Working Group 5.4

What is Culturally Sustainable Development?

Convenors:
Katriina Soini, University of Jyväskylä,  katriina.soini@mtt.fi
Katriina Siivonen, Turku School of Economics, katriina.siivonen@tse.fi                                              

Current times are characterised as a period of global transition, where change is rapid and intensive and results from various interconnected processes. Individuality and cultural meanings in their many and various forms are considered to strengthen under such conditions. Different cultural traits, viewed as particular collective cultural wholes, emerge and change in global, local and glocal interactive processes, as people set up various institutions and organisations to maintain them. These institutions and organisations can inter alia support national as well as ethnic groups, local urban and rural communities, enterprises, work communities and different activities and interests. They can be permanent or temporary, local, national or global, and they can be based on face-to-face interaction or exist in global media, including the internet.

The global transition processes take place at all levels, bringing challenges to the development of the rural areas of Europe. Policy and development programmes aim to find solutions to the problems resulting from changes brought about by the decline of local economies and social restructuring. Culture is increasingly seen as being an important component of such programmes.

In the context of local development, culture is often considered to be collective and stable, a tangible and intangible heritage of localities, increasing their social and economic welfare, e.g. as a part of a symbolic economy. Art is considered to foster positive individual creativity, and bring change and variation to urban and especially to rural localities. Yet the scope of culture is much broader, covering not only heritage and artistic expression, but also individual variation and creativity in everyday culture, such as diversity of practices, values and understanding of a world shaped by interactive processes between human beings and their surroundings, which includes social interplay. Thus, it is not only the heritage, but also heredity, i.e. heterogeneous and continuously changing material and non-material cultural items, and the entire creative and innovative interaction process, which need to be taken into consideration. It is a challenge for policy makers to establish a balance and suitable means for promoting both conservation and reproduction of cultural practices, meanings, artefacts and environments.

Finally, the question of power emerges, when the role of culture in sustainable rural development has to be considered: who has the power to define whose culture is in question? Conservation of culture always demands powerful actions because the basic quality of culture is change. Then the crucial question concerns which cultural elements are important to preserve in various contexts. On the other hand, when culture is in constant flux, the other crucial question is: in which ways should local rural culture be changed and developed? Followed by that additional relevant question emerges: in which cases are local rural people subjects of rural development and their own lives, and conversely, in which cases are they considered to be objects of development? Due to globalisation and the increasing interconnectedness of people and phenomena it can be difficult to define who the ‘locals’ are and how to ensure their involvement in participatory planning.