and free sharing.1 These are extreme cases, but they show us where a purely economicist view of culture, associated with a fundamentalist view of copyright, will lead us. It is time to come back to sanity, and to reaffirm the legitimacy of a wide non‐market sphere of sharing of culture.

A commons‐compatible cultural economy Sharing: Culture and the Economy in the Internet Age [forthcoming November 2011] builds upon proposals by researchers and policy advocates in the past 10 years. In this book, I outline how one could legalize and frame non‐market sharing between individuals, how one could put in place a new financing scheme to give true social rights to rewards for contributors and to ensure the availability of financing for producing new works. The book also discusses the nature of a cultural commons‐compatible cultural economy, and defends that it is the only form of fair trade in this domain, and that it can successfully grow.

The motivations to socially recognize the value of sharing between individuals are not just to depart from the war against sharing and its extreme effects on fundamental rights (freedom of expression and communication, and privacy, for instance). It is to seize an extraordinary opportunity to give access to culture to all in a manner that empowers many to contribute to it.

A many‐to‐all cultural society is at our door, if we are not afraid to face its challenges. Yes, the challenges are great: how will we construct new ways to identify what is of interest or of quality (however one will choose to define it) in an ocean of works? How will we make sure that the valuable editorial functions remain sustainable in this new world? How will the literate practices in the ancient world of analogic carriers feed the new practices of collaborative practices in the 1

The concept of such a hybrid economy is discussed by Lessig [2008].

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digital sphere, as Milad Doueihi [2009, 2011] advocates when urging us to build a digital humanism. It is not possible to address all these issues in detail in the limits of this text, but it is worth addressing a key one: under which conditions will the cultural commons contribute to social justice?

The potential of the cultural commons for social justice There is one obvious social benefit of a better recognition of cultural commons and of rights of users towards them: to guarantee access to an immense wealth of digital works, at least for all accessing the Internet with reasonably open devices.1 A particularly important element is that, through sharing, the user enters in possession of a digital representation of work, that can be used to analyse it, compare it with other works, reuse it in one’s own practice. In contrast, streaming, that was indirectly promoted by the war against sharing, limits the user to a form of reception similar to television or radio with time‐shift ability.2 The access to the cultural commons is itself a great benefit, of particular value to the less advantaged citizens. It is nonetheless no guarantee in itself that they will be able to take advantage of this possibility to develop culturally, to have more agency in society and the economy, to live a richer social life.

A real contribution of the cultural commons to social justice depend on many other elements, among which: ‐an education system that promotes a true digital literacy, rooted in older forms of literacy, and values cooperation, ‐cultural changes in the relation to technology, so it is no longer taken as given, but problematized and debated, ‐and above all, a change in our socio‐economic systems in order to make possible for people to regain better control of the use of their time, a key scarce resource at the level of each individual.

Each of these changes will face the same obstacles that the recognition of the cultural commons themselves: they depend on a major change of focus in policy. The predominant focus on a finance‐dominated economy must give place to a number of qualitative objectives that are of a social, cultural, ecological and political nature.

1

2

The development of smartphone and other mobile devices has greatly extended the number of people who have access to the Internet, in particular in emerging countries. However, the fact that these devices have small screens for most and are under strong proprietary control of their manufacturers, AppStore or telecommunication operators severely limits the cultural empowerment of their users, except for real‐ time communication of personal photography and video.

Ability to start, stop and restart viewing or listening at a chosen time.

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European policies at the crossroads More than 10 years ago, the Groupe transnational Débat Public published a text titled “Qualitative policies and the European construction”. We tried to outline a new agenda for European policy building that would depart from the predominant focus on markets and would accept a number of heterogeneous qualitative objectives in the various domains of policy. We choose the notion of qualitative policies, so people could endorse it without committing to one particular overall political orientation. For us, European policies were already at the crossroads in 1999, and we predicted the failure of institutional reform if it was not accompanied by a redefinition of policy objectives. The crossroads is much closer, and we are travelling at a frightening speed towards a dead‐end if we do not choose another direction. However, new paths are now open. The commons‐based policy agenda has been articulated at a much more global level in arenas such as the International Commons Conference in Berlin in 2010.1 New bottom‐up movements regenerate the democratic ideal. The European policies will empower citizens to define their own agendas, or there will be no European policy.

About this text and the author This text is a contribution to the Green Paper produced by the Toolquiz project funded by the Interreg‐C European programme of inter‐regional co‐operation. It is placed under the CC‐By‐SA Creative Commons Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by‐sa/3.0/) that authorizes anyone to copy it, redistribute it, and modify it, provided that the source is mentioned, the modifications are properly signalled, and the result of the modifications is placed under the same licence if it is redistributed.

Dr. Aigrain was trained as a computer scientist. He is the CEO of Sopinspace, a company developing free software tools and providing services for participatory processes and co‐ operation. He is one of the founders of La Quadrature du Net, a citizen group defending freedoms and fundamental rights in the digital sphere. Dr. Aigrain is the author of 3 books on the stakes of knowledge commons and their relation with the economy.

1

http://www.boell.de/economysocial/economy/economy‐commons‐10451.html

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References

Philippe Aigrain. L’innovation partagée en biologie. In Florence Bellivier and Christine Noiville, editors, La bioéquité : batailles autour du partage du vivant. Editions Autrement, 2009. extended version at http://paigrain.debatpublic.net/docs/pha‐Autrement‐complet.pdf.

Philippe Aigrain. Sharing: Culture and the Economy in the Internet Age. Amsterdam University Press, forthcoming November 2011. With the contribution of Suzanne Aigrain.

Yochai Benkler. Coase’s penguin, or, Linux and the Nature of the firm. Yale Law Journal, 4, juin 2002. accessible à http://www.benkler.org/CoasesPenguin.PDF. Yochai Benkler. The Penguin and the Leviathan: How cooperation triumphs over self‐interest.

Crown Business, 2011. ISBN 978‐0‐385‐52576‐3.

Manuel Castells. The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture, volume I. The Rise of the Network Society. Wiley‐Blackwell, 1988, second edition in 2009.

Valérie Deroin. Diffusion et utilisation des TIC en France et en Europe en 2009. DEPS, Ministère de la culture, http://www.culture.gouv.fr/deps, 2010.

Milad Doueihi. Pour un humanisme numérique. Compte‐rendu du séminaire Sens public de la MSH Paris Nord en coopération avec l’INHA‐Invisu, http://www.seminaire.sens‐ public.org/spip.php?article2, 17 décembre 2009.

Milad Doueihi. Pour un humanisme numérique. La librairie du XXIe siècle. Seuil, September 2011. ISBN: 978‐2‐02‐100089‐4.

Groupe transnational Débat Public. Politiques qualitatives et construction européenne. http://paigrain.debatpublic.net/docs/Website/debate.pdf, 2000.

Lawrence Lessig. REMIX : Making art and commerce thrive in the hybrid economy. The Penguin Press, 2008. ISBN = 978‐1‐59420‐172‐1. coordinator Marta Beck‐Domzalska. Cultural statistics pocketbook. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS‐77‐07‐296/EN/KS‐77‐07‐296‐ EN.PDF, novembre 2007.

Jordi Rovira. Interview with manuel castells. http://www.uoc.edu/portal/english/sala‐de‐ premsa/actualitat/entrevistes/2011/manuel_castells.html, February 2011.

Jack Woehr. An interview with Donald Knuth. Dr. Dobb’s Journal, pages 16–22, April 1996. http://www.ntg.nl/maps/16/14.pdf.

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Cities between old frontiers and new and partitions of capital1

Saskia Sassen

The complex city, especially if it is a global city, is a new frontier zone. There, the inhabitants of different worlds cross paths without rules for the encounter2. While the frontiers of history shaped the extent of colonial empires, today’s frontier zone is at the heart of our metropolises, strategic sites for the big multinational companies. The majority of governments’ fiscal and monetary policies, as well as deregulation and privatisation manoeuvres, produce the equivalent of the ancient military forts of frontier towns for these companies and the markets: partitions ensuring protection and privileges. All globalised cities have a protected multi‐site space providing the necessary environment for these transnational operations.

But these are also strategic frontier zones for those who have no power, the disadvantaged, outsiders or discriminated minorities. These excluded groups can gain visibility in these cities, in terms of power as much as among themselves. All this demonstrates the opportunity for a new type of politics acted out by different players. It is not only a matter of power. It is a question of new hybrid bases from which to act, and one of the opportunities we see in these cities is for the building of informal policies.

Both public and political actions in urban areas become problematic in an era of increasing speeds where ascendency holds sway over the processes and rhythms of life. The massive structures are no longer on a human scale, brands are established as mediators between individuals and the markets, views on design value the utilitarian logic of multinational companies. But at the same time, there is a public action that can clarify these views of economic power for the inhabitants and those without a voice.

The hypothesis I am examining here is that neoliberal politics have multiplied these new closed transnational spaces which give new rights to companies and to the markets to penetrate national economies while the same spaces simultaneously remain impenetrable for those not a part of them. This movement from the old national borders to these new transverse self‐ contained spaces produces far more formalised rights for actors in the global economy than for citizens or migrants. Those in the vanguard of this change to the significance of borders are the global companies and markets. The formalisation of their right to straddle national borders simultaneously produces a large number of highly protected spaces.

It is in this context that the global city constitutes an extremely significant entity, due to its enormous complexity and diversity, as well as its intense internal conflicts and competition. In

1 2

This article appeared in the journal Multitudes 2010/4 (n°43) « Devenirs Métropole », p. 50‐59.

This article is from Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2008; in French, from Critique de l’État, Paris, Demopolis 2009; and from Guests and Aliens: Europe’s Immigrants, Refugees and Colonists, New York, New Press, 1999.

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this type of city, the agents in the new transverse spaces are also the men and women in their offices and luxury consumer spaces; that is to say, they leave these closed impenetrable transverse spaces. This makes the global city an intensely political place, both in a structural sense and an interpersonal sense, between the new company executives and the casual workers in poorly paid positions. However, for these cities to exist as a complex and diverse space, without becoming merely a pile of buildings or a concrete jungle, we must find the means to move past this situation of conflicts resulting in racism, war or state terrorism and even the future conflicts of climate crises.

Partitions and borders

These days, there are partitions associated with multiple systems, each with its own specific content and location. Capital, information, structures of multinational companies and illegal immigrants each form different flows requiring partitions with specific institutional and geographic locations. The current geographic borders are of concern to cross‐border terrestrial flows of merchandise but not of capital, unless in cash! Control of each self‐contained space should be understood as a link in a chain. In the case of goods exchanges, this implies control and certification, often in the country of origin. For flows of capital, the chain includes banks, stock markets and computer networks. The geographic border is only one point in the chain and control interventions can be long‐lasting, penetrating deep into the country. When a bank carries out the simplest international money transfer, it reinforces the partitions. Goods are controlled directly by a border post, such as, for example, agricultural products. But also affected are tourists with visas and immigrants with employment certificates. Of course, for the illegal immigrant his or her body is both the object and the subject in the application of the rules, and it is that body that will directly suffer detention or expulsion.

Beyond this multiplicity, however, we are witnessing the emergence of a strong bipolar differentiation. On the one hand, a large group of actors, from companies to experts, are moving inside protected transnational spaces that are impenetrable to all those who are not a part of them – no traffickers can sneak in here. On the other hand, less protected tourists and migrants constantly need to prove their right to enter and, even worse, border crossings for illegal immigrants give rise to violations of their basic rights. The movement of companies and high level executives is characterised by protections and facilitations while migrants, legal or otherwise, have none, even being faced with imprisonment in detention centres.

In Europe, there are many active borders. In their complex histories, as rich as they are brutal, we can say that they constitute a heuristic space that gives us knowledge of inter‐state relations that goes well beyond official history. Such borders make the migrant an agent of history, whose entry signals emerging historical events in the place from whence they came. In the modern period, migrants from poor countries are not the sole masters of their decision to emigrate: the catastrophic policies of the IMF and the World Bank also play an often important role. I consider certain migrations as warnings teaching us far more than their simple flight from

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poverty towards hope. These emerging historical events are also important since they show that what appear to be long migrations, apparently without end, are in fact made up of multiple separate historical events. On top of these seemingly long migrations, there are in fact flows that are coming to an end and others that are just beginning, on diverse temporal and geographic scales, even while the statistics only identify one displacement of several nationalities over a period of centuries. In brief, migrations are often far more integrated in the wider circumstances than they appear.

On these points, we can therefore make the following summary. A direct effect of globalisation, particularly of the economies of companies, has been the creation of growing divergences between the various border regimes. Therefore, the control points for a growing variety of flows of services, capital and information have been overhauled, even while others remain the same or have even stricter restrictions, notably for low cost worker migrations. We are also witnessing the construction of specific closed spaces to encompass and manage the often strategic and specialised emerging flows that cross traditional borders, such as the WTO, NAFTA and GATT for the executives of large companies. While these professionals were formerly able to influence long term immigration in their countries, their current situation, more global than national, is gradually diverging from this1.

The multiple regimes that make up the frontier as an institution can be grouped, on the one hand under the formalised guise of a large inter‐state system, and on the other in a system that is still largely made up of new types of capacities for the construction of the self‐contained spaces that straddle inter‐state borders. The first covers a large variety of international flows of capital, people, services and information. Whatever their varieties, they tend towards a unilateral state authority while reinforcing the regulations and respect of international and bilateral treaties on the subject. The other mode of self‐containment, outside of national nets, does not really relate to borders, but is based rather on a series of new developments on a global scale, such as new legal systems and interactive digital networks.

Global standards systems are not national and are also distinct from international systems. The digital domain is essentially informal, and is therefore outside the system of existing treaties, often established in sub‐national locations that form a part of cross‐border networks. The formation of different systems of global standards and interactive networks entails a multiplication of closed spaces, but with no relation to the national concept of borders limiting two sovereign nations, since they operate at a trans‐, sub‐ or supra‐ national level. Although these spaces may straddle national borders, they are not necessarily open border regimes operated by States, such as those, for example, for international exchange or legal immigration.

These new global partitions have given birth to a new form of the concept of borders.

National sovereignty is generally conceived as the monopoly of authority within a particular territory. Today, it is becoming evident that it structures its own borders while at the same time

1

A Sociology of Globalization, W.W.Norton, 2007, in French from Gallimard, 2009.

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accommodating new partitions. Sovereignty subsists as a system of possession, but its institutional integration and its capacity to legitimise all powers have become unstable. The policies of modern sovereign nations are far more complex than the concept of mutual territorial exclusivity can come to terms with.

The issue of limitation, that is to say, of a territorial border as a limit to authority and laws, is today entering a new phase. Exclusive authority of the State over its territory remains the prevalent mode in global economic politics; in this sense, national border regimes, whether closed or open, remain the principal element of geopolitics. But these rules are less categorically absolute today than they were. Important components of territorial authority that may still have a national form and location are no longer thus in the historic sense of the term.

Denationalised, they appear national but in reality have global agendas, for better or worse.

Inasmuch as the State has historically held the capacity to provide its territory with legal and administrative instruments, it also has the capacity to alter this framework, for example by deregulating its borders and opening up to foreign companies and investors. My concern is in determining whether this capacity and its definitive and exclusive authority can be detached from geographic territory. Such a detachment would probably be partial and variable depending on the object of the authority. This poses a question about the future of borders in state logic.

The “border function” is in effect gradually becoming a built‐in part of products, people and instruments as mobile agents incorporating the characteristics of the border. What is more, there are also multiple border locations, sometimes long chains penetrating deep into the institutions and territory of a nation as I have already explained. In financial flows, for example, the actual “border crossing” is often a bank in the interior of the country certifying the legitimate occurrence of a monetary transfer. In the certification of agricultural products as well, the first border crossing is often in the very place where they are grown.

It seems to me that the locations of partitions are today unstable, which opens up an important field of research. Many of the significant borders on the periphery of the European Union are among the most active in the world and, in that sense, can clarify the issue and meaning of “partitions” better than geographic conventions.

A key process that renders some of these changes visible is the institution of a subject with cross‐border rights that are transferable through the new types of transverse border spaces discussed above. They concern above all the global electronic financial market and the operating spaces of multinational companies where new types of transnational executives have obtained their portable rights through the WTO and the multiple regional trade organisations.

This allows them to move across borders and within the network of the 75 most global cities today.

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Thus, a type of transverse border is beginning to be constructed, which transcends the more conventional state borders, and which is, in effect, more closed still than barriers between nations like those between the USA and Mexico (or that Europe wants to raise between itself and Africa). These executives are in a space that is radically different from that of workers and poor migrants. This separation that cannot be overcome, the necessary instruments being inaccessible, even to traffickers...and even to those with the courage to cross a river or desert or to hide in lorries or express trains.

Far from favouring a world without borders, neoliberal policies have therefore caused a multiplication of new closed transnational spaces that are impenetrable to those not a part of them. These closed spaces give new rights to companies and markets to penetrate national spaces and protect them from any invasion. These profound changes, from geographic borders to transverse partitions, have produced many more formalised rights for global economic actors than for citizens and migrants. In the vanguard of this mutation on the meaning of borders are the multinational and global companies. The formalisation of their right to cross state borders produces a large number of highly protected spaces. These companies have at their disposal at present a series of new protections with the capacity to cross borders, while tourists and migrants continue to lose out to this neoliberal era.

This goes hand in hand with another asymmetry. The international human rights regime is a weaker system than that of WTO protecting the cross‐border circulation of executives. It is also weaker, despite being bigger in size, than all the special visas for businessmen and more commonly for high‐tech employees. In brief, these protected cross‐border spaces procure legal protections that are more and more disconnected from national jurisdictions. The incorporate a variety of often highly specialised or partially global regimes, transformed into rights and obligations that are far more specific that the protections and visas granted by States.

Between borders and partitions, we urgently need to keep our cities open

It is in this context that the city constitutes an extremely significant apparatus, thanks to its huge complexity and diversity, as well as its intense internal competitions and conflicts. In this type of city, the agents of the new transverse spaces are in effect men, women and companies who leave these impenetrable transverse spaces and share day‐to‐day life in common with casual workers, pensioners and immigrants. This makes the global city an intensely political space, in a structural sense as well as an interpersonal sense. But if these cities want to be able to survive as a complex and diverse space, they need to find a way to move beyond relationships based on hatred formed by State relations such as racism, war, terrorism or even climate crises.

Historically, cities have had the capacity to transform conflicts by integrating them into the civil domain through commerce and the need for a peaceful coexistence within crowded urban environments. Conversely, the logic of nation states is to militarise responses to conflicts. This capacity of cities also generates the possibility of constructing new subjects and identities. For example, it is not so much ethnic or religious characteristics that often distinguish urban populations, but the urbanity of their lives and their environment. And these differences of 53

urbanities do not fall from the sky, but often originate from the need for new forms of solidarity in the face of major challenges. Today, the major challenges facing cities have taken on a brutal and intense character that can lead to conditions that render those challenges even bigger and more threatening than hatred or internal conflict. This may force us to seek joint responses and to emphasise urban culture rather than individuals or ethnic or religious groups.

Cities represent one of the key sites where new norms and identities are constructed. They have played this role in many times and places as well as in extremely varied circumstances. It is a role that can become strategic as is the case today for Europe. Immigration may be an important source for the construction of those norms. In my research on the history of intra‐ European immigrations in the past, I have found that the pleas of immigrants, exiles and foreigners to be included have played a major role in the universal expansion of public services – transport, health, education... – which have also favoured citizens. Let us never forget that.

What needs to be highlighted here is the huge amount of work needed to open up cities in order to reposition immigrants and citizens as agents of the city, rather than underlining the differences as anti‐immigration and racist discourses do. I propose the perspective of a city capable of constructing norms and subjects by throwing off the constraints of the dominant power systems such as the nation‐sate, the war against terror and the growing weight of racism.

The particular case of the interrogation of migrants in Europe over the centuries forms an opening in the complex and historically variable issue of the construction of the Open European City.

In my opinion, the challenge to integrate “outsiders”, a constant in time and space, still represents a vital instrument in the development of civility in the best sense of the word.

Responding to the complaints of the excluded has always had the consequence of extending rights to citizens. This was clearly the case in the Clinton administration’s immigration reforms in the USA, a victory for the Democratic Party over legislation suppressing the rights of immigrants and citizens.

Anti‐immigration sentiment in Europe: when the migrant is your cousin

Ignored even by official discourse, this rejection has long represented a decisive dynamic in European history. And today it is at risk of acquiring new aspects and substance.

Anti‐immigration attitudes and attacks reappear in each phase of opening borders in all the major European countries. No country receiving workers is in the clear in this regard. Even Switzerland with its long and admirable tradition of international neutrality, is no more so than France, which is more open to immigrants, refugees and exiles. French workers murdered Italian colleagues in the nineteenth century, accusing them of being bad Catholics. The important thing is that there were always as there are today, individuals, groups, organisations and politicians who believed in a society that was more welcoming to migrants.

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History suggests that these fights for inclusion succeed in the long term, even if only in part.

Looking only at the present situation, a quarter of French people have a foreign ancestor within the three previous generations, while a third of the inhabitants of Vienna were born abroad or to foreign parents. Action is needed in order to transform hatred of foreigners into urbane civility. Having, for example, a good health or transport system means you cannot choose its users according to their quality, you cannot check this if you want to have an efficient system. A clear, basic rule should be set: those with a ticket can use it. It is the basis of the existence of good manners: all those with a ticket use the public train or bus without the need to know whether they are citizens or tourists, agreeable or not, inhabitants or visitors from elsewhere.

Europe has scarcely recognised the centuries of history of endogenous migrations for work. This history drifted in the wake of the official history, dominated by the image of a continent of emigration, never of immigration. In the eighteenth century when Amsterdam built its polders and reclaimed its wetlands, the workers came from northern Germany; when France developed its vineyards, it recruited Spaniards; workers from the Alps came to help with the development of Milan and Turin; meanwhile, the Irish played a role in the construction of London’s water network. In the nineteenth century, when Haussmann rebuilt Paris, he brought in Belgians and Germans; when the Swedes decided to become a monarchy and needed beautiful palaces, they recruited Italians; and when Germany build its railway network, it hired Italians and Poles.

At any given time, there are a multitude of significant flows of migrants within Europe. And all these workers are viewed as undesirable foreigners threatening the community and who should never integrate with it. These immigrants for the most part belong to the same large cultural, religious and ethnic group, yet they are nevertheless viewed as impossible to assimilate. The French hated Belgian migrant workers, accusing them of being bad Catholics, while the Dutch denounced German migrant workers as poor Protestants. These are true facts. This means that it is wrong to say, as is often said, that integration today is made more difficult by its religious, cultural or biological dimensions. When these played no part, the rejection of immigrants was still as strong as it is today and equally led to physical violence.

Numerous immigrants are always integrated into the community, even when this takes two or three generations. Although members of the community, they often maintain their uniqueness – a part of the complex and largely heterogeneous social order of any developed city. Treated as foreigners when they first arrive, excluded for their different looks, smells or dress, although they are physically, culturally and religiously identical, all Europeans though the differences are viewed and stressed as insurmountable. I have seen everywhere these acts of violence and hate that we performed against those who we live alongside today as one of our own1.

These days, the arguments against immigration are centred on race, religion or culture, which seem to justify a difficulty for national inclusion. But in seeking common points in history, we find only new forms of the same old passion for exclusion of the foreigner as ‘other’. Today, the other is stereotyped by its racial, religious and cultural differences. Arguments equivalent to those of the past, when the immigrant was racially, culturally and religiously similar. Migration is the passage between two worlds, even when they belong to the same region or country: East Germans were often perceived as ethnically and physically different to those of the West before 1989.

1

Saskia Sassen, Guests and Aliens: Europe’s Immigrants, Refugees and Colonists, New York, New Press, 1999.

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What is today’s challenge, what might force us to overcome our differences, to build something that fits with our oldest traditions of European civility?

A challenge greater than our differences

The emerging global urban landscape is profoundly different from the civil tradition of old Europe. This difference subsists, even across Europe’s global projects that mix European traditions with other urban cultures with different histories and geographies.

What this emerging urban landscape shares with the oldest traditions is the fact that some challenges are greater than our differences. It is in this that we find an opportunity to reinvent a city’s capacity to transform conflict (at least in part) into growing openness, rather than into war in the manner of national governments. But this will differ from the tradition of the open city and of civility that we know, notably in Europe.

I feel rather that the key challenges that cities (and society in general) face entail ever stronger dynamic interactions which contribute to a disaggregation of the old civil urban order. The so‐ called “was on terror” is perhaps one of the most acute examples of this dynamic through which the fight against terrorists is rapidly diminishing the old civil urban order. Climate change and its impacts on cities may also become a source of conflict and urban divisions. But I also wish to emphasize that these challenges hold their own specific potential for the innovation of new kinds of broad common platforms necessary for urban action, by joining forces that may have been viewed until now as too different from our own. Combating climate change can bring together citizens and migrants of different religions, cultures or ethnicities. Fighting the abuses of state power committed in the name of the war on terror can equally lead to coalitions of residents who may have never thought they could ever collaborate. Now that a greater threat to civil rights affects citizens and not only immigrants, new solidarities are emerging. The growth in the number of one‐sided wars and in climate change will affect the rich as well as the poor, and mobilisation will require all of us to collaborate. Moreover, while huge economic inequalities, racism and religious intolerance have always existed, they are now being transformed into political arguments for mobilisation in a context in which there is no longer a centre, as one would find in an empire, a nation or a world city.

From this splintering of empires and nation states the city emerges as a strategic site for innovation, perhaps even a partial new order. While in the past it was national law that dominated, today devolution and also the new role of the city allows us to imagine a return to municipal law. In the USA for example, a growing number of cities have advanced new rulings protecting illegal immigrants within their jurisdiction, while others have also issued particular environmental rules. We are witnessing a resurgence of legislation by cities, that I discuss in detail elsewhere14. The emergence that I describe therein seeks multiple spatiotemporal networks and diverse micro‐organisations, moving away from the logical precedent of large spatial, temporal and normative units.

1

Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages, Princeton University Press, 2008, chapitres 2 et 6.

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More broadly, I perceive a vast proliferation of the sort of partial collaborations that make up many territories, sovereignties and structured rights within the institution of the nation. In Europe, this comprises the formation of the European Union but also the multitude of cooperations between towns and cities seeking to protect the environment, combat racism and numerous other democratic causes. These collaborations are the result of internal problems within nations and the desire to construct new ways of governing on a neighbourhood scale. A last point to theorise the strategic importance of the city needed to achieve new equilibriums is that it can influence multiple and diverse conflicts that could otherwise push towards a new normative power.

These developments involve the emergence of new types of socio‐political regulators, which may coexist with the old powers such as the Nation‐state, federalism and the old city at the heart of a hierarchy always dominated by state sovereignty. The big metropolises that have already partially supplanted this national and state hierarchy are among these new types of regulators as members of regional and global networks on many scales. The last two decades have also seen a growing urban expression of global conflicts and logic as well as an increasing use of urban space for the demands not only of national citizens of the city but also of foreigners.

Translated into French from US English by Thierry Baudouin

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Part 2 Public policy practices

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“Cultural politics must govern the multiple interactions between all cultural freedoms of all persons mixing in public space”

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The issue of the culture, people and development link poses the question of the type of public policies able to put these new models into practice and to have a hand in this European metamorphosis. How can we think of development policies within a project on society and democracy based on the person and its rights, freedoms and capabilities? How can we not integrate art and culture in an approach, making these an additional pillar, but also determining how art and culture are a part of the process of humanisation, and therefore of development, of a democratic European society? How can we view the European territory(ies) – and more specifically the metropolises – as producers of these transformations?

We have chosen to focus on the issues that seem to us today to underlie a new basis for cultural policies:

‐ what role legal frameworks play

‐ what upholds this means of creating vital human strength

‐ what supports diversity in European territories?

These questions shed light on issues such as practices at work the in European nations and the testing of these evolutions.

Relais Culture Europe

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Economic rationality and the cultural foundations of the Union

Jean Michel Lucas

Throughout Europe, the time has come for crisis economics, against a background of tensions caused by the globalisation of market transactions. To get out of these difficulties, the European Union has defined its strategy for 2020 in the hopes of “avoiding decline” and “putting the EU on a path to prosperity”. Political ambition is concentrated on three priorities: “intelligent growth”, “sustainable growth” and “inclusive growth”, essential conditions to reduce poverty and rediscover the path to social progress. Urgency and evidence demand mastery of the economic rationality of the market, before considering other values for the Europe of tomorrow.

The perfect couple: culture and economic rationality

This strategy, which makes “good” European life subject to concurrent success on the global markets, applies just as completely for culture, at least for the artistic and cultural activities sector. The time when culture professionals could proclaim the universal value of a work of art and thence the autonomy of “art for art’s sake” with regard to the contingencies of the market society is effectively long gone. The Union has preferred to let reality speak for itself and to open a better path to the reconciliation of culture and economy, that of creative economy, or “mauve” economy according to some1. The European parliament has recently expressed its enthusiasm for this culture of fighting the ills of growth, since in May 2011 it adopted a resolution stating “the major role of the cultural and creative industries in the development of centres of creativity at local and regional levels, which allows territories to make themselves more attractive, through the creation and development of businesses and jobs anchored in the local and regional economic fabric, boost attractiveness to tourists, the establishment of new businesses and the spread of influence of these territories, and promote the cultural and artistic sector as well as the conservation, promotion and valuing of European cultural heritage, thanks to numerous intermediaries such as territorial bodies”2. It would be hard to do more to reconcile market territories and culture! Especially since the European Parliament “recognises the impact, competitiveness and future potential of the cultural and creative industries as an important motor for sustainable growth in Europe, able to play a deciding role in the economic recovery of the European Union”. What the cultural sector gives, through its inventiveness, has become an arm of that intelligent, sustainable and inclusive growth, as much through competition between private businesses as through the fight among territories to become more attractive. And finally, if you believe the European Parliament, this cultural dynamic shall produce indisputable, or in any case, undisputed civilising effects.

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With creative economy, the cultural sector offers the promise of a society of “active”, “blossoming” and without doubt, happy citizens: “The digital age has overturned our approach to cultural goods. This relationship demands a true European strategy to free up the potential of industries and their economic character through their contribution in terms of jobs, growth and wealth creation, and especially their cultural character, through their activities contributing to the social and cultural integration and fulfilment of citizens.”

It must be said that the cultural challenge is measurable; the figures for the economy of this living culture are on target: “Representing 2.6% of our GDP and 14 million jobs, the cultural and creative industries generate a turnover of more than 600 billion Euros per year.”3

So the solution is there: this culture filtered through economic rationality boosts growth rates and the products it offers are purveyors of all the values of the sustainable “good life” for Europe.4 This praise accorded cultural goods and services may make you smile when you consider the numbers of films that flop, books that do not sell or digital products that have gone out of fashion before they have even been made; meanwhile, we also know that culture is often the favourite food of nationalism. But the cult of (creative) economic rationality does not take these questions of cultural values into account. It leaves them up to the sole responsibility of local debate or the conversations of consumers with one another.

This approach to culture as a business sector is widespread today, to the point that even the European cultural agenda struggles to escape from the bias towards culture that is useful for growth. One can almost believe that the European Union has forgotten that it can think and act in other ways and that it has come to view culture as a negative priority! Negative in the sense, for some, that all other pillars of the European Union that might welcome the cultural challenge must give way, leaving only the task of increasing (intelligent, sustainable and inclusive) growth with, in the best cases, direct assistance for small local traders being the cultural exception!

Fortunately, Europe is too complex to be satisfied with this “no alternative” for culture, especially in a Union that claims to be the cradle of Enlightenment with its cohort of universal actions. It thus seems legitimate to understand differently the place of culture in the dance of the public policy negotiations to be included in the strategy for 2020.

Remembering universal cultural values

I believe that we can hold on to the hope of seeing political Europe declare the cultural necessity of fostering more humanist values than simply the results of good sales of art and culture goods and services.

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In effect, Europe has already formalised the universal value of culture. The hardest part has been done, we could say, and for a long time now Unesco, through the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity of 2001 and the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. And the Nations, like the Union, have approved the terms of these political frameworks founded on the universality of cultural diversity.

In this way, growth is certainly a good thing, but not at the price of forgetting meaning and value: in order to construct a more humane society, the economy must first and foremost serve the people in reciprocal recognition of the diversity of their cultural identities. In other words, what needs to be said, especially in periods of grave crisis of the market society, is this: culture, in recognition of cultural diversities, has its source in article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948: “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”. This comes down to recognising each human being in the identity that constitutes him or her as a being of dignity, that is to say, in his or her culture. Dignity is a key value just like freedom, as on it depends the capacity of each person to be fully recognised as an agent in the negotiation of his or her own economic, political and social situation.

It is in this way that the Fribourg Declaration on cultural rights teaches us that culture is not a buzzword with a usage that varies tactically depending on the negotiations of buyers and sellers. Culture should be understood as all the references that allow a person “to express his or her humanity” through cultural identity that allows self‐definition and the “understanding of being recognised in his or her dignity”.6 A question of ethics, as the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity of 2001 says in its article 4: “the defence of cultural diversity is an ethical imperative inseparable from the respect of the dignity of the human person”.

In this approach to culture as “humanity” to be built together, the cultural challenge is no longer about offering a product under the sovereignty of the economic rationality that governs the supply and demand of artistic displays or workshops on the leisure market. Culture is no longer dominated by the growth, even if intelligent, of its creative products. It seeks, with greater seriousness, the capacity of its cultural identities to live together. Cultural politics must govern the multiple interactions between all cultural freedoms of all persons mixing in public space. It must agree to organise debates, continual discussion we should say, between cultures in order to achieve greater mutual recognition, greater self‐respect and greater respect for others. We understand, then, that culture as a sector that buys and sells goods and services will not suffer!

Certainly, the cultural agent is not forbidden from selling, but the product sold must allow people access, not only through greater consumption of purchased quantities, but at greater freedom to give meaning to their life, greater capacity to play a part, more responsible relationships with others.7 To sum up, the challenge is human development beyond mere productive growth!

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Here you have a universal cultural input that suits – more than input into the creative sector – the humanist vision of the European Union. This approach gives breathing space to reflection on intelligent, sustainable and inclusive growth as culture as “humanity” does not exclude profitable “creative” culture, but it requires that the economic challenge (growth) does not contradict the cultural challenge (equal respect of the dignity of persons in their identities).

Both concepts may evidently intermix more or less easily depending on the situation, but they cannot be viewed as two sides of the same coin. They carry different values of the conception of the future of “Humanity” and, consequently, require systems and compromises that make them both equally welcome in the construction of a Europe that respects its own humanist foundations.

Ethics in practise: sovereignty without division of economic rationality

All the same, can we really believe in this perspective? It is not enough to affirm universal cultural values in order that they are heard in the negotiations on the world’s chaotic finances!

What is needed above all is for these values to be able to count on the systems of regulations to which we are all subject, even the most rational economies. Will we see for ourselves if today the formal system of European regulations can make the culture as humanity approach work?

First question: does the Treaty of the European Union leave a place for the ethics of the dignity of persons? Happily, the answer is positive. In the preamble to the Treaty, the states confirm “their attachment to the principles of liberty, democracy and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and of the rule of law”. Furthermore, these principles translate into formal engagement from article 2 of the Treaty onwards, since “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities”. Furthermore, Article 6 of the Treaty mirrors the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union of 7th December 2000, the first article of which states that “human dignity is inviolable”.

Reading these clearly shows that the way is open for the ethics of dignity to find its place in the daily operation of the European Union, moreover since there is no reason to doubt the god faith of its signatories. I will add for any sceptics that the text, once ratified, can be enforced through any social force with the desire to do so. As a consequence, I therefore see no reason not to lean on the ethics of dignity, with its culture as humanity approach, to sustain negotiations on “Europe 2020” in each of the territories of the Union!

On the other hand, where the real difficulty lies is in taking the time to make the connection between these founding values and the systems of practical application, in terms of regulations to be respected by all members of the Union. It thus appears that there is no longer a choice: only the values of economic rationality can overcome all blows.

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One example springs to mind: a cultural agent can easily claim the values of dignity and of recognition of persons, he can also affirm his willingness not to profit, he can even militate for “another economy of art and culture” made from solidarity and diplomatic relations with others taking part. I would add as well the possibility of selling cultural goods for profit, while ensuring that relationships with artists and the public are imbued with respect, trust, dignity and care.

The passionate agent of culture has the ethical possibility of being a social or even solidarity‐ based entrepreneur, as he pleases! Nothing is forbidden in reference to the principles of the Union, although their implementation will face opposition to each activity by the sovereign supremacy of economic rationality. The Services of the Union directive and the Services of General Economic Interest (SGEI) set the limits of any action: anything can be said, believed or done according to personal ethics, on the conditions that these activities do not cast a shadow on the economic rationality of the competitive market. “Casting a shadow” means that the production of unprofitable cultural goods and services may only be sustained by public policy where it does not harm “good” competition of private interest. In the language of regulations on the internal market, it is economic rationality that sets the limits: public policies may defend whatever values they want but they must never make “manifest errors of appreciation” affecting the smooth running of the free market.

The trap is wide open for cultural agents who present themselves to society claiming specialist offers of art and culture activities. The European systems respond thus: “You belong to the cultural activities sector and there are only two possible positions: either you adopt the norms of economic creativity and learn to swim in the sea of competition for the 600 billion euros in turnover, or you have other personal ethics, but your project will only be legitimate on the condition that your activities are not detrimental to exchanges between states and do not exceed a few million... cents! Above all, you must never threaten “good” competition! So stay on the margins as a cultural exception, you will be left in peace with a few modest measures to protect cultural diversity.

So, with these application systems, cultural agents are, in their defence, simple providers/sellers of products of excellence for a few, popular products for others, that are profitable or assisted by public bodies. They become providers of services for consumers who alone determine the value they want to give to the cultural activities.

Worse still, the current systems have succeeded in creating an illusion surrounding the conveyors of these projects. In effect the Services Directive and the SGEI do not prevent a local authority from creating a public service to maintain cultural identities in the name of their dignity... but on the imperative condition that these manifestations remain within their local cultural enclave. These legal systems are so powerful that they have not even realised that they justify the public financing of culture through the necessity of the withdrawal of each language barrier. It was difficult to believe and therefore to reiterate, in 2007 and 2011, the explanations given by the Commission on the legal possibilities for public funding of culture projects: “In the case of Basque theatre productions, it has been considered that the funding of these

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productions did not affect the exchanges between member States since, being small or micro‐ scale productions or small enterprises of a local nature, their potential audience was limited to a specific geographic and linguistic region and they were not able to attract cross‐border tourism.”8 One is left stunned: public policy on culture in Europe reducing theatre companies to micro‐enterprises limited to specific linguistic regions! All hail the ghetto!

Political demands: give more weight to regulatory systems in favour of dignity

However, another connection between principles and practices is possible, since the value of dignity, upon which the Treaty of the Union is founded, is by no means unknown to the “services” Directive. It is even clearly “recognised” and is self‐evident in the concrete practices of the institution..., at least in certain circumstances! In effect, in point 27, the Directive considers that the market is by no means a good system – meaning a system conforming to the objectives of sustainable “good life” in Europe – when the dignity of persons is threatened. I eagerly cite the regulatory text that opens a path for practices towards the ethics of dignity: “these services are essential to guarantee the fundamental right to human dignity and integrity and are a manifestation of the principles of social cohesion and solidarity and must not be affected by the present directive.” Those services that guarantee human dignity are “essential”, and hence not contingent. The Union must therefore affirm that this system also and in particular applies to the first dignity of the person, that of full recognition of one’s cultural identity. Consequently, the services “essential” to dignity must include cultural services that respect the cultural rights of persons and grant them greater “humanity”, greater freedom (obviously including freedom of artistic expression) and more references to enable them to better live with others.

Unfortunately, this step towards a true institutional legitimacy of cultural dignity has not yet been sufficiently elaborated by the Commission and the Parliament. The “services” Directive has, in effect, a very restrictive approach to the ideal of dignity. By closely reading the arguments, one understands that dignity is only mobilised for material situations that prevent persons from being operational on the competitive markets! The Directive ignores the value of dignity since the person becomes an exploitable resource through market logic! The regulatory system in honour of human dignity is therefore also under the control of economic rationality.

In my opinion it is necessary, politically, to react to this reductive vision since the Directive would have had to consider that the human being is free, in common rights and dignity, and has a responsibility to claim “his” or “her” dignity and to respect the dignity of others. I am convinced that it is on this that the political fight must be centred: the Treaty of the Union and the Charter of Fundamental Rights make dignity a universal value that must, consequently, be taken into account in all situations in which the liberty of the person demands it, not only those in which the market considers those persons to be out of play! It is therefore necessary to engage in political negotiation to eliminate this restrictive interpretation of dignity, which is unjustifiable with regard to the founding principles of the Treaty, cited above. 10

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For myself, I take a lesson from this consideration: it is a proven priority that the ethics of dignity are translated in the institutional systems that allow them to negotiate on a level field with the ethics of economic rationality. To sum up, in negotiations of compromise, the regulatory systems for the ethics of intelligent growth are not placed above, like a sword of Damocles, but positioned on the same level as those for the ethics of human development.

That will be my conclusion by way of a hope: that the European Union rebalance the systems supporting the ethics of dignity to avoid merely considering and judging sustainable humanity as a matter of well made and well sold products. In Europe, all the cards are on the table and other agents of common life, in health or the social sphere, share the same concern with constructing public systems that favour relationships of dignity, of “persons to persons”. The agents of culture must come together to better negotiate the legal devices that meet the requirements of “a humane community trusting in its destiny11”, a “sustainable humanity” with the knowledge of how to resist the constraints imposed by an economic rationality that can hardly claim mastery of the global construction of humanity.

09/11/2011

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A Toolquiz Good Practice

The Cultural Rucksack – A programme for an equal access to culture for children

“Traditionally, children encounter art and culture with their parents, and this use of culture has tended to reflect social inequalities. Schemes like the Cultural Rucksack help ensure that encounters with culture occur independently of social identity”

Art, culture and the cultural heritage help to form our sense of identity – who we are and where we come from. Art challenges established thinking and provides alternative ways of looking at the world.

Appreciating art and culture plays a significant part in the development of the individual’s personality and quality of life. This is not only valuable for the individual, it also plays a decisive role in the development of a society. Consequently, culture and the arts are resources that should be available to all.

Everyone should have the opportunity to appreciate culture and the arts and to express themselves through different forms of art and culture irrespective of gender, place of residence, and social or economic background. This is in line with the prevailing public policy in Norway, where the welfare state provides with basic needs for all the citizens. In this framework, children and youth should have access to cultural activities in the same way as adults. Contact with culture and the arts throughout childhood can indeed give children knowledge and experience that will stimulate their own creativity and increase their ability to evaluate the various forms of cultural expression.

Traditionally, children encounter art and culture with their parents, and this use of culture has tended to reflect social inequalities. During the 1990s, more and more attention was made in Norway towards schools as central arena for giving children and youth access to culture. A number of municipalities and counties developed and established models for a holistic approach to art and culture directed towards pupils in primary, secondary and upper secondary school. Established in 2001, and based on a national initiative with a local and regional room for action, the Cultural Rucksack is intended to be a permanent programme for school pupils. Wishing to ensure that encounters with culture occur independently of social identity, this programme is dedicated: i) to give children a cultural capital and cultural skills that will make them more capable of meeting the challenges of the knowledge‐based society; ii) to facilitate the pupils’ access to a wide range of cultural expressions, so that they can become acquainted with and develop an understanding of culture in all its forms; and iii) to reduce inequalities in cultural participation, thereby also contributing to reducing social inequalities in health.

With the Rogaland County Council as a body in charge in Rogaland, the Cultural Rucksack is intended for all pupils from the age of 6 to 19 and children in kindergartens, regardless of social, economic, ethnic or religious background or the individual school they attend. Based on both cultural policy and educational objectives, the it is intended: i) to enable pupils to come in contact with professional artists and others in the cultural sector; ii) to enable children and young people in primary and secondary school to enjoy artistic and cultural productions provided by professionals, iii) to assist schools in integrating different forms of cultural expression with their own efforts to attain learning goals, and iv) to ensure that pupils with disabilities are also able to take part. The Cultural Rucksack offers indeed cultural opportunities representing a wide variety of cultural expressions. The productions cover visual and performing arts, film, interaction of different art forms, cultural heritage and literature. Each pupil will receive at least one production each year, in addition to two concerts financed and partly produced by Concerts Norway.

These productions may be performances or workshops or combinations of the two, and they may be performed in the schools or in a cultural institution such as concert halls, theatres or museums. Two third

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of the money transmitted from the government is used by the Rogaland county council to provide productions directly delivered to the schools.

The programme is based on cooperation between the culture and the education sector, including the sector in the educational framework. The school sector, including the individual schools and their principals, is responsible for ensuring that cultural activities are integrated with the school day, the general curriculum and the various subject curriculums. Indeed, the Cultural Rucksack is not intended to be a replacement for aesthetic subjects taught by the school, but a supplement, and artists and cultural workers should not replace teachers but function in a purely artistic capacity. The school should ensure that preparation and follow‐up are carried out in connection with cultural activities. The county council provides with logistics needed, such as tour planning, accommodation and transport for the artists and mediators. The county is also responsible for information and helping schools and local communities to acquire competence in receiving artists and with implementing the productions in the curriculum/teaching. The municipalities also get money to make their local Cultural Rucksack. The county assists them to do so. The Cultural Rucksack is mainly financed by the funds allocated to culture from the surplus earned by Norsk Tipping, the state‐owned gaming company. The total budget is 2,4 mill Euro (2007).

Direct results of the Cultural Rucksack in terms of increased cultural participation are only possible to measure in a long term perspective, and even then the relationship between cause and effect is hard to distinguish from other factors. We know that children obtain better results in school when they are regularly provided with cultural experiences of good quality. Research and statements from children and teachers further show that cultural activities makes the school milieu better, and young people may expose a wider range of qualities. When young people are getting used to attending cultural events, they will also be more skilled as a future cultural audience. On a long term, the society as a whole will benefit from having more culturally capable citizens. On a national level, the Cultural Rucksack is seen as one of three main parts of the cultural policy for children and youth, along with municipal schools of music and the arts and the Norwegian Youth Festivals of Art. These three main parts are meant to supplement each other.

Rogaland County Council The Rogaland County Council is a Tool Quiz partner

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Time for a NEW EU CULTURAL DEAL?

Mary Ann DeVlieg Secretary General, IETM (international network for contemporary performing arts) 14 June 2009, 18 August 2011

“The new approach which is called for to meet our current and future challenges highlights exploration, experimentation, research and forecasting. This is precisely the artistic approach ‐ it comprises creative intellectual leaps, trial and error, risk‐taking, critical analysis of self and surroundings, a heightened sense of sensitivity and the synergies of collaborating with others.”

In response to the “Great Depression” of the 1930's in the USA, Franklin D. Roosevelt created a robust package of programmes to promote economic recovery. Called “The New Deal”, and though strongly opposed by Conservatives at the time, it reformed banking and business practices, set up food, education and health programmes for unemployed and the poor and established the WPA: Works Progress Administration, a scheme which employed thousands to create works of public good, from motorways and schools to some of America's best‐loved national parks and monuments. In 1933‐34, the government ran the Public Works of Art Program, the USA's first national arts support scheme. Artists from all over the country were invited to make work about the 'American scene'. “In 1934 nearly 10,000 artists faced destitution. The PWAP hired nearly 4,000 artists who created more than 15,000 paintings, murals, sculptures, prints, drawings, and craft works.” 1 The WPA and PWAP have myth‐like status today: not only did they pragmatically address the needs of a distressed population, many of whom were forced to migrate from one State to another in vain attempts to find work, the artistic projects raised hope and spirits, created feelings of community and actually created useful public works still used and meaningful 75 years later. Artists who took part in the PWAP were not only able to earn money; they used their insight, perspective and skills to help their society.

Responding to the first signs of the current financial crisis, the environmental sector evoked a “New Green Deal”, calling for low cost loans and investment into renewable energy, the creation of new 'green collar' jobs and alliances between environmentalists, industry, agriculture, and unions. In the midst of the most perplexing economic period in the EU’s history, it is time to start planning a “New Cultural Deal” in Europe. The current financial crisis is only the latest and most visibly important of a series of deeply problematic global situations.

Cultures are clashing in urban centres in Europe, throughout the Arab world, and in all resource‐ rich countries. This is reflected in national political conflicts and in delicate international diplomatic dealings. Extreme political parties and personalities base simplistic populist messages on fears that 'others' will take ‘our’ material goods or change values. We live with the ideology of ‘advanced individualism’: the Cold War, game theory, political think tanks and economic theories have led us to depend on individual self interest as the new, self‐regulating social order 2. Proof is provided by industrially caused environmental disasters and the markets’ virtually unchecked predatory behaviour. Might we finally come to see that the unregulated 1

Smithsonian American Art Museum website http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2009/1934/ cf. John Nash, Friedrich von Hayek, James Buchanan

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pursuit of our own desires neither reduces the gap between rich and poor, supports democratic governance, creates a sense of community, nor cleans up our suffocating planet? Of course art is not the saviour for these interconnected global ills, but the methods used in the arts and culture sector might just be able to promote deeper awareness, reflection, creative problem solving and sense of civic engagement in our publics. Contemporary art – whether dance, theatre, film and visual arts, music, literature or architecture – represent a certain way of working on problems. Artists habitually identify, research and study a series of problematics.

They need to focus, to analyse and to select materials. They change what might be an everyday perspective or way of seeing, into an unfamiliar one that brings out new understandings of what we take for granted. Artists need to critically question themselves and their surroundings. They must comprehend real and symbolic meanings. They must absolutely take risks in order to reach creative solutions. Artists need publics who are willing and able to engage with these often‐complex layers of process and of questioning. And people who do regularly engage with contemporary art practice learn to question what they see, to find new meanings and new perspectives, to see through empty posturing, to think about the reasons why.... and to feel comfortable with complexity : or at least not to fear it, but rather to engage with it. Whilst it is true that the contemporary arts field is not the only discipline that uses analytical methods, at this moment in time our societies desperately need to learn modes of coping with the evolving world in order to be capable of successfully confronting its non‐stop challenges. In the post‐ communist, post‐capitalist Western world where neo‐liberalism has seriously faltered, we need to build new frameworks for seeing, analysing and selecting the elements which will form our new socio‐political‐economic ideologies. Some researchers are starting to study whether experience with the contemporary arts aids participants to be more open to these paradigm shifts in society.

Is this exploitation of artists? Is it instrumentalisation of the arts? I would argue that the arts and artistic methods can be valued for their intrinsic qualities of exploration, critical questioning, changing perspectives, risk taking and demanding engagement. However, artists, cultural facilitators and cultural operators must be respected and supported for who they are and the work that they do. Only then can they feel encouraged to offer their skills, qualities and experiences to wider and deeper levels of society. A sense of shared purpose, excitement and generosity can replace the obligations of policies or funding requirements which lead to instrumentalisation. When artists are valued for what they do, they are enthusiastic about sharing their work in other social environments. 1

Creativity and innovation is not the exclusive domain of science, art or enterprise, but is a method which can be used to shed light on all types of problems. Danish researcher, Dr. Lotte Darso argues, “In connection with creativity and innovation, artists can help invent new methods. For example, an artist’s approach can be useful in the field of ignorance by provoking new questions or by posing provoking questions about what has been agreed upon (knowledge). Furthermore, artists can help illustrate and conceptualize discussions and solutions in the group. However, what is essential here is not that it has to be artists; rather, it is that artists generally think and act differently than knowledge workers in the business 1

cf : “Declaration de Bruxelles” / Culture and Creation as Vectors of Development /ACP‐EU”http://www.culture‐dev.eu/website.php?lang=fr http://www.culture‐dev.eu/www/colloque/Culture‐dev.eu‐declabxl‐en.pdf and “Position Paper of the Creativity and Creation Working Group” of the EU Access to Culture Platform http://www.access‐to‐culture.eu/beta/upload/Docs%20ACP/ACPCCPositionpaper.pdf )

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community. It is what is different that is refreshing and significant – if, of course, there is the openness and respect needed to receive it.” 1 A recent NESTA study2 on how fine arts graduates contribute to innovation in society at large reports, “ ... at least three ways in which artistic labour is absorbed into the wider economy and linked into processes of innovation: a) [Arts graduates] have attitudes and skills conducive to innovation… such as analysis (rational decision making common to sciences) but also interpretation (a process of mutual understanding arrived at through exploratory conversations with a variety of collaborators); artists are brokers across social networks and disciplines; artists are life‐long learners. b.) Artistic labour impacts on innovation in the way that it is organised – project work and portfolio working are the norm, as is multi‐jobbing, and crossover work with other sectors. c.) There is now widespread ‘culturalisation’ of other social and economic activities: Culture is becoming a more important part of all production ... artistic creativity brings a knowledge‐based and labour‐intensive input into a whole variety of goods and services. 3

These studies would indicate that contemporary art methods could bring new, creative light and innovative problem‐solving to at least four problematic areas which need concerted action by all actors in society now:

‐ Non‐economic, democratic processes and values. That is, civic engagement (and political openness) with the processes in which public policies are made. In EU jargon this includes 'the dialogue with civil society'. In more humble terms, it means empowering individuals with the analytical skills for seeing social and political causes and effects, for making judgments and choices, for defending preferences based on a range of factors. American philosopher Martha Nussbaum defines this robustly in her book, “Not For Profit: Why Democracy needs the Humanities”. 4

−Social innovation, using creativity to imagine, produce, execute and evaluate innovative solutions to social problems. From micro to macro, we are seeing that given appropriate support, individuals and small community groups can invent specific and effective new products and systems which address their own situations. Policy analyst Helène Combe, working alongside arts organisations, uses this approach in her exploration of new indicators of wealth created by local populations.5

−Effects of migrations of all types and the acquisition of intercultural competence. Although nomadism is an inescapable fact of all human history, migrations which impel social change have, more often than not, caused varyingly serious degrees of social tension. Europe needs ‘new Europeans’ for its workforce and to reap the benefits of creative diversity, yet studies show most Europeans are now against immigration. We need opportunities for exercising our human capacity to learn how others see the world and behave in it, and to feel secure in expanding our own range of understandings and behaviours. 6 ‐ Climate change and the need to raise awareness and alter individual, corporate and public 1 Is there a formula for innovation? By Lotte Darsø, PhD., Associate Professor in innovation, Learning Lab Denmark, Aarhus School of Education 2 The art of innovation : How fine arts graduates contribute to innovation by Kate Oakley, Brooke Sperry and Andy Pratt, edited by Hasan Bakhshi.

3 cf ‘The Impact of Culture on Creativity’, KEA study for the European Commission, 2009 4 Not For Profit: Why Democracy needs the Humanities by Martha Nussbaum, Princeton University Press, 2010 ISBN: 9781400834228 5 http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xf79tf_indicateurs‐de‐richesses‐l‐intervie_news 6 http://209.85.129.132/search?q=cache:phEauLsL51EJ:www.britishcouncil.org/TH/brussels‐arts‐new‐young‐ europeans.htm+British+council+new+young+europeans&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=safari

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sector behaviour. Whether global doom scenarios are correct or not, joint innovative action which is enthusiastically and positively undertaken by all, is needed to lesson pollution and ensure healthier and more accessible food, air and water. Culture is not the worst sector to pollute, but is increasingly mobilising to improve its own practices on the one hand, and also to make arts projects which bring attention to the problems. Julie's Bicycle1 works with industry leaders, universities and official bodies to create recognised (ecological) industry standards for the music industry whereas arts organisations and artists are making events and work about climate change issues. 2

The new approach which is called for to meet our current and future challenges highlights exploration, experimentation, research and forecasting. This is precisely the artistic approach ‐ it comprises creative intellectual leaps, trial and error, risk‐taking, critical analysis of self and surroundings, a heightened sense of sensitivity and the synergies of collaborating with others. If we are looking ahead to a new respect and a more central place for art and culture policy and programmes in the European Union and within its Member States and public authorities, a focus on 3 main objectives could reinforce the arts and culture sector ‐ not to permit it to be more easily instrumentalised, but to render it stronger, more able to offer and stimulate what it can best give and do, and more able to take part, alongside and in collaboration with other sectors.

‐ Increased opportunities and support for collaboration and networking with the objective to learn from each other and to put the learning to work (between EU countries, between the EU and the rest of the world, between the arts sector and other sectors, between artistic disciplines). 3 What is needed: accessible case studies and support for intersectoral collaboration; improved competences to 'translate' sector‐specific jargon and ways of working; support for learning intercultural competences, individual mobility : both real and virtual.

‐ Strengthening the arts as a “system” supporting the development of a healthy value chain (production chain) in the arts and ensuring that each of its elements inter‐communicate and interconnect, thus ensuring mutual reinforcement. The main elements of the value chain are: education / training, creation (implying process‐based work and risk‐taking), production, diffusion, documentation/ media, informed, critical analysis available to large publics. What is needed: Equal support for development and continuity of all links in the value chain – and ensuring that all links are accessible; an equal and fair socio‐economic statute for artists and arts workers ensuring the same rights and responsibilities and treatment in EU Member States and in neighbouring and third countries, particularly those with whom the EU has agreements.

‐ Ensuring that the art and artists are supported to engage fully as an integral part of society.

The doors to understanding and collaboration between sectors, and with a larger public, must be opened on all sides. In other non‐arts sectors: a greater understanding of the arts 1

http://www.juliesbicycle.com/ http://www.2020network.eu/ Mentioned as an objective by the High Level Reflection Group on Youth Mobility in the EU. http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/1126&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=fr 2 3

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sector, how it works and what it can offer. For artists and the arts world: better knowledge of how other sectors work, what possibilities exist for collaboration and how this can be achieved.1 2 What is needed: more research into the intrinsic qualities of the arts and their effect on arts workers and participants; case studies of interesting models of organizing the rapprochement between artists and publics; more transparency for the general public into the processes and purposes of artists’ work.

The time to set new policy objectives is now. A recent report by IFACCA (International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies) suggests that in general, the arts sector in Western Europe is always a few years behind the wider economic situation. Thus the financial crisis is still to hit the arts sector in several EU countries which still have a strong public service mission and publicly‐funded arts sector. This would mean that most publicly‐funded arts and culture SME's and institutions will be hit harder in the next few years and also that it will take longer for the sector to recover. 3 As veteran culture researcher Carla Bodo argues in her paper “A New Cultural Deal”4, “.... A stimulus package for the culture sector requires more than just increased levels of funding. It also needs a clear mix of regulations, financial incentives and innovative policies in support of: artistic creativity and technical skills in the visual and performing arts, in the cultural and creative industries; new skills and competences in the conservation and enhancement of the historic and artistic heritage; and, last but not least, new intercultural competences aimed at fostering mutual understanding and social cohesion in our increasingly multicultural societies.” The EU institutions and its partners ‐ the Member States, their local authorities and the civil sectors ‐ need to formulate clear policies now, stimulating and promoting discussion and enthusiasm, in order to be in time to put policy into practice and support the arts and culture sector to play its appropriate role ‐ without superficial manoeuvering or instrumentalisation ‐ in helping to reinforce and maintain a Europe of engaged populations who have the competences to be constructively self‐critical, analytical and creatively address our common, 'glocal'‐level problems.

1

Interesting and important collaborations can already be cited, for example, in: • Social affairs, migration (cf the works of Ariane Mnouchkine, Théâtre du Soleil, of Alain Platel, Ballets C de la B and many others) • Democratic values and processes, eg anti‐corruption, anti‐mafia (cf “Capotto di Legno” by Ezio Bosso and Lucariello (http://www.mtv.it/blogs/nomafie/archive/2008/06/20/4bf4ce0d‐lucariello‐feat‐ezio‐bosso‐cappotto‐di‐legno.aspx) • Science and health (cf http://www.nice.org.uk:80/niceMedia/documents/arts_mono.pdf Report by the National Health Service of the UK) and http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/potocnik/scienceart/scienceart_en.htm • Artists' creativity as a stimulant to creative solutions in businesses (cf http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=veneziadavivere&view=videos&sort=v eCreative /Venice International University) 2 cf 'greening the arts' programmes of the British Council, and IFACCA's D'Art report 34 http://www.ifacca.org/themes/ 3 http://www.ifacca.org/topic/global‐financial‐crisis/ + June 09 Copenhagen meeting.

4 http://www.culturalpolicies.net/web/compendium‐topics.php?aid=73

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A Toolquiz Good Practice

Reach the Heights Arts based policy to develop soft skills for young people

“Arts participation projects are able to effectively engage young people in a positive activity enabling them to raise their soft skills such as confidence and aspiration.”

Although the number of young people who are not engaged in any form of education, training or employment (NEETS) in Wales has remained fairly stable in recent years at 12%, this still represents a significant number (over 13,000) of young people in Wales. Young people in Wales suffer from disproportionately high levels of unemployment compared to young people across the UK. The Arts Council of Wales were able to provide a body of evidence that showed how involvement in the arts and creative activity can transform the way young people explore and understand the world around them, changing the way they see themselves and what they aspire to in the future. It can contribute to learning both in terms of formal attainment and the development of lifelong skills that help to make a rounded individual – communication, problem solving, innovation and team working. This is based on the principle that there are a myriad of barriers facing young people classed as NEET or at risk of being NEET. In many cases, it is not possible to address these barriers through the provision of conventional classroom based activities. Arts participation projects are able to effectively engage young people in a positive activity enabling them to raise their soft skills such as confidence and aspiration and effectively move into meaningful future activities.

Reach the Heights is a £49 million initiative to help young people in Wales to improve their career opportunities with around £27 million funding from the European Social Fund (ESF). Welsh Assembly Government’s Department for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills (DCELLS) are lead sponsors on Reach the Heights, along with Arts Council of Wales, Children in Wales, Community Music Wales, Funky Dragon, Save the Children (Participation Unit), SNAP Cymru, Techniquest, Urdd Gobaith Cymru. The general objective of this project is to reduce the number of young people in Wales aged 11‐19 who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) or at risk of being so by improving their career opportunities. The specific objective of the Arts Council as a partner in Reach the Heights is to use arts based interventions to increase the economic and social inclusion of disengaged young people and enable them to develop ‘soft’ skills to enhance and improve their employability.

The first stage, ‘First Footholds’, works with some of Wales’ most disadvantaged young people to help them defeat some of the barriers they face. The second stage, ‘Routes to the Summit’, aims to raise the skills and aspirations of young people so that they can make better progress in education and training and move more easily into work or higher education. The target groups are : young people aged 11‐19 who are NEET, or at risk of becoming NEET, and professionals who work with young people who are underachieving and at risk of dropping out of education or employment. The Welsh Assembly Government had identified the need for this project through extensive consultation and working with a range of outside bodies. As a partner in the project, the Arts Council of Wales has been allocated an initial sum of £2 million, which has been used to develop a programme of activities over a 24 month period. 42 projects have been funded as Participation projects and 3 Training projects. Apart from the project partnership, the programme of activities managed by Arts Council of Wales is developing local partnerships between community arts organisations and other young people support networks to ensure the future sustainability of the project.

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Reach the Heights has not yet been evaluated, but the expected outcomes should demonstrate that: i) Arts participation projects are able to effectively engage young people in a positive activity enabling them to raise their soft skills such as confidence and aspiration and effectively move into meaningful future activities. Participation in positive activities has been linked to improvements in academic, preventative and development outcomes such as school performance, avoidance of drug and alcohol use and anti‐ social behaviour, and increased self confidence and self esteem; ii) The training projects run by the Arts Council as part of the project will effectively ensure the future sustainability of such activity through the development of a pool of competent, trained individuals able to work with young people in this way.

The Reach the Heights project is being delivered under Priority 1 ‐ Theme 2 of the European Social Fund.

It links with a number of Welsh strategies specifically The Learning Country 2 ‐Vision into Action which sets out the Welsh Assembly Government’s aim of : reducing the levels of young people who are NEET; increasing the number of young people aged 16 progressing to further learning, full time or work based learning; and, providing young people with the advice, support and confidence to make informed decisions and engage in society. At a European level, the project addresses the European Youth Pact and the Youth in Action programme (2007‐13), by helping young people develop the competencies essential to their personal and professional development and also the ‘Thematic Study on Policy Measures concerning disadvantaged youth’ which emphasises meeting the needs of disadvantaged youth.

Wales Arts International WAI is a Tool Quiz partner

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A Toolquiz Good Practice

Green Cook – For a sustainable food culture

“Green Cook works systematically on all values, representations, behaviours and ways of life linked to food in order to support the adoption of more sustainable practices”

“We now know our finite world”1, French journalist and writer Patrice Van Eersel stated with conviction this summer in an article titled Are we living a new Renaissance? Referring notably to the testimony of Michel Serres, according to whom we are going through “the most significant transformation since Prehistory”2, Patrice Van Eersel proposes an analysis of our modern era that goes beyond the crises marking it to the light of a new perspective: could the upheavals we are witnessing be interpreted as the first signs of ‘gestation’ of a Global Renaissance? In this search to reveal what is brewing, to uncover what is transforming, regenerating and perhaps being born within this modern global chaos, the author also recalls the intuition of Paul Valéry, according to whom ‘the time of the finite world is beginning’: “we may soon be able to verify ‘in vivo’ Paul Valéry’s formula on the mortality of civilisations (...). Our world is fearfully discovering its mortality. (...) Obsessive and short‐termist, unable to balance collateral damage to the environment, the free market does not always take this finiteness into account”3.

At the dawn of the twenty‐first century, like an echo of the clear vision of Valéry and of Van Eersel’s declarations, the Millennium Summit organised by the UN became a first step towards addressing this need to be able to rethink our society project in the awareness of our finiteness. In order to identify the major global challenges of our century and consequently to change our modern practices, the Millennium Assembly agreed the necessity, not only of “rethinking the ways we manage our common action and serve general interest”, but also “adopting new realities in an era of international institutions”4. Among the working perspectives evoked in this report, a notable new obligation is declared: that of allowing future generations a “viable future”. This fundamental freedom, to be able to continue living with dignity on this planet and to conserve its resources is in effect still far from assured.

How can we respond to the challenges of current developments without compromising the planet’s capacity to satisfy the needs of future generations, all the while respecting the inalienable nature of fundamental ecological and humanist ethics? According to the report on the Millennium Assembly, the most important thing of all is “that the human being be at the centre of all that we do”5 in rethinking our development models in terms of human development. To this end, since the 1980s, UNESCO, notably through the Mexico City Declaration on cultural policies, has supported the recognition of the cultural challenge as an unconditional element of development policies and a fortiori inhuman development. The Fribourg Declaration in May 2007 reinforced this legitimisation by insisting on a definition of the cultural challenge as that which fundamentally authorises a person or group of people to express “their humanity and the meanings that they give to their existence and to their development”6.

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Patrice Van Eersel, “Vivons‐nous une nouvelle Renaissance ?” in CLES n°71, June‐July 2011, p.53 “Vivons‐nous une nouvelle Renaissance ?” op. cit. p.51 3 Ibid, p.53 4 Kofi A. Annan, Nous les Peuples : le rôle des nations Unies au XXIe siècle, full report on the Millennium Summit, available online at http://www.un.org/french/millenaire/sg/report/full.htm (ch. I, article 15) 5 Nous les Peuples : le rôle des nations Unies au XXIe siècle, op. cit. (ch. I, article 16) 6 “Les droits culturels”, Fribourg Declaration, article 1, available online at: http://www.unifr.ch/iiedh/assets/files/fr‐declaration10.pdf

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Facing this assessment, how might territorial public policies, and in particular those of the European regions, promote the emergence of and then implement new practices that are more suitable, more sustainable and founded on this ethical connection between “cultural challenge and human development”?

In the case of the Nord‐Pas de Calais Region, the analysis of the Green Cook Project caught our attention.

The aim of this project is to support the fight against food waste at all stages of the production and consumption chain through drawing up a transnational “North‐West Europe” sustainable food management strategy.

Funded within the framework of the INTERREG IVB North‐West Europe project for five year period (October 2008 to December 2013), Green Cook was set up by 12 transnational partners1 including ASBL Espace Environnement located in Charleroi, which is the project leader, and the Nord‐Pas de Calais region. Each partner in the project has specific skills depending on the target sectors of their work as well as a different experience of sustainable food management, both in terms of problems encountered and of the conceivable and/or acceptable solutions. Depending on the particular skills of each, the Green Cook partners have thus chosen to organise themselves around: i) 4 key mechanisms for action (allowing them to influence, provide examples, involve and encourage), ii) 4 practice communities (educational, methodological, the market sector and the professional domain) and iii) 4 different target work groups: 1/at home: households, informal gatherings, public bodies; 2/in restaurants: hospitality professionals; 3/in school canteens: educational teams, distributors and food banks. Depending on their skills, legitimacy and social roles, the partners therefore interact with a shared objective through the implementation of pilot projects with pioneering agents in different sectors. This project methodology in particular has been hailed by the INTERREG IVB programme.

Green Cook has held our attention with regard to the human, ecological and environmental challenge it faces. According to the UN “the ecological crises we must face have multiple causes: poverty, negligence, profit‐seeking, but above all poor management.” The fight against food waste, linked to rubbish management, the consumer sector and climate change, thus represents a growing concern at European level, in particular for North‐West Europe. For the Brussels Observatory on Sustainable Consumption (Green Cook partners CRIOC and Bruxelles Environnement), if waste occurs all along production chains, this waste is even more significant than that from final consumption in households, canteens and restaurants.

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Espace Environnement ASBL (BE) : Experience of cooperation with the mass distribution sector and implementation of food waste reduction campaigns in canteens. Bruxelles Environnement (BE): Brussels Environmental Administration. Experienced on the subject of prevention, food waste reduction campaigns directed at households and pilot projects in cantines (schools and offices). CRIOC (BE): Belgian Centre for Research and Information for Consumer Organisations. Involved in studies on consumer behaviour on the subject of food waste in Brussels and the Walloon region. EuroToque (BE): Belgian association of kitchen chefs promoting quality. Member of EuroToque International (17 European countries). FOST Plus ASBL (NL): Assures the promotion, coordination and selective funding of sorting and recycling household rubbish in Belgium. Artois Comm (FR): Urban community experienced on the subject of rubbish prevention, in partnership with mass distribution. Green Tag (FR): Experienced on the subject of consumer sensitization to environmental challenges. Pilot‐chain (Wattrelos and Templeuve‐France supermarkets). Abfallverwertungsgesellschaft des Landkreises Ludwigsburg –AVL (NL): organisation specialised in rubbish handling for the County District Council of Ludwigsburg (Landkreis) (500,000 inhabitants / 39 municipalities). Institute for Sanitary Engineering, Water Quality and Solid Waste Management of Stuttgart University (DE): Institute experienced on the subject of research, monitoring and evaluation of various aspects linked to rubbish, notably evaluation of rubbish prevention. De Proeftuinen, specialist foundation in the « Good Food Alliance”. Université de Wageningen (DE) ‐ Proeftuinen (NL) Nord‐Pas de Calais Regional Council (FR)

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Nevertheless, the large‐scale adoption of new and more sustainable habits is progressing slowly, since the constraints on modern life, the numerous appeals of marketing, commercial practices for example in supermarkets, the amount of sometimes contradictory information, as well as ambiguous consumer attitudes towards food and protection of the environment. The development of a sustainable food management policy therefore seems like an insurmountable task for the public authorities at local, regional and European level. The fact that the regions in North‐West Europe must face common challenges linked to their post‐industrial context favours improved consideration and transnational management of the positive and negative values linked to these problem areas. The current approaches linked to the food sector aim either to guarantee quality or to increase the sustainability of production, as well as protecting the environment or even improving health and ensuring people’s health security. The development of a transnational strategy for sustainable food management, such as that envisaged by the Green Cook project also aims to bring together all these dimensions.

The specific character of Green Cook, and our analysis of the project as ‘good’ practice, is particularly evident in the fact that it intends to reconsider an eminently cultural challenge at the heart of human development and the problems of sustainable development. In effect, it is participating in a rethink of the north‐western cultural references and paradigms that concern and surround our relationship with food.

Through the fight against food waste, Green Cook works systematically on all the values, representations, behaviours and ways of life linked to food in order to support the adoption of more sustainable practises, respecting personal dignity. The project must allow the reinforcement of people’s abilities with regard to our habits as consumers, our relationship with the environment, our hygiene in daily life or even the management of our resources and our current production methods. For this reason, the Green Cook project responds to the objectives that the Nord‐Pas de Calais region has set through its Regional Scheme for the Development of the Territory and its Agenda 21 adopted in 2004, which highlight the necessity of placing human beings at the heart of regional sustainable development strategies. Learning from the impacts and limitations in terms of sustainability of its own development models, notably those linked to its industrial, and more recently agricultural, history, since the 1990s, the Nord‐Pas de Calais region has taken the action needed to change course and orient its public intervention logics towards a process of transformation. The concept of ‘sustainability’ rests all the more on the need to engage with one another in a dynamic of collective, concerted and participatory reflection, and to subscribe to a prospective vision.

Finally, it requires a long term responsibility.

The project is also founded on cooperation between a broad and diverse range of partners, and brings together the expertise of a regional authority, an urban community, private associations and businesses, a university, a foundation and a research and information centre. Green Cook visualises the food cycle in its entirety and mobilises all the agents involved in this chain, from the production process upstream to the consumption phase downstream, which means visualising, beyond the domain of life and of regional indicators, a “macro‐domain”, that of the partnership and particularly of cross‐border partnerships to leave behind the notion of “cut‐off” borders and the “regional island”. To that partnership is added a host of ambassadors charged with sensitizing Green Cook’s target audience. For the Nord‐Pas de Calais Regional Council, Green Cook furthermore allows the transverse reinforcement of actions led by the Department of Sustainable Development, Forecasting and Evaluation by involving as stakeholders the Department of Initial Training (Direction de la Formation Initiale – DFI) and the Department of International and Regional Partnerships (Direction des Partenariats Internationaux et Régionaux – DPIR).

Not to mention the timely involvement of the “Europe” and “Economic Action” Departments. Finally, each partner’s own cooperation networks, for example 26 ‘consumer schools’ for the DPIR and 10 high schools

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with links to the DFI have allowed the project to be extended while benefiting all the partners’ territories and respecting the subsidiarity principles of the INTERREG programme. Through this European project, the Nord‐Pas de Calais Regional Council has in effect uncovered an opportunity to set in stone its regional school meals project (DFI), adopted in 2008, and to link this to its plan for the development of organic farming launched in 2010, as well as the network of consumer schools in the region (DPIR).

In connection with the Green Cook project, various problems linked to food waste have been confronted in the groups of consumer schools. Brought to life by local agents such as social workers, associated agents or private parties, this system has been implemented in more than 50 communities and represents 90 groups of inhabitants taking part. A normal free school open to all, it is above all a place of education, prevention and integration based on the principles of pooled resources and mutual exchange. Each consumer school has thus taken part in creating a booklet of ‘left‐over recipes’ and has taken up the collective creation of teaching tools in specific workshops. Some consumer schools will also operate in pilot high schools with which the Nord‐Pas de Calais region is working, notably in Boulogne. With these secondary establishments, the region mobilises a further set of agents: the pupils and their families, but also the teachers, the administrative and management staff, as well as the catering staff. In addition to reviewing the quantities of food waste generated, it will aim to diagnose the causes of that waste and reduce its effects. The objective is principally to achieve the complete independence of the school in its sustainable management of food. In connection with Green Cook’s partner universities, a similar approach surrounding school meals has also had the opportunity to work on perceptions and real‐life experience linked to meal places and times. With the support of professionals including architects, acousticians and lecturers in fine‐arts, people are also invited to experience and pay attention to the ways in which the senses are stimulated and to the automatic behaviours that condition mealtimes. The relationships of establishments with the market sector as well as the professional skills of the canteen staff also represent important working dimensions in which the cross‐border partners will participate. The good practices of sustainable food management described could, by 2014, be expanded to 163 secondary establishments in the region and used to adapt and evaluate the professional training of school catering staff.

The Regional Council’s partnership with Green Cook therefore reinforces the fight against food waste, in particular through educational, professional and eco‐citizen perspectives. This project also demonstrates the willingness of the regional administration to engage with people in a supporting role in an educational and inclusive approach.

We conclude here on an interesting note. Among the development aims to be achieved to ensure a “viable future” for future generations announced in the Millennium Summit report, the UN has declared that schools, universities and public powers have an essential role to play in supporting people and in bringing to life public debates regarding problems on the subjects of sustainable development and the environment. The report also adds that “the place reserved for issues linked to the environment in the policy elaboration process must be fundamentally revised”1. In response to a rallying cry or independently, it seems that in this capacity the Green Cook project and the Nord‐Pas de Calais region have seized these issues and demonstrated the ability of political and public agents to work together on the issues of sustainable human development, not only through their efforts to connect regional policies and European strategies, but above all by keeping at the heart of their concerns the issue of the person and of the cultural rights affecting it.

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Kofi A. Annan, Nous les Peuples : le rôle des nations Unies au XXIe siècle, full report on the Millennium Summit, available on line at http://www.un.org/french/millenaire/sg/report/full.htm (ch. V, article 302 et 303)

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Investing metropolises1

Thierry Baudouin

The ambiguity of the word “invest”, with both economic and subjective meaning is a good illustration of the ambivalence the metropolis represents for city‐dwellers today. This article aims to detail the way in which this space, effectively in the hands of global capital, is simultaneously the most propitious site for the innovations with which city‐dwellers appropriate it.

From an economic point of view, the city is now beginning to be considered as a vital new productive space for the post‐industrial era. At present, all disciplines make abundant use of the concepts of a local, cluster, district, dispersed town, city, region or even metropolis‐based productive system to show the deciding role of cities in the global circulation process. These cities cannot definitively be reduced to mere creations of an urbanism dedicated to the reproduction of the workforce of businesses as the Fordian doctrine would have. We speak of their governance, their mobilisation and the pooling of skills in the many projects they initiate.

Liberalism directly imposes the assimilation of a city with a business to highlight the consequences of a particular change in terms of the reduction of ground rent income and other dramatic constructs. On the left, the city continues to be neglected. Meanwhile, Toni Negri analyses the journey from factory to city2 where the antagonism of the suburbs towards the city centres supplants that of the workers towards their bosses.

The productive city3

The hypothesis developed here is precisely that cities are far more than a business or factory.

Today, both the riches they produce and the necessary ways of working represent the enormous potential of the power of city‐dwellers, that is to say, of the inhabitants, citizens and workers who live there together. Hierarchical qualifications, concentrated on the businesses of the industrial era have had to expand to new areas of expertise thanks to projects that can only be completed in much larger productive territories such as cities. The antagonism between capital and work is considerably complicated when we add the material, immaterial, cognitive and biopolitical dimensions that Multitudes constantly analyses in its publications. As the capital penetrates the full social sphere, it simultaneously reinforces capacities. Not only should cities therefore be analysed as agents in the economy, to the great displeasure of State planning, they should also be understood through the points of view of the combined disciplines of history, sociology and the political sciences. And then re‐situated in the decentralisation of the capital‐

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This article appeared in the journal Multitudes 2010/4 (n°43) « Devenirs Métropole ».

Cf. his 2005‐2007 seminars at the Collège International de Philosophie titled «Métropole et Multitudes» and « Devenir banlieue », Jussieu Faculty, Paris 6 at http://seminaire.samizdat.net 3 For this review, I have been advocating this concept since 1996 in Futur antérieur no 30‐31‐32, 1996, as well as in Multitudes no 6 in 2001.

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work relationship, a simple continuation of their entry into the history books by Braudel or Pirenne. If cities become an essential framework for cooperations between different areas of expertise to accomplish projects and strategies beyond a single business, this then implies, this time from a sociological point of view, that these cities represent frameworks for actions allowing common strategies for their citizens. Finally and most importantly, the political point of view sees cities becoming preeminent democratic territories by allowing their citizens, for the first time in the modern era, to connect the local to the global outside of the Nation‐state; an opportunity to escape this box that for so long has monopolised all sovereignty, including our own.

It is for this last reason that the concept of the city must first be systematically pluralised. The historic view from on high of the city, that of the State imposing planning rules on its local bodies or that of capital appropriating their “ambiance” (Marshall), is simply no longer acceptable. Since each of these cities effectively becomes productive in its own particular way, depending on its history and expertise, the sociological apprehensions of daily life there, introduced by Michel de Certeau1 or Henri Lefebvre2 as well as their weak relationships uncovered by Mark Granovetter3 are favoured at present. It is logical that the State, its notables and its urbanists would want to preserve their old monopoly on the subject of local bodies.

However, during this time, innovations of productive power born from cooperations of multiple agents in and between cities are now polarising the innovations of society as a whole.

Cities as territories

The role of cities in post‐industrial capitalism should therefore be understood from the point of view of the permanent territorialisation/deterritorialization processes that punctuate the history of successive phases of the capital/work relationship4. The mobility of flows such as that of people is no more a capital monopoly than it is the spontaneous product of globalisation, whatever the souverainist ideologies on the left and right may think. This mobility historically stimulates each phase in the capital/work relationship according to its various appropriations by workers and employers to establish the rigidity or mobility of factors such that the cities together play a major role in this. Without going back over all this history, it is nevertheless worth underlining the long founding strategy of industrial capital, the worker’s lasting attachment to his or her work5. During the Taylorist era, workers’ unions therefore institutionalised the strategy of an inflexible workforce within the red belt. After a war, Fordian capital bypasses this inflexibility through the innovation of the so‐called deskilled worker, that is to say, a flexible and polyvalent worker in the assembly lines of the new factories that constitute a first step in delocalisation in cities with industrial decentralisation. It is there, at the height of Fordism in the 1960s and 1970s that these specialist workers – young people, women or immigrants – turn this forced mobility on its head by inventing a new practice of refusing work6.

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Michel de Certeau, L’Invention du quotidien, 1. Arts de faire, Gallimard Folio, 1980.

Henri Lefèbre Critique de la vie quotidienne ; 1961 II, Fondements d’une sociologie de la quotidienneté, Paris, L’Arche, 1947.

3 Mark Granovetter, « The Strength of Weak Ties », American Journal of Sociology, 78, 1973.

4 Gille Deleuze & Félix Guattari, Mille plateaux, Minuit, Paris,1980.

5 Karl Polanyi, La grande transformation. Aux origines politiques et économiques de notre temps, Paris, NRF, 1983; Yann Moulier Boutang, De l’esclavage au salariat, Paris, PUF, 1998.

6 6 D. Auffray, T. Baudouin, M. Collin, Le travail et après, Ed. JP Delarge, 1978 ; D. Auffray, T. Baudouin, M. Collin, A. Guillerm, La grève et la ville, Paris, Ed. Christian Bourgois, 1979.

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In a period of full employment, the working masses proclaim their desire to “live and work in the country” by holding continual strikes for equal revenue and turnover for local businesses in accordance with the salaries and work offered. Finally, the constant increase in revenues brings the era of the Fordian West to an end1

This conflict within and outside of the factory is one of the occurrences that has largely limited capital to pioneering globalisation, that is to say, enlargement on a scale never before envisaged of the offer of industrial work at the same time as the reduction of its cost. The delocalisation now involves hundreds of millions of rural workers attracted to the metropolises of the South.

The territorial dimensions of the relationships between capital and work, notably cities, are therefore always vital in the long succession of innovations and about‐turns of agents.

Globalisation thus bears no relation to the simple continuum of globalised Fordism fantasised by souverainists dreaming of a West at the centre of an industrial world. The effect of this delocalisation of Fordian factories and services is first and foremost a globalisation of the capital/work relationship, that is to say, of the foundation of the movement of individual emancipation as described by Marx 150 years ago in the Grundisse. Hence the scramble of the Chinese, Brazilians and Moroccans to come and work at low cost in factories in the cities, allowing them to abandon the lands where for centuries they suffered under the iron fists of famine and dictators. It is exactly what our great‐grandparents did in the factories described by Zola, the lessons learned from conflict allowing all these new workers to progressively set in motion their own uses of capitalism in the cities. Moreover, multinationals are already constrained to new delocalisations since “conflicts are no longer the prerogative of rich countries” as Le Monde discovered in 2012 (issue of 20/8).

Likewise in the richer countries, while post‐industrial production is more and more closely linking the material and the immaterial, the proletariat is also being transformed into a cognitariat, territorialised to the same extent, but within the metropolis rather than in a single company. There too, the denunciation of unemployment and instability must not hide the opportunities offered by the development of the immaterial in work, that is to say the cognitive abilities of the workers to create and produce. This dislocation of work in fact no longer relates to the single business, to take a societal view, since projects must now be devised using multiple areas of expertise, at night as well as during the day, in the workplace or elsewhere. Each person must, according to his or her own way of life, seize this biopolitical dimension of post‐ industrial productivity in which the breaks between production and reproduction have been proven obsolete. Cities are thus asserting themselves as major sites where these skills can be most easily found and organised.

Here, we will examine the economic and social aspects of the city as a place of production and mobilisation. The vital political dimension of the city as a new site of conflicts will never be absent, although it will be focused on more in the analysis by Michèle Collin in this document.

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T. Baudouin and M. Collin, Le contournement des forteresses ouvrières, Paris, Méridiens Klincksieck, 1983. 38

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Productive territories

We therefore move on from the city as a built up space subject to State norms to cities plural as specific territories where multiple diverse strategies are projected which all require the development of the city where they are based. This movement therefore remains less apparent to the citizens of certain local groups remaining dependent on State logic, in France, for example, where in 2009 a “Secretary of State for Regional Capital” was even created! It is just as unapparent that this souverainist point of view is largely shared by an instituted left that can thus be content with condemning globalisation and its disastrous consequences for the old Fordian order. The left manages local bodies humanely, but neglects this new productive role of the city as much as the right. The denunciation of the unstable dimension of employment and the weak links between the post‐industrial worker and the company does not favour for example the concordant multiplication of the socioeconomic relationships of intermittent workers in that city10. Always dominant, the old Fordian view of the national labour market encourages many more cities to agree to substitute the State in providing assistance to the unemployed than to feel directly concerned by the development of activities. Each of their structures – administrative, consular, political, unions, charities – has great difficulty even envisaging letting go of centralised logic. Both the global and local scales are rejected as a cause of the dismantling of a national Fordism still often considered a sort of lost utopia by the old left in wealthy countries, and moreover perceived antagonistically between them. The local level is notably still viewed as an old pre‐industrial territory, non‐egalitarian in nature and subject to the domination of the ruling classes.

During that time, global firms advanced the subject of glocalisation in a double‐edged strategy of both externalisation of their low cost units, a point always denounced, and in particular contextualisation of their productions at the scale on transnational markets. It is the combination of these two strategies, productive and commercial, that makes globalisation something completely different from Fordism on a global scale. There is certainly, in factories in emerging countries, an up‐scaling of the manufacture of all constituent parts of the flows of materials, but with the objective of carrying out countless specific commercialisations on countless different markets. Those markets are now transnational markets on which multinational companies attempt to target, falling far short of true individual customisations, the common tastes of consumers grouped on the larger scale of a “regional” market: that is, the substitution of a cultural dimension for the old national divisions of the markets. Multitudes no 36 (2009) has described how Google seeks to very precisely understand what, how and where companies consume.

But the digitisation of all the tastes in the world, with all its legal dangers, is only one aspect of the transformation. A bad Rifkin lecture at the beginning of the 1990s led many intellectuals and politicians, notably in France, to favour this single domain of the immaterial to the point of regulating the industry at the level of secondary activity for the underdeveloped.

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However, industry is changing just as much through connecting closely with services. By becoming integrated in a global circulation process, it entrusts cities with a logistical activity of distribution which is just as important as the financial domain that has always been placed first.

This distribution based on the circulation process demands significant concrete work on the merchandise, very different from that of the old national Fordism, of which only cities are capable. Globalisation is in no way ubiquitous since on the contrary it aims to distribute just in time and place merchandise made up of parts manufactured anywhere in the world, but precisely assembled specifically for each market and consumer. It is in this contextualisation of logistical work including enormous quantities of information that the most significant added value in the circulation process lies. For thirty years, we have known the catastrophic effects of the denial of this material work on employment in French cities, as full of administrative activities as the banlieues are of the unskilled and unemployed. And those hoping for the end of globalisation and a return to borders so that all these ‘hoodies’ can be put back to their old industrial work are more numerous in all the big parties than one might think.

It is here that cities become vital agents since only they can feed these two complementary strategies of production and distribution. In all cities of the post‐industrial era, there is a material dimension, a very concrete relationship with merchandise, which is always essential.

Evidently for those in the South who (still) manufacture cheaply, this relationship is perhaps less apparent than in the North, but even more essential. Global cities are therefore not only financial centres but also logistical centres, since they closely link merchandise and services.

Hence the greater part of the large port cities turned global metropolises from which more examples will be drawn below. This connection which is the basis of cognitive capitalism on the one hand renders the old spatial breaks between centre and periphery of the industrial era obsolete in terms of productivity, even while its partitions are maintained by the enormous growth in income from property.

On the other hand, all cities are affected, and not only the megacities placed in front by financial and academic analyses, the classifications of which, always more or less in agreement, would have us believe in a marginalisation of all others. On the contrary, the process of contextualisation divides, more so than old capital cities, those capable of establishing themselves as the crux in a glocal flow, whatever the failed national Fordian ideologies may say.

After having considered the question of why cities are productive from a purely capitalist point of view, the important next step is to consider from our point of view the dimension of cities as territories offering new democratic opportunities.

Territories for cooperation

In globalisation, cities should also be understood as the new ground zero in the long territorial conflict generated by the antagonism of the capital/work relationship. Deleuze and Guattari (1980) allow their current place in the long spatio‐temporal chains to be better demonstrated in terms of deterritorialization and reterritorialization. We are essentially availing ourselves of our own research on port cities.

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Cities have therefore become instrumental as centres for the distribution of services and merchandise within the circulation process. From the point of view of citizens, this simple determinism must be overcome wherever change grants them opportunity.

Firstly, the need to contextualise themselves within the huge cultural groups instituted in markets such as the EU, NAFTA, ASEAN or Mercosur allows them to simultaneously liberate themselves from the logic of the Nation‐state. Their entry into competition, generally on this regional scale implies that they understand the other spatial scales of the post‐industrial economy and, in particular, the choices to be made. State development of the national space is in effect obsolete, and selecting which skills and what gains each city can bring to the flows of globalisation cannot be done using traditional state statistics. The observation shows that these options mean intense debates between the various agents of the city to reach the vital minimum agreements. Globalisation erases state authority, but involves just as much innovation within cities, in democratic forms that are appropriate for determining the economic tools and activities that are chosen to move forward. When general interest is no longer imposed by a state technocracy, the cooperation of citizens within the city becomes indispensable. Employers and workers, elected officials or inhabitants of neighbourhoods, they must form agreements in order to make choices and to implement them. We have already said how these innovations of democratic debate from the point of view of the city have been particularly difficult for “local bodies” of centralised states. In France, knowledge even of the added value given by a city is still difficult to understand from INSEE’s figures, always focused on jobs and unemployment in branches of the national economy, or even the regional economy, which merely devolves these figures under the leadership of a regional prefect. Redefining itself as an economic agent, beyond the old role of an urban space for the reproduction of work thus represents a number of extremely complex changes for the city. Here we clarify two of these principles: the mobilisation of agents and relationships with knowledge and culture that are nevertheless contextualised.

Mobilisation of agents

Beyond the agreed roles of voters and ratepayers of a local public authority, city‐dwellers acquire new opportunities for action through the exploitation of their city through capital. The constant interference of the economy as a condition in the development of the city simultaneously leads the inhabitants to progressively link their statuses as professionals and city‐dwellers. Readers will have grasped through their own experiences that production and reproduction are no longer distinct domains. But the biopolitical qualification of this transformation does not go far enough, since it is also necessary to specify its territorial dimension that the city is particularly able to constitute. The capitalist competition of cities generates new cooperations between the agents of each of them. We will see, below, this reappropriation of cooperation practices by agents, linked to global competition, this time from the point of view of relationships between towns. However, already at an endogenous level, the contextualisation of each of these cities as a the economic crux in global flows constitutes an important opportunity for its agents to innovate common relationships, long neglected or marginalised in the old state sovereignty of every man for himself.

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We can criticise this concept of governance through numerous democratic forms invented in big cities, but it has the advantage of being clearly distinguished from centralised government.

Characteristic of the role of cities in globalisation, the domain of international maritime commerce also demonstrates the economic and social dynamism of port cities with ports managed by their municipalities such as Antwerp, Rotterdam, Hamburg or Hong Kong..., precisely because all the gains and added value stored in these “markets” is translated primarily in terms of revenue and activity for their populations. The future of individual skills for example, depends more and more broadly on the city in which they are exercised and their promotion thus depends not only on the traditional framework of the company or branch but also, and to an ever greater extent, on market, a long‐used financial term that today has taken on new meaning for all cities attempting to assert themselves. This term once more expresses a common territorial economic heritage for agents who together make this known and valued. It is not about a collective space or a firm, but rather about the clear necessity for the strategies of those agents to be developed in part in common with their city. Glocalisation therefore does not represent only the point of view of multinational companies but also the way in which cities appropriate a part of the added value of flows, two different visions requiring deals that depend on the mobilisation of city‐dwellers.

This gives rise to social relationships that are also undergoing transformations at the level of the city, where class tensions give way to timely cooperations on specific projects when parties see the benefit in working together. The dock workers of Antwerp, Rotterdam or Hamburg are just as combative and left‐wing as elsewhere, yet they are fully integrated in the local community of each port, where they constantly and very keenly debate opportunities to increase activities with their bosses. As elsewhere, salaries and working conditions take precedence in the balance of power, but the economic point of view of the exchanges harnessed by the market is nonetheless never erased. All the more, since it is in the city that investments in all projects must also be endorsed. When the dock workers strike, the bosses announce to their clients all over the world that thick fog has slowed shipping down! This point of view, this constant presence of the city as a framework of relationships, appears to impose itself as widely between workers and bosses of such and such a firm, inhabitants of such and such a neighbourhood, and the parties and associations of the city. When each one aims for or at least takes into account the common future of the city, agreements can break down established tensions. The always lengthy dissensus negotiations give way to agreements on projects within precisely defined periods. There is never consensus imposed from above and these timely dissolutions of traditional antagonistic relationships come forth in the various types of sacred national unions just as in class collaboration in business.

These productive cities go beyond the two scales of the State and the firm that monopolised the industrial era. Rather, we are witnessing the coexistence analysed by Deleuze of the majority model and the exploitation model, demonstrated by Mauricio Lazzarato1, but at present in use by the multitudes who call attention to themselves through a common identity within a city. We

1

Arnaud Le Marchand, « L’habitat “non‐ordinaire” et le post fordisme », Multitudes no 37‐38, 2009. 39

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have already broached in Multitudes the concrete difficulties of its emergence in France, in Dunkerque or Saint Nazaire, where institutions enjoying the ladder of the Nation‐state such as the General Confederation of Labour and the Corps of Bridges are working together to preserve the old democratic centralism1. In effect, cities remain neglected by a statist ideology that is always prioritised by the various institutions and parties, both on the right and on the left. Even the Greens favour the national level in such a way that their almost systematic progress at the local level of a nimby refusing all projects renders them apparently powerless to understand the productive city. Whether it is judged to be inferior to the ideal framework of a kingdom or suspected of desiring growth, the city is in all cases left to the initiative of capital alone by all these institutions. The left can therefore content itself by denouncing the excesses of property speculation, in terms of the gated communities of the rich or the communitarianism of the poor, without investing in the biopolitical potential of the city. However, the city by priority becomes the site of the more intense intermittent and targeted cooperations that represent a vital future for social relationships. Beyond the limited framework of traditional salaried work, a productive democracy is establishing itself particularly broadly in the city. Here, we select one of those relationships from the communitarian dimension that are characteristic of the new productive requirements establishing themselves within it: relationships with knowledge.

Cities today are beginning to develop multiple interactions with education and training. For them, this is primarily about attracting and preserving the cognitive skills that each considers it needs as a priority. The old capital cities concentrate by definition the best of the universities and specialist schools, but at present, all cities aim to assert themselves as a centre for specific skills. Each community, professional or neighbourhood, thus evidently practises intense lobbying within the municipal authority to benefit its own skills. The framework of a city can bring productivity and usability to these interests that have in all cases diverged far from their refusal as viewed from above by State technocrats. Dissensus is on the contrary always considered to be of benefit to city governance.

In so‐called port cities, for example, that is to say, the cities whose fundamental role in the process of circulation in globalised society has had to be most rapidly understood, primary and secondary school pupils are taken to visit the port throughout their schooling, with as much educational material as is necessary in order to understand, that is to say, to take away with you, this activity presented as vital to the city. Equally, universities enjoy a certain autonomy here, in the sense that they also devote much to commercial, international logistics or linguistic disciplines, making maximum use of professionals in the market for teaching. In effect, they aim less for “excellence” in themselves than in the productivity of the market, which means that the best academic specialists on these subjects are also always a product of these markets where knowledge and practice combine. Very strong investments in the culture of maritime and port business are added to this cognitive polarisation. Displays and cultural centres are usually intended for all citizens who hold these skills to be essential to the value of their city.

1

MaurizioLazzarato, Gabriel Tarde contre l’économie politique, Paris, Les Empêcheurs de penser en rond, 2002.

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Beyond the Nation‐State

As vital agents of globalisation, cities are the first to be affected by the overturning of hierarchies driven by the excesses of national Fordism. What are now called “regional” markets require infrastructures and skills suited not only to their new continental scale, but moreover to the global context in which these markets find themselves at present. The old hinterlands of most cities were on a national scale. Only a few could tackle other cultural and cognitive contexts, most of these designated as international and colonial ports by their States. Even more rarely, some ports with a national market of limited size, such as Antwerp and Rotterdam for example, had strategies of bypassing this topic by servicing areas that were already culturally close, Germanic or francophone in this instance. Today these are the most dynamic, capturing global flows in a time when globalisation forces all cities to begin counting on their own initiative without being able to view the national market as their exclusive domain or niche.

This transformation has serious consequences for local bodies which for two centuries have been accustomed to depending upon the state. Since the time of the French revolution, French cities have been constantly accused of being instruments of non‐egalitarian polarisation of wealth: “Be warned that, France at present being a trading, sailing, industrious nation, all its wealth must cross its borders and all its affluent cities are on those borders; the interior is barren”1. Hence the establishment by the republican state of fully substitutable public bodies with which it authoritatively distributes industries and services for “general interest” without consideration of the specific skills in the territories2. Expertise, whether professional, academic or artistic, is increasingly becoming concentrated in the capital, while it is severely lacking today in cities wanting to compete with others in Europe and the world. The souverainist doctrine that has always been overwhelmingly favoured in France continues to denounce all competition as not useful since the central state is supposed to conserve its monopoly of the definition and assurance of general interest.

However, it has been proven that competition between cities sparked by globalisation opens up numerous opportunities for their citizens. Liberation from a national framework, which is now by all appearances insufficient at both the economic and social levels, effectively means that skills are mobilised and cooperate within the city beyond the divisions and social hierarchies instituted by the state. The numerous innovations on the part of agents aiming to undertake their activities in their city are considered today to be far more important for the city than the injunctions of the state representative, a uniform official parachuted in from elsewhere. The concurrence of these two economic and territorial factors is by all appearances generated by competition between those cities that favour innovating cooperation processes between agents within them. Even the most statist must break somewhat, if only a little, with their now ineffective principles of functional hierarchies.

1 2

T.Baudouin, «Les coordinations, des métiers au territoire de la ville», Multitudesno17 on Intermittence, 2004, p. 119‐130.

Abbé Galiani, 1770, Dialogue sur le commerce du blé, Paris. 14 Robert Salais and Michael Storper, «Les mondes de production, Enquête sur l’identité économique de la France », Paris, EHESS, 1993.

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Over more than a decade1, I have undertaken several analyses of these mobilisation processes in cities that bring about a strengthening of social relationships once the point of view of the city is established as a common system between agents. This new territorial dimension, precisely contextualised and with a democracy I would qualify as productive, appears to be vital in the development of all the already heavily described deliberative and participatory processes.

Rather, I would specify here a further territorial dimension, far less well‐known but just as important, which concerns cooperations between neighbouring cities with the objective of being able to assert themselves in the new hierarchies of globalisation.

Building a metropolis through cooperations between cities

Not powerful enough to exist alone, cities are profiting from their geographical proximity by jointly asserting themselves as global centres. It is not a case of a geographical administrative space determined by command of borders but a relatively informal territory held together by numerous cooperations. In Europe, we can see such an emergence of two global scale logistical centres created through the cooperation of several cities. This is the case for example for Antwerp and Rotterdam, which have made the whole world see them as the best route into Europe, the Rhine delta. Likewise, Hamburg and Bremen have gained a reputation in Asia as well as in America, with the Deutsche Bucht (German Bight) seen as the best gateway for trade with Europe.

We can take several things away from these innovative cooperations. Firstly the harmony they still have with competition, which has always dominated the relationships of each of these pairs, in history sometimes even degenerating into a rivalry that could lead to the extermination of one or the other. Joining or uniting them in some way is therefore out of the question, but cooperation with the limited objective of joint profit is possible for two parties that compete in all else. So, we can see that these cooperations pierce spatial, administrative, national or state divisions as easily as linguistic or cultural divisions. The economic expansion of globalisation therefore liberates many from historic subservience without casting doubt on the identities of each. Today, the current clash between the two terms in the alternative analyses does not seem to be in operation, as has already been suggested by Deleuze and Guattari. In order to be able to assert themselves in the global events now underway, these cities are loudly proclaiming their historic, cultural and commercial heritage while moving outside the box. It is the concurrence of these two subjective and identity‐based phenomena that appears to be productive as demonstrated by the current failures of other territory‐based assertions.

In the Mediterranean, two other cities, Barcelona and Genoa, have also proposed an identical type of cooperation with Marseille, to offer the Asians and Americans a Mediterranean port to bring merchandise and services into Europe. The ancient domination (Braudel) of the markets of Northern Europe on the subject is also given cause for doubt by globalisation which today causes the greater part of Asia‐Europe‐America trade to pass through the Suez Canal. But in order that these flows do not merely pass them by, cooperations of three neighbouring cities are indispensable. However, the Jacobin logic of the port of Marseille prevents it from working together with foreigners to form a transnational strategy.

1

T.Baudouin, M.Collin, G.Cocco and G.Silva, «Mondialisation et mobilisations productives de la ville», Espaces et Sociétés 105‐106, 2001.

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Equally, our contribution in “Seine métropole” to the Grand Paris project highlights the necessary cooperation of the fluvio‐maritime cities of Rouen and Le Harvre with Paris to plug the metropolis into the flows of both globalisation and the European market1. But there, again, the difficulties state institutions have in working together, in ports as well as cities and regions, have until now made any innovation of territorial subjectivity, and thus any project to assert a global centre of shipping, an impossibility. Creating a metropolis is not a quantitative expansion of territorial bodies, but a polarisation of cooperation between cities with an economic and cultural plan. The Randstad is only weakly established, but owes its economic and urban power to the cooperations of its agents on certain precisely defined strategies for cooperation.

In conclusion, liberation from the framework of the Nation‐state imposed by globalisation also frees cities from the insularity imposed on them by the national or general interest. Through emancipation from their status as local bodies, which makes them subject to a lose‐lose situation of inter‐city rivalry controlled by state budgets, they can assert themselves instead as agents in a true relationship of competition with others to add their value to global flows. This explains the significant progress made by port cities in which a deliberative democracy is constantly fed by conflicts between their various agents on choices that must be made jointly.

Competition between cities fosters two new types of cooperation. Within each city, on the one hand, citizens initiate relationships that go beyond the functional and hierarchical divisions of the industrial era. On the other hand, neighbouring cities also find common interests, moving past the petty feuds additionally caused by the presence of the state. Moving beyond souverainism therefore also means moving beyond the dominant ubiquitous doctrines that merely change scale to keep the same old territories in submission, this time to the speed of global flows.

Globalisation is accused of marginalising the citizen while cities claim to do the opposite as the territories of all current democratic innovations. We have seen that the territorialised economic practises of cities constitute, this time from the point of view of their citizens, vital opportunities for pioneering interventions as demonstrated by all the current movements in French cities and in London, Copenhagen, Athens and elsewhere. The economic dimension on which we have chosen to focus transforms this conflictual and antagonistic dimension of capital/work relationships within businesses into dissensus between city‐dwellers on their territory producing alternatives and choices. At the turn of the twentieth century, lengthy hesitations had already held back the necessary interventions of workers in the new Tayloresque factories2. As far as we are concerned, in order not to abandon those new productive instruments that are cities with globalised capitalist economies, we must start now to invest, from our own point of view, in the fantastic opportunities of a reterritorialized democratic future.

1

T.Baudouin and M.Collin, «Un pôle européen du commerce mondial» in Seinemétropole, Le grand pari de l’agglomération parisienne, Antoine Grumbach and associates, Paris, 2009.

2 Cf. Notably on this subject Jacques Rancière in his journal, Les révoltes logiques, from 1975‐85.

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A Toolquiz Good Practice

Biblioteca Solidaria A project by the State Public Library of Cuenca1

“Imagination in both its individual and collective dimensions appears to be the catalyst for a new approach to the social connection, being put to work in a project that is constantly questioning and reinventing itself under the impetus of the leaders of the library and of the regional public powers.”

For the last two decades, the big global organisations, such as Unesco in its Public Library manifesto issued in 1994, have explicitly recognised the fundamental role of public libraries, not only as a doorway to access information and knowledge, but also as a centre for the cultural and social learning and development of individuals and social groups, regardless of their age, sex, origins or social background.

Some territorial bodies have seized the moment with this mission by redefining their own mode of intervention. Having spent two decades engaged in a voluntary policy in favour of increasing literacy rate and access to reading for all inhabitants of the region, the Autonomous Government of Castile‐La Mancha has chosen to consider all the commitments inherent in this type of recognition. Therefore, after having spent a decade implementing traditional measures such as the construction of suitable equipment (schools, libraries) or the creation of temporary services (library buses) in a region still marked by a strong rural character, this Government has recently sought to encourage, within the Regional Network of Public Libraries of Castile‐La Mancha itself, innovative projects that are open to experimentation with new methods of social participation. For this body, it is about re‐posing the question of embedding a cultural structure within the urban social tissue, in the same way we do with politics in our societies.

Among the remarkable devices put in place, the “Biblioteca Solidaria” (A library in touch), run by the State Public Library of Cuenca since 2009, particularly deserves highlighting. Volunteers selected on the basis of their personal motivations and trained by library staff and social sector professionals are encouraged to travel outside the walls of the establishment to make parts of the collections more accessible to inhabitants and also to put in place all kinds of literary and cultural activities, tutoring sessions, ITC training workshops, etc. The volunteer’s actions are made visible thanks to ample communication and a specially designed signalling system. From October 2009 to October 2010, more than 360 activities were lead in this way by around forty volunteers and twenty interns, to the benefit of more than 21 000 people who have difficulty accessing or who do not have access to the public library in the cities of Cuenca and Ciudad Real. This project therefore strives to overcome physical, social and cultural barriers that limit or prevent the access of marginalised groups or persons not in education, employment or training to information and knowledge by building on a close and sustainable cooperation between territorial bodies, cultural institutions, schools and NGOs and in particular on the emergence of a form of volunteer base that is still almost non‐existent in Spain: cultural volunteers. It illustrates the abilities of public powers to take into account the new forms of citizen involvement that are now developing, particularly in the city, and to mobilise these for new intervention schemes.

1

This good practice was chosen by the Council for Education and Culture of the Regional Government of Castile‐La Mancha in Spain, a partner of the Toolquiz project.

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By inviting volunteers to get involved in crèches, social centres, retirement homes, hospital or prisons not just in the city centres of Cuenca and Ciudad Real but also in the suburbs, this initiative enjoys an extremely strong territorial anchorage and strives to tighten the ties between institutions and public bodies. By intervening in public spaces that have often been neglected by cultural institutions and little used by citizens, the project embraces much wider geographical areas that those usually covered by neighbourhood libraries. The public space therefore becomes the object of citizen investment and is reconfigured through new forms of social intervention. The promotion of social values such as solidarity, exchange and mutual assistance to which the project contributes is just as fundamental, especially in a society in which intergenerational ties are growing weaker, where individualism is tending to put down roots and where relationships with foreign cultures are often a source of more or less latent conflicts.

The region of Castile‐La Mancha is faced with a high unemployment rate, especially among young people aged 18 to 25, and must meet significant social challenges linked to waves of immigrants who have begun settling there only in the last two decades and whose integration is still very limited.

Nevertheless, it is above all for the prominent role accorded the person within a system of global agents that the project merits attention. Volunteers are not only essential links in the chain: the project depends on them. It is up to the volunteers to carry through this mission of educating fellow citizens about and sensitizing them to the crucial social problems in our current societies. It is also they who must, through the social interactions they strive to create and multiply, strengthen the feeling of belonging to a community and the integration within it of certain groups suffering from isolation or rejection, in particular new immigrants, the long‐term sick or pensioners. It is not a replacement for but a complementary action to that of library or social services staff. The basis of this initiative is to establish a social pact based on trust but also on individual responsibility since the volunteers are perceived as carriers of culture and not simply as representatives of the library outside its walls.

Resting on a concerted approach, this project also aims to combine personal initiative and risk‐taking with constant supervision and monitoring of the actions of volunteers. In fact, it is interesting to see how from the clear foundations established between the public powers, the library, the volunteers and the other participants in the project, a margin for manoeuvre is emerging that is sufficiently wide to leave room for experimentation, especially in places where people are kept separate from one another as is the case in prisons. Selection of the volunteers is based on an interview with the library’s personnel allowing the candidates’ motivation as well as their ability to adapt to diverse audiences and environments to be assessed.

This is followed by preliminary training often given jointly by the library’s staff and social work professionals. Regular evaluation is then carried out through periodic meetings between volunteers and an annual meeting bringing together all the people involved in the process.

This approach allows all to benefit from vital feedback to ensure the longevity of the project and improve how it is run. Regular suggestions from volunteers and an annual report are a chance to launch new initiatives, each time attempting to expand a little further the territorial scale of the project, the recipient audience and the partners involved.

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One of the biggest contributions of the “Biblioteca Solidaria” project resides in the manner in which it invites people to rethink the way politics is done. It is no longer about managing a system as before, ensuring the conditions of its implementation and its smooth running, but about giving power back to territories by encouraging new means of social involvement, by creating, energising and bringing to life new partnerships that are able to give back to people their place in the immediate environment.

Imagination in both its individual and collective dimensions appears to be the catalyst for a new approach to the social connection, being put to work in a project that is constantly questioning and reinventing itself under the impetus of the leaders of the library and of the regional public powers.

By leaving room for the unexpected, this project encourages individuals to not only take up the social initiatives themselves, but also to rekindle or develop new skills that can then be incorporated however they want into their personal trajectories. It is an excellent medium for creating or recreating social connections in many forms as well as for equipping the volunteers with new social and cultural skills that they can then reinvest in other functions and responsibilities.

Autonomous Government of Castile‐La Mancha The Autonomous Government of Castile‐La Mancha is a Toolquiz Partner

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Part 3 Agents’ practices

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The issue of the culture, people and development link poses the question of redefining the field of action and responsibility of cultural agents. In effect, in such an approach, it is the cultural actors who become the direct architects of these legal frameworks. They indirectly maintain a political dimension through their ability to participate, through constant experimentation, through the fabric of these frameworks, and to initiate processes. They take on the complexity of what makes us human. How then can we create the conditions to empower each person, each inhabitant, each citizen? How can we create the conditions for each of us to reappropriate our environment, our society, and what is more, our ability to act within it? How can we create the conditions for a change in views and attitudes?

In this section, we have chosen to examine how certain agents today create and experiment with their practices surrounding the challenges of:

‐ care/respect

‐ transformation/reappropriation

‐ trajectories/responsibilities

Through their practices, these agents participate in new types of cultural action on a European scale.

Relais Culture Europe

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Care/respect

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“Together, we create a machine for sensory experiences... a way of ceaselessly asking ourselves how we can think in new ways”

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Body techniques as a political project

Michel Repellin, director of “Body Techniques”, A.I.M.E.1

A vast range of possible actions for dance and the body

A.I.M.E. was created primarily around an artistic project defending the idea that movement and body techniques are not only a matter for dance or for what can be seen or practised within that art. The body and body practices (including dance) have opened up to the artists and practitioners of our association a vast range of possible actions outside of the single framework of cultural action. We have been led to unite multiple backgrounds in the social domain, in the worlds of care and of education. With the support of resources provided by dance and certain somatic education methods, we have added a critical approach of the sensory experience to the body workshop.

Approaching the body and thinking about “body practices” from different backgrounds has forced us to name, describe and clarify our hypotheses and to create a map of body techniques explaining the resources they offer. Thus discourse on the body and on language as a means of processing sensations become the core elements of the body workshop.

Our commitment to body techniques beyond art or choreography does not exclude the matter of the imaginary. On the contrary, it has caused us to extend our capacity for action towards fields that have shifted our expected role as a “choreography company”. It is here that the limits of our action can be found: strong in its philosophy and ethical principles but always open to discussion of its applications or contextualisation.

Working with all agents

While allowing a large number of partnerships in the fields of cultural action, education, health or medical and social care, the issue of “the body” causes friction with the beliefs of agents, beliefs that are apparent in many ways when debating the “frameworks” of work attached to the contexts in which we operate. This friction, more implicit than formalised, is the basis for a dialogue which seeks to understand what is meant by “the body” as a social and cultural construct. The issue of “the body” is seldom at the heart of cultural, social or therapeutic work.

It is therefore up to us to prioritise work on these representations, since discourse on “emancipation”, “building knowledge” or “empowerment” through the body cannot be merely generic.

1

A.I.M.E. ‐ Association d’Individus en Mouvements Engagés, nonprofit organisation founded by Julie Nioche, choreographer and osteopath, Gabrielle Mallet, physiotherapist and osteopath, Stéphanie Gressin, production director, Isabelle Ginot, lecturer‐researcher and Feldenkrais practitioner and Michel Repellin, project director and nonprofit agent.

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By crossing different backgrounds, our action not only engages the audience with which we work (spectators, pupils, patients) but also professional management or assistance teams and the tools they use to carry out their tasks. “Body knowledge” as a construct concerns artists, medical professionals, patients, spectators and pupils. Building awareness from physical experience must rest on the ability of each person to understand and construct his or her own “path” through the process of the workshop. This process forces a shift that is acceptable to all actors if they understand the real challenge. It is sometimes difficult for our representatives to admit that this knowledge is not “transmitted” as a technique but can emerge from the people themselves, from their ability to transform what they imagine and then produce for themselves in their collective or even professional actions.

For a body workshop to become a device for artistic and political intervention in the social world, it is not simply a matter of “proclaiming” the composition of an ideal body at the height of its functional or expressive capabilities, but of working on the representations, usages and practices that already organise the body around disciplinary concepts that are also all present in the world of dance, health or education. Our position must always revolve around an ethical dimension: not allowing the development of a “disciplinary” usage of body practices, that is to say, a reduction to an endogenous and normative (artistic, educative or therapeutic) theoretical approach. In this sense, imbuing body practices with the concept of appropriation, which may be based on the “empowerment”1 of agents, is a fundamental challenge even if this appropriation is itself subject to numerous possible usages and interpretation that we must understand.

Within or without the institution

From these essential principles, our actions are “mobile”, not excluding any field, and we can think of body work “within the institution” and also without. It is a matter of “working” within specific contexts since we cannot escape the semantic frameworks that border the practical space. Work on the context itself seeks to understand, with each participant, the aims of the work carried out: is it a question of care, education, creation or of finding a link between all of these concepts?

Through its work, A.I.M.E. is directly exposed to very powerful realities: the fundamental ties to disciplinary fields, management of the time assigned to body practices, the structural and institutional spheres regulating artistic actions, educational actions and actions of care to frameworks that are not always examined. While these frameworks are barriers to the recognition of appropriable “body knowledge”, they can become active borders on which we must actively build in order to be able to “clarify” the horizons we aim for and the “impact” of the work of each. Our initial period of activity has therefore allowed us to define with agents the framework for a possible intersection between institutional objectives and those defined by people for themselves.

1

By this we understand the concept of empowerment according to the definition proposed by: D. Daumont and I. Aujoulat, (2002): individual empowerment denotes an individual’s ability to exercise control of his or her personal life. Like self‐efficacy or self‐esteem, empowerment emphasises the development of a positive representation of oneself (self‐concept) or of personal competency. Furthermore, individual empowerment includes the analysis and critique of social and political background and the development of the necessary individual and collective resources and skills for social action.

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A.I.M.E.’s “place”...

In each working space, we attempt to “create” new spaces for body practices that allow a sharing of knowledge without opposing theory‐ and experience‐based knowledge.

A “new practical space” is not therefore a new place, nor a new technique of moving into a field, since we choose not to break away from the domain of the institution or to refuse “knowledge” that is not our own. The practical space as we approach it is primarily a space for changing paradigms in the very same place as the “experience”: making possible an approach to care in educational work, devising an educational approach in a context of care, envisaging a space for the imagination in educational or therapeutic work. Consequently, the patient must consider the point of view of the carer (and the care framework), the carer that of the cared‐for, the pupil that which the teacher transmits, the spectator that which the artist creates.

...a political project

It is a matter of not validating normative systems by proposing an educational action, whether of “training”, “education”, “care” or “sensitisation”, and simultaneously of “working” within institutional or discursive spaces. Thus a margin can emerge for “critique”, in which each actor can seize the chance to “transform” their actions and relationship with the environment. But this work does not protect organisations that produce and plan actions by calling on body practices. By giving mobility to paradigms of knowledge and practices, we examine the project, the objectives and the structures’ tools. Can the more and more complex dialogues seeking to identify and define the “needs” of people (patients, pupils, spectators) be actively made to serve the multiple subjectivities that are themselves capable of producing a dialogue on the experience of art, learning or care? In this sense, we can observe in each of these contexts that for several years we have gone through a mobilisation of agents in favour of a rearrangement of views on the subject of the body, both individually and collectively.

A movement for the future

Since its creation, A.I.M.E. has had to respond to a double challenge: working with people, structures, institutions, organisations and associations, and constructing within itself a level of expertise in constant reconfiguration. A.I.M.E. wishes to be seen as an “active” and sustainable system, recognised by its partners and identifiable by those who may experience our actions. A double challenge and a double constraint which leads us to favour ethics in our actions over a “model” for the way we work. By strongly committing to university education1 we are, through practice and theory‐based knowledge, facing up to our commitment to the prospect of a future epistemological field of body techniques that is yet to be constructed. Thanks to our project linking the disciplines and fields of activity that concern the body, we are laying the foundations of a network of professionals who can carry these body techniques by expanding the world of care, culture and education with the same intellectual rigour and the same capacity for involvement.

1

University Qualification « Techniques du corps et monde du soin », a collaboration between AIME and the Dance Department and Permanent Education Service, Paris VIII‐St Denis

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A.I.M.E. is a nonprofit organisation which since its creation in 2007 has brought together artists, body practitioners, researchers, care professionals and third sector agents in the fields of culture and health. Created on the initiative of choreographer Julie Nioche, A.I.M.E. bases its activity on a common commitment to all its members: to support the decompartmentalisation of “knowledge” of the body, and to allow as many people as possible to “appropriate” body practises by combining dance and somatic education methods1.

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“Somatic methods” or “somatic education methods” are a set of methods and techniques relating to the body and to actions. They are used throughout the world and enjoy very inconsistent recognition depending on countries and cultures (in many Nordic and Germanic countries they are integrated into the paramedical sector, in France they are excluded from the care system...). Some are named after their founder (Feldenkrais, Alexander, Rolfing) and others have names describing their objectives (osteopathy, eutony, Body‐Mind Centring...); some are well known to the public, others very marginal. They can primarily be defined by an often comparable history: their founders were faced with a personal difficulty (accident, illness, disability) for which classical medicine had nothing to offer; they therefore decided to attempt to find a solution by themselves, then systematised the updated method in order to be able to benefit others, then to train other teachers. For this reason, even if all these methods do not have a therapeutic function, they were immediately viewed as an alternative to classical western care methods. Many draw a part of their resources from active practice (martial arts) or therapeutic practices (massages, invigorating treatments) in the oriental traditions (India, China, Japan...). They accord a central place to personal experience, and particularly to sensations. The “subjective/objective” opposition is therefore of little use in these methods, while the pupil’s or patient’s knowledge and experience are considered a fully‐fledged result and the objective of the work (and not a parameter to be eliminated).

Improvement, learning, care and recovery are always considered to be led by the person, their body, their system and not by the practitioner, who merely creates the conditions enabling this improvement to be produced.

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Examining the everyday practices of the city

Madeleine Chiche and Bernard Misrachi

Multidisciplinary or multimedia artists were born from the artistic movements of the 1970s and 1980s, which cheerfully navigated between performances in experimental cinema, the fine arts and contemporary music without hierarchies, that is to say, using a certain freedom of movement and thought. In that era, we were dancers and choreographers, and at its creation in 1980 and until 1997, groupedunes was a contemporary dance company. Dance was our university. At the same time, we were nourished with films, concerts and exhibitions, and spent long hours watching the streets, the people, their walks, their gestures, the expressions on their faces, their movements in general... Dance taught us to be, in space and time, to see, to think about movement, and above all it gave us a physical feeling of the place, of the moment. It made us aware of the connections that weave bodies together. Cinema taught us a lot about the relationship between sound and image, about on‐screen and off‐screen, about the relationship between movement and stillness, about light. From contemporary music, we learned that noise goes hand in hand with silence... And we soon made connections between the sensations we experienced on the stage among other dancers and the emotions we felt travelling around cities in the middle of crowds. We felt at home in those comings and goings between our studio and the outside world where we were always on the move, in that exchange of sensory information. The city became our observatory and the source of our inspiration. It is in its almost obsessive activity that the concepts of complexity, order and disorder, mixed layouts and reading landscapes take shape. The French for read – lire – is an anagram of lier – link; so the question of a link gradually became one of the fundamental elements of our research.

Looking for a way to bring these concepts into play, we designed our shows as environments mixing cinema and video images, sound, text, objects and the bodies of dancers with no hierarchy, as many elements as made up the movement. We practised using cameras and tape recorders. The films and sounds are recreated extracts from our city wanderings. The images are projected on the furniture, on the walls, on natural materials; a way of introducing lags or disturbances in perception or of modelling space. The profusion of signs, their simultaneity, forces a non‐linear reading. The context in which the dance evolves is as important as finding a single gestural language and this context reflects the reality in which we live, in some way, “our present”. No subject, no recitations, we work instead with motifs, layouts, a sort of moving landscape that calls upon the spectator’s own understanding of the events. Invited to look around, you are free to make your own associations.

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In this quest for space and in the desire to confront the “real” we soon left theatres to explore other places: garages, warehouses or industrial wasteland located in our intermediary zones where the city is in the process of transforming and where its future hangs in the balance. We put together our shows in situ and invite the public to make their own experiences in these unique spaces, a shift that seems to be conducive to new ways of seeing, of questioning even the pose of the spectator, his freedom, his responsibility... In these often hostile, unwelcoming places, we integrate into our scenography the development of the spaces for the public, offering them a little comfort. We had the mischievous idea of offering different seats: armchairs, straight‐backed chairs, stools, a way of singling out each person present and rejecting the concept of audience as a homogenous entity.

We love the idea of addressing ourselves to a solitary spectator capable of building an intimate relationship with what he or she sees. It is from this intimate relationship with things, with the world, that we build our sensible body. And it is this sensible body that interests us. How do we perceive things, what do we do with our emotions? Is it not the richness of this sense memory and the consciousness we have of it that produces the richness of our exchanges with others?

How can artistic emotions feed our relationship with the world and stimulate our perceptions in our daily life? All these questions have led us to take an interest in language, in the words we use to say what we feel, in the real‐life experience words carry. And we wanted to go out and meet people, not the audience or potential spectators but those who crossed paths with us here and there in our urban wanderings with the idea of putting our artistic institutions to the test in these “multiple realities”. We set out a little like researchers, with the idea of exchanging experiences rather than dispensing knowledge. We ran workshops with all sorts of people, of all ages and all social conditions without discrimination. The themes of the workshops were the understanding of space, observation, the concepts of inhabitation, of presence and also of speaking, putting what we see into words, listening to ourselves... (each person’s lexical landscape). There, once more, we moved from the studio to the city, the place in which we all live.

At the beginning of the 1990’s, we made the natural move to the magical space of La Friche la Belle de Mai in Marseille and the team joined that project’s initiative. There we found incredible freedom to develop our work. In that vast expanse anything can be dreamt up in the awareness that there, art and culture are situated at the heart of real urban problems. Under the leadership of Phillipe Foulquier, its director, this brownfield site (a 145,000 m2 former tobacco factory) has become a place of multidisciplinary artistic production, diffusion and residence and today is recognised as a driving factor in the economic and social regeneration of the La Belle de Mai neighbourhood. The Friche has long resisted definition. It has always experienced what we might call ecosystemic difficulties, in assembling the conditions for events to emerge and develop, without needing to define purposes or share out tasks. This mode of organisation is still rare enough that its importance bears underlining. It respects a certain independence of the projects it generates and thus preserves the possibility of unexpected evolutions or crossovers.

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It was at the Friche that we had one of our best experiences. Because the space was available and nobody presented an obstacle to artists’ desires, we were able to dream up a project on the 8000 m2 roof, an open‐air esplanade with 360° views of the city. We fell in love with this place, its energy, its rugged beauty. It seemed to have all the right qualities to answer our concerns at any given moment: a vague, indeterminate space to be tamed, time and duration, the relationship with the city, at once present and far away, a certain intimateness despite its size...

Enabling the audience to discover this hidden gem was also one of our issues. We became event producers. It took us more than two years to find the funding and to convince everyone of the importance of the proposal! And we were right to insist. For three weeks in September 1999, from nightfall until one o’clock in the morning, 12,000 people freely and gladly strolled through the scenography of video images, sound and light that we had assembled on that roof‐turned‐ public garden for the occasion. This installation was titled “You are here”. There were no dancers this time: we invited the audience to take over the space and to take their time and people started dancing in front of the images... They sometimes spent more than an hour in the installation. Many things were decided for us and for our suite of work. The audience was very mixed, coming from all backgrounds, from the neighbourhood, in families... They did not really know where to stand: it was not a museum or gallery, not even a theatre, the artistic form was unique. This seemed to us to lend a certain levity to their behaviour, with no‐one asking themselves what they were supposed to understand. The people there took obvious pleasure from discovering the images and sounds of the surrounding city, effortlessly making connections between things. Since then, we have often asked ourselves about the hypothetical ratios between what must be defined and what can remain undefined, up to what moment things can be left un‐named, without ignoring that postulate that says that that which has no name does not exist! Through our work we revealed the qualities of public space that this site has, and without really intending to, we transformed ourselves into “developers of transient gardens”.

Architects and city planners have been very receptive of this work.

Since that date, we have conceived most of our installations in inhabited urban areas and have been very attentive to what can make up the quality of public space. For our interventions, we do not seek to put on an event in the spectacular sense of the word. We attempt to create poetic situations that catch the attention – sometimes in disconcerting ways – of passers‐by going about their daily lives in the city. Examining our use of public space is perhaps also an examination of our use of democracy, which brings us back to the question of the responsibility we each have to “inhabit the world” and to make a connection. What has happened recently in the Arab nations shows the point at which public space takes on uncertain forms with the intrusion of information technology, social networks, digital channels... And how citizens can work their way into public debate until they shake the structures of a society!

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In 2009, after ten years of taming unlikely connections to create our installations, we returned to the roof of La Friche la Belle de Mai in Marseille, which was undergoing renovations. The roof now found a use as a public space thanks to “a war” that was waged with the site developers.

D’ici là 2009‐2013 et au‐delà! is our latest project, one that is taking its time unfolding... The roof is now our workshop... In this unique space, we have set up a public, open‐air experimental workshop that should take us through to 2013 to the creation of a new multimedia installation.

This time around, we plan to make ourselves a part of the geography of the place. Wind, rain, sun and vegetation are the elements from which we hope to create our usual tools, allied with digital technologies for this future scenography. We do not prejudge what is going to happen, we do not plan. In this phase of exploration, we combine the knowledge and skills of landscapers, architects, researchers, engineers, private businesses... But also adventurous users and inhabitants. Together, we create a machine for sensory experiences, made from observations, cooperations, trial and error and adjustments. The ecological dimension of the project is a way of ceaselessly asking ourselves how we can think in new ways. We are artists, and it is through this lens that we approach all these questions. Can we sustain the idea of an experimental public space not set in a standardised or pre‐thought shape or model? The Friche, as a place of artistic exploration, can also be the ideal place to publicly put to the test the reality of the challenges of a new culture of urbanity.

September 2011

madeleine chiche and bernard misrachi undertake their artistic projects in groupedunes. Dancers and choreographers in the 1980s, they pursue reflections on space, movement and time by creating visual and auditory installations in situ where they examine the presence of spectators, their ways of reading and perceiving, their intimate relationships with the space. They are permanent residents of the Friche la Belle de Mai in Marseille.

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A Toolquiz Good Practice Questioning prejudices

“We wish to make all social issues debatable. We consider it the most important task of the museum. This is the case not only for our artistic policy but also for our employment policy”

The Dr Guislain Museum opened in September 1986. After thorough preparation, one attic of the psychiatric institute started to display the heritage of this type of care on a permanent basis. Today, a large part of the historic building built in 1857 has become a museum. In 1986, the interest in psychiatric heritage was still rather recent and modest. The history of psychiatry was regarded as ‘emotionally charged’. There was a sense of shame for certain old types of treatment and doubt whether the ‘institute’ was suitable as a model. Knocking patients out with sedatives was criticized. Looking back on mental healthcare’s past, discerning which motives had resulted in which solutions in the past, examining how certain topical discussions were carried out with an equal amount of verve, but sometimes with other words… those were matters in which few people were interested. It seemed as if mental healthcare did not want to thematise this link to its own history. The argument was that the present and topicality were burdening enough. We are delighted that we, without ignoring the abovementioned concerns and questions, are able to pay attention to the past of mental healthcare and its relationship to the present through the museum. We were convinced that this heritage‐based approach can be of major significance in the current debate in the world of care.

Studying the history of care is closely linked to our own history of the congregation of the Brothers of Charity, not only in Belgium but also internationally. The young congregation was part of the beginning of a more humane treatment of the mentally ill in the beginning of the 19th century with its founder Peter Joseph Triest. Later, there was cooperation with Professor Joseph Guislain and the construction of the first psychiatric institute in our country (1857). It is wonderful that the Dr Guislain Museum should be situated in this building. In the early days, the Brothers and doctors like Joseph Guislain put the first methods of treatment into practice: the so‐called ‘moral treatment’. However, the history of the psychiatric institute is not light; it is a history of seeking and not immediately finding. This is largely due to the complexity of mental illness. For instance, the optimistic humanism of the 19th century was confronted by the practice of overcrowded institutions: there was a great need, but adequate treatment was not evident and cure was unfortunately not self‐evident either. In the course of the second half of the 20th century, psychiatry was approached critically and the practice of mental healthcare underwent major changes. There was much discussion on ‘what is normal and what is abnormal’. This interesting development, a history of people and their ambitions, but also one of much suffering, can also be found in many objects in the museum’s collection.

For us, gathering objects that told the ‘story’ of mental healthcare was the first assignment. A museum gets its strength and significance from the wealth of its collection. Searching for objects, listing and describing them and making them accessible to the public by exhibiting them: these are the evident but not always easy tasks of a museum. This is certainly true for a museum focusing on a delicate subject like ‘what is mentally sane and what is not?’ What is a suitable treatment? What is the best way to organise things? Many of these questions are part of a broader debate: how does a society deal with the sick and the weak? Which contributions are provided from various scientific approaches – for instance the relation between a more biological psychiatry and a more social‐psychological approach? How open is the relationship between psychiatric care and society: how do people deal with the notion of mental illness and danger? Now, 25 years later, we have managed to compile a large collection. It is multi‐faceted, local as well as international, and includes medical care objects as well as testimonies of the public debate on psychiatry. The collection increasingly reflects the complexity of the history of psychiatric care. There are

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objects that are closely related to care, medical equipment, nursing objects, corresponding clothing, medical files, the important textbooks, the great authors. Yet with the increase of knowledge of the history of care the significance of, for instance, the ‘image’ came forward, the link with photography and film (from a didactic as well as an artistic point of view), the fascination of visual artists for the mentally ill, the artistic expression of psychiatric patients thanks to or despite their illness (a major collection of outsider art) and the approach of madness in non‐Western cultures.

The presentation is academically funded but its aspiration is to show the history of psychiatry as something that concerns us all. This is in line with the reality of many people and families: being mentally ill is now part of everyday reality for many. It is important that people should have this recognition: mental suffering is something that affects many, then and now. Besides our permanent exhibitions on the history of psychiatry and on outsider art, we organise several temporary exhibitions every year. The link with mental healthcare and the question of ‘what is normal and what is abnormal’ is always present. In 2009/2010, the exhibition From Memory. About Knowing and Forgetting focused on Alzheimer’s disease, last year we organised The Weighty Body. Fat or Thin, Vanity or Insanity on anorexia nervosa. The current exhibition Dangerously Young. Child in Danger, Child as Danger illustrates the contradictory position of children today in society: children should be protected, they become more ill (ADHD, autism) but on the other hand children are considered as a danger to society and to adults. The media informs us for instance on youth crime or on child soldiers. Through our temporary exhibitions we wish to make all social issues debatable. We consider it the most important task of the museum. This is the case not only for our artistic policy but also for our employment policy.

From the start of the museum in 1986 we incorporated social employment in our workings, starting with the employment of psychiatric patients from the psychiatric hospital Dr Guislain. Today social employment has become an important part of our employment policy. The majority of the welcoming staff consists of social employees and this is absolutely successful. Of course social employment has advantages and disadvantages. It demands a lot of guidance, but it can contribute in a great deal to the workings of the museum. For the implementation of the social employment the museum works together with different organizations: the VDAB, the Leerwerkbedrijf from the city of Ghent, the OCMW, The Ministry of Justice, the day clinic of the PC Dr Guislain and organisations who guide social employment. In our museum one person is responsible for the social employment. She is the contact person for the different organisations and selects the employees in consultation with the director. The responsible guides the social employees from the beginning on. They normally start with welcoming the visitors as guards in the museum rooms. They can also work at the reception, in the museum café or at receptions during evening visits. Some of them work in the library. Usually they start as guards and then slowly the responsible and colleagues can see what their capacities are, so they can be given supplementary tasks.

When possible the museum can employ them permanently and give them a contract. The museum always evaluates the work of the social employee in consultation with the cooperating organisation.

The keyword in the museumteam is thus ‘diversity’. Some staff members have a different cultural background, others have psychiatric or neurological problems or are physically handicapped. The museum strives to offer technical capacity building and job opportunities to a socially vulnerable group.

We also wish to stimulate social integration: through social employment they are able to work in a stable work surroundings and take part in social life. Moreover we want to contribute to the development of the neighbourhood by increasing the job opportunities in a disadvantaged area with a high degree of unemployment. The social employment has also a direct impact on the public, since they get in touch with a variety of people working in the museum. Social employment is an integral part of our museum workings and must be seen as an extension of our social task.

Patrick Allegaert & Yoon Hee Lamot The Dr Guislain Museum

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A Toolquiz Good Practice POTENS – Psychodrama on the Educational Stage

“Extremely important was the answer to the question about the influence of applied psychodrama techniques on basic skills acquired by the participants: creative expression, independence in learning and social competence.”

Psychodrama is mainly recognized as a powerful technique in therapy, although it has many applications in other disciplines concerned with personal and social growth. Psychodrama is a psychotherapeutic method and supports personal development. it provides a possibility to present experiences, problems, difficulties and internal conflicts in the form of a dramatisation. Adult education trainers are in constant search of effective ways to empower their students with competences essential to participate in social and working life, organize their own learning and express their ideas, experiences and emotions. The need to train these three competences is particularly acute in case of learners disadvantaged in the society because of their educational, behavioural and psychological shortcomings. Till 2008, there was little evidence of structured informed applications of psychodrama techniques in adult education in Europe, in spite of their proven potential to tackle the above issues in therapeutic contexts. There was indeed only one major event in this field financed by EU educational programs. In 2008, the Grodzki Theatre, a renowned polish NGO specializing in arts education of the disadvantaged, developed, under the Grundtvig Programme and with partners from Romania, Portugal, Cyprus, a two‐year project focused on psychodrama and adult education.

POTENS main goal was to work out a set of training techniques to support and improve teaching/learning processes, especially to empower adult students from marginalized social contexts to gain an insight into their own potential and develop social and personal competences accordingly, which put them in a stronger position in the society and the labor market. Particular emphasis was placed on work in so‐ called "sensitive" groups. The most important task of this project was the analysis of the specific usage of psychodrama, sociodrama and dramatherapy in adult education. The common aspects within those fields were tested in all of the partner countries, and performed on various levels: investigative (the analysis of the source texts, interviews with educators and therapists, a survey), by developing and implementing pilot projects for teachers and trainers who work with adults, as well as on a daily basis in the education of various groups of adult learners. The aim was to check whether the methods which were used in the therapy, connected with each person's potential for creativity, could contribute to diversification and to a general improvement of the already widely understood field of adult education. Extremely important was the answer to the question about the influence of applied psychodrama techniques on basic skills acquired by the participants: creative expression, independence in learning and social competence. The project embraced a vision of inclusive, tolerant society. Culture is seen as a vehicle in education – facilitating personal and social development of individuals and groups.

The implementation of the project resulted in gathering and publishing innovative approaches to creative adult education worked out in different national, social and cultural settings. The interface between the fields of psychodrama and adult education was explored with a view to raise professional qualifications of adult education trainers who teach transversal competencies of creative expression, learning to learn and social skills, in particular to those students who are at a disadvantage in their societies. The educators widely disseminated news methods connected with psychodrama in education.

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They used the knowledge and skills acquired during the workshops in their own trainings for the following groups of beneficiaries: patients of psychiatric hospital, teachers (various education levels), tutors in residential school, instructors of prevention programs, social workers, alcohol and drug addicts, administration staff and managers in a company, occupational therapists, nurses, doctors, midwives, psychologists, single mothers and mentally disabled women from a Care Centre. Additionally, project publications were distributed amongst different European institutions which manage social criticalities.

One of the aims of the project was to convince the adult educators and trainers from outside the partner organizations to implement the developed methodology as part of their educational programs. The project was based on partnership with many local institutions focused on the common goal: social integration of marginalized citizens. All project activities involved people from the local community – either as workshop participants or trainees of these participants. Participants of pilot workshops were recruited from many different fields: cultural centres, educational centres, rehabilitation institutions, non‐ governmental organizations, resocialization centres. Around 915 vulnerable adults took part in the courses implemented using psychodrama in education in Poland, Portugal, Cyprus and Romania.

The implementation of the project also contributed to creating a communication and cooperation platform spanning two professional fields: adult educators and psychotherapy. It participated in a global strategy for social cohesion, active citizenship, intercultural dialogue, gender equality and personal fulfillment, with a new methodology particularly focused on needs of socially vulnerable adult students.

Ars Cameralis Ars Cameralis is a Tool Quiz partner

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Transformation/ reappropriation

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“And, in time, these rhizomatic groups might reinforce ... democracy as a perpetual negotiation.”

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Rhizomatic and translocal cultures

Constantin Petcou

GLOBAL CRISES / LOCAL CRISES

In the twentieth century, cultural life was strongly concentrated in a few big cities and metropolises. Finding more individual liberties in urban environments than in small towns or rural areas, as well as more possibilities of economic support for their processes, artists and other creators preferred to live and work there. Moreover, artistic “communities” gradually appeared, encouraging an intense exchange and development of common values.

“International” artists (Dadaists, Lettrists, Situationists, etc.) contributed even more to this metropolitan cultural concentration with the effect of visibility on a very large scale. However, this international visibility, simultaneously taking hold in the economy and the social and political spheres (principally in parallel with the evolution of long‐distance transport and mass‐ media), became, through its power of communication, a vehicle for large scale domination. The local scale was gradually abandoned and its diverse values and cultural references likewise replaced by others that became established and interacted on a global scale. Through similar phenomena, economic life and local politics is now profoundly weakened following the dominance of large scale phenomena. At the local level, there has gradually ceased to be a significant active and creative role to play: local culture is simply a spectator of global culture.

The global has pushed the local into a consumerist position; the local has now become a consumer of the global. As Marc Augé underlined recently, “global colour is erasing local colour.

The local, transformed into images and decor, is the local in the colours of the global, the expression of the system.”1

The recent economic crisis, which is far from over, has only reduced even further the individual opportunities to find a social role and a future at local level. The local is becoming ever emptier of economic and social potential. In this context of globalised challenges, the reactivation of local dimensions and values is proving fundamental in allowing individuals to imagine and build their future and their identity. And the economic crisis must be resolved as a matter of urgency, before it provokes a major social crisis. Alain Touraine very clearly highlights a certain incapacity for action on this matter: “faced with the impressive (and at times threatening) bulk of the global economy, the world of social institutions no longer knows internal function or coherence.”2

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Marc Augé, Où est passé l’avenir ?, Panama edition, 2008, p.57 Alain Touraine, Après la crise, Du Seuil, 2010, pp.92‐93. A few pages earlier, Touraine states that “economic life and social life can only be saved together“(p.82). However, all the measures launched by the various governments and international bodies have only taken into account, until now, the protection of the banking system, that of the economy barely, and measures concerning the social crisis not at all.

Furthermore, this social crisis cannot be resolved from the top down, from the global level. The economic and ecological crises are global and the solutions to them must come from new global equilibriums; the social crisis might provoke, on the other hand, a recasting of society from the bottom up.

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GLOBAL REMAKES LOCAL

A series of cultural and social phenomena over the last decades allows me to make a quick analysis of the evolution of local cultural phenomena. I note, firstly, the increase in free time on a massive scale, a phenomenon due to changes in the way we work (industrialisation, unionisation, etc.), to increasing life expectancy and to economic imbalances temporarily favouring the populations of certain countries.

In parallel with this, there has been a cultural homogenisation due to certain aspects of globalisation: the role of “global educators” quickly attributed to stars promoted by channels like MTV, the impact on the behaviour of young people through fast‐food brands, clothes and other low cost mass produced products of the MacDonald’s variety, the explosion of social networks on the internet, addiction to video games and special effects cinema, etc. The effect of spatial deterritorialization produced by this cultural homogenisation is very well described by Marc Augé in his analyses on the operation and impact of a series of spaces that are identical from one continent to another, spaces that he defines as “non‐places”. This deterritorialization and weakening of local cultures is caused in part by the disappearance of the active role normally held by economic activities in the definition of local identities.1

Through the “renewal” and replacement of vanished local identities, but in fact seeking the commercial potential represented by mass free time, an “ex‐nihilo” industry manufacturing “centres of identity” has appeared. Beginning with the first Disneyland in 1955 and focusing on thrills and on putting on a show, “theme parks” appeared, starting in the United States, a country that had been among the first to enjoy this mass free time and lacking, due to its short history, places and regions with commercialisable cultural identities.2

The sequence of phenomena described above, intimately linked to the unequal relationship between local and global, has now become systemic. Hannah Arendt has stressed, since 1945, the irregular nature of the social and political effects of the crisis of culture: “the leisure industry is faced with gargantuan appetites and, since consumption uses up its merchandise, it must constantly produce new articles. In this situation, those who produce for the mass media are pillaging the entire domain of culture past and present”. And they make this material “so that it is easy to consume”.3

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In this vein, Anne Raulin notes : “following the economic crisis that touched by turns the coal, textile and metallurgy productions that in their time supported a whole culture – middle and working classes – and the pride of a whole region, the necessary redefinition of identities has shone the spotlight on this structure: its depth of heritage favours an exploitation for tourism “, cf. Anne Raulin, Anthropologie urbaine, Armand Colin, 2001, p.146 2 Accelerated by the development of rail networks, mass tourism appeared, beginning in Great Britain and the United States and spreading to all “developed” countries. And, with tourism, the theme park industry was then exported, with Disneyland and other such parks being built in various countries and continents.

3 Hannah Arendt, La crise de la culture, Galimard, 1972 (1954), pp.262‐265

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At the height of absurdity on the subject of “local and cultural strategy”, those countries “lacking” tourist potential due to their cultural tradition (nomadic, as in the case of Dubaï), are now making tremendous efforts to construct a modern cultural “identity”; despite the artificial nature, the consumerist superficiality and the unsustainability of their enterprise. This strategy succeeds, for the time being, in capturing a recently enriched population originating from countries undergoing big political and economic transformations, a population which is itself rootless. The nouveaux‐riches are attracted by fake local identities, “attractions” for a population with more and more “free time” and seeking light‐weight or even disposable identities, all the more so since they are seasonal and renewable from one year to the next.

We are referring to the replacement of popular culture by consumerist “entertainment”.1 The “local” is no longer a matter of identity, construction and experience, but of the show, of consumption and of entertainment; a consumerist local ready‐made “for free time”. In a precursory analysis, Hannah Arendt states: “perhaps the fundamental difference between society and mass society is that society wants culture, it values and devalues cultural things like social merchandise, uses and abuses them for its own egotistical ends, but does not ‘consume’ them. (...) Mass society, on the other hand, does not want culture, but leisure (entertainment)”.2

GLOBAL BIOPOWER AND BEYOND

What role and what function do local cultures have in this globalised context? What are the conditions that allow new cultural forms to emerge from territories homogenised by the ways of life and values propagated by the mass media? What level of visibility should we preserve for certain local phenomena in order not to alter their specific local and cultural forms? Is there an intermediary, translocal level that can be gradually instituted across different types of networks as a balance between the local and global levels? And, in this case, how could these translocal networks operate while preserving a significant degree of local autonomy?

What cultural and political challenges might be tackled by acting collectively on a translocal scale?

Carried by financial and media flows, globalisation leaves similar deep scars in most big cities and metropolises, but also in many other corners of the world: maritime ports, holiday villages, business quarters, industrial bases, theme parks, residential areas, etc. And let us not forget cinema, video games and internet portals.

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A telling detail: for some years, the Google news page in French included a “culture” section and the English version (US and UK) gave the same section the title “entertainment”. After a time, the French page changed. The “culture” section was “re‐translated” as “divertissement”. At first sight, we can deduce that it is a translation of an English term into French, from the global language to a local language. But, on closer examination of the recent change, we must note that what this change in terminology is really about is a strategic choice to favour certain types of merchandise, products with certain capital and devoted to a certain level of profit; a global strategy import at the heart of the local: the language itself.

2 H. Arendt, op. cit., pp.262‐265

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Where do these omnipresent scars of globalisation come from? The strategic role of the phenomena of globalisation means that their control has become a priority objective for centres of geopolitical and financial power. One of the examples in this sense is cited by Paul Virilio, who remarks that: “since the beginning of the 1990s, the Pentagon has believed that geostrategy can change the world overnight! In effect, for the American military leaders, the GLOBAL is the interior of a finite world, the finiteness of which poses numerous logistical problems. And the LOCAL is the exterior, the periphery, if not simply a vast suburb”.1 According to this view, the local has no current strategic value. But this is a view that is strictly limited to money and power, a view of the world that has completely omitted the cultural and social dimensions! It is a vision that serves a few private interests while forgetting the common values that alone can ensure the vitality of a society in the long term on both the local and global scales.2

A CRISIS OF CULTURAL BIODIVERSITY

The ecological crisis and the economic crisis are global crises. Nevertheless, in an indirect manner, the local has also been caught up in these global crises, both scales being connected.

The two crises, economic and ecological, are linked by production methods, by the types of energy used, by the depletion of resources, by the effects of pollution, etc. How can we locally find a way out of these crises produced on a global scale?

The reinforcement of the local by the economic involves other production methods, with the emphasis placed once more on the identity and subjectivity of the producer. Hence the importance of encouraging a renewal and diversification of local production methods (more artisanal, guaranteeing lasting quality, allowing a subjective appropriation of the work). The rebuilding of local economies must include ecological criteria from the start and interact in the medium term with the global dimension. From analyses focussing on the political and economic dimensions of society, Lefebvre already underlined in 1974 the importance of the vision of the ecology, in its fundamental capacity for recovery. He suggests that we should envisage another future, after that imagined by modernists, a future more in touch with nature, with its dynamics and constant rebalancing: “Marx’ nature figures among the productive forces. Today, the distinction is imposed, which was not introduced by Marx, between the domination and the appropriation of nature. Domination through technology tends towards non‐appropriation: destruction. (...) Today nature appears as both a source and a resource: a source of energy (indispensable, immense but not unlimited).”3

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Paul Virilio, La Bombe informatique : essai sur les conséquences du développement de l'informatique, Galilée, 1998, p19‐23 cf. Constantin Petcou, La ville ‐ Construction du Commun, in Rue Descartes, Collège International de Philosophie/PUF, n° 63/2009 3 Henri Lefebvre, La production de l’espace, Anthropos, 2000 (1974), p396 2

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Despite analyses and diagnoses like that of Lefebvre, the Club de Rome and the first IPCC reports, the public political powers, under pressure from the big global economic players, have been slow and reticent to acknowledge the reality of the global economic crisis and its connection with human economic activities. For example, it was only very recently that the “source and resource” dimension of nature was recognised as essential by both economic and ecological approaches.1

Recognising the fundamental importance of nature’s capacity for recovery and its crucial role in economic activities themselves, means also according all this importance to the protection and conservation of biodiversity. With the exception of large nature reserves, this capacity for protection and recovery has been partly preserved by avoiding utilitarian and reductionist land management, in the cracks and on the uncontrolled edges of the administrative logic that reduces nature to directly useable plants. These cracks and edges sheltering biodiversity are defined by Gilles Clément as the Third Landscape: “a place of refuge for diversity. Everywhere else it is hunted”.2 In a similar manner, in its diverse instances, the local can ensure lasting protection for cultural “biodiversity”, a point of departure towards a balance between economic and ecological criteria. It is this cultural biodiversity that will be capable of ensuring the recovery of local life in all its richness.3

LOCAL PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION

This role as a “refuge” for the biodiversity of projects, groups and ways of life, over the long term, could regenerate the economic and ecological equilibrium at a local level, before subsequently interacting at the global level. On the basis of an ecological understanding or reality, Gilles Clement declares “that we will put ourselves on a path (...) towards ‘deglobalisation’, that is to say, localised production and consumption of goods. This will not prevent our having an extended economy at the global level, but it must be organised at local level.”4 It is a matter of reinitiating local production and consumption cycles, while taking into account ecological and economic cycles at different levels.

It is at the local level, too, that we can make the qualities that have vanished from current ways of life (conviviality, sharing, exchange, solidarity) reappear, by also including these qualities in production methods. As Ivan Illich states in his analyses: “by conviviality, I understand the opposite of industrial production. Each of us is defined by relationships with others and the environment and by the body of tools we use. (...) at the two extremes, the dominant tool and the convivial tool.”5

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see especially Cradle to cradle by Michael Braungart and William McDonough, Vintage, 2009 Gilles Clément, Manifeste du Tiers paysage, Sujet/Objet, 2004, p.13 3 See a short online presentation on certain experiences leading to the implementation of new ways of life and new forms of work and sociability: “we recover, filter and use water from the roof. There are no flush toilets and no sewerage system. We have electricity, telephones, use computers, are connected to the internet, have cars and bikes (but no television).” cf. http://beauchamp24.wordpress.com and: “Terres Communes is a unique form of collective, ethical land ownership guaranteeing land use that is mindful of ecological and social values. It is a concrete tool for the defence of subsistence agriculture, for making our projects sustainable and for long‐term protection from property speculation.“ cf www.cravirola.com 4 Gilles Clément, Toujours la vie invente – Réflexions d’un écologiste humaniste, L’Aube, 2008, p47 5 Ivan Illich, La Convivialité, Le Seuil, 1973, p28 2

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This type of work, which can be reintroduced at local level, is neither competitive not accumulative, but cooperative, based on exchange and sharing.1

In attempting to explore the various forms of resistance to the homogenisation caused by globalisation, we have visited a series of projects in different regions of Europe which hold in common ways of life that question stereotypes and a sharing of authentic values with local roots. We have been able to establish, firstly, that the local is not a quality linked forcibly to isolation. Projects with a strong local dimension can appear in urban environments, resisting or escaping from the control and planning of the administration and of urbanists. The existence of these places has also been able to benefit, at times, from the goodwill of public powers towards this type of projects.

Nevertheless, we have observed that the majority of local cultural phenomena usually appear in marginal, remote, rural areas, for the simple reason of being able to be located in places that are accessible in economic terms; places in which the price of renting or buying is still affordable, having escaped, for various reasons, from widespread property speculation that has spread to even the last plots of agricultural land.

At times, we have been able to observe a certain exhaustion of these pioneering groups in their progress, conflict situations due to the reduced numbers of many teams, the fragility of “micro‐social models” put in place (in comparison with contemporary western norms: access to health care, social security, etc.). The existence of groups that have been working for more than 15 years, which have succeeded in reviving projects through new core structures or which have truly developed their project with new people and new initiatives, is remarkable. Some groups find a second wind in the development of local and regional cooperation networks.

TRANSLOCAL NETWORKS AND TRANSVERSE COMMUNITIES

We highlight the fact that neither economy nor ecology nor cultural phenomena can be reduced and limited to strictly local forms and manifestations. By setting up networks linking identities that harbour strong local roots and that remain partly autonomous, forms of rhizomatic organisation make up the translocal as an intermediary level between the local and the global, a polymorphic and heterogeneous network. It is a level that favours multiplicity and subjectification, exchange and heterogenesis, which should be fundamental in the emergence and development of authentic cultural phenomena. On the other hand, even with an extremely localised way of life, each of us today is immersed in a reality that potentially has a translocal dimension. As Mulder remarked: “on average, a school today admits students of 26 different

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The new economic models are often spontaneous and thrown together, at least at the start, as much as they are rare and difficult to maintain.

Fascinated by the first hackers who, like Richard Stallman, were profoundly attached to an ethic of sharing and created the concept of open source software and copyleft (along the way setting up Linux and Wikipedia), Gorz finds in their way of working and collaborating an approach for which “the work no longer appears as work but as full development of the [personal] activity itself. (...) The hacker is the emblematic figure of this appropriation/suppression of work. (...) It was hackers who invented this anti‐economy that is Linux and copyleft (...). The hackers (...) are a part of the sea of ‘dissidents of digital capitalism’, as Peter Glotz said. (...) jobbers and downshifters who prefer to earn a little and have more time to themselves” cf. André Gorz, Écologica, Galilée, 2008, pp21‐23

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nationalities. Each city harbours residents of 95 different nationalities, concentrated in specific neighbourhoods of course, but for the most part spread right across the urban area. All these nationalities and all these sub‐groups, which are not always understood by ‘outsiders’, ‘act out’ their own cultures (...) Nobody has only one culture anymore; everybody participates in a multiplicity of ‘cultures’.”1

This belonging to several territories and several levels (through multiculturalism, superimposed time‐frames, etc.), may constitute a bed for the appearance of new cultures where territorial levels meet. These multiple roots also constitute the condition for the emergence of new societies where different contemporary cultures come together: diasporic societies, communities and networks of artists, etc.

The local has begun to be marked and slowly changed by the appearance of translocal networks: heterogeneous rhizomes that make the appearance of multiple identities possible. As Deleuze and Guattari suggest, “always having multiple inputs is perhaps one of the most important characteristics of the rhizome”.2 These multiple inputs are essential for rhizomatic subjectivity; multiple causes made up of diverse identities and equally, of diverse distances. As Latour states, “networks – or rhizomes – allow not only the distribution of action but also the detachment and separation of things that are close together and, conversely, the uniting of things that are far apart.”3

Distance and closeness play a leading role in the definition of rhizomatic networks.

Carrying a specific identity, even where this is multiple, the collectives I have encountered in particular local and cultural contexts often function through networks linking groups that are similar but geographically far apart. Distance is no longer a handicap in the creation of networks, in comparison with affinity, shared values and similar paths. Certainly, these networks appear more easily at the regional, national and international levels, compared with the strictly local level.

The rhizome thus constructs an identity that is in equal measures a community of mixed subjectivities and a “distance community”.4 The rhizome is a community of different identities and distances linked by transversality; the rhizome is constructed as a “transverse community”, a hybrid tissue of multiple identities rooted in heterogeneous contexts, connected through exchanges, cooperation and the distances between these identities.

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Arjen Mulder, TransUrbanism, in TransUrbanism, V2_NAI publishers, 2002, p8 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Capitalisme et schizophrénie 2 – Mille plateaux, Minuit, 1980, p20 Bruno Latour, FAKTURA de la notion de réseaux à celle d’attachement, cf. http://www.bruno‐latour.fr/articles/article/076.html 4 Jacques Rancière, Aux bords du politique, La fabrique, 1998, p91 e.s.

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RHIZOMATIC BELONGING AND FUTURE

Which types of layout make it possible to establish and operate these transverse communities over the long term? Which types of connections allow the heterogeneous identities that make them to be linked in a flexible manner? Continuing the thinking of Deleuze and Guattari, based on a distinction between the concepts of molar and molecular, Lazzaro discerns that: “the molar layout is at the origin of what Deleuze and Guattari call ‘hard segmentarity, a dichotomic segmentarity. The molecular, on the contrary, (...) constitutes what Deleuze and Guattari call ‘supple segmentarity’, a differential segmentarity. The molar or major consists of states that reproduce a situation by fixing the possibilities in dualisms; the molecular or minor consists of futures that pluralise the possibilities.”1 It is this supple segmentarity that allows a plurality of futures, which is necessary for the construction of transverse communities and, therefore, for exploring the possibilities of local reconstruction.

Thanks to accrued social and cultural diversity, cities maintain local potential, which may be further amplified if they are crossed with rhizomatic collective cultures. The complexity and richness of the city allows us to constantly enrich social relationships, to experience the unexpected, to maintain the potential for an open and non‐linear future. As Ulf Hannerz notes, “in the city, some of the most important relationships are those one does not yet have”.2 Cultures and rhizomatic groups can further amplify this “potential future”.

In a society marked by the difficulty of access to individualised identities (due to a social system that restricts us to transitory, intermittent and unstable situations), the porosity and openness of certain rhizomatic projects opens up the possibility of the existence of subjectivities defined by affiliation; to a group, a project, a way of life.

This transverse community, structured in a rhizomatic and collaborative manner, corresponds to what Gabriel Tarde considers to be a fundamental dimension of the social sphere: “society, in effect, is ‘the reciprocal possession, under extremely varied forms, of everything by everyone’”.3 Going against some current mentalities, affective social relationships, integral to transverse communities, can restructure society without weakening individual freedoms.4

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Maurizio Lazzarato, Le gouvernement des inégalités – Critique de l’insécurité néolibérale, Amsterdam, 2008, p12 Ulf Hannerz, Explorer la ville – Éléments d’anthropologie urbaine, Minuit, 1983 (1980), p298 3 Gabriel Tarde, Monadologie et sociologie, Les Empêcheurs de penser en rond, 2001, p85, citation by Maurizio Lazzarato, Puissance de l’invention – La Psychologie économique de Gabriel Tarde contre l’économie politique, Les Empêcheurs de penser en rond, 2002, p353 4 cf. the work of Bruno latour on <networks of attachemnts>and that of Maurizzio Lazzarato on the thinking of Gabriel Tarde 2

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HETEROGENEOUS DISCOURSE

How might communication be carried out within translocal rhizomes? How can transverse communities be represented without homogenising them>

To describe the rhizome and the translocal, we must make a radical discursive change in the relationship between the parties represented and the description of the overall process. We might be inspired by the geographers who tried to restructure their discipline by taking as their objective to no longer represent the Earth considered globally, and thus to found “chorography (that) has as its objective the study of partial realities”.1 We may thus move from a global representation of local projects to a “chorographic” representation that is more attentive to the specificities of each party.

In a similar way, for a complete rhizome, we must balance the representation of the network and of the participating collectives. We would come close to the collective, transverse and mutualised discursive methods developed recently in collective and evolutive writing projects of the Wikipedia type, but with true collaborations and exchanges. Beyond its local motivations and objectives, rhizomatic discourse constitutes a discursive “creative common”. To make this a reality, we must link up different, even contradictory elements. Guattari underlines the importance of an affective background in order to achieve this heterogeneous discourse, in a similar manner to that used successfully by Deligny, who, thanks to his experience in teaching, “constructed a collective economy of desire connecting persons, actions, economic and relational systems, etc.2

Beyond its a‐centricity, the rhizome is characterised by a lack of boundaries. The presence of cultural rhizomes in urban environments can contribute to democratic life through their very structure and operation. As Richard Sennet states, “most city plans currently used in teaching favour the concept of boundaries, both for legal and social definition. (...) I want to argue that this situation is not democratic. It pushes energy out of cities by sealing in the differences of each party.” “How can we replace these boundaries with borders?” asks Richard Sennet, for whom, in contrast with boundaries, borders have substance and welcome diversity.3

Sennet continues by specifying is interest in “frontier conditions between communities. (...) Frontiers may be of two types. One type is a border. The other is a boundary. A border is an area of interaction in which thing meet and cross over.4 “The problem is of knowing how to act to transform spaces into living borders. (...) If we look at the membrane/wall of a cell there are two conditions it must fulfil; it must be resistant and it must be porous.”

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Anne Cauquelin, Le site et le paysage, Quadrige/PUF, 2002, p80 Félix Guattari, La révolution moléculaire, Encres/Recherches, 1977, p172 Richard Sennett, Democratic Spaces, in Hunch, n°9/2005, Berlage, p46 4 ibid., p45 2 3

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Rhizomes can allow us to adopt this resistance and porosity; it is a matter of taking steps towards a constitution that will allow the constructions of the rhizomes themselves. And, in time, these rhizomatic groups might reinforce, through their daily operation, democracy as a perpetual negotiation.1 And it is perhaps this rhizomatic democracy that might find a way out of the crisis that is behind all of the current crises: the political crisis. The rhizome is thus a space for political (re)learning.

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cf. Jacques Rancière, Aux bords du politique, La Fabrique, 1998, p.80 : "Lyotard’s analysis returns to positivity the various figures of suspicion concerning democracy. Thus he reads the opposite in the platonic condemnation of democratic indecision and lack of limits. He values the idea of democracy as a bazaar."

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The designer creating a new modernity

Vincent Guimas

The “Creative Industries” were born at the beginning of the 2000s under Tony Blair’s governance in Great Britain through a redefinition by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), based on intellectual property. The creative industries unite all “the industrial sectors that have their origins in individual creativity, skill and talent and that offer potential for the creation of wealth and jobs through the support and exploitation of intellectual property”.1 They are defined by several sectors of economic activity: architecture, publicity, film and video, radio and TV, music and shows, live performances, arts and antiquities, fashion, publishing (books, press), video games, software, digital publishing, design and crafts. While the “Creative Industries” are based on the exploitation of intellectual property, they are part of a wider field that also includes agriculture, health and textiles, that of “the immaterial economy”2, a vision of the future of the globalised capitalist economy3. Urban development statisticians claim that the creative industries have a tendency to cluster in territories where their vital activities are concentrated.4 From the establishment of territorial roots for “knowledge” and of the need to create competitive centres with concentrations of intellectual property creation, the concepts of “Creative Economy”, “Creative Class” and “Creative Cities” were born in the second half of the decade.

Developed by Richard Florida (an American urbanist whose preachings had a strong televangelist flavour), these theories have known surprising success during the recent years of crisis and have been a part of the widespread enthusiasm for creativity as a new urban resource. Richard Florida’s concept of “creative economy” is based on the exploitation of the cultural capital of a location as a motor for economic growth. According to him, the importance of cities can be measured as a function of the creativity they foster, of their taste for technology5 and of their level of tolerance of marginal lifestyles or homosexuality. Florida

Cf. UK Government, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), Creative industries, Mapping document, 1998 & 2001.

The economy has changed. In a few years, a new component has become established as a motor driving the growth of economies: the immaterial. During the post‐war boom, economic success essentially rested on wealth of raw materials, manufacturing industries and the volume of material capital each nation possessed. Of course, this is still true. But it is less and less so. Today, true wealth is not concrete, but abstract. Not material but immaterial. This however gives room for innovation, for the creation of concepts and production of ideas that has become the essential competitive advantage. Material capital has been succeeded, in the vital criteria of economic dynamism, by immaterial capital or, to put it another way, the capital of talents and knowledge.” Report of the Commission on the Immaterial Economy, Maurice Lévy and Jean‐Pierre Jouyet, Ministry for the Economy, Finance and Industry, 2006.

3 In his book “L’immatériel” in 2003, André Gorz analysed the exploitation of grey matter and accumulated knowledge. He established that once the intellectual work of creation was supplied, the objects resulting from it (drugs, agricultural seeds, software, records, etc.) may be reproduced in large numbers at a very low cost. One can understand why international economic policy (within the framework of numerous international agreements such as the WHO’s ADPIC‐TRIPS agreements, must therefore define a series of “partitions”, limiting the possibilities for open exploitation of knowledge by just anybody. The firms concerned took steps to limit the ability to reproduce work or to make people pay high prices by imposing their power of monopoly over the intellectual creation. This policy of monopoly is largely sustained by rich nations, which have often relocated their industrial workforce but which intend to remain large exporters of intellectual property.

4 One therefore sees that the establishment of the French creative industries is very strong around the capital, not uniformly spread out over the country: the Paris and Hauts‐de‐Seine departments between them housed more than three quarters of the effective employees in the sector in 2007. Paris is home to 43% of the effective employees, Hauts‐de‐Seine 33%. Les Yvelines and Seine‐Saint‐Denis occupy the third and fourth positions respectively with a little over 6% each, ahead of Val‐de‐Marne (4.1%), L’Essonne (3.3%), Seine‐et‐Marne (2.6%) and Val d’Oise (2%). Les industries créatives en Ile‐de‐France, Institute of Urban Development for the Ile‐de‐France Region, March 2010.

5 A techno‐enthusiasm originating in part in that form of entrepreneurial ecstasy that characterises the beginnings of the internet (before the bursting of the “bubble” at the beginning of the 2000s and the emergence of a series of monopolies such as Google) and that has led the multitude of offshoots of the first wave to invest in web 2.0, Free Culture and digital gadgets.

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maintains that these two elements tie in with economic growth and culturally “trendy” towns, allowing the attraction of new members of the creative class, future producers of intellectual property. All this is summarised in the expression “technology, talent, tolerance” and in the five indexes identifying creative cities: indexes of high technology (percentage exports of goods and services linked to high technology), of innovation (number of patents per inhabitant), of gays, as representative of tolerance (percentage of gay households), of “bohemians” (percentage of artists and creators) and of talent (percentage of the population holding at least A Levels or equivalent). Florida’s concept of a “creative class” does however have blurred contours and jumbles together scientists, engineers, university lecturers, novelists, artists, people in show‐ business, actors, designers, architects, the great thinkers of modern society and professionals in “high knowledge intensity” sectors (new technologies, finances, legal counsel, etc.).1 All that unites them is a taste for cultural consumption in a broad sense.2

Which economy are we heading for?

But the creative economy, also bogged down in short‐term variables, continues designating new champions of innovation, among whom the designer has a choice place. The designer is treated as a magical mechanism for his ability to combine varied skills to imagine the objects or services of tomorrow, as Alain Cadix explains “The profession is at the confluence of aesthetics, technology, economy and sociology”3. Jean‐René Talopp, director of Strate College, also reminds us that “designers achieve key positions in industry” and no longer “merely embellish the product”4 but intervene “much further upstream, in the design phase itself.”

These new magicians of industry, supposed to bring together the paradigms of a society in motion, are however always driven by markets incapable of combining wealth and well‐being, desires and values. The city is exhausted by the rhythms of hyper‐standardised consumption in which public space is confused with the MegaMall.

The new face of commitment

The time has come for creators to “assume their responsibility and create links between human activities, from the economy to politics, from science to religion, from education to behaviour, in brief all parts of the social fabric”5. Some of them have already crossed the Rubicon of commitment to freedom on the margins of this partition of the creative city. Elsewhere, we can observe a convergence of the worlds of architecture and design over this responsibility, this

« La “classe créative” existe‐t‐elle ? », Alain Bourdin, Revue Urbanisme n°344, September‐October 2005.

Despite Florida’s prolific rhetoric, there is little “tolerance” in the “Creative Cities” for popular or alternative lifestyles such as those of activists for a de‐economisation of life (demanding a less expensive life, practising parasitism, militating for shrinkage). Richard Florida’s 3 Ts in reality promote the Bobostan of “arty peak‐oil yuppies” with a penchant for mobility, a high‐tech lifestyle and a high level of expenses in their day‐to‐day lives. It is thus merely a new strategy in the well‐known process of gentrification of urban centres. To read more on this subject: “Phantoms of the City”, Konrad Becker, Futur en Seine 2009, Ewen Chardronnet, Cap Digital, 2010.

3 th Extract from Olivier Rollot’s article “Le design, c'est plus que de l'art !”, Le Monde, 15 September 2011 4 “Le design, c'est plus que de l'art !” op.cit 5 Extract from the manifesto Progetto Arte de Michelangelo Pistoletto, 1994 1 2

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desire to accompany and to make autonomous the user‐inhabitant. Proselytised by the DIY technique to access the public debate, collectives such as EXYZT (fr)1, Raumlabor (de)2, Umschichten (de)3, Basurama (es)4 and PUblicworksgroup (uk)5 are undertaking projects that have an impact in multiple fields, beginning with concern for the environment. They have turned to small innovations operating at local level, and particularly towards those put forward by the creative communities: “Groups who decide together, within a neighbourhood or street, to implement a solution for themselves, to resolve their mobility problems, for example, or to buy vegetables cooperatively from a local farm of which they know all the ins and outs...”6.

These experiences lead one to consider non‐finite habitation in or use of the city to reintroduce the unexpected and thence freedom in its habitation or use. Thanks to their project of Evolutive Theatre, the group of anthropologists/designers Bureau d’Etude7 has seized this way of testing norms to rethink cohabitation between living beings in the urban environment.

Micro‐industrialising the city

This revolution heralded by digital manufacture8 offers the designer the opportunity to participate in the construction of a new modernity. By re‐integrating territory as a priority field of application, the designer becomes the motor of an ecosystem in which a production that is adapted to and harnessed for the context is combined with a diffusion of knowledge. This is possible without confusing the status of those who harness and diffuse the technique, the entrepreneur designers, with users who demand both a service and a better knowledge of the product or service of which they are partaking. At the heart of this society, production/consumption would no longer be exclusively weighed by the logistics of distribution for manufactured products, but rebalanced by a multitude of specialised and very flexible local productions, thanks to creative micro‐industry. By combining the technical and life skills of the artisan with certain segments and models of industrial production (understanding of time/production ratios), these places guide communities in the sustainable development of their local experiences. Within each of them, supported in part by the authorities, the designer supports the automatic manufacture processes by making his workshop available. Each community would give value to these innovations that are pooled by sharing “source code”. This concept refers to open source software that allows any person to compile, modify, copy and distribute the results of collective research. Within the framework of production of objects, the “source code” gives access to design choices plans and production methods and would be distributed within the knowledge economy. This type of economy would allow the re‐ socialisation of objects through the removal of abstraction.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/exyzt/ http://www.raumlabor.net/ http://www.umschichten.de/ 4 http://www.basurama.org/ 5 http://www.publicworksgroup.net/ 6 Extract from an interview with François Jégou by Perrine Boissier for www.strabic.fr/ François Jégou is a designer and set up Strategic Design Scenarios (SDS) 7 The group Bureau, Carte Blanche in EVENTO in Bordeaux. Proposal of “Evolving Theatre” to rethink cohabitation between living beings in the urban environment.” http://evento2011.com/artistes‐invites/bureau‐detudes/ François Brument, Carte Blanche, VIA 2012.

8 Factory @ Home: The Emerging Economy of Personal Fabrication”, December 2010. Study carried out by The Science and Technology Policy Institute and commissioned by the Executive Office of the President.

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In 2009, the Ars Longa1 organisation developed and trialled a micro‐industry scenario in collaboration with designers, local authorities and communities of social, cultural and economic agents. The Nouvelle Fabrique project devised with the agency Studio Lo is a toolbox with practical potential destined to guide a reflection on the reorganisation of the industrial world brought about by unification of the digital channel. It differs from other experiments such as FabLabs in the commercial research it carries out on new economic models and in its capacity to devise and put into practise unique usage scenarios that are specific to the digital model. The focus has shifted from use of machines to use induced by machines through the expertise of resident, associate or guest designers. Their contributions to the life of the neighbourhood may take an experimental or a more commercial form depending on the territory explored. The Nouvelle Fabrique project is a “micro” contribution compared to the extent of fields of action and their economic and social potential, but it allows us to observe the different mechanisms in play and to evaluate some of their consequences.

A field for action

By joining forces with a neighbourhood, identified by a multitude of local agents and their structural and social configuration, the designer/producer becomes a catalyst for a social and creative dynamism by working together at several levels of action: by calling upon the views of inhabitants, young and not so young, in the manufacture process and therefore encouraging their autonomy, through learning about mechanical tools and equipment, about self‐build architecture, by stimulating the creative process and access to knowledge through projects linking research, education and creative practices and by promoting the culture of the connection and of social diversity (that of the garden, whether kitchen or botanical, of the culture of meals in social settings and at home, of speech and dialogue, of guidance towards a better life socially and in terms of health, as with all occasions for meetings that favour mixing of audiences) and by developing cultural innovation projects with a lasting social and ecological impact.

Through observation, discussion and field tests, the designer crafts new lines of strength at the level of a neighbourhood. Able to identify and celebrate what already exists (social, cultural, physical), he or she can generate suitable strategies for innovation in development and improve the urban context by seeking to nourish its inherent diversity and creativity.

A new social and economic fabric, attentive to the rhythms of global industry, is possible at a a territorial level. It will be initiated, carried or guided by the interventions of artists, designers and architects in a process of cooperation around big urban development operations through large or small scale programmes and in a constant dialogue with inhabitants, urbanists and public powers.

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http://www.arslonga.fr.

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A Toolquiz Good Practice Recyclart – Transforming urban dislocation

“An urban project inspired by the city around it, a project that will allow a place and its inhabitants to be put back on the map in Brussels and that creates a social and cultural connection. The team is open to initiatives and takes charge of the creation of projects, systems, methods and concepts connecting individuals, the media and the means by which both express themselves in a productive manner.”

The Recyclart organisation was created as part of European project the Urban Pilot Programme1. Starting in 1996, the planning department of the City of Brussels devised the project for Brussels in collaboration with other services. It was submitted to the European Commission in answer to a call for projects from the European Regional Development Fund. The central aim of the project was the repurposing of the site of the Bruxelles‐Chapelle station and its surroundings, which for years had been a source of damaging urban dislocation in the city centre. The repurposing was made a reality through the renovation and redevelopment of the station site and public spaces through the development of cultural and socioeconomic activities relating to the creativity of the citizen. This led to the formation of the Recyclart organisation, which began undertaking the project with a professional team. From the start, the project was closely linked to its location and directly rooted in the surrounding neighbourhood and city. The transformation the urban dislocation caused by the Nord‐Midi junction into a living connection, the assurance of a strong link between the various neighbourhoods surrounding it and the creation of ties and an identity belonging to the inhabitants are the aims that the organisation pursued and continues to pursue. Today, Recyclart is an artistic laboratory, a place of creation, a training centre for jobseekers, a place where cultures come together and are spread, an agent in the public urban space, a place for meetings and experimentation, but also an artistic and creative platform. The whole is made up of autonomous but collaborating parties who participate in a common dynamism. It is made up of three entities: an Arts Centre ensuring quality artistic programming recognised by the French and Flemish communities; a craft production centre named Fabrik made up of three workshops linked to a back‐to‐ work programme (joinery, metalwork and infrastructure management); a bar‐restaurant in the old station cafeteria, also linked to a back‐to‐work programme.

Recyclart incorporates all stages of the artistic process: creation, notably through the provision of space for young artists, diffusion through a quality programme and production through the concrete realisation of design pieces, theatre sets of fine art installations. There is no hierarchy between disciplines and art that is accessible to both experts and the public is championed. Recyclart emphasises the small, the fragile, the vulnerable and the original. That is why a significant part of their aims concern subcultures.

Recyclart defines art as a political tool that makes us reflect on our society and aids in the construction of, on the one hand, real social cohesion in the city, and on the other, a bridge between different cultures, social classes and universes. Moreover, the project is integrated in the dynamics of the social economy. In this sense, the organisation responds to the dominant economic discourse on “the cultural industries” and on the “creative city” with a more local and united vision. In effect, Recyclart engages, within the framework of a back‐to‐work programme, around fifty people, making up different technical teams (joinery, infrastructure management, hospitality).

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The European Commission’s Urban Pilot Programme, aimed at supporting innovation in urban regeneration and planning within the framework of the broader Community policy for promoting economic and social cohesion. (http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/urban2/urban/upp/src/frame1.htm)

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The project allows the necessary opportunities to be created for each to achieve their own career goals rather than moulding them to the job market. Thanks to the skills they acquire during their time at Recyclart, they develop their creative activity and talent. Recyclart is convinced that the connection between economy and culture can only be made at a territorial level, which is why the project has a very local vision and concentrates its activities on the inhabitants of the neighbourhood and surrounding areas. Finally, one of the organisation’s principal objectives is to recreate a coherent and attractive living space in the neighbourhood. The local community is involved notably through artistic programmes and the development of public spaces carried out by Recyclart. The organisation strives to achieve this objective through diverse landmark initiatives which have the aim of creating a neighbourhood identity (neighbourhood festivals, concerts, exhibitions, photo sessions, diverse cultural activities, etc.). A tight bond has been created between the organisation and the neighbourhood’s inhabitants.

Its geographic location means that Recyclart is also the link between the city centre and inner‐city residential areas. Recyclart itself has become a junction where multiple paths cross. An urban project inspired by the city around it, a project that will allow a place and its inhabitants to be put back on the map for Brussels and that creates a social and cultural connection. The organisation believes that in a society that is more and more divided by skills, languages or communities, it is vital to work transversely and to act locally in order to move forward the city of tomorrow. Certainly, Recyclart draws its inspiration from the daily reality of Brussels, a reality that is fed by numerous cultures and different linguistic communities, cast in a local, national and international light. The team is open to initiatives and takes charge of the creation of projects, systems, methods and concepts connecting individuals, the media and the means by which both express themselves in a productive manner.

Although the organisation does not aim to resolve all society’s problems, since it stems first and foremost from the cultural sector, through its initiatives and activities it contributes to social cohesion and to the creation of a neighbourhood identity. It allows interaction between several development domains: territorial development, economic development, cultural development and finally social development.

Today, the organisation is supported by the City of Brussels, the Bruxelles‐Capitale Region, the Communauté Française de Belgique, the Vlaamse Gemeenschap and the Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie.

The Wallonia Brussels Federation The WBF is a Toolquiz partner

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Trajectory/responsibility

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“This means professional practices have had to evolve, creating the conditions for a dialogue between the worlds of the economy, industry, research, social agents and education...”

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Les Articulteurs cluster – A socioeconomic ecosystem serving the territory

Alban Cogrel and Marco Felez

“The foolish man speaks of the past, the wise man of the present, the madman speaks of the future, so be a little mad” – Sun Tzu

How can we think about Europe in the world, or more specifically, in a world undergoing profound transformation? How can we think about the culture connection and Europe? Today, there are various models, but we need to reinvent and to experiment with new paths of action in the face of the profound transformations in our society. These new development models for what makes up society must accord each person a place, with increased empathy and solidarity, and must be devised based on the realities of interdependence. The social and united economy in these great principles poses questions on the place of the human being and on living well together, as well as new ways of operating. Culture must play a major role in these paradigm changes and societal transformations. Creativity and innovation rest more than ever on the issues connected to the evolution of public cultural policy. This requires our capacity to learn to work together with the support of diverse partners from very different backgrounds, finding common ground for future collaborations. How can we qualify what produces this wealth?

Which territorial resources do we have at our disposal? How can we evaluate the effects produced by these new approaches just asking to be explored? What type of economy will we have in a tomorrow where each of us must find our place faced with the rarefaction of our planet’s energy resources? Challenges for the planet, but in particular for the west and Europe.

The cluster of companies “Les Articulteurs” was created following a trial carried out within the framework of the European programme EQUAL1, by a group of third sector agents, live performance companies, cultural establishments, local authorities, disability institutes and the regional Public Interest Group (PIG). Wanting to place culture at the heart of local development and resting on the novel concept of “Cultural Enterprise Territories”, this trial was based on three objectives: to create cultural economy, to fight exclusion and to make culture accessible to all. In 2006, before the first confirmed results, the pioneer members of this project decided to form an organisation, “Les Articulteurs”, in order to continue the progress begun in the Equal project.

1

EQUAL is an ESF Community Initiative Programme fighting all forms of discrimination and inequality in the world of work and employment in Europe. The European Social Fund, through the Community Initiative Programme EQUAL, encourages and supports experimental actions.

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The core of Les Articulteurs is made up of nine social economy structures employing 466 salaried workers in the equivalent of 150 full time posts. The principal field of activity of the cluster of businesses is that of socio‐economic insertion through the development of innovating practices in the cultural field. The founding members of Les Articulteurs have in effect given themselves the objectives of: ‐ on the one hand, the design, realisation and diffusion of innovative and mutualised cultural actions creating economic development and social connections and, ‐ on the other, the cooperative implementation of a novel concept bringing together culture, economy and social connections: the “cultural enterprise territory”, valuing people and the heritage of an area, with a view to reinforcing its attractiveness. It therefore develops its action around the mutualisation of human and logistical measures1, cultural and heritage actions2, the creation of service companies3, the company “Label Séance”, a system for the transfer of capital and accumulated knowledge, education and research activity and action research into culture as an economic resource for the territory (cf., diagram below). It is a member of transnational and transregional partnerships: Belgium (Brussels Zinneke Parade4, Mons Ecomons), Northern Ireland (Belfast – Beat Initiative5), Poland (Nowa Huta Cultural Centre), Italy (Bologna, Associazione Oltre6) or even England (Norwich, Tin House). Les Articulteurs pose as innovative economic actors, putting new applications on the market through their accumulated knowledge and their own systems. The combined activity of the nine partners of the project generated 8.7 million euros in equivalent turnover in 2008, mobilised 600 volunteers to get involved and reached an audience of more than 250,000 spectators and/or people. Les Articulteurs were declared the winners of the Sélection Nationale des grappes d’Entreprises in 2010 by DATAR7 (Délégation à l’Aménagement du Territoire et à l’Attractivité Régionale).

Source : A.COGREL, M.FELEZ, 2011 Grouping employers, mutualised equipment and recycling of materials Local events, artists’ residences, cultural mediation, etc.

Local culture agency, economic niches linked to heritage and local resources, etc.

4 www.zinneke.org 5 beatcarnival.com 6 http://www.fest‐festival.net 7 http://territoires.gouv.fr 1 2 3

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The Les Articulteurs enterprise cluster is unique in its genre in France. The cooperation initiated in Equal has allowed the identification of a socioeconomic ecosystem, thanks to cultural and artistic activities creating true support/dynamics in the area.

The members of the enterprise cluster are in agreement on their shared conviction “to live well together”: the future of a community of people in a territory cannot be constructed without a global, systemic approach, allowing each individual to blossom. Therefore, the primary contribution of a territorial project is the principle of united development that brings together the economic and the social. The social guidance contributed is the principle of responsibility. As for the economic dimension, it is the principle of reality. Culture is at the heart of our project. It is the engine, the driving force that allows us to carry out in unison an economic project, a local development project and a social development project. It incorporates the field of creativity, societal challenges and collective values, as well as valuing cultural heritage and the cultural economy. It is a mechanism that allows us to work together, each with a specific contribution to the dynamic implemented.

This enterprise cluster approach can be qualified as “key” since it offers a mode of horizontal organisation that will allow people to come together and to cooperate on a common and shared project. The agents decide together on a mode of governance in which each has a place, recognising one another, and which introduces cooperation and exchange starting from a cultural and heritage environment that is specific to each territory. This cooperation is a permanent system for action in which the individual is respected within a shared collective approach. The experimentation carried out and creativity encouraged in our approach have led us to invent a new word “rêvalisable” or dreamable. It demonstrates everything that gives meaning to what we do... the desire to progress while allowing oneself the right to trial and error. It has been tried and tested by us and is a true mechanism and an accelerator for projects, giving ambition and producing possibilities. All of the diverse agents have come together with a sense, an ethic that favours cooperation, respect of others, respect for the place that each must take in the project. We have developed an approach of ethical elaboration. Les Articulteurs bring together worlds that are not often close: the economic world, the world of territorial development (institutions) and the world of culture and social development. This means professional practices have had to evolve, creating the conditions for a dialogue between the worlds of the economy, industry, research, social agents and education...

All these problems are shared at the European level by the other European territories with which we cooperate: Northern Ireland, Italy, Belgium, England, Poland and soon Slovenia and Germany, as well as international territories such as Africa, China... Faced with the uncertainty of multiple rapid changes, the question posed is that of a Europe that is more open to the world, which cannot be taken for granted. It poses the challenge of facing one another over the issues of cooperation and partnership.

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In this sense, the action research work we have carried out within the Les Articulteurs cluster “Révélation de ressource territoriales et actions culturelles” (DRT, 2010) with two research laboratories (Pacte Territoire/Lares) now pushes us to go further. For us, this would be through open research work on the European dimension to deepen our analysis of the societal challenges of the twenty‐first century in the face of profound global changes. For us, there is a need to review the humanist foundations of our relationship with the world today. That is why, with our national partners, following the conference on “culture and territorial development: Dare to be innovative and united”, UFISC, the Relais Culture Europe and the universities want to pursue this research.

Bibliography

•

ARTICULTEURS, 2009, La culture au cœur du développement local.

•

COGREL A., 2009, Révélation de ressources territoriales et actions culturelles, le cas de la grappe d’entreprises « Les Articulteurs » sur le Pays de Redon et Vilaine (Bretagne), thesis for a Research Diploma in Technology prepared under the supervision of Bernard Pecqueur, Grenoble, Université Joseph Fourier.

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Creativity transfer : expertise pooling & amplification for a knowledge economy1

David J. Joyner, Erik P.M. Vermeulen, Christoph F. Van der Elst, Diogo Pereira Dias Nunes and Wyn Thomas Introduction The long recognised role of universities and research centres as key resources for economic and societal development has received increasing attention2 3 4 5 since knowledge has tended to replace materials as the raw material of production: that is, with the advent of the ’Knowledge Economy’6 7. A substantial body of policy8 and practice has grown up and the field of ‘Knowledge Transfer’ (KT) has become prominent. In this paper, we reflect on our experience in this field and explore how to improve KT, introducing a new idea of Creativity Transfer (CT)9 designed to catalyse a broader debate about interaction between academia, business and the public sector, often called the ‘triple helix’. We also propose a format for further linking such studies with practice and application. The growing global importance of the Knowledge Economy was highlighted in a major OECD study10: ‘It is estimated that more than 50% of GDP in the major OECD economies is now knowledge‐based.’ However although, as this suggests, the Knowledge Economy (KE) is of growing importance, it does give rise to unprecedented challenges: It is global, and therefore opportunities and challenges are present 24/7; competition is fierce and can come from anywhere; change can happen so fast that ALL our partners’ skills and capabilities must be effectively allied.

New approaches for an era of new challenges Historical examplars of the benefits of combining arts/culture and science/technology, as seen in the work of Leonardo Da Vinci, have been echoed recently by prominent business leaders.

Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman, Google11: ‘…need to bring art and science back together’; and Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple Inc., ‘The Macintosh turned out so well because the people working on it were musicians, artists, poets and historians – who also happened to be excellent computer scientists’12. Recognition of the need to fuse art/culture with business, science and technology, introduces the key theme of this paper – that what is required is to harness a complete spectrum of expertises, with effective instruments to build understanding and permanent partnerships between them.

1

First given as a paper at Relais Culture Europe Summer School, 31 Aug‐2 Sept 2011, Centre Internationale d’Accueil et d’Echanges Récollets, Paris; www.relais‐culture‐europe.org.

2 Universities UK, Creating Prosperity: Role of higher education in driving the UK’s creative economy, Dec 2010, ISBN 9781 1 84036 249‐7.

3 Lester L., Universities, Innovation & Competitiveness of Local Economies, MIT Industrial Performance Centre, 2005; Working Paper.

MIT‐IPC‐05‐010.

4 DIUS (UK Government Department for Innovation, Skills and Universities), Innovation Nation, London, 2008.

5 Florida R., Gates G., Knudsen B. and Stolarick K., The University and the Creative Economy, 2008.

6 Drucker, P., The Age of Discontinuity; Guidelines to Our Changing Society, Harper and Row, New York, 1969, ISBN 0‐465‐08984‐4.

7 Porter, M. E., Clusters and the New Economics of Competition, Harvard Business Review, November‐December 1998, 77‐90.

8 For example, the European Union’s Innovation Union initiative, vide ec.europa.eu/research/innovation‐union.

9 Harper G. and Joyner D.J., unpublished discussion.

10 OECD, Report on the Knowledge Economy, Paris, 1996; www.oecd.org/dataoecd/51/8/1913021.pdf.

11 Schmidt E., MacTaggart lecture, Edinburgh, 26 August 2011.

12 Jobs S., Interview with the New York Times.

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A number of major new resources are now available to support knowledge economy partnerships: Firstly, Open Innovation (OI) introduced by Chesbrough1 is widely accepted as the way forward to work effectively for economic progress in the modern world. Since the key aspects of OI rely heavily on collaboration and partnership, we suggest that the dynamics and flow of OI relationships need to be investigated and understood more thoroughly, as Joyner2 has proposed.

Secondly, in response to the widely recognised need for clear principles to make university‐ business collaborations work reliably for the benefit of all parties, 10 guidelines for effective ‘Responsible Partnership’ (RP) have been issued in a 2005 publication3. These were developed by leading European networks representing universities, corporates, and research and technology organisations; furthermore, their relevance has been confirmed by SMEs. Two key principles underline the guidelines: maximum beneficial use of public funds and responsible use of public research. RP represents an invaluable toolbox for the knowledge economy. However, interactions between the guidelines at different times and under different conditions, and any clustering and hierarchy of priorities, needs to be understood better in each situation in order to make full use of the guidelines as an effective toolset for knowledge economy partnerships. In an earlier presentation, East and Joyner 4 offered suggestions on how this might work; but we propose that a further, wide‐ranging exploration of these two major instruments is urgently needed.

New ideas for an era of new challenges The work of physicist Prof David Bohm FRS, contains a rich vein of expertise, insights and ideas that can be applied directly to this Knowledge Economy development journey. His contribution to many fields of study is scoped in a collection of essays5 and followed by a joint publication with Dr. David Peate6. This work, based on thinking at the interface of many disciplines ‐ science, arts, culture, philosophy, behavioural and social sciences ‐ addresses themes such as: Philosophy as a key paradigm; Renewed emphasis on ideas rather than formulae; Emphasis on the whole rather than fragments; Focus on meaning rather than mechanics; “Implicate” order folded within an “explicate” order; Knowledge as a process’ (our summary from refs 5, 6). Evidently, a partnership of wide‐ranging expertise will be needed to explore and apply the Bohm and Peate approach.

Knowledge Transfer – a learning journey Armed with the above major instruments and new ideas, we propose to explore in this paper how to work better to respond to the current Knowledge Economy (KE) challenges. Our key approach is to corral ideas and idioms from disparate fields and bring these together for KE Chesbrough H., Open Innovation, Harvard Business School Press, 2006, ISBN 1‐57851‐837‐7. rd Joyner, D.J., Responsible Partnership in an Open Innovation World EC, DG Research, 3 Annual Seminar, Implementing the Innovation Union: Next Steps in Knowledge Transfer, Varese and Ispra, Italy, 10‐12 November 2010.

3 Vide www.responsible‐partnering.org.

4 East O. and Joyner D.J., Acorns to Welsh Oaks: Successful Responsible Partnering in Wales, European Universities Association (EUA), Progress and Challenges in Effective Collaboration and Knowledge Transfer: Special Conference, Lisbon, Portugal, 3‐4 December 2007.

5 Bohm D., Wholeness and the Implicate Order, Ark Paperbacks (Routledge and Kegan Paul plc), London 1980 (ISBN 0‐7448‐0000‐5).

6 Bohm D. and Peate F.D., Science, Order and Creativity, Routledge Classics, Abingdon, Oxon, UK, 2001 (ISBN 10‐0‐415‐58485‐X).

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collaborations. The fields of culture and philosophy are especially appealing here because they provide a rich source of imagination and motivation. Bangor University, Wales 1 has a strong track record of innovative collaborations2 3 4, especially with SMEs5, in particular through the UK Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP). This Programme addresses clear business problems and challenges in partnership with academia, employing a full‐time graduate for a period or 2 or 3 years to work on a well‐defined business‐facing project with both academic and industrial/business supervision. KTP is recognised as making a substantial contribution to business growth (see e.g. KTP Annual Report 2009/2010 6). KTP was originally focussed on science and engineering based collaborations but it has increasingly supported a broader spectrum of expertise including arts and humanities; business and management; and social/behavioural sciences. Success here represents effective interpretation and partnership building, between actors in three different spheres, with an initial concept developed into a funding proposal, usually framed in a project management and business language.

Knowledge Transfer and beyond – the Stages of Development We propose that Knowledge Transfer has followed four Stages of Development over the years: Stage I) Collaboration engaging corporates; science and engineering focussed and research based.

Stage II) Collaboration extending to SMEs; more applied.

Stage III) Collaborations extending to micro‐SMEs, including arts/humanities etc.; increasingly interdisciplinary.

Stage IV) Collaborations involving a complete range of stakeholders; with multiple transactions and breaking new boundaries.

The latter is framed in less specific terms, which gives us the opportunity to imagine how the ‘Knowledge Transfer’ ascent can be extended to engage in new ways with the complex modern world. Supporting this, a recent publication of the EU Inter‐Reg IVC project TOOLQUIZ references the need to bring creative skills to bear on non‐traditional fields: ‘Creative skills are not only for cultural workers and artists. They are skills that can be used to bring innovative solutions across all sectors throughout Europe’s regions’. 7 With this background, we propose to coin the phrase ‘Creativity Transfer’ (CT) to highlight our extension of Knowledge Transfer. CT deliberately links arts, culture and ‘softer’ skills which reflect a broad approach, whilst linking our new ideas (through the use of a similar name) with the field of Knowledge Transfer is appealing because the latter is well established in many countries, and in many sectors and areas of application.

Vide www.bangor.ac.uk Joyner D.J., Bangor University and its role in Regional Development, European Commission Directorate General Education and Culture (EC DG EAC), 3rd European University‐Business Forum, Brussels, 4‐5 May 2010.

3 Jones J.I. & Joyner D.J., N W Wales Low Carbon Energy Region: Collaborations for world‐class skills , European Commission Directorate General Education and Culture, 4th European University‐Business Forum, Brussels, 22‐23 March 2011.

4 Joyner D.J., A Green Innovation Collaboration in Wales and Ireland, 5 OECD Roundtable on Higher Education in Regional and City Development, OECD, Paris, 15‐16 Sept. 2010.

6 http://www.ktponline.org.uk/assets/Resources‐page/KTPAnnualReport09‐10.pdf.

7 TOOLQUIZ Interreg IVC Project, Newsletter July 2011; www.toolquiz.org.

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Introducing Creativity Transfer.

‘Creativity Transfer’ is meant to sound specific yet broad‐ranging, reflecting the well established knowledge/technology transfer systems, and intended to emphasise harnessing ‘softer’ capabilities. It therefore provides a good platform for adopting new ideas and approaches, and for giving impetus to identify clear parameters and processes to encourage this wider ‘CT’ engagement.

Creativity

Transfer?

Knowledge Transfer

Technology Transfer

Figure1 shows the concept behind Creativity Transfer – it is a more comprehensive approach which extends, builds upon and may include the others. Further work is needed to map out to what extent it can embody a defined set of methodologies, and how it can catalyse a broader and yet deeper means of collaboration to contribute to economy/society.

Figure 1: The 3 different “transfers” of a Knowledge Economy shown in relationship to each other

Use of Physical Models as idea‐development tools Having established that broader thinking is needed, we explore the use of physical models as a means of portraying ideas on aspects of collaboration in the knowledge economy. This can provide a rich vein of new ideas and may itself be useful in ‘speaking’ both to the science/technology and arts/cultural communities in an intermediary language. Hopefully, this will be useful to build bridges of understanding and thus to catalyse cooperation.

Figure 2 shows an example of using the Synchrotron particle accelerator as a model for partnership, presented by Joyner1 in 2009, using the French national ’Synchrotron Soleil’2.

In this accelerator, electrons are energised in a small ring (marked as zone 1), then injected into and accelerated round a large ring (zone 2). Light of a wide and continuous range of energies, emitted from the periphery of ring 2, is collected at experimental stations tangential to the large ring (zone 3).

Using the Synchrotron as a model for partnership (Fig, 2A), we imagine the actors entering the structure, now seen as a vehicle for Knowledge Economy collaboration. We first place the core collaborators in the small ring (zone 1). Their joint expertise and partnership provides the energy for the process and is available to be harnessed in the next stage. The core combined expertise, capabilities and skills are now established in the main ring (zone 2), following ‘injection’ from the partnership preparation area (the small ring, zone 1). Thus, effective partnership is seen as the ‘core group’ constantly generating the partnership energy. At the workstations (zone 3) other groups (three are shown) are ready to apply the development potential produced at zone 2. Different practical applications are studied at various workstations.

1

Joyner D.J., University‐Business Research Collaboration supported by EU Convergence Funding, EUA, 5th Convention of European H.E. Institutions: Facing Global Challenges: European strategies for Europe’s universities; Prague, Czech Republic, 18‐21 March 2009.

2 Copyright EPSIM 3D/JF Santarelli.

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An interesting aspect of the Synchrotron as an idiom is that the particles are constantly accelerating (we use this as a picture for constantly progressing the partnership) but they remain as a group within this large ring, so there is ongoing collaboration development effort (i.e. partners are ‘accelerating jointly round ring 2).

2 1

Key: the core partners occupy the central position

3

-

Copyright © EPSIM 3D/JF Santarelli, Synchrotron Soleil

Fig. 2A: The Synchrotron Accelerator as a Model for Knowledge Economy Partnership

Key: in order : academia, large company, SME

1

2

university 3 corporate Copyright © EPSIM 3D/JF Santarelli, Synchrotron Soleil

Figure 2B: Actors imagined in Partnership within the Synchrotron

In Figure 2B, we can extend the Synchrotron idiom to demonstrate the dynamics of partnership by placing actors from different organisations in relationship throughout the structure. A full real world partnership (i.e. involving a complete range of organisations (corporates, SMEs, public sector and academia) is exemplified. At expertise assembly stage (zone 1), a university, a corporate and a group of supply‐chain or an SME is shown as assembling and forming a mini grouping, prepared to be injected as a continuing partnership into the large ring. Output energy is collected by different application groupings. For example, the workstation, zone 3 marked, has one university and four SMEs collaborating. The model has many interesting features and highlights the efficiency of a comprehensive core partnership, but it has the weakness that there is no possibility of a learning/experience feedback mechanism from partnerships at zone 3 back into the core expertise zone 2, and influencing the initial stages (zone 1). This is of course a fundamental factor in real, responsible partnering.

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PRIFYSGOL BANGOR / BANGOR UNIVERSITY

Mapping Creativity Transfer in a physical model The above example highlights how application of a physical model to Knowledge Economy collaboration provides an instructive analysis of the issues involved and we propose that it is a useful approach. We shall now employ a physical model to generate an infrastructure which illustrates Creativity Transfer, first within a 2D‐ and then a 3D‐format. In view of the fact that CT is a complex concept which is not fully detailed, this should help to make it more accessible to investigation and assessment. A 2D energetic model (Fig. 3), has two zones of expertise (arts and technology ‐ representing the ‘extremes’ of approach to development) portrayed along the horizontal axis of the diagram, and two ‘vaults’ of resources on the vertical axis. A capability or ‘essential elements’ vault is shown below an horizon and outputs appear in a ‘value‐added’ vault above the horizon, which is thus a delimiter between usable expertise below and success, framed as value‐added entities above. In the energetic model, development is seen as a process of rising up the diagram in a ‘value added ascent‘. The advantage of this representation is that it presents all the key elements in relationship, enabling a ready assessment of the role of each element and helps us to explore the interaction of different parts for the knowledge economy.

Economic Value

LEVEL 2

Societal Value

VALUE ADDED VAULT

Cultural Cultural Output

Technical LEVEL 1 Technica Adva nce l

output

advance

Arts/ Culture

LEVEL 0

Technique, technical ESSENTIAL knowledge ELEMENTS Build on VAULT heritage Communication Social engagement

ARTS ZONE

Technology

The horizon

COMMON ELEMENTS 1. Enquiry 2. Lateral Thinking 3. Using Physical & digital resources 4. Using existing knowledge

Technique & practice Scientific principles & objectivity

Value added ascent

Technical & scientific knowledge

TECHNOLOGY ZONE

Figure 3: Creativity Transfer (CT) within the 2D “energetic” model [CT processes are shown as the yellow arrows]

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We describe in turn each element of the framework of Fig. 3:

1. The Technology‐based Essential Elements: The technology vault is highlighted as being formed of three ‘essential’ elements and it ‘sits’ at the horizon as a composite resource ready for exploitation in the energetic ascent, once the horizon is breached. The ascent is thermally colour‐coded, so as energy rises, colours progresses from red to orange and white. Yellow is used for Creativity Transfer arrows.

2. A Region of Common Elements which are relevant both to technology and the arts is also shown at the interface of the two zones. The suggested elements have been identified anecdotally but need in future work to be assessed more rigorously. Detailed study of these separate and common elements is required, because in each application, the act of identifying such resources can be highly instructive for optimising the development process.

3. Value‐Added Outcomes: Two types of value‐added (VA) outcomes are shown: Economic VA (EVA) and Societal VA (SVA). By displaying these two alongside each other, effort can be made to identify separately the benefits in these two arenas. Often, pressure to show economic value of projects leads to down‐playing of societal aspects or artificial ‘shoe‐ horning’ of societal‐ into economic‐VA. This region of the framework is key, as it can help catalyse a new approach to Knowledge Economy collaboration, when each arena is comprehensively populated, with outputs distributed between EVA and SVA following debate and deliberation of their relative value in these two areas.

4. The Technology‐based Ascent : The right hand side of Figure 3 shows a complete development process in the technology zone, with technical advance at level 1 (horizon being marked as level 0) and value added outcomes at level 2, separately in the economic and social spheres, giving better overall analysis of the benefit of developments.

5. The Arts & Culture‐based Ascent: A similar energetic development is shown for the arts/culture zone. The essential elements on the left hand side are presented as being different but in essence the two processes (left and right) are synergistic and share the common elements within the green lozenge. Combining both sides then completes a 2‐ zone arts/technology analysis.

6. CREATIVITY TRANSFER (CT) is shown as yellow arrows (a relatively high energy colour) both at the stage of assembling expertise and resources (on the horizon, level 0) and at the output stage (level 1). CT can strengthen either or both sides of the activity.

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This infra‐structure offers the advantage that different types of expertise, different paths for development and their interactions can be seen in overall context. It provides a framework for investigating Creativity Transfer, which may be an idiom for creative processes and/or a short‐ hand for a wider engagement beyond knowledge transfer. By outlining all the aspects in a single chart, new ideas may be catalysed and the benefits of engaging a wide range of stakeholders and different types of expertise should be optimised.

Beyond the Arts/Technology Distinction This Creativity Transfer Framework encourages us to think beyond the obvious in the Knowledge Economy interchange world. The Bohm thesis of ‘emphasis on the whole rather than fragments’ (ref. 5 p.137) helped us to realise that the attempt to bridge the disparate worlds termed in shorthand as ‘arts/culture’ and ‘technology’ was too crude a distinction (i.e. too ‘fragmented’), We therefore introduce a circular framework shown in Figure 4, named Den Karpendonkse Paradym (DKP) reflecting, in Dutch, the key discussion in location ‘De Karpendonkse Hoeve’, Eindhoven, NL1 between the present authors. DKP represents a strategic placing of the complete range of expertise that is needed to harness our knowledge economy.

The geometry of Fig. 4 is crucial: each expertise has an equal, permanent and unchangeable (in the long term, global view) position from the centre; all are ‘permanent representatives’ with equal voices and there are no vetos; the binary view of the earlier CT framework is replaced by a paradigm with 8 elements. Therefore, interaction between different areas of expertise can be established, introducing the idea of going beyond inter‐disciplinary collaboration. The energetic model applied to this then acts to draw the group of expertises together so they catalyse each other, build on and feed the common elements, and act as a strong basis for applying CT ‐ see the two types of tensioning processes within and without the ring of expertise. Now the 2D model in Fig. 2 above is no longer sufficient. To represent 8 elements rather than two, we require a 3D model in which DKP lies in the horizontal plane and we use the energetic model to form the vertical plane.

Business/ Finance Law/ Economics

Mathematics

Science/ Engineering/ Technology

Common elements

Arts/ Culture/ Design

Human Sciences

Other expertises Philosophy

1

Vide www.karpendonksehoeve.nl.

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Economic Value Added

Value Added Vault

Societal Value Added LEVEL 2

Cultural Output

Technical Output

LEVEL 1

Arts/ Culture

Technology

Essential Elements Vault

LEVEL 0

Value Added Ascent

Figure 5. Creativity Transfer within a 3D Framework and ‘energetic’ physical model.

Mapping Creativity Transfer within a 3D Framework and ‘energetic’ physical model.

A 3D model of Creativity Transfer (Fig. 5) can now be constructed starting with the vertical axis of Creativity Transfer of Fig. 3. Den Karpendonkse Paradym (Fig.4) is applied as a horizontal axis, so we now have a 3D framework building up.

The crude distinction between arts/culture and technology is now replaced by the 8 element concept. Note that the binary arts/technology world view is replaced by the 8‐elements but the ongoing presence of two disparate views, attitudes, expertises and approaches is retained with ‘arts/culture’ and ‘technology’ flags pointing inwards to the pool of expertise, above the ‘level 0’ mark.

Each region of the Creativity Transfer process is now added. The red cones highlight how expertise is funnelled or focussed upwards (as if it were represented by light beams or magnetic or electrical forces). Interactions between different elements produce upwards progress through the ‘value added ascent’. Finally, the 3D framework represents a rich environment to explore the meaning, relevance and interactions between all the elements.

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Intellectual “public space”

Teaching & Training

Transnational partnership

Knowledge Exchange Research

The circular collaboration ‘Den Karpendonkse Paradym’

Interdisciplinary collaboration

Figure 6. The ‘cubic’ model for the Centre for the Global Knowledge Economy

What is to be done?

Albert Einstein said ‘I think that only daring speculation can lead us further and not accumulation of facts’1. This insight offers a relevant challenge for this work, to which we respond by proposing a ‘Centre for the Global Knowledge Economy’‐ global both in the sense of the breadth of its embodied expertise and its global vision. Here, informed ‘speculation’ on a wide range of issues` related to KE can be explored, including the Creativity Transfer concept.

Inter‐disciplinary expert peer review of developments will facilitate translation into practical tools, methods and applications, drawing in new and wider collaborations. A ‘cubic’ idiom (Figure 6) introduced in our paper at Relais Culture Europe2 gives a convenient representation, with the sides used to reflect the four roles of academia in economy and society (research, education, problem solving and provision of public space), as determined in a study by UK Centre for Industry and Higher Education3 . The upper/lower cube faces further represent co‐ operation (inter‐disciplinary collaboration & trans‐national partnership respectively), giving the alliance its extensive engagement. Expertise at the heart of the cube is the broad‐ranging 8‐ element circular expertise resource of Den Karpendonkse Paradym. Using this framework, studies with different clusters of expertise, partners and actions, will be proposed to address a range of issues, with the aim of contributing thought‐leadership for development of the global knowledge economy.

Einstein A. and Besso M., Correspondance 1903‐1955, p.464.

During the Relais Culture Europe Summer School, 31 Aug‐2 Sept 2011, Centre Internationale d’Accueil et d’Echanges Récollets, Paris; www.relais‐culture‐europe.org.

3 Centre for Industry and Higher Education: Universities, Business and Knowledge Exchange, November 2008 (ISBN 1 874223 72 6).

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Conclusions

The challenges presented by today’s dynamic, global economy, with its emphasis on knowledge, demand broader and deeper links between universities, companies and other institutions.

Based on wide experience of ‘pushing the envelope’ of Knowledge Transfer in a wide range of contexts, we assess that more can be done and coin the term ‘Creativity Transfer’ to catalyse new thinking and methods, noting that the arts and culture are crucial mediators/interpreters for this process. We have also shown that physically based idioms are valuable and applied an ‘energetic’ idiom to Creativity Transfer, first in a 2D and then a 3D framework. Finally, we propose adopting a broad approach through, for example, establishing an actual and/or virtual Centre for the Global Knowledge Economy, to address a wide range of aspects of the global knowledge economy for both economic and societal impact.

About this article’s authors :

David J. Joyner (*), Erik P.M. Vermeulen (**), Christoph F. Van der Elst (**, ***), Diogo Pereira Dias Nunes (**) and Wyn Thomas (****) (*) Research and Innovation Office, Bangor University, College Rd. Bangor, Gwynedd, LL57 2DG, Wales, UK; d.joyner@bangor.ac.uk; (**) Department of Business Law, Tilburg Law School, Tilburg University, P.O. Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, Nederland; www.uvt.nl; (***) also at Department of Business Law, Universiteit Gent, Universiteitstraat 4, 9000 Gent, Belgium; www.ugent.be; (****) Pro Vice‐Chancellor’s Office, Bangor University, College Rd. Bangor, Gwynedd, LL57 2DG, Wales, UK; www.bangor.ac.uk.

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Thinking in New Boxes1 How to bring fundamental change to your business

Luc de Brabandère, Alan Iny

“The current economic environment places a premium on creativity : companies need fresh ideas, approaches, and ways of conceptualizing their business.

To generate truly game‐changing ideas, executives must do more than simply ‘think outside the box’ – they must consciously build new boxes.

Boxes (models, concepts, and frameworks) help us structure our thinking, leading to ideas that are relevant and transformative.”

The ability to survive in a world of accelerating change and challenge calls for ever greater creativity in our thinking. But to become more creative, we need to understand how our minds work. Once we do, we will recognize that we must do more than simply ‘think outside the box’, as the traditional business manuals suggest. We need to ‘think in new boxes’. In this way, business leaders can marshal their companies’ creativty and give them a real competitive advantage.

We cannot think without models

We constantly simplify things in order to make sense of the world around us. Take three examples :

How many colors are there in a rainbow ? You will probably say seven. But why seven, when there are actually thousands ? The fact is that thousands is not a manageable figure – so we are forced to simplify, and seven is what we have been taught.

How many columns are at the front of the Parthenon ? You are probably hesitating and might say anywhere from five to ten. Actually, there are eight. But to have an image of the Parthenon in your mind’s eye requires only that you have a general grasp of the details.

How many grains of sand does it take to make a pile ? More than a few, obviously.

But there is no exact answer because a pile is, by definition, an approximation: we do not need to know the precise number.

In the business world, we also simplify. Take three more examples : market segments are conceptual categories and do not add up to the same things as the market itself; balance sheets are models based on rules relating to currency and accounting, and they do not represent financial reality; and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, devised by the behavioral scientist Abraham Maslow, is an abstract rendering of human nature rather than a precise profile of your customer.

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Thinking in New Boxes©2009, The Boston Consulting Group. This article is available on the following link : http://www.bcg.com/expertise_impact/Capabilities/Organization/Leadership/PublicationDetails.aspx?id=tcm:12‐23261

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These six examples demonstrate that the human mind needs to invent models and concepts and frameworks as stepping stones on the road to interpreting reality. They are not precise representations of reality – they are working hypotheses. They allow us to think and then work.

They help us to ‘freeze’ part of reality in order to make things manageable.

The art of thinking in new boxes (because thinking outside the box is not enough)

Models and concepts and frameworks are – to use another phrase – mental boxes within which we comprehend the real world. And ever since the 1960s, we have been taught to be creative by ‘thinking outside the box’.1

The trouble is this : once you have mentally stepped outside the box, what happens next ? The space outside the box is very expansive – infinitely so – and there can be no guarantee that you will find a solution to your problem. So the answer is that you need to find a new box. And you must consciously build or choose that box yourself; if you do not, an unconscious process will do it for you.

The way we think means that we cannot be creative in a constructive way without inventing models or boxes. Ideally, you need to develop a number of new boxes – new models, new scenarios, new ways of approaching a problem – to structure your thinking. The challenge – and the real art of creativity – is to know how to build those new boxes and, in the process, provide the framework for fresh imaginative effort.

Half a century ago, Bic, a french stationery company, brought to market the idea of making low‐ cost pens. Some creative brainstorming produced a series of variations on the theme: two colors, three colors, gold trim, advertising logos, erasers, and so forth. But who would have thought of making a razor ? Or a lighter ? Bic could come up with those ideas only by adopting a radical change of perspective. Instead of viewing itself as a pen company, Bic started to think of itself as a disposable‐objects company – that is, as a mass producer of inexpensive plastic implements. In making this transition, Bic had, in effect, created a new box.

Business offers a number of other examples.

Apple, originally a manufacturer of popular personal computers, leveraged its expertise to expand into the multimedia business. Initially, there was no logical reason for it to contemplate taking on Sony and its ubiquitous Walkman. But once Apple had created a new box and viewed itself through a different lens – specifically, as a multimedia company that knows circuits and bytes – the notion of developing a digital “walkman” became obvious.

Google’s original aspiration was to build the best search engine ever. Arguably, the company eventually achieved that. But for Google to enter a new era of growth, it needed to perceive itself differently. The creation of a new “we want to know everything” box sparked projects such as Google Earth, Google Book Search, and Google Labs, as well as further improvements to the company’s search engine.

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Although the precise provenance is obscure, the phrase “thinking outside the box” was associated with a popular nine‐dot puzzle whose challenge is to connect nine dots on a square grid by drawing four straight lines through them without lifting the pen from the paper. The solution is to extend one of the lines beyond the boundaries of the grid – and so, “outside the box”.

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Philips, a high‐tech company, had concentrated its efforts on product‐oriented ventures ranging from semi‐conductors to domestic appliances. Then it started to shift its strategic emphasis and endeavored to identify and exploit global trends in health care and consumer markets. In doing so, it has become a world leader in several new categories, including home health‐care systems. By thinking in a new box, Philips has used its core skills in different ways – and has fundamentally changed its business as a result.

Michelin and IBM illustrate how some companies have successfully moved from a product or technology orientation to a solutions or results orientation – without necessarily abandoning their core products or technologies. Michelin, the tire manufacturer, is now a road safety specialist, while IBM, the computer giant, has entered the consulting business.

How to create new boxes

If the theory makes sense, how does it work in practice ? Here is one example. Like many companies, Champagne De Castellane, a French champagne manufacturer, was committed to growing its sales. To develop ways of achieving this goal, it held workshops on three days over a two‐week period. Senior executives were asked to build a new box that would foster some innovative business ideas.

To start with, the executives were asked to think about their business without mentioning the words they most often used to describe it – for instance, liquor, drink, champagne, alcohol, bottle, and so on. As a result of this exercise, the team came to the conclusion that the company’s business was fundamentally about contributing to the success of parties and celebrations.

Once that insight had emerged – and a new box had been formed – the executives had a framework within which they could think about the company and its future. Many ideas flowed – a number of which enabled Champagne De Castellane to become more appealing to consumers and to grow sales. For instance :

In the summer, champagne is often not cold enough, especially if it is brought to a party as a gift. The company found that it could solve the problem by making a plastic bag that was sturdy enough to carry not only the bottle but also a few pounds of ice.

At many parties and celebrations, someone is called on to give a speech. The company determined that it could put together a self‐help booklet titled “How to Write a Speech” and attach it to the bottle.

Parties thrive on games and entertainment. The company resolved to modify the wooden crates that contain its champagne bottles so that they could be recycled as game boards for chess, checkers, and backgammon.

It is worth noting that during the three‐day brainstorming process, about 80 percent of the executives’energy was devoted to the identification of a new box (the party). Once that was done, the ideas came relatively easily. Indeed, coming up with the right new box is always the tough part, regardless of whether the underlying challenge is scenario planning, business development, or the design of a new strategic vision. So it is critical that companies understand this – and adopt a process that allows them to create the new box.

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The brain is like a two‐stroke engine. We are well aware of the value of the second stroke, when the brain selects, compares, sorts, plans, and decides. But the first stroke – when the brain imagines, dreams, suggests, and open horizons – is the one that really matters. This process, however needs organization – hence the need for a new box. And in times of crisis, when companies everywhere are concerned about their future, the importance of being able to think in new boxes is greater than ever.

About this article’s authors :

Luc de Brabandère is a partner and managing director in the Paris office of The Boston Consulting Group and a BCG Fellow. Alan Iny is a principal in the firm’s New York office.

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Conclusion

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It seemed to us important to highlight that numerous practices are in use: Practices of cultural agents, first of all, who put in motion their analyses, ideas and commitments – Practices of politicians, who seek to shift the centre of gravity of their cultural policies – Practices of intellectuals, finally, who conduct their analyses within the new perspective of the European project.

The bases necessary for action are already in existence, whether legal frameworks or financial tools. There is perhaps a lack of a more open, better documented and therefore more citizenly debate of ideas on the European project and on the model of society we want to construct.

At the start of this green book, we recalled the current context of uncertainty. By way of conclusion, we can only reaffirm the urgency of this debate, to which we modestly hope to contribute.

Pascal Brunet

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