This presentation is planned to contribute to the Panel: Decolonising Cultural Management Policies and Practices.

The history of Cultural Diplomacy (CD) as an academic field of study is full of contradictions.
and complexities. They pertain to many factors, including its late emergence as an academic
discipline as well as its accurate universally accepted definition, which does not exist until
today. This presentation shares the results of the large-scale research project that historically tracked the development of CD as a focused field of study in the international academic scholarship. It aimed to reveal the most significant gaps in the past research to identify critical trajectories for further evolution of the discipline in the future. The research explored a large corpora of English language publications on CD to spark inconsistencies in the developments of the discipline and to suggest avenues for its more comprehensive and focused explorations, advocating for the discipline decolonization. Specifically, the methodology was based on the historical overview of the evolution of the academic literature on CD since its inception in the early 1960s, published in the Scopus database, the largest curated bibliographic abstract and citation databases in the world. The body of relevant data on CD scholarship was collected via Scopus API data aggregation in February 2022 by mining the repository textual data using just one keyword: ‘cultural diplomacy.’ I collected information on all publications in the English language, which contained this search term either in the abstract or in the list of the publication’s keywords.

My search in the Scopus database resulted in 1663 items (after removing duplicates), for which I retrieved such data characterizing each publication as (1) publication type (journal article, book article or book), (2) publication year, (3) author/s and academic affiliations including geo-data, (4) key words and abstract as well as (5) a full reference. Employing mapping, chronology building and focused content analysis of all publications’ data as well as a more rigorous thematic analysis of selected articles, I analyzed CD scholarship to identify key thematic and geographic coverage gaps and to propose trajectories for its future development. First, mapping geo-data pertaining to CD scholars’ university affiliations to identify areas on the global map where CD literature is produced, the research revealed a high density of publications on CD originating in such countries as the U.S.A, UK, and Australia with lesser outputs coming from Russia, Canada, and China as well as from a few European countries. These results are not surprising, considering that this research was focused on literature published only in English language. Acknowledging that cultural diplomacy as a research subject might be extensively covered beyond the anglophone world, it is critical, though, to note that English remains the dominant language in international academic research, and it is the only one that guarantees a wider global visibility and readership. Hence, the focus of this research is mainly on the scholarship that has entered the global academic discourse and most likely shares research findings that go beyond national academic debates.

Second, mapping the scholarship’s geo coverage of CD cases, by parsing 1663 abstracts to count frequencies of direct references to different countries, the research demonstrated that academic scholarship more often refers to cases of CD in the most powerful Western countries like the U.S.A or UK. The situation with a few dominating countries inviting the majority of cultural diplomacy research enquiry signals the need to address these geographical gaps in the scholarship to develop a much more diverse picture covering different parts of the world. This agenda becomes even more critical in the conditions when the geographical coverage of the majority of countries from the developing world or the Global South is based on their analysis as predominantly target areas and subjects to cultural diplomacy activities of more powerful countries. To decolonize the emerging research, especially in relation to most countries in the Southeast Asia, Pacific, Africa, or Latin America would require furthermore focused academic enquiry and a more nuanced analysis of the dynamics of CD activities initiated by countries that rarely if never appear in the academic scholarship. Moreover, diversifying the geography of the cultural diplomacy scholarship coverage should go beyond merely putting developing countries on the research map.

The decolonization agenda of cultural diplomacy as an academic discipline should include exploring alternative diplomacies that exist beyond Western democracies. It should be based on searching for new epistemological cultures, frameworks, and methodologies to rewrite existing concepts, terminology, definitions that mainly represent Western mentality. These new analytical tools will be helpful to identifying and exploring new agencies and governance systems of cultural diplomacy which exist across countries and continents on macro and micro levels of geographies which are currently excluded from the academic research. First, the presentation will advocate for more nuanced geographies of explorations, going beyond a macro coverage of regional CD and a nation state or country focus. It should scrutinize cases on micro levels from CD of contested territories to marginalized and indigenous communities who acquired stronger powers of political representation in the age of digital globalization. Second, it will identify new emerging hybrid transnational diplomacies which not only operate through cultural practices or artistic expressions between countries, but also increasingly embrace social and political issues of global significance. For instance, LGBT or feminist movements, climate change or disability activism become important part of contemporary cultures shared across countries and societies which offer interesting avenues for implementing CD activities based on the decolonization agenda.

Third, the presentation will reveal existing gaps in understanding new CD actors, as well as old actors of diplomacy, like traditional cultural institutions, but in their new roles, confronted by emerging new players. Across countries, empowered by novel models of global expansion and enabled by new blockchain technologies, these new players increasingly operate in the more decentralized global domain, reinforcing the heterogeneity of CD actorness and governance. They invite further research on new CD channels, urging us to investigate their direct challenges and opportunities for involved stakeholders from both the Global North and the Global South. Considering that the essence of CD is a creation of a shared zone or a meta-space for human contacts and exchanges of cultures, ideas and beliefs, there is still a limited understanding how the digital environment can accommodate the development of mutual trust and long-terms relationships among diverse cultural communities with different mentalities in the conditions of the Western techno-domination in the context of platform capitalism and if it possible to debunk existing inequalities. Addressing all these questions, the presentation will advocate for building a more robust academic framework that would allow to expand and properly research diplomacy practices of states without recognition, to map new cultural geographies on subregional, local and community levels as well as to assess the power dynamics or relationships with and among diaspora communities, marginalized groups, and cultural minorities.

This paper is based on the discussion of the evolution of racial categories from the British colonial era to multiculturalism in Singapore since independence in 1965. Focusing on cultural policies published between 1965 and 2020, this study examines how the meaning of multiculturalism has evolved in the arts. It employs archival research and document analysis to explore an opportunity for a multiracial, multi-diverse presentations of arts and culture through the lens of superdiversity, debunking British racial categorization framework previously adopted in Singapore.

As a post-colonial country, Singapore’s policies on multiculturalism drew on British antecedents of administration and governance. Racial categories were first proposed in 1871 by the British for the purpose of a census count in Malaya and the Straits Settlements, which included Singapore at that time. Forty-five ethnic categories existed in the 1871 census, with Europeans and Eurasians placed at the top of the classification table (Figure 1). Hirschman (1987) interpreted this ethnic classification table as a hierarchical structure based on social status, with whites on top followed by the Asians whom they came to know through common social circles, such as Straits-born Chinese. Scholars criticised such categories as a racial hierarchy which reflected British imperialism and a product of the high-ranking administrative elite who were unfamiliar with people of Southeast Asia (Hill and Lian 1995; Hirschman 1987; Rocha and Yeoh 2020). In Figure 2, the population of British Straits Settlements Census presented a narrowing of racial categories into six major classifications: Europeans, Eurasians, Chinese, Malays, Indians and Others (Hirschman 1987; Marriott 1912). It is unclear why the number of racial categories decreased, but earlier documents portrayed how ethnic, race or nation groups which has a lesser population were grouped under those with larger populations. By 1957, only four racial categories remained – Chinese, Malays, Indians and Others – this came to be known as Singapore’s CMIO multicultural construct which has been in use up till today. From 1959, Singapore’s government has used the CMIO racial categories as an identity marker to determine equity in the implementation of many policies, such as housing allocations proportionate to racial ratios and supporting the arts from all four cultures (Chua 2003; Narayana 2004). Yet, the de-emphasis on race is suggested in the arts and culture as cultural policies refer to the Singaporean identity as a “multicultural diversity”, “inter-cultural shared heritage”, “diverse communities” and “global community” as more than just CMIO (National Arts Council 2008; 2012; 2018). There are tensions between fixing racial categories and recognition for diversities beyond the multicultural construct.

I examined the key cultural policies published within the short history of independence of Singapore from 1965 to 2020. The selection criteria for cultural policies are as follows: period of publication and the definition of cultural policy. First, the documents need to have been published during the period from Singapore’s declaration of independence from 1965 till 2020. Second, this study adopts Durrer, Miller and O’Brien’s definition of cultural policy where they have deconstructed the meanings of culture, policy respectively, and thereafter analysed contextual, theoretical and applied meanings of cultural policy in the globalised world (Durrer, Miller, and O’Brien 2018). With the above definition, five sets of cultural policies are identified from Singapore’s short history of independence from 1965 to 2020: the Advisory Committee on Culture and the Arts 1989, Renaissance City Plan 2000 with subsequent revisions in 2003, 2008, Arts and Culture Strategic Review 2012, Building Blocks for A Culture of Creation: A Plan for the Performing Arts 2014, and Our SG Arts Plan 2018 – 2022. This paper uses superdiversity as a concept to understand multiculturalism and as a lens to bring together evolving cultural policy interpretations.

Superdiversity is a notion first introduced in the discipline of migration, population and migratory studies which propose to address new levels and emerging kinds of complexities surpassing anything previously experienced by Britain (Vertovec 2006). Vertovec (2007) suggests that superdiversity is a summary term that illustrates the need for a multi-dimensional perspective on diversity, to move beyond ethnic representations and to recognise the coalescence of factors such as immigration trends, countries of origins, multilingualism, diverse religions, different types of migration channels, and immigration statuses, complexities in gender, access to employment and transnationalism. With increased physical and online mobilities, increased access to digital information and communication channels, studies suggest that multiculturalism is perhaps being replaced by superdiversity, where intercultural dialogues take place over real and virtual spaces (Pegrum, Dudeney, and Hockly 2018).

The first cultural policy recognised multiculturalism as a multi-gatherings of immigrant peoples. Referred to as the multi-cultural legacy, the 1989 policy highlighted Singapore’s migrant makeup as unique with multilingual, multicultural within collective artforms (Advisory Council on Culture and the Arts 1989). Singapore was already diverse and such diversities contribute traditions, value systems, languages and heritage. Cultural policies in 2000, 2002 and 2008 positioned the traditions of Peranakan, Eurasian, Malay, Indian and Chinese cultures and arforms as “indigenous”, where history of the traditional Chinese, Malay and Indian cultures are preserved and presented through traditional and language-specific arts (National Arts Council 2008; 2012). These seem to suggest a multiculturalism between traditional language-based artforms that convey a sense of historical heritage and non-traditional artforms that embrace multi-cultures within one presentation or one showcase. Beyond this, policies also refer to multiculturalism as “a community of local and foreign”, “diverse ethnic traditions of Asia, in particular, Southeast Asia”, “a globalised multi-cultural context” (National Arts Council 2008). Multiculturalism seems to have an alternative understanding of diversity beyond Singapore into the region, Southeast Asia to be specific, and the global.

Policies from 2012 and 2018 further perpetuate the diversity caused by global mobilities, technological advancements and digital literacies. There was a stronger voice of Singapore’s standing in the world as policy refer to “multicultural heritage and cosmopolitan outlook”, recognise social complexities and the urgency for an inclusive society within Singapore communities and the global community (National Arts Council 2012; 2018). Cultural diversity was referred to as a strength that supported a values-based narrative. At the same time, policy intervenes to support diverse communities by emphasising inter-community connection beyond racial understanding.

Singapore is experiencing characteristics of superdiversity as individuals become increasingly multi-racial, multicultural, many having a range of hyphenated ethnic, racial, language and religious identities. This paper proposes a multicultural reality beyond CMIO construct and the possible use of superdiversity as a conceptual lens to read cultural policies. This paper advocates how cultural policy research in the field of arts management can be more sensitive to diverse cultural realities in both the past and present in order to reflect the nuances of colonial effects. Decolonisation efforts of multiculturalism should also include the exploration of non-western thought, particularly in regions such as Southeast Asia and Africa where concepts of diversity may have been studied within ethnic, racial and diasporic complexities. This presentation opens to discussion on the possible use of new conceptual lens such as superdiversity to influence cultural policy making and arts management practices.

Works Cited
Advisory Council on Culture and the Arts. 1989. “Report of the Advisory Council on Culture and the Arts.” https://doi.org/10.1142/9789813236899_0005.
Chua, Beng Huat. 2003. “Multiculturalism in Singapore: An Instrument of Social Control.” Race & Class 44 (3): 58–77. https://doi.org/10.1177/07399863870092005.
Durrer, Victoria, Toby Miller, and Dave O’Brien. 2018. “Towards Global Cultural Policy Studies.” In The Routledge Handbook of Global Cultural Policy, edited by Victoria Durrer, Toby Miller, and Dave O’Brien, 1–16. Routledge. https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/.
Hill, Michael, and Kwen Fee Lian. 1995. The Politics of Nation Building and Citizenship in Singapore. The Politics of Nation Building and Citizenship in Singapore. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203424438.
Hirschman, Charles. 1987. “The Meaning and Measurement of Ethnicity in Malaysia: An Analysis of Census Classifications.” Source: The Journal of Asian Studies 46 (3): 555–82.
Marriott, H. 1912. “Population of the Straits Settlements and Malay Peninsula during the Last Century.” Source: Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, no. 62: 31–42.
Narayana, Ganesan. 2004. “The Political History of Ethnic Relations in Singapore.” In Beyond Rituals and Riots: Ethnic Pluralism and Social Cohesion in Singapore, edited by Ah Eng Lai, 41–64. Institute of Policy Studies.
National Arts Council. 2008. “Renaissance City Plan III: Arts Development Plan.” https://www.nac.gov.sg/dam/jcr:18cf2883-7907-4938-9931-384333e210ce.
———. 2012. “The Report of the Arts and Culture Strategic Review.”
———. 2018. “Our SG Arts Plan (2018 - 2022).”
Pegrum, Mark, Gavin Dudeney, and Nicky Hockly. 2018. “Digital Literacies Revisited.” The European Journal of Applied Linguistics and TEFL 7 (2): 3–24. www.digilanguages.ie.
Rocha, Zarine L., and Brenda S.A. Yeoh. 2020. “Measuring Race, Mixed Race, and Multiracialism in Singapore.” In The Palgrave International Handbook of Mixed Racial and Ethnic Classification, edited by Zarine L. Rocha and Peter J. Aspinall, 629–47. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22874-3.
Vertovec, Steven. 2006. “The Emergence of Super-Diversity in Britain.” 25. Vol. 25. www.london2012.org.
———. 2007. “Super-Diversity and Its Implications.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 30 (6): 1024–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870701599465.

[ This presentation is planned to contribute to the Panel: Decolonising Cultural Management Policies and Practices.]

ABSTRACT

Southeast Asia is a region that sees a wide range of development for the arts in terms of both soft and hard infrastructure and policy. It is a region with vast income disparity, from economically advanced Singapore with exceptionally high levels of government financial support administered by an active National Arts Council, to the least developed economies in Southeast Asia, Laos and Myanmar. In between we have countries such as Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia– lower to upper middle-income economies with lively arts and cultural activity in both capital and secondary cities, but with varying degrees of government support and creative and cultural policy implementation. The nations of Southeast Asia are also diverse in terms of culture, religion, languages spoken, and political ideologies and systems of government. This diversity, notwithstanding, most of the governments in the region have embraced the concept of the creative industries, have established national creative economy agencies and/or arts councils, and some work closely with international organisations such as UNESCO for policy guidance and technical expertise. Many artists and creatives throughout the region are well connected through sectoral networks such as the Asian Producers Platform for the performing arts, with regular meet-ups in annual events such as BIPAM, the Bangkok International Performing Arts Meeting; and through biennials and art fairs in cities such as Singapore, Bangkok and Jakarta, for the visual arts.

In this context, arts management is a still nascent field, with the professionalisation of the arts sectors and management know-how seen as necessary for the growth of the cultural and creative industries. Fundraising and the training of personnel in skills such as marketing and project management, have been identified as major issues faced by arts workers, many of whom are not able to sustain themselves in full-time work. From a UNESCO commissioned study conducted on nine countries in Southeast Asia (Janamohanan, et al 2021), we found that there is an underlying assumption that organisations are operating within well-defined legal frameworks, yet our findings showed that about 30% identified as informal groups and collectives, and the contexts for incorporation of companies and governance is not as clear as it should be. Studies on nonprofit governance in Asia (Hasan and Onyx, 2008) and King and Schramme’s work on cultural governance in a global context (2019) provide further evidence of vast differences in conceptual understanding and practice amongst not just arts workers but also policy makers and scholars. Furthermore, the concept of the creative and cultural industries tends to be rarely examined or contested, and scholars of cultural policy and arts management are very few in Southeast Asia, outside of Singapore.

The coming together of management and the arts is seen as a mark of professionalisation and legitimacy and the push for “professionalisation” has meant that students from Asia continue to travel to the West to acquire formal degrees. This, in spite of, or due to a lack of understanding of, a recognition of flaws within the field of arts management stemming from its origins as and derivation from Western and Eurocentric models. Arts management, as formalised within higher education is known to have its roots in the experiences of arts organisations in the United States during the 1960s, which brings with it an assumption of what Chong (2010) calls “a monolithic and universal arts management based on American hegemony” (2). Local and indigenous models of learning and working have rarely, if ever, been incorporated into formal education, and only within the universities with established arts management/policy departments in Asia, might critiques being undertaken by scholars. Even then, however, the critique tends to focus on the policies themselves and actions of governments (Kong 2014; Chong 2014; Barker and Lee 2017), and to some degree on the impact of policy on artistic creation and censorship (Chong 2018); but less so from the perspective of management of the arts and financial sustainability. From a management point of view, this has meant the embracing with little question of a capitalist model of work as the underpinning of business and governance, and to enter and participate in the international art market and its attendant global platforms.

Systems are a central characteristic of management theory, but need to be rethought and assessed with fresh perspective to address contemporary 21st century needs and challenges. Kagan’s (2011) work on art and sustainability provides an instructive historiography of how modernity has degenerated into a culture of unsustainability, and offers a piercing critique of the Western, Eurocentric classical worldview that took Western industrialized societies as the paradigms of progress and development. Kagan cites systems thinker Ervin Laszlo’s opposition to the ‘classical’ view as part of a European inheritance from modernity which was “atomistic”, “individualistic” and “materialistic”, and inherently Eurocentric; which “viewed objects as separate from their environments and people as separate from each other and from their surroundings”, advocating, instead, for a new systemic view, which “perceives connections and communications between people, and between people and nature, and emphasizes community and integrity in both the natural and the human world” (26). Kagan also references Romanian physicist, Basarab Nicolescu’s critique of the “classical-modernistic praise of objectivity” as the “supreme criterion of truth” and which treated subjectivity as “meaningless embellishment or rejected with contempt as a fantasy, an illusion, a regression or a product of the imagination” (27-28) – a scenario all too familiar to peoples from once colonized territories and lands.

This presentation, thus, stems from my role as both arts manager and researcher, Malaysian but Singapore-based, Western trained, and Southeast Asia focused, in work that is two-fold: while simultaneously documenting through primary research, the habits, activities, organisational behaviours, support structures of arts workers and artists in collective and networked systems in Southeast Asia, I also interrogate the existing frameworks and structures which we inhabit or which impact local arts ecosystems. I align my work with a decolonisation in education framework, navigating through an understanding of the effects of colonialism on language and scholarship and systems of knowledge, considering multiple perspectives, and making space to think carefully about what we value (Open University 2019).

My research focuses on socially-engaged artists who purposefully disengage from the market or navigate it on terms they dictate, and scholars who work in culturally specific, community-oriented and civil-society led practice, developing strategies and seeking local knowledge systems and ways of doing and being, alongside and with local communities. In this presentation I will draw on strategies undertaken by social practice artists in Malaysia and Singapore, analysed against existing epistemic frameworks and structures which we inhabit or which impact local arts ecosystems. Throughout this process, the role of “arts management” will also be under question, moving towards new frameworks or models for arts and culture work in Southeast Asia.

(1114 words)

Works Cited

Barker, Thomas and Y. B. Lee. 2017. “Making creative industries policy: The Malaysian case”, in Kajian Malaysia 35(2): 21–37.

Chong, Derrick. 2010. Arts Management 2nd edition. Oxon and New York: Routledge.

Chong, Terence. 2014. “Bureaucratic Imaginations in the Global City: Arts and Culture in Singapore” in Lee, HK., Lim, L. (eds) Cultural Policies in East Asia. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Chong, Terrence. 2018. The State and the Arts in Singapore: Policies and Institutions. Singapore: World Scientific.

Hasan, Samiul, ed, and Jenny Onyx, ed. 2008. Comparative Third Sector Governance in Asia. New York: Springer.

Janamohanan, Sunitha, Sali Sasaki, and Audrey Wong. 2021. Managing Creativity and the Arts in South-East Asia. Paris and Bangkok: UNESCO.

Kagan, Sacha. 2013. Art and Sustainability: Connecting Patterns for a Culture of Complexity, 2nd edition. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.

King, Ian W, ed, and Annick Schramme, ed. 2019. Cultural Governance In a Global Context: An International Perspective On Art Organizations. 1st ed. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kong, Lily. 2014. “From Cultural Industries to Creative Industries and Back? Towards Clarifying Theory and Rethinking Policy. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 15(4), 593-607.

Open University. 2019. ‘Innovating Pedagogy 2019. Exploring new forms of teaching, learning and assessment, to guide educators and policy makers’. Open University Innovation Report 7. Retrieved 19 September 2023 from https://oro.open.ac.uk/59132/

The question of how national cultural institutions can implement the decentralization of cultural participation, making it more concrete and tangible, and redefining power dynamics, is a crucial one. The Philippines has a long history of colonization, having been a colony of Spain in the 16th century and then ceded to the United States in 1898, before being occupied by Japan during World War II in 1942. The country only achieved its independence in July 1946. Because of this lengthy colonial history, Filipinos have internalized a sense of cultural and ethnic inferiority. This mentality reinforces social divisions, particularly between those living in central-urban cities like Metro Manila and those living in other cities and municipalities in provincial areas. Furthermore, this mindset is particularly strong among those living in the periphery who feel marginalized, while power and authority are perpetuated by national institutions because they are seen as sources of aid and expertise.

Mateo (2016) conducted a study on how Philippine art can challenge Filipino colonial mentality. The study found that Filipinos are inspired by their history, culture, and art, which can help increase collective self-esteem by relating to diverse Filipino experiences. However, social divisions still prevent or limit Philippine art from decolonizing the minds of Filipinos. Additionally, the English language has played a role in reinforcing exclusivity between the upper and lower classes, as it has been pushed as the language of the more civilized during the Philippines’ assimilation of American culture. This has resulted in less representation of various Filipino languages, cultures, and characteristics, which is not inclusive.

Decolonization of formerly colonized individuals entails challenging Western thinking and decolonizing mindsets, addressing epistemic silences, and recognizing indigenous or local cultures. It also requires giving a voice to marginalized communities, incorporating diverse perspectives and structures, and defining and dismantling power relations and inequalities.

The following presentation draws on interviews with cultural leaders from the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) and discusses issues related to decolonization and decentralization of cultural participation. It explores various aspects of the partnership between the CCP and non-profit organizations and regional art centers. Examining the CCP's policy implementation frameworks and approaches sheds light on the power dynamics between different cultural players and how power shifts from Manila toward the regions and provinces. The presentation also highlights how the CCP, one of the national cultural institutions, is changing its orientation and narrative to decolonize the mindset of grassroots cultural communities. It promotes people's art and encourages appreciation of local history, culture, and identity.

Furthermore, the presentation analyzes the different levels of cultural participation and decision-making processes in arts and cultural development. It questions whether these processes empower those who are on the periphery. The presentation advocates for the CCP's approach and initiatives to broaden cultural participation, create more inclusive spaces and platforms for cultural development, and empower those who have traditionally been marginalized.

This presentation is planned to contribute to the Panel: Decolonising Cultural Management Policies and Practices.