Urban Culture for Social Inclusion in Latin America - SEGIB

Urban Culturefor Social Inclusion in Latin America

Brussels, 20-21 April 2016

MARÍA SALVADORA ORTIZ (Compiler)Director of Foreign Relations, SEGIB

Volume 3, SEGIB’s ESSAYS COLLECTION

URBAN CULTURE FOR INCLUSION IN LATIN AMERICABrussels, 20-21 April 2016

María Salvadora Ortiz (Compiler)

©of this Edition, SEGIB

Co- financed by the EU-LAC Foundation

Secretaría General Iberoamericana. Paseo de Recoletos, 8. Madrid 28001

Seminar Transcripts: Rodrigo Soto

Proofreading: Manuel Sainz Quesada

Photographs: Macarena Soto

Collection Design: Dionisio S. Durán

Graphic Production: Infinito Estudio. Legal Deposit: M-9898-2017

English Translation: Ana Victoria Soto

Urban Culturefor Social Inclusion in Latin America

Brussels, 20-21 April 2016

FOREWORD 7Rebeca Grynspan

INTRODUCTIONUrban culture for social inclusion in Latin AmericaLeonel Fernández 11Cultural Cooperation between the European Union and Latin America Marjeta J{ager 14The Challenge of Being SmallSilvie Durán 18

PRESENTATION 25Juca Ferreira

I CULTURAL POLICIES FOR SOCIAL INCLUSION AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN AN URBAN CONTEXT The Fourth Industrial Revolution: A Narrative from Cultural Materialism 29Raúl Oliván

Urban Culture for Social Inclusion in ColombiaMoisés Medrano 43

Cultural Policies for Development 51Carlos Villaseñor

II FROM CULTURAL PRACTICES TO PUBLIC POLICIES: ART AND INITIATIVES FOR SOCIAL INCLUSION

Entrepreneurship and Innovation for InclusionFederico Seineldin 61

The Impact of Sports and Cultural Megaevents in Cities Beatriz García 69

Cultural Practices and Public Policies Mercedes Giovinazzo 79

Contents

III DIGITAL CULTURE POLICIES FOR STRENGHENING SOCIAL CREATIVITY AND CITIZEN INNOVATION

Digital Culture and Citizen Engagement 85Paola Ricaurte

Fifteen Years of Digital Culture Policies in Brazil: Errors and Accomplishments 89Rodrigo Savazoni

Open Government and Citizen Innovation in Santa Fe, Argentina 103Dardo Ceballos

Cities Learning Through Networking 109Marcos García

IV THE ROLE OF CULTURE IN BUILDING DEMOCRATIC SOCIETIES

La Familia Araya: Integration from Hip Hop 119Don Popo

Living Culture: Innovative Cultural Processes 125Ivana Bentes

The Role of Culture in the Development of Democratic Cities 137Paul Dujardin

Communication as the Backbone of Culture and Citizenship Building 143Andrea Ipinze

V FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

Culture, a New Vector for Solutions 151Jolita Butckeviciene

PARTICIPANT BIOS 153

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I n his poem Save Twilight, where heexplores the relationship between ab-sence and distance, Julio Cortázar re-

ferred to the paradox of feeling "alone inthe world's most populated city." In doingthis he expressed, perhaps unknowingly,one of the greatest challenges the 21stCentury would be up against: the chal-lenge of turning growing urban concen-trations into social and economic inclusivefabrics that are cohesive, capable of bring-ing about collaboration among citizensand solidarity bonds among the varioussociety groups.

For the first time in history, more peo-ple live in cities than they do in rural areas.This is particularly true for Latin Amer-ica—the world's most heavily urbanizedregion— where 80 percent of the popula-tion is urban and there are six megacitieswhose populations are nearly or exceed10 million inhabitants.

In spite of such growing populationdensity, our urban centers remain deeplyfragmented economically, socially, andspatially speaking. In our region, two indi-viduals living in the same city may live to-tally unlike and disconnected lives, without

even sharing public spaces or services.This fragmentation makes it difficult tobuild what literature refers to as "socialcapital": those connections which, even inthe presence of diversity, link together thevarious players in society, and allow themto collaborate beyond their differences.

Social exclusion produces invisibilityand discrimination for large populationsegments, hindering collaboration and thesum of forces. In inclusive societies every-one, regardless of their condition, feelsuseful and necessary. In inclusive societieseveryone, regardless of their particularcharacteristics, feels a co-author of a his-tory that is written every day.

Culture may play a key role in this pro-cess, by serving as a unifying element anda meeting point, by creating shared inter-ests and venues for dialogue. This is whatwe firmly believe at the Ibero-AmericanGeneral Secretariat (SEGIB): culture is anextraordinary tool for social inclusion.

On this belief we agree with multipleplayers and partners, among them the Eu-ropean Union and its Directorate Generalfor International Cooperation and Devel-opment. Sharing these values prompted

TO THE PUBLICATION ON THE SEMINAR: URBAN CULTURE FOR SOCIAL INCLUSION IN LATIN AMERICARebeca Grynspan. Ibero-american Secretary General.

Foreword

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us to jointly host, in April 2016, the FirstSeminar on Urban Culture for Social In-clusion in Latin America, which was held inBrussels. The event brought together gov-ernments, business sector representa-tives, artists, and members of local com-munities and civil society organizations ofboth sides of the Atlantic.

The Seminar's main objective was toidentify and strengthen those means bywhich culture can help us create moreprosperous, safe, and inclusive cities. Poli-cies to recuperate and habilitate publicspaces so they serve as venues for inno-vation and social coexistence were dis-cussed there. Furthermore, participantsunderscored the need to implement plu-ralistic cultural innovation projects thatcontribute to build more inclusive democ-racies, while also identifying ways to cre-ate ecosystems that encourage social cre-ativity.

SEGIB contributed to this discussionits own experience in organizing the Ibero-American Citizen Innovation Labs (LAB-ICs in Spanish), a pioneering platform topromote citizen innovation in a direct,open, experimental, and collaborativemanner. These labs have gradually con-solidated, and for their third edition, inOctober 2016, they attracted more than1,000 applications and 300 project pro-posals. Of these, a total of 120 volunteerswere selected to work in 11 projectsaimed at vulnerable population inclusionand accessibility.

The lessons we have learned throughLABICs and a mapping of citizen innova-tion initiatives through the CIVICS pro-ject, have reinforced our conviction thatour societies are dynamic, creative, andhave a sense of solidarity. The inventive-ness of these groups is certainly inspiring:they have devised their own workingmethods, and have capitalized on socialtechnologies with originality, making theirproposals unique. This became evident inBrussels.

"Our work in the citizeninnovation project is proofthat an internationalorganization may listen tocitizens and work directlywith them, supporting theirproposals."

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Institutions need to make sure theycreate environments that make it possi-ble to recognize and support these initia-tives, and also connect them with others.With a view to the future, internationalorganizations such as SEGIB must pro-mote an Ibero-American platform of ur-ban culture, where synergies among start-up, sometimes informal initiatives oftencoming from cities' peripheries or fromvulnerable groups which find a sense ofbelonging and inclusion through their cul-tural expressions may be strengthened.

We need to make these initiatives morevisible, as they provide lessons for othercontexts, and may even be adapted toother urban realities. SEGIB already hasexperience in treating with new groupsand communities that are emerging inIbero-America. Our work in the citizen in-novation project is proof that an interna-tional organization may listen to citizensand work directly with them, supportingproposals that, coming from the bottomup, have a potential to contribute to thewhole of society.

Our bet is on an independent, innova-tive, open and diverse culture, an urbanculture understood as a way of articulatingourselves as a society based on diversityand thanks to diversity. We do not needinitiatives to integrate those who arepeers. We need initiatives to integratethose who are different, those who usuallydo not see each other as colleagues or col-laborators.

Our efforts and those of many othershave been compiled in this publication.While diverse in terms of their nature andmagnitude, all the lectures presented hererespond to a certainty that citizens shouldnot be mere recipients of public policies,but rather their creators and the agentsforging their own destiny. For this to hap-pen, however, it is necessary to tear downthe barriers that separate us and buildbridges between social groups. Only thisway will we be able to build inclusive, sus-tainable, and safe cities, where no onefeels alone or isolated, but rather part of asingle efforts, a single luck, in the searchfor a greater wellbeing for all.

▼ Rehearsal on the recital "We are Ibero-America” held at the Teatro Solís de Cartagena de Indias (Colombia)during the 25th Ibero-American Summit of Presidents and Heads of State – CAPTION

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L atin America and the Caribbeanare characterized by their greatcultural, ethnic, and demographic

diversity. Stretching from Mexico down toSouth America's southern tip, numerouspeoples make up this region, where sev-eral race groups of indigenous, European,Asian, and Arab descent converge.

Similarly, several languages are spoken,such as Spanish, Portuguese, French, En-glish, Dutch and more than 30 differentdialects, which are the historical result ofthe Pre-Hispanic times and the Europeancolonial presence for over three cen-turies. Such diversity clearly shows LatinAmerica's vast cultural wealth.

Today, some 630 million people live inLatin America and the Caribbean, andmore than 80 percent of this populationlives in cities, making it the world's mosthighly urbanized region.

Now then, this urbanization processhas followed a historical pattern differentfrom the one we find in Europe. In thecase of the Old World, this process tookcenturies an was a result of the IndustrialRevolution. As the newly formed Euro-pean nations moved from an agricultural

phase to industrial production, popula-tions gradually migrated from rural areasto the cities.

Hence, in Europe industrialization gaverise to urbanization. But that was not thecase in Latin America and the Caribbean.In this part of the world, the urbanizationprocess was abrupt and disorganized. Itwas the result of a migration from thecountryside to cities in the absence of anindustrialization process. As a result ofthis anomalous phenomenon, instead ofhaving workers working for industries, inLatin America and the Caribbean we havehad peasants who were displaced to thecities, thereby giving rise to socialmarginalization, informal unemployment,and suburban slums.

This explains why Latin American soci-eties are dual societies where underdevel-opment coexists with high developmentpoles. Even at this point in history we mayfind some features of the 19th Centurycoexisting with the 21st century.

Naturally, all of this is expressed in thecities, which have not been able to fullyovercome this structural situation, de-spite the fact that during the past few

IntroductionURBAN CULTURE FOR SOCIAL INCLUSION IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEANLeonel Fernández. President, EULAC Foundation.

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years there has been unquestionable eco-nomic and social progress in the region asa whole.

For example, it is worth noting thatonly during the last decade an impressivereduction in poverty and extreme povertyrates has been recorded. In turn, this re-duction has led to a significant increase inthe Human Development Index, and agrowth of the middle classes.

In spite of the achievements attainedover the past years, Latin America and theCaribbean remain one of the world's mostunequal regions. Millions of people stilllack access to quality public services andto economic resources and politicalpower to help reduce social gaps and fa-cilitate the integration of marginalizedgroups living mostly in urban zones.

With the adoption of the 2030 Agendafor Sustainable Development and the Sus-tainable Development Goals (SDV), aswell as the Paris Agreement on ClimateChange, issues involving the rapid rate ofurbanization in our region have come tothe fore. And this is not only because mostof our citizens live in urban zones, but alsobecause it is precisely there where eco-nomic and social inequality are usuallyhighest, along with environmental im-pacts. Therefore, addressing these globalissues that lead to such rapid urbanizationof our cities is critical if we want a sus-tainable development for our region.

Art and culture, as well as building,maintaining, and putting to good use pub-

lic spaces encourage growth and social co-hesion in our peoples. Furthermore, citi-zen access to popular and urban culturehas been recognized to help cities bemore inclusive and tolerant, and safer.

It is for this reason that the internationaldevelopment agenda for the first timemakes reference to culture within the con-text of the SDGs. The importance of cul-tural diversity, and its contribution to theobjectives of having more equal and sus-tainable societies are recognized there.

Traditionally, in Latin America and theCaribbean public urban spaces have beenused for promoting art and culture. This isthe case, for example, of the Mexican mu-ralist movement of Diego Rivera, DavidAlfaro Siqueiros, and José ClementeOrozco, among others. Similarly, exhibi-tion of some of Fernando Botero's sculp-tures in several parks and public squaresin Colombia represents a symbolic cul-tural contribution that is also inclusive.

A recent successful example of the pro-motion of art and culture is the Red Na-cional de Orquestas de Jóvenes y Niñosde Venezuela (National Network of Youthand Children's Orchestras of Venezuela),better known as El Sistema. This innova-tive social and cultural endeavor uses theteaching and practicing of music throughsymphonic and choral orchestras as ameans for socially integrating and intel-lectually encouraging children and youthcoming mostly from the most vulnerablesocial sectors.

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Another recent, notable example is Ja-maica's Resolution Project, promoted byThe Jamaica National Building Society(JNBS), whose main objective is to teachyoung students to use the art of photog-raphy to advocate a positive change. Theprogram offers Jamaican youth the meansto express about and critically analyzethose issues affecting their environmentand their communities, while also encour-aging creativity, critical thought, andteamwork among the youth frommarginalized and rural zones. The workdone as part of the Resolution Project hasbeen shown in cities like London, Birm-ingham, New York, Washington, Berlin,Brussels, and Hamburg.

We are firmly convinced that culturehas a potential yet to be explored as a toolfor social change, and we think this is anarea where both Europe and Latin Amer-ica and the Caribbean have experiences toshare that we also can take valuablelessons from.

In this regard, in 2015 the EU-LACFoundation hosted a seminar jointly with

the Brussels Centre for Fine Arts(BOZAR), in the context of the secondEU-CELAC Summit 2015, which was at-tended by professionals and experts fromboth regions in order to compile their ex-periences and best practices, and to en-courage debate on the role of culture inthis bi-regional partnership.

It is this way that the EU-LAC Founda-tion welcomes and supports this initiativeof the Ibero-American General Secre-tariat (SEGIB). The text readers have be-fore them is the result of a seminar thatput on the agenda for debate a reflectionon highly opportune issues such as theeconomic, political, and social integrationof citizens from different cultural back-grounds or in conflict scenarios.

All the various lectures presented rep-resent a diversity of perspectives as wellas theoretical and experiential analyses,to help better understand the role of cul-ture as a driver of economic growth,progress, and the well-being of our soci-eties, and particularly of urban center in-habitants.

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CULTURAL COOPERATION BETWEEN THE EUROPEAN UNION AND LATIN AMERICAMarjeta Jager. Deputy Director, General Coordinator at Directorate General, International Cooperation and Development, European Commission.

It is a pleasure and an honor to be herewith you today and welcome you onbehalf the European Commission to

this seminar, which will allow us to ex-change ideas, experiences and knowledgeon how to tap into the potential of culturein building an inclusive urban context.

It is my great pleasure to be joined byMadam Minister, and I thank you Secre-tary General for your kind words of con-dolence and solidarity. It is true that thishotel has seen not-so-pleasant events inthe recent past so your participation, to-gether with the others today, shows thecommitment of those of you and of LatinAmericans to the essential role that cul-ture has to play in international coopera-tion and development.

As you all know, Latin America is an im-portant partner to the European Unionnot only because of existing historical, cul-tural, economic ties, but also because ofshared values and principles. The EU andLatin America enjoy a privileged relation-ship. Ever since the first summit held inRio de Janeiro in 1999, the two regionshave cooperated in a joined agenda on anumber of issues like science and tech-

nology, research, drug problems, and so-cial issues. In terms of development co-operation, let me briefly mention the EU'sspecific target of supporting the LatinAmerican region for the period of 2014-2020. The EU has earmarked a total of 2.4billion Euros for such cooperation. This isa clear and concrete demonstration of ourcommitment to development in LatinAmerica.

Ladies and gentlemen, today’s themeof discussion is the role of culture as a fac-tor of sustainable development, and morespecifically, as a driver for urban inclusivedevelopment in Latin America. I would liketo underline that Objective Four of theSustainable Development Goals includesappreciation of cultural diversity and cul-ture’s contribution to sustainable devel-opment, as mentioned before.

Allow me to share with you a fewpoints. First of all, I would like to under-line that the EU believes that culture con-tributes to growth and development, asnoted before by Madame Mogherini. Sec-ondly, I would like to mention why you be-lieve that culture is such a powerfulenabler and driver of development, and

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why this is particularly true for LatinAmerica. My first point concerns the EUcommitment to culture as a driver forgrowth and development, particularly inurban contexts. The European Union'smotto of "United in Diversity" means thatEurope's States and peoples have cometogether to work for peace and prosper-ity, while maintaining the richness of thecontinent’s different cultures, languagesand traditions.

The European Union supports culturaland artistic organizations and individualsacross its member States. For instance,nearly 1.5 billion Euros of the CreativeEurope Program are currently providingsupport to European cinema and otherartistic and linguistic activities. Anotherexample is the European Capital of Cul-ture, an initiative launched 30 years agoalready. During this time, the EuropeanCapital of Culture has promoted the cul-ture of Europe and allowed European cit-izens to share their diversity. Culture hasbecome more closely integrated to thelong-term development of participatingcities, which in turn have benefited fromregeneration and new infrastructure, ahigher international profile, increasedtourism and a better image.

You will be told about the Mons experi-ence this afternoon, and I do believe thatthis experience will show you how it canreally contribute to economic growth andjob creation. The importance of cultureand cultural expression may also be seenin European external relations. The Euro-pean Council conclusions on culture ex-ternal relations focused on developmentcooperation, stressing the need for an in-tegrated and more strategic approach toculture in external relations, and in partic-ular in development policies. The EU hastherefore a strong tradition of using cul-ture as an enabler of development, bothinternationally and internally. Culturemay serve as an enabler of development

"Latin-America is animportant partner to theEuropean Union not onlybecause of existinghistorical, cultural,economic ties, but alsobecause of shared valuesand principles."

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because it is strictly linked to the social di-mension, for example regarding identity,the fight against poverty; it also facilitatescitizens’ participation and intercultural di-alogue. Culture and art can also be im-portant for employment and sustainabledevelopment because they bring creativ-ity, innovation, knowledge and diversityinto development.

Latin America is the world’s most ur-banized region and we know that therapid rate of urbanization is a challenge.Keeping in mind that 90% of the popula-tion is living in cities and 20% in megaci-ties, it is clear that the subject of today isof the highest relevance. Much more re-mains to be done to encourage inclusiveurban solutions in fast growing cities andto engage citizens in developing a sense ofownership —something that is extremelyimportant. This is particularly relevant forLatin America, a region that despite itseconomic growth is ranked among themost unequal in the world. As a result, so-cial exclusion heavily affects urban envi-ronment in an unequal manner. Let mehighlight how culture may provide a cru-cial contribution for addressing theseurban challenges. Culture bears an influ-ence on what this generation chooses toteach the next generation. Education —and especially the academia— play a keyrole in cities, particularly to convey theprinciple of a sustainable coexistence, andto encourage citizens to be active and re-sponsible. It is actually the responsibility

of academia together with us to underlinethis every time we speak.

Integrating the principle of a culture ofdiversity and values of a cultural pluralismand freedom of artistic expression to allpublic policies, will allow women and mento participate in building their own cities,while enjoying their social citizenship andcultural rights under equal conditions.

Local and environmental managementpractices provide valuable insight andtools for tackling ecological challengesand mitigating the effects of climatechange — something that is also ex-tremely important in our view.

The key challenge is to develop publiccultural policies to address inequalities incities, especially in Latin America. We be-lieve that public intervention at all levelsis crucial for creating an enabling envi-ronment. Given the role of culture in so-cioeconomic development, it is importantand a key interest for the EU to assistpartner countries in incorporating cultureto their national policies as a strategic el-ement, as well as developing modern andinclusive cultural policies.

Our belief is that culture provides atrue opportunity for the EU and LatinAmerica to express our common values,such as freedom of expression, free andequal access to information and our com-mitment to building up an inclusive soci-ety. This is why I am glad to make thisannouncement today; we have launcheda pilot project to promote and strengthen

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the role of art and culture as drivers for inclusive and sustainableurban development in Latin America. EU regional cooperationhas been a crucial building block of the fruitful relationship withthe Latin American region, and we consider it essential to ex-change meaningful needs of the region, and to identify people liv-ing within and will remain active in the discussion on cultural andsustainable development.

Today’s discussion will serve as a catalyst and enabler for gen-erating priorities and identifying objectives for the cultural de-velopment of EU-LAC partnership. I have full confidence that youwill identify a long list, and we are looking forward to workingwith you in the future.

Graffiti in the Getsemaníneighborhood,

Cartagena de Indias(Colombia) –

CAPTION

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THE CHALLENGE OF BEING SMALLSylvie Durán. Costa Rica's Minister of Culture and Youth.

Iwould like to begin by expressing myenthusiasm because two counterpartssuch as SEGIB and the European

Commission are partnering to question usand talk about the central role of culturein social life and in the face of current chal-lenges.

Their call should make us feel enthusi-astic not only because of the relevance ofthe debate proposed, but also because itmeans having once again their proactivepresence in a cooperation agenda whereculture is included as a central concept. In-deed, I thank you for your invitation to thisforum.

As regards the first topic you have laidon the table, I would like to share one ofthe many things I have learned from bothIbero-American and European experi-ences, and that is the relevance of placingculture at the heart of development bycreating more dynamic ties of co-respon-sibility when it comes to investment forculture.

Some countries—our Central Ameri-can countries included—have been slowerthan others in adopting State decentral-ization processes. Moreover, for too longwe have remained subsidiary to the foun-

dational vision of the culture institution,which was created around a project ofState-Nation that was promoted with acivilizing, centralistic, Eurocentric visionwhere the North's fine arts were ideal-ized. This view is also barely sensitive andopen to our own diversity, to the inter-cul-tural nature of our societies. In fact, thisvision often excludes our very own di-verse, endogenous, local codes. Clearly,such a rationale entails hurting the veryessence of what we are.

Although this condition generated alively debate in the 1980s and one mighthave thought that it would have beenovercome two decades into the 21st cen-tury, the truth is that we still have manypending issues. Acknowledging and work-ing in favor of our wealth and our diversityas a substantive component of our socialcapital, of our basic foundation andstrength—as is also the case with gen-der— is a work in process and is often verymuch up-the-hill.

In view of this, I will not discuss herethe value of the subjects, the strategies ofculture for inclusion. That is preciselywhat our colleagues will give us in theirpresentations and through their experi-

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ences. Instead, I would like to take this op-portunity to share some questions thatare complementary to those raised withinthe framework of this event.

This is in the understanding that in thisgroup we are truly convinced, that wehave all been "evangelized" and we are all"evangelists," activists who for 15 or 20years or more have reflected on why cul-ture should be at the heart of our devel-opment. For all of us, there is no questionabout the strengths and singularities cul-ture offers.

In other words, those of us who havegathered here or those on whom our de-bate will echo all know that in times of de-velopment, positivist and rationalistpolicies, culture has been the well that haspreserved the possibility of working withour cognitive system as a whole, of as-suming that our affective and empatheticconstruction is the basis for coexistenceand collectivity, of boosting the ability ofprofessional artistic groups with variouscharacteristics for living in uncertaintyand disruption.

Today, these concerns have becomethe rule. Various disciplines and pathsshare the understanding and the certaintythat in the 21st century the importance ofculture has grown and will continue togrow in the face of technological changes,while also recognizing that culture is keyin the face of a profound segregation andinequality in our countries, in these timesof globalization and hyper-connectivity.

The experience of acknowledging and co-existing with the other is unavoidable,whether willingly or unwillingly. Culturalvariables are at the heart of building skillsso that this takes place by way of con-struction and solidarity.

In short, the pretense of a homogeniz-ing hegemony on which our institutionswere founded no longer holds true. Justas we have this illusion that we can hidetoxins under the carpet or in our neigh-bor's yard, or that we can hide the conse-quences of our excessive waste andtoxins, of our abusive exploitation of re-sources, today we are painfully faced withour failure to recognize our diversity onan equal footing, and with the abuses inour cohabitation.

The consequences of both of these be-haviors just keep coming back to ourbeaches and our borders to question usinto recognizing our shared responsibility.

There is an old principle that one of mycultural management teachers used tomention, which is that a policy is a budgetitem. If we extrapolate this idea, we couldsay that a policy that goes beyond rhetoricmust necessarily provide the grounds toactually mobilize resources—whether fi-nancial, human, will power, advocacy, orscaling-up strategies. And here is where Iwould like to draw your attention.

Many of our realities—and diversitydepends on this—are small to mediumscale. There are 10 large cities repre-sented here, and all the rest of us come

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from small countries, from communitieswith other extensions that also needclearly defined co-responsibility chains sothat we may build while including our di-versity.

In this regard, we have to strengthenand consolidate, along with this sense ofinclusion, the narrative as to why cultureplays a central role. In recent years wehave bet on different subjects and para-digms (creative economies, the socialeconomy of culture, and transformationthrough art or culture) but we still need tofinish building a comprehensive and clearrationale.

Because when we talk, for example, ofa "creative economy" it is like when wetalk about an "agricultural economy" —this is not accurate enough. We may be re-ferring to realities as diverse as Monsantoor an urban orchard; we may be talkingabout a subsistence farming economy, orinnovation processes such as those takingplace in my country with small vegetablesor with gourmet coffee, to which weturned our eyes to when plain coffee wasno longer good business.

I will illustrate this with some ideas.Costa Rica is not only a pioneering coun-try on issues that have earned it world-wide recognition—not having an army, acivilian tradition in place before the armywas abolished in mid past century— butalso, going back early on in our Republicanlife, as a society and at various criticalpoints in history we have chosen the path

of institutions, law, and investing in edu-cation beyond the might of the most pow-erful or the most heavily armed.

This construction is not the result ofone single vision, but rather of an invest-ment logic. We did not invest on an army;we chose to invest on the social, on edu-cation, on healthcare...

The same goes for our energies. Today97% of our energy mix is based on cleansources. This is the result of an effort andthe clarity of the country on the type of in-frastructure, governance and co-respon-sibility that we generate. If you live in thecountry's central part—the CentralPlateau—and the water you receivecomes from the northern region, you paya canon to contribute to subsidize in orderto protect these water sources.

While we still have not extrapolatedsuch an insightful vision to the field of cul-ture with this degree of maturity, that isprecisely our task ahead. When we see

"...As a society, at variouscritical points in history we havechosen the path of institutions,law, and investing in educationbeyond the might of the mostpowerful."

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the investment drivers in those countriesthat are striking because of their diligencewhen providing resources for developingbasic cultural sectors—I am talking, for ex-ample, about US$5 million in funds formusic in Chile; millions for the movie in-dustry but also for movie clubs in Brazil;and the ability of Mexico to provide fundsfor its great cultural institutions and pro-moting its heritage—there is a correlationbetween these two aspects. On the onehand are their possibilities for investmentand the size of their economies, but addi-tionally, as a second aspect, the revenuesthese countries obtain from extractive in-dustries. Enterprises like Petrobras, Valeand Pemex, as well as mining and hydro-carbon exploitation have played a key rolein financing culture.

In view of this reality, what can we dowhen not all countries in the region havesuch economies of scale? How can westructure our correlation and accounta-bility, and investment chains and flows?

If you look at the size, population, num-ber of municipalities, GDP, Human Devel-opment Index, and all other indicators, acountry like Costa Rica can hardly becompared even with Colombia. We couldperhaps compare ourselves with Antio-quia in order to find similar ranges. I oftensay that the whole of Central Americawith our 40-50 million inhabitants mightbe comparable with Colombia or withBrazil's north-western region.

So I would like to lay on the table this

concern for economies of scale and thevarious co-responsibility chains that weshould think about so that we may moveon from the anecdotal to the wonderfulexperiences taking place in our countries,to strategic readings that might impact oneffective, scalable public policy platforms.

The thing is that we all have a "five-Michelin-star" granny or uncle in thekitchen who is capable of giving us theirtalent and our gastronomic heritage outof affection, out of love. We know thatonly a few of those relatives are going tohave a restaurant or a beach "tianguis" intheir lifetime to generate income whentourists arrive.

Culture is that huge space that encom-passes everything from the heritage of aprimary forest, to a granny's talent, towhatever we do with what the forestgives us and add value once in the market.

Today it seems that we are harassingthe primary forest of culture. As is thecase with nature, if we succeed in disap-pearing it there will be no water, noecosystem that may possibly last.

This necessarily leads us into thinkingof a "triangle of caretaking". One may takecare of their granny, or allow themselvesbe helped by a neighbor, or hire someonefor their services. That same service vo-cation—just as in the example with food—rises either from affection, from aninterrelation we engage in with others, orfrom the possibility of paying for thoseservices if there is no one to do it out of af-

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fection. In our case it may be that a Haitianwoman is looking after the children of aDominican woman who is here in Europelooking after the children of some profes-sional woman. But it can also be aNicaraguan woman who has had to leavethe countryside and move to the city toprovide for her family. And so on. Theseextended cities and care-taking flows donot end with borders.

What does any of this have to do withour cities? Well, cities may be that spacewhere we go back to find a diversity ofways of giving ourselves what we need tolive. They may also be walls full of screensand, just like with television, make culturalcontents be just the pretext and the hook-in for processes that only take us to themarketplace and make us ready for con-sumption.

We know there are costs that the mar-ket never takes on, costs that are not ap-pealing for profit-making over the shortterm, and which have to be taken on bythe government or by interested citizens.Usually they have to do with the well-being of people, with our co-responsibil-ity for our common goods. Hence, whilepeople are worth something, this worthcannot be translated into money.

I wanted to lay on the table this possi-bility of generating new shared processesand programs. Let us look for that econ-omy of scale, for the co-responsibility cir-cuits to sustain the fair play so that, in thespace we may find ourselves, in that space

we the smaller ones—the smaller commu-nities—may fit in, because these are to befound everywhere.

In this sense, a great city like Mexico isa reference model not only for the Southof Mexico, but also for Central America, asare also Bogota and Medellin. We do nothave any hub of such a size in our econ-omy. Our co-responsibility also involvesthose linkages. We need to grasp what-ever may enable us, structurally speaking,to have the creative experience that thissector has built up, and take it out of thesetraditional, closed venues that we havestill inherited from the high culture, andturn it into a real instrument for develop-ment for all, a co-responsibility option fordiversity and inclusion in our territory andin these extended chains of survival thatsurpass us.

I think of the effort my country did tobuild a public education system which formany years was its platform for transfor-mation, then became exhausted, could notbe brought up-to-date, so that today thegap between private and public educationis horrific. It is hard to sustain institutions.Investment for innovation is not only aproblem of "I did not think of it"; it is justhow much it cost to build the State, tobuild institutions, even if they are morereduced, more flexible institutions.

I wonder if, working in the State, oneshould think in terms of scale and ques-tion how to redefine the use of resources,considering the political warfare it would

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entail to dismantle what we have to investin innovation. That is not viable. But evenif we could do it, just the price of items in-volving digital culture absolutely exceedswhat my society can do. So we have tothink of where and how to build. Maybewith libraries, with public schooling, withexisting spaces, with university culturaloutreach programs.

What is the chain of capacities wewould need? We would have to see ifsome of these capacities are already inplace, so that there is no need for an ex-penditure strictly speaking. It is not so

easy to say it is just a matter of having theresources in a chain. It seems that suchengineering is at the heart of building apublic policy that is scalable and can makea difference at some point.

I want to lay this on the table based onCosta Rica's experience, on our size andeconomy of scale, on what I identify as thechallenge of diversity in the 21st century,which is precisely the challenge of beingsmall, the challenge of an empathetic, atruly empathetic harmonization and re-spect for the other in a world of global di-mensions.

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CITIES AND CITIZENSHIPJuca Ferreira. Brazil's former Minister of Culture.

F irst of all, I would like to apologizefor not being able to attend thisSeminar. Brazil is going through

difficult times, and the President askedthat the Ministers remained in Brasiliaduring this period. I would like to thankyou for the invitation and I send my warmregards to Rebeca Grynspan and to theEuropean authorities for organizing thisimportant initiative.

I know that important questions willarise and very interesting dialogues willtake place during this Seminar. I would liketo have access to these questions, and beable to integrate them to the proposalsBrazil will be presenting at the next Meet-ing of Ministers of Culture in Cartagenathis year.

We need to have a contemporary vi-sion on the role of culture in development.I think that if a new way of diplomacy be-gins in international organizations, i.e., arelationship between countries based ontheir peoples, based on their citizens, thatis highly motivating.

Someone has said that we are doomedto live in cities. "Doomed" is quite a strongword; perhaps "destined" would be better.

Cities are our destiny due to the enor-mous gravitational pull they exert ontoday's world population. They are likeoceans where everything flows towardsthem and everything goes towards them.One of the critical tasks in today's worldis to control this process, and to try andstimulate their positive aspects.

Culture is one way to do this, as citiesare like a great machine we try to be a partof, often times without understandinghow they work. And we can only under-stand this by interacting, creating, pro-ducing, interfering, questioning, andchanging things. There is a constant push-and-pull between individual interests andthe needs of cities resembling machinesthat need to operate and optimize theirown performance. We all know examplesof cities where the better this machineworks, the unhappier the human beingsliving in them.

What is actually at stake is a change inmindset. Rather than seeing cities as ma-chines, as a series of pre-established func-tions, we could see them as living organisms,as something capable of receiving feedbackand adapting to it.

Presentation

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A great part of our social engineeringintends to force individuals to adapt tocities, but we can also work the other wayaround—making cities encourage individ-ual action and participation, and makingthem adapt to individual interests.

Citizen engagement is essential andshould not be seen as a right provided bylaw, but rather as an objective in itself.Citizens are not an aspect of cities thatdeserve to be taken into account, that areentitled to concessions. They are the ulti-mate addressees, the raison d'être ofcities themselves.

ICULTURAL POLICIES FOR SOCIALINCLUSION AND HUMANDEVELOPMENT IN AN URBANCONTEXT

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THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: A STORY FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF CULTURALMATERIALISMRaúl Oliván Cortés. Director, Zaragoza Activa, Spain.

ABSTRACT:

The Fourth Industrial Revolution will change the world we live in altogether,especially the cities, so we should rethink questions such as on the role willculture will play in the cities of the future. This paper addresses this question

from a materialistic point of view, building a narrative around three organic centralareas where changes will be the most profound — the world of work, governance,and enterprises. This narrative is based on a new subject, new scenarios, and a newstoryline to outline a story based on the utopia of abundance.

At the end of the 18th and the begin-ning of the 19th century the First Indus-trial Revolution changed the world like noother historical phenomenon had doneever since the Neolitic Era. The worldwent from a rural, agricultural and trade-based economy, to an urban, industrial,mechanized economy powered by steam.During the Second Industrial Revolution,electricity and fossil fuels would provideenergy to thousands of factories thatgrew in size and become increasinglytechnical, hastening an unprecedented di-vision in labor. The Third Revolutionbrought about the computerization and

automation of the industry at an expo-nential rate, starting in the 1970s up untiltoday, where millions of citizens live per-manently connected through smartphones.

These three waves of change havetransformed humanity far more in 200years than in the previous 10,000 years.But nothing seems to indicate that theprocess is over or that it has even sloweddown a little. Quite the opposite. The ruralexodus continues, and by 2050 more thantwo thirds of the world's population willlive in cities. In parallel fashion, some ex-perts have identified evident signs that a

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Fourth Industrial Revolution is in the making, basedon hyper-connectivity and cyber-physical systems —Internet of things— or microfabrication representedby the maker movement, thanks to the populariza-tion of 3D printers and direct economy1 throughcrowd-funding platforms such as Kickstarter.

From a structuralist point of view, it is worth ask-ing what role may culture play in the new urbanecosystems of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Butto do this, from a cultural materialism perspective weshould attach the narrative to the main social struc-tures to be transformed. Klaus Schwab, ExecutiveChairman of Davos World Economic Forum, haspointed out three organic realms where thesechanges will be radical, namely the world of work,governance, and enterprises.

1.- Work, dualization, spare time, hacker ethics,and political subject.Let us start by discussing the changes to come in

the world of work. Even the Davos Forum, unsuspi-cious of countering the benefits of capitalism, sur-prised us in the first months of 2016 by announcingthat by 2020 as many as 7 million jobs will be lost toautomation, robotics and advanced computing, andonly 2 million new jobs will be created. The math issimple.

Two MIT researchers had already warned aboutthis when they published A Race Against the Ma-chine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating In-novation, Driving Productivity, and IrreversiblyTransforming Employment and the Economy (Bryn-jolfsson and McAfee 2011), a brave essay speculat-ing that the new wave of technological progress

URBAN CULTURE FOR SOCIAL INCLUSION IN LATIN AMERICA

"The ruralexodus continues,and by 2050 more thantwo thirds of theworld's populationwill live in cities."

1 According to Las Indias, directeconomy is characterized by en-gaging in wide ranging produc-tive and commercial activities ona very small scale, with little fi-nancing needs, and an intensiveuse of free knowledge. Las Indias(2015) Las Indias Electrónicas. https://lasindias.com/indianope-dia/economia-directa.

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might paradoxically be to blame for thepoor rate of economic growth in the USand Europe over the past few years.

History tells us that every technologi-cal breakthrough is positive in the longrun. What is unprecedented about thesetimes is the rate at which events are tak-ing place. To this date, most governments,local economies—and citizens withthem—seem to be losing the race againstmachines.

So the transition will be hard andpainful. The picture before us is one ofunemployment, precariousness, and du-alization. Unemployment and precarious-ness for those who do not recycle andadapt themselves fast enough. And dual-ization because the world will be dividedbetween those who know how to tamemachines, and those who will do the jobsrequiring so little skills that it will not beprofitable to replace them with machines.On the one side will be nomad employeesworking in STEM (Science, Technology,Engineering, Mathematics) and a fewmore contributing with abstract thought.On the other side, waiters and wait-resses, caretakers and assistants. In themiddle, there will be nothing. The socialspace that used to be held by huge mid-dle classes and skilled working classeswill gradually disappear. Drivers will bereplaced the day Google's unmanned carnotably improves a human being's inci-

dence rate. Kiva, Amazon's orderingrobot that delivers and stores packagesin the company's hangars, already multi-plies by four the productivity of a special-ized worker. And accountants, advisors,managers, administrative personnel arebeing relegated by increasingly intuitivesoftware. We are ultimately headed to-ward a polarized job market that will fur-ther amplify existing inequalities. A socialgap which, as Thomas Piketty showed inhis celebrated essay Capital in the 21stCentury, may only be reversed the daywe take a 180° turn in economic policy.This French economist talks about taxingcapital gains. Others talk about universalincome taxes, basic social income taxes,or even guaranteed jobs. Whatever thecase, what is clear is that over the nextfew decades social pressure will be sodeafening that large-scale redistributionoperations will be viewed as a lesser evileven by the most orthodox liberal minds.

But not everything looks so awful. TheFourth Industrial Revolution will also mul-tiply business productivity and shorten in-novation/profit cycles, thereby favoringentrepreneurs rather than those of inde-pendent means (P. Mason, 2016). At thesame time, new machines (non-obsoles-cence drones, free hardware and soft-ware, sensors at the price of chewinggum) will contribute to the production ofgoods and services at zero marginal cost

Cultual Policies for Social Inclusion and Human Development in an Urban Context

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(J. Rifkyn, 2014). Sooner rather than later, thingssuch as those expensive software packages and so-phisticated sensor networks to improve traffic orwaste management in cities, or a design to printprostheses or a source code for programming adrone to clean polluted air, will be as replicable as anMP3 song... How long will the current patent systemof the pharmaceutical industry hold in a society offree knowledge? One can almost feel the stress intheir management boards.

This more optimistic view of the future allows usto speculate on the dreams of utopian socialists. Asociety where productivity is so high and benefits areso distributed that working is just an option in theface of an abundance of spare time (LasIndias, 2015).While admitting that the very hypothesis may bebanal and out of order, we should take this as a fu-ture trend considering that a reduction in work shiftsand a resulting increase in spare time has been anobjective fact ever since the Second Industrial Rev-olution up until today.

In this context, culture will play a prominent job,being the main source of meaning and beauty —anessential ingredient for a good living2 of the man ofthe future. Thus, culture is vindicated as a central el-ement3 in a society where there is more spare time,and even more, in a society where the border be-tween spare time and work time turns blurry be-cause people are able to work doing what they findfulfilling and feel passionate about.

In the meantime, while we seat and wait for thatdistant utopia to arrive, the role culture may alreadyplay in society is that of contributing with criticalthought and creative skills to the generations that


"The Fourth IndustrialRevolution will alsomultiply businessproductivity andshorten innovation/profit cycles, therebyfavoringentrepreneurs ratherthan those ofindependent means"

2 It is essential to take a look at theglobal work of FLOK Society onGood Knowledge (El Buen Cono-cer) in Ecuador. See http://flok-society.org/

3 The main criticism that would dis-mantle the longing for mass ac-cess to high culture lies in the in-flated share of trash TV data, asopposed to cultural TV shows.This illustrates the validity of theever-lasting dilemma betweenApocalípticos e Integrados, pre-sented by Humberto Eco in hiswell-known essay back in 1964..

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will have to compete against machines over the nextfew decades.

And all of these principles—passion, creativity,and free knowledge—invariably lead us to the hackerethics described by Pekka Himanen in 2001. This isa fundamental work that has ordered the ideas for alegion of followers and has turned into a hacker"cook book" of choice. Hacker ethics is conceived asa new paradigm that goes beyond the protestantethics and its redemptive notion of work, so as tobuild a new scale of values based on freedom, cu-riosity, truth, a collaborative spirit, free access to in-formation, and social equality.

As a result of such a scale of values, which seemsto be in place by default in the collective unconsciousof digital natives as if it were a BIOS, a new politicalsubject is being constructed in a silent, yet disruptivemanner.

For two centuries, the only movement capable oforganizing itself and acquiring an identity in Europe,i.e., of constructing a transformative political subject,was the working class. But in today's social media era,the pariahs of the earth, the forsaken, the under-working class—the long-term unemployed, the forcedpart-time social worker, the youngster exiled fromwork, the person surviving on temporary contracts,the woman working in black, the retired man lookingafter his grandchildren—are all vindicated as a top-ranking political subject. And suddenly, all of themmeet up in the social media with a small entrepreneur,an intellectual artist, a free-lance professional, or anoutraged public officer... All of them interconnectedby cross-cutting interests and expectations aroundcohesive discourses (the underdogs, the 99%...).


"...Culture will playa prominent role,being the mainsource of meaningand beauty."

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In the words of André Gorz, work no longer playsa central role neither in terms of exploitation nor forresistance. It is no coincidence that the Nuit Debout—the French version of the 15-M movement whichhas broken out as a result of the labor reform— is notled by workers unions, but rather by Indignadomovements.

Thus, while the prototype of the man of the earlierindustrial revolutions —its archetype from a politicalpoint of view— was a trade union leader, the male/fe-male4 prototype of the Fourth Industrial Revolution,the transformative political subject, will be a maker5,an activist, an artist, a social entrepreneur, or all ofthese at the same time as if they were one single rein-carnation of the Renaissance man... transversely con-nected through distributed networks, leading crowdsin spite of themselves, and maybe even masses of theunderdogs. The next Lula will be a hacker.

2. Governance, advanced democracy, labs, andTrojan cultural devices.Once we have the political subject of our narra-

tive to approach from a cultural materialism per-spective, we may proceed with the second organicelement of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, whichwill radically change governance or, in other words,politics.

We have only had Facebook and Twitter for a fewyears, and yet it seems to be a whole of a lifetime.Today, for example, we cannot conceive that a polit-ical scandal of the magnitude of the Panama Papersor the 43 Iguala missing students could go unnoticedand not turn into a global issue of discussion and crit-icism—i.e., a trending topic.


4 Criticism: Feminization of themaker and hacker movement isstill a pending subject

5 Makers are people who think, de-sign, prototype and manufacturethings according to the “do ityourself” philosophy, almost al-ways within a community. Theyare the new version of the full Re-naissance man.

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The world has changed and governments arescrutinized in real time by millions of interconnectedcitizens at the beat of a "like." Social pressure in thisregard will be so strong and exponential, that no gov-ernment wanting a certain degree of stability will beable to elude a brave agenda of transparency, opendata, digital administration, and smart resource man-agement.

Government innovation will be even more pro-found than enterprise innovation, essentially be-cause it starts way below. And those who resist willbe subject to an unbearable social pressure, multi-plied by the web's echo6. Indignado movements likethe 15-M in Spain and the junios in Brazil, the Oc-cupy movements and now the Nuit Debout in Francehave been and are, above all, an expression of crisesin government confidence... Symptoms of the gap be-tween a disaffected generation that perceives howthe world has changed, and governments failing tokeep up with their pace7.

In the meantime, some governments have failedto avoid the temptation of exploiting the externali-ties of the web society. Edward Snowden confirmedwhat we all suspected—that the US indiscriminatelysurveils all interconnected citizens throughout theplanet. The reason? Simply because it can. Super-computing makes it possible to fish with trawl netsanything that moves amid the ocean of emails, Face-book and Whatsapp interactions. It is almost like ask-ing a scorpion not to bite you. The issue raises a lot offear, especially if you add totalitarian regimes, cyber-physic systems and big data into the equation8.

Between both of these antagonistic inertias, i.e.,citizen multitudes demanding an advanced democ-


6 Criticism: Savazoni and Copelloquestion the value of the socialmedia during the junio protestsin Brazil, pointing out that televi-sion or organized social move-ments continued to play a keyrole. See Transformaciones en laesfera pública de la sociedad civilen Brasil. R. Savazoni and K. Co-pello (2015), Brazil.

7 With all their nuances and com-plexities, the abovementionedphenomena are not the same, nordo they have a unidirectional na-rrative.

8 The Chinese censorship of the In-ternet reminds us far too muchof Orwell's novel 1984.

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racy versus governments (and bureaucrats, lob-bies...) wanting to minimize or appease their loss ofpower, culture needs to play a role in innovating andimproving governance models, first as a test lab, andthen as a Trojan horse. And also as labs because cul-tural institutions, their mechanisms, their projectsand equipment are small, peripheral and subordinateenough—unfortunately for governments them-selves—so that they may be used as a testing zone.Let us say that those of us who are "forward-looking"and "freaks" within the government are allowed tomove play around in areas like culture and innova-tion, which are well away from power.

Hacking an arcane museum that was conceived100 years ago as a venue for passive cultural con-sumption, and turn it into a medialab for open cultural,collaborative and democratic production is difficult todo. Yet it is much simpler than hacking the healthcaresystem, the area of urban planning, or the army.

Secondly, cultural institutions—once hacked—willserve as Trojan horses for the various governments.They will weave partnerships with outside civicforces, first by opening discreet passageways, andthen by tending large bridges so they may enter thekitchen. That is the mission of what I call, with a littlesense of humor, the "hackers inside," the rebel alliesacting from within, who are key when it comes to tip-ping the scale... A risky trade, I can assure you.

What I am describing is not simple because thereis no single model of a Trojan cultural mechanism. Be-cause we have been working with SEGIB's CitizenInnovation Group since 2014, there are severalmodels optimally working under different circum-stances9, environments and approaches. The LAB


9 The number, type, and model ofopen production spaces is mul-tiplying. Based in Rosario, SantaFe, Argentina, SantaLab is the la-test experience, and is intendedto be the first of a vast networkthroughout the region.

"Governmentinnovation will beeven more profoundthan enterpriseinnovation, essentially because it starts way below."

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Meeting held at the end of 2015 inMadrid was very helpful so that we couldget to know each other. The MediaLabPrado in Madrid plays a leading role as ameta-lab. There are projects focusing onthe art/culture/technology connectionsuch as Laboral in Gijón, CCCLab inBarcelona, and Ethiopia in Zaragoza; oth-ers are betting on self-management withlittle or no government intervention, forexample Casa Invisible in Malaga and C.S.Luis Buñuel in Zaragoza; others focus onthe maker philosophy, such as MakerSpace in Santiago, Chile and the UIO Me-diaLab in Quito; and there are also mod-els based on broader ecosystemsencompassing entrepreneurship, innova-tion, participation, creativity and youthspare time, as is the case with ZaragozaActiva (La Azucarera and Las Armas) thatI launched in 2010 myself and have beenrunning ever since.

While they are different, they do havesome common denominators. This newgeneration equipment may be defined asspaces for open, collaborative and demo-cratic production that favor bottom-updynamics (Wiki methodology) acrosscommunities and value networks (tran-sware [Insa., 2015]) that go beyond thephysical hub (hardware) and the activitiesthey perform (software).

In short, during the Fourth IndustrialRevolution cultural mechanisms must

serve as laboratories and as Trojan horsesin institutions, creating an interface thatdecodes antagonistic languages betweenthe crowds and governments, harmoniz-ing their different speeds. The otherchoice is to wait until this is done by fieldslike economics, justice, or defense.

Now that we have the Who, our key po-litical subject (the activist/artist/hacker)and the Where—the new venues for openproduction—to conclude our narrative ofthe Fourth Industrial Revolution with amaterialistic approach we should wonderabout the How and the What For, in orderto provide it with a narrative tension. Andon this regard, we should finish portrayingthe third sphere where these major trans-formations will take place from a struc-tural point of view, namely enterprises.

3.- Entrepreneurial innovation, directeconomy, post-capitalism, abundance.Once again the Chairman of the World

Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, has be-come our unwilling ally, when revealing ina recent interview that there is a growingsense of anxiety, mistrust, and even fearamong businesses due to the new wave oftechnological revolutions.

And with good reason. Never before inhistory have the industry champions—theheavy weights—been in so much risk ofbeing overcome by a disruptive technol-ogy in such a short period of time. When


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Nokia was becoming the world's favoritemobile in early 2000, no one could haveimagined that by 2006 Apple would breakthe market with the iPhone, leading to theSwedish brand's downfall shortly after.Cycles of innovation, value extraction andprofit are getting extremely shorter.

As I was saying at the beginning, thenew wave technology allows a group ofmakers, for example, to prototype a prod-uct in record time, for example a sensor tohelp the blind perceive volume, upload itin a crowdfunding platform, manufactureit upon demand and distribute it withoutany intermediaries. This is direct econ-omy, which is another way of explainingthe Fourth Industrial Revolution. Thisphenomenon has been foretold by Las In-dias Electrónicas, with David de Ugarteand others.

Until not long ago, the production pro-cesses for a prototype, its financing, themarketing efforts, the sale... would havetaken years, and above all, hundreds ofthousands of Euros in investment. Todaythis is the hobby of a gang of kids inZaragoza when they get out of work. Theyare called Makeroni; I know them andthey are made of flesh and bone. They arejust an example of what is coming. Theyare the archetype of post-capitalism.

But not all stories are as pretty as theMakeronis. At a macro level the world isat a crossroads of biblical proportions.

The perfect storm compounded in the fi-nancial, real estate, and energy crisis—ofwhich many of our countries have notemerged completely—adds to the pend-ing issue of climate change; and to thebrutal refugee crisis, still to get worse inthe future with the demographic explo-sion in developing countries, not to men-tion the threat of terrorism movingaround the networks like fish in water.

These are the conditions explained byPaul Mason to foretell the hypotheticalend of capitalism, thus heralding the goodnews of post-capitalism, although thismay be somewhat naive and romantic onhis part. Nevertheless, some keys may befound among his speculations that I fullyagree with because I see them myselfevery day.

Collaborative economy is anothervector that threatens to change the in-dustry's business models altogether. Inthe words of Blablacar CEO FrédéricMazzella, “In a few decades no one willhave a car of their own in the cities." Thishypothesis has started to sound reason-able, just as it would not sound crazy tosay that today's largest tour operator inthe world is called AirBnB, a companythat did not even exist just a few yearsago.

Leaving aside the black spots of collabo-rative economy (opaque taxing, a tendencyto create oligopolies, precariousness...) the


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truth is that this seems to be a hopeful itinerary tomanage abundance in the cities10.

In Zaragoza Activa11 we were able to help an en-gineer who is promoting Garage Scanner—theAirBnB version for car parking. This is a good exam-ple of how a company based on collaborative econ-omy may bring about incredibly positiveexternalities. With Garage Scanner every parkingspot owner may profit from their spot when it is free(during working hours, on weekends or in summertime), thereby improving the price of the cheapestprivate operator. This entails a cash transfer in an ar-tificially scarce economy (parking spots) to a realeconomy (the user decides where to spend themoney saved) in addition to redistributing the bene-fits in a much more horizontal manner (among allmicro-owners), while at the same time solving a sig-nificant mobility problem (less and more efficienttraffic because there is no need to look for a spot onthe street).

I do not want to expand on this any further. I justwanted to introduce the subject, to account for howthe Fourth Industrial Revolution will also change themorphology of businesses. The business model ofcapitalist enterprises has been based on managingscarcity. Even where there is already abundance, thecapitalist economy insists on artificially managingscarcity—just like employer associations of taxidrivers do—by ensuring their market share, despitethe fact that cities are a reservoir of abundance, allfilled with underused cars and people willing to docarpooling.

The issue of abundance versus scarcity is not triv-ial at all. Scarcity is the very driver behind a capital-


10 There are already alternatives toUber in place that the Shareableplatform defines as purely colla-borative, since ownership and de-cision making are also distribu-ted. Examples of these areVTCCab, Tappaz, and Union Taxi.

11 In Zaragoza Activa we even haveour own co-working P2P thatworks as a time bank, La Colabo-radora, with a 200-plus membercommunity. See video "¿Qué esla Colaboradora?"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_s8Gjjv_GQ

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ist society with its collateral effects (inequality, a fe-rocious competitiveness, individualism, preserva-tion instinct, social Darwinism). Where there isabundance we go back to our natural state, we re-gain the collaborative instinct that we are born with.Scarcity is also the best alibi of post-modern timesand the protestant ethics of living only to work,alienated by an endless consumer dynamics, just likein Groundhog Day. It is the deformed utopia of thehere and now (Chillón, 2012). A graffiti on a wall hasperfectly portrayed the decline of our times: "Themovie theater of your childhood is now a Zarastore."

And so we get to the end of our post-capitaliststory, to reveal the most important role of cultureduring the Fourth Industrial Revolution. If ourarchetype protagonist is the hacker (in the broadestsense of the word) and therefore we have the Who;and on the other hand we have the most favorablesetting—the hacker's natural habitat— which areopen production spaces in the way of Trojan culturalmechanisms12, so that we know the Where; then wejust need the What For and the How to complete ourstoryline.

The How of the story is so predictable that we aregoing to do an ellipsis to move on. You can imaginethese legions of activists, artists, social en-trepreneurs, makers and hackers in general, who willend up as political leaders and senior executives oflarge companies13, carrying with them the virus ofthe hacker ethics and speeding up the fall of the oldfoundations of capitalism in collaboration with therest of driving forces of society, which will be inter-connected in cross-cutting fashion. Alongside, the


12 Labs, medialbas, maker space, fa-blabs, livinglabs, wiki espacios...

13 Some months after the first ver-sion of this article, Telefónica an-nounced that it was recruitingreknown hacker Chema Alonsoto run its Big Data division.

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Trojan cultural mechanisms successfully inoculatethe open code in the major government arteries,reaching the power centers.

And finally, let us be honest and recognize whatthe ultimate purpose of this story is. The What Forof culture from a materialistic perspective and in afinal sense, can only be to build a better society. Cul-ture in post-capitalist society should fill every per-son's life with meaning, promoting individual andcollective enjoyment... Training for critical thinking,nurturing curiosity and the ability to question. Cre-ating a predisposition for sensitivity and beauty. Es-tablishing good living in the cities as if it were anorganic regulation. Rebuilding a sense of cooperativehumanism. Telling a narrative of utopia in abundance.

Even if this is an impossible.


The issue ofabundance versusscarcity is nottrivial at all.Scarcity is the verydriver behind acapitalist societywith its collateraleffects

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2. Duch, Lluis y Chillón, Alfosno. La Agonía de las Posmodernidad. (2012) El País.3. Himanen, Pekka. La ética hacker y el Espíritu de la Era de la información (2001) Fin-

landia. Descarga http://eprints.rclis.org/12851/1/pekka.pdf4. Insa, José Ramón. Organizaciones Transware, laboratorios de transformación conec-

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5. Las Indias (2014) La economía directa. Blog Las Indias Electrónicas. España.https://lasindias.com/indianopedia/economia-directa.

6. Las Indias. El Libro de la Abundancia. (2015). Ed. Las Indias. España7. Mason, Paul. Postcapitalismo, el futuro que nos espera. (2016). Ed. Paidos.

Inglaterra.8. Piketty, Thomas. El Capital en el Siglo XXI. (2014) Ed. FONDO DE CULTURA

ECONOMICA. Francia9. Rifkin, Jeremy. Sociedad de coste marginal cero. (2014) Ed. Paidos. EE.UU.El Libro

de la Abundancia. Las Indias (2015). Ed. Las Indias. España10. Savazoni, Rodrigo y Copello, Kalinka. Transformaciones en la esfera pública de la

sociedad civil en Brasil. (2015) Brasil.11. SEGIB, Innovación ciudadana. Docmento colaborativo sobre Labs Ciudadanos

http://www.ciudadania20.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Documento-Co-laborativo_LabsCiudadanos.pdf


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URBAN CULTURE FOR SOCIAL INCLUSION IN COLOMBIAMoisés Medrano. ∗Director of Populations, Colombia's Ministry of Culture.

ABSTRACT:

Today Colombia is moving toward peace building, a matter that involves not onlythe National Government but also other country sectors and its citizens. Thisentails a visible effort to achieve a true reconciliation and a sustainable peace.

Building peace demands that the fundamental rights of individuals be guaranteed ina context where tolerance and respect for plurality and diversity are respected. Inthis sense, Colombia's Ministry of Culture is working on several projects in urbancontexts such as "Community is Art, Library and Culture: Settings for Peace," and"Training for Trainers: The Healing Experience of Culture." Vulnerable communitiesand victims are the participants in these projects, and they have found in culture var-ious possibilities of inclusion. Moreover, to overcome the challenges involved in social inclusion, the Ministry ofCulture is carrying out socio-cultural mediation processes in urban contexts underthe name of Cultural Dialogue for Inclusion, and which involve a differential approachand do no harm action.

Peace and cultural diversityWe welcome the fact that this Seminar

on Urban Culture for Social Inclusion inLatin America is being held. It is a tremen-dous opportunity to share the working ex-periences of the Colombian Governmentas regards its cultural rights agenda, as afundamental component to achieve socialinclusion of its afro-descendent commu-

nities, youth at risk, cultural groups, in-digenous peoples, demobilized and victimwomen, and urban dwellers.

Today in Colombia we are doing signifi-cant efforts towards peace-building, in-volving not only the National Governmentbut also all other national sectors and cit-izens. This is a critical time to change thecourse of national history, and therefore

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we must all get visibly involved to achievean actual reconciliation and a sustainablepeace.

Peace building requires that funda-mental rights be guaranteed to individu-als, in a context where tolerance andrespect for plurality and diversity are re-spected. One of the challenges lies pre-cisely in understanding Colombia'spluri-ethnic and multicultural nature, afact that should not be ignored at anystage of the process. The country's richcultural diversity is expressed in multipleidentities and cultural expressions of thepeoples and communities that make upour nation. According to a 2005 censusconducted by Dane, ethnic groups makeup 13.77% of the entire Colombian pop-ulation, where afro-descendents are themajority with 10.40%, followed by in-digenous groups with 3.36%, and thenthe Rrom or gypsy people, with 0.01%.

Moreover, 68 native languages arespoken by nearly 850,000 people. Ofthese, 65 are indigenous languages orIndo-American languages; two local lan-guages are spoken by afro-descendents —the English-based creole spoken in SanAndres, Providencia and Santa Catalina,and the Spanish-based Ri Palengue that isspoken in San Basilio de Palenque, Carta-gena and Barranquilla, which are home to"palenqueros." There is also the Rromaní,which is spoken by the Rrom/Gypsy peo-

ple found in different departmentsthroughout the country. Today many ofthese languages are threatened and thecoming generations will not know them.

Such is the importance of diversity thatif work continues to be done to respect di-versity it will become a concrete tool forbuilding a nation of peace. This may betrue to the extent that every sector in ac-cordance with their competences, helpsraise awareness within the country as tothe need to build an inclusive nation.


"Today in Colombia we are doing significantefforts towards peace-building,involvingnot only the NationalGovernmentbut also all othernational sectors andcitizens."

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I would like to share two projects con-ducted in urban contexts with the partici-pation of vulnerable communities andvictims, who have found a number of pos-sibilities for inclusion through culture.

The first one, conceived by Colombia'sMinistry of Culture, is called "Communityis Art, Library and Culture: Settings forPeace." This project is led by the Ministryof Culture in partnership with the Min-istry of Housing and Social Prosperity. Apublic policy alternative is proposed,aimed at creating urban settings that en-courage peace building, culture, coexis-tence, as well as helping overcome thesuffering of families by making them ben-eficiaries of priority interest housing—VIPin Spanish— that are 100% subsidized bythe National Government, as well as theso-called subsidized interest housing —VIS, which are housing projects for theirsurrounding communities.

Beneficiary families have either beenvictims of the armed conflict, or theyhave lived in extreme poverty, or theyhave been victims of natural disasters. Tocontribute to a comprehensive repara-tion and to rebuild the social fabric ofparticipating communities, the projectpermanently works through socio-cul-tural workshops with a cultural/artisticelement, promotion of reading and writ-ing, and access to public libraries, using apsico-social and do no harm approach.

These are three cross-cutting issues toenable encounter, tolerance, and a col-lective vision and building of commonhorizons. With this work methodology,priority communities will be able to givea new meaning to those adverse situa-tions they have gone through, therebyimproving their quality of life.

This project has focused on making cul-ture an integrative element in that it con-tributes to community reflection, andespecially because it is a powerful tool tobring about cohesion and rebuild the so-cial fabric. To achieve this, departmentalgovernment teams work according to thefollowing conceptual guidelines:

• Art-community relationship• Affection, caring, and day-to-day life • Social imaginary• Socio-cultural revival • Collective identity• Rooting— Ownership of spaces • Coexistence based on social pacts

These socio-cultural workshops aredesigned based on the above guidelines.They are creative, collaborative meetingswhere reflection intersects with artisticwork, reading and writing practices andaccess to libraries, resorting to the com-munities' own cultural practices. A psico-social, do-no-harm approach is used as across-cutting premise for the project. De-


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partmental teams work full time, hand inhand with the communities to make theproject possible throughout its differentstages, while also integrating skills forself-management, sustainability, and localknowledge in every action.

Moreover, the workshops have beenconceived as a venue where horizontalrelations allowing for a continuous ex-change of knowledge and practices. Ef-forts are made to create venues forreflection to facilitate changes in day-to-day life, strengthen socio-cultural prac-tices (whether revived, recreated ornew), rebuild the social fabric, and exer-cise citizenship in its diversity. Each weekworking with the communities, progressis made in building this collective projectthat will ultimately deliver its outcomesto the entire community with a positivechange in their living conditions.

The second project is called Training forTrainers: The Healing Experience of Cul-ture. This project is part of the work theMinistry of Culture's Population Bureaudoes with the aim of strengthening andconsolidating the local capacities of culturalmanagers, organizations, and groups work-ing for a symbolic reparation, for designingand implementing measures to satisfyarmed conflict victims within the frame-work of Law 1448 of 2011. It is imple-mented in the 10 Colombian cities with thelargest number of armed conflict victims.

Using an urban approach, the projectconsists of facilitating a broad cultural di-alogue about the experiences contributedby the culture sector for a symbolic repa-ration to dignify the armed conflict vic-tims; to build narratives of memory; andto create environments and rebuild socialand community fabric, thereby collec-tively amplifying skills and turning socialdialogue into a dynamic strategy for sym-bolic reparation. This highlights the po-tential of culture for reconciliation and forbuilding a true, stable, and enduringpeace. In 2015 the Training for Trainersworkshops were carried out in six majorcities, including Bogota. In 2016 work willcontinue with those communities partici-pating in the early workshops, and inother armed conflict victim communities.

While progress has been made as re-gards social inclusion, some challenges re-main. Therefore, it is necessary tostrengthen certain strategies such as thedifferential approach and the do no harmaction through dialogue, so that the dif-ferent populations are acknowledged andprotected within the framework of theirethnic and cultural diversity.

To overcome the challenges social in-clusion entails, the Ministry of Cultureconducts socio-cultural mediation pro-cesses in urban contexts under the nameof Cultural Dialogue for Inclusion. Theseprocesses consist in implementing cul-


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tural plans engaging indigenous and afro-descendent peoples, youth at risk, andvulnerable communities displaced to thecities as a result of the conflict. These cul-tural dialogues involve community work,meetings in cultural centers that are heldat suitable times depending on the groupsworking dynamics, and their main objec-tive is to promote family involvement.

A cultural plan is formulated afterevery meeting, and support is providedfor the production of audiovisual contentto be disseminated in public television andin the social media.

Cultural plans address subjects such asthe fight against discrimination and racismin cities, promoting respect for diversity,participation of women and senior citi-zens, and eradication of pre-conceivednotions stigmatizing the youth.

Cultural work involves two ap-proaches: a differential approach, and dono harm action.

The differential approach refers to aninstitutional strategy to train technicaland professional public officials who arecapable of designing, implementing, andmonitoring programs and projects basedon the respect, recognition, and inclusionof the various population groups. Mean-while, do-no-harm action is a strategy toidentify the risks of public actions aimedat vulnerable urban communities. Hence,decisions are made and adequate guid-

ance is provided for every action to incor-porate, even in complex situations, asearch for agreement and cultural dia-logue within a framework of respect fordignity, freedom and autonomy as theminimum ethical standards in the rela-tionship with the various populationgroups.


“…the project “Training for Trainersconsists of facilitatinga broad cultural dialogue aboutthe experiences contributed by the culture sectorfor a symbolic reparation to dignifythe armed conflict victims.”

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Efforts to integrate these approachesto cultural community mediation workare the result of a need to engage multi-ple subjects and groups in the agenda ofrespect for diversity and inclusion, in theface of existing challenges relating to so-cial exclusion, and in response to a needfor pertinent policies to include the vari-ous social actors in the agenda of differ-ent entities, so that actions may bedesigned and implemented to advancethe recognition, representation and in-clusion of the various population groupsthat make up the nation.

I would like to point out the challengesinvolved in promoting inclusion:

• Strengthening venues where populationgroups are made participants and arerepresented: a governance statementfor ethnic groups and stakeholders, ex-pressed in a reinforcement of socialstructure, representation, as well as ofsymbolic, identity, and political spaces.

• Strengthening the cultural structuresof ethnic groups, youth at risk, and vul-nerable communities in urban con-texts: Our work consists in managingeach population group's knowledge ofcultural, spiritual, political, and socialstructures. To this end, support is pro-vided to decentralized entities so theymay adequately do their cultural man-agement work with social, community,

and cultural organizations found inColombian urban contexts.

• Revitalizing and protecting Colom-bia's linguistic diversity: Advice andsupport are provided for urban revi-talization processes in this area, aswell as for studies and other efforts tostrengthen all 68 native languagesspoken in Colombia. New technolo-gies play a key role in this process, ren-dering the country's linguisticheritage more visible through the useof web platforms.

• Social inclusion of persons with dis-ability and vulnerable populations:This is done by strengthening socialinclusion policies of victimized andvulnerable populations, groups of in-terest, and persons with disabilities inorder to strengthen decision-makingand better design and implement cul-tural policies. Thus, actions are basedon cultural dialogue.

• Promoting a discourse and the exerciseof culture as a protective environment:This is a set of tools including a norma-tive and conceptual framework in-tended to design attention andprevention strategies, whereby cultureis approached as a protective factor thatpromotes a harmonious work betweenfamilies, communities, and institutions,so as to allow for the participation andinclusion of population groups.


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Lastly, the Ministry of Culture is in-clined for a view of a creative nation thatis also responsible for its memory, whereevery citizen is capable of interacting andcooperating, and has opportunities to cre-ate and enjoy cultural expressions underconditions of equity and respect for di-versity. Specifically, the Ministry's Popula-tion Bureau with its objective of

promoting the exercise of cultural rightsby the country's population groups, im-plements social inclusion policies of vic-timized and vulnerable populations,ethnic groups and persons with disability,underscoring the role of culture as a pro-tective milieu, while also striving for theinclusion of vulnerable communitiesthrough social dialogue.


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CULTURAL POLICIES FOR DEVELOPMENTCarlos J. Vilalaseñor Anaya. Consultant on public policies for development, Mexico.

ABSTRACT:

Culture, in the 21st century, without demerit of the artistic and patrimonialaspects, must also be understood as a human right and a resource for sus-tainable development.

In Ibero-America profound economic inequality coexists with large areas of op-portunity to increase the capacities required for the full exercise of citizen’s rights;Where culture, as a fourth pillar of sustainable development, can have a cross-cut-ting contribution.

In the 21st century, culture must beunderstood as a human right and a re-source for sustainable development, with-out detriment to its artistic andheritage-related aspects.

Realities of profound economic in-equity coexist in Ibero-American coun-tries with vast areas for opportunity tobuild the necessary capacity for a full ex-ercise of such rights. In this context, cul-ture —being the fourth pillar ofsustainable development— may provideits contribution all across the board.

Care should be taken, in that a boostfor creative cities and other similar means

to promote development may turn cre-ativity into a means for an excluding se-lection and separation of territorieswithin a single country.

In the 20st century artistic expressionsand cultural heritage ascribed—in thatworld prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall—to either one of the two existing develop-ment models.

In this interconnected, interactive, andinstantaneous world we live in the 21stcentury where migration, traveling, andthe other's presence are day-to-day oc-currences, the most educated person isno longer the one with the most informa-

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tion, but rather the one with the knowledge, capaci-ties, and skills to interact collaboratively with asmany cultural diversities as possible.

While culture is usually advocated based on ethe-real, almost bucolic arguments, the reality is that ac-cess, participation, and the enjoyment of cultureconstitute a human right that is primarily recognizedin the Universal Declaration of Human Rights andthe International Covenant of Economic, Social, andCultural Rights. Culture is not a decoration, butrather essential to human beings.

Furthermore, the link between culture and devel-opment has been subject to analysis for a long time.Signed by 177 countries, the 1982 Mexico Declara-tion on Cultural Policies14 is considered by UNESCOas the foundational document of a solid vision of cul-ture and development. It is in this Declaration thatwe find a much broader definition of culture, movingaway from the pro-monument vision expressed inthe 1972 World Heritage Convention.

According to the Declaration, culture may beconsidered, in the strictest sense of the term, as aset of distinctive (spiritual, and material, intellectualand emotional) features characterizing a society ora social group. In addition to arts and literature, cul-ture encompasses ways of living, fundamentalhuman rights, systems of values, traditions, and be-liefs.

This definition of culture becomes all the more en-lightening with Article 1 of the Declaration: "Everyculture represents a unique and irreplaceable bodyof values since each people's traditions and forms ofexpression are its most effective means of demon-strating its presence in the world."


14 Mexico City Declaration on Cul-tural Policies (Mexico City, 1982).Available at: http: //portal.u n e s c o . o r g /c u l t u r e /e n / f i -les/12762/11295421661me-xico_en.pdf/mexico_en.pdf

“culture may beconsidered, in thestrictest sense ofthe term, as a set ofdistinctive(spiritual, andmaterial,intellectual andemotional) featurescharacterizing asociety or a socialgroup. ”

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A few years later, in 1996—during the boom ofneoliberalism—then President of the World Com-mission of Culture and Development, Javier Pérezde Cuellar, pointed out that development could notbe understood as a single, lineal path, as this wouldinevitably eliminate cultural experimentation and di-versity, and would seriously limit humanity's creativecapacity with its valuable past and unpredictable fu-ture.15

In that same decade 1998 Economics Nobel PrizeLaureate Amartya Sen16 said that poverty could alsobe assessed from the perspective of the capacitiesguaranteed and effectively put to a person's avail bythe State, to attain that which they have a reason tovalue. The cause of an individual's will to exercisetheir rights is diverse, in that it is built up based ontheir own particular cultural perspective, and on thedifferent ways of experiencing the world built byeach person throughout their personal and socialhistory. This is important because culture is taken farbeyond artistic and heritage components, while atthe same time turning cultural diversity into some-thing consubstantial to development.

But the importance of cultural diversity for de-velopment is not an argument used only by UN-ESCO or by "culturologists"; it has even beenevidenced by individuals who are apparently as farfrom the world of culture as the President of theWorld Bank17, who in 1998 said: "Together withglobalization we have seen an unprecedentedstrengthening of individual identity. The awarenessand pride stemming from cultural identity is an es-sential part of community empowerment, so thesecommunities may take charge of their own destiny.


15 PÉREZ DE CUELLAR, Javier. In-troductory remarks to the docu-ment "Our Creative Diversity".Available at: http://unesdoc.u n e s c o . o r g / i m a g e s / 0 0 1 0 /001016/101651e.pdf

16 SEN, Amartya K. (1995). Nuevaeconomía del bienestar. Univer-sidad de Valencia. Servicio de Pu-blicaciones.ISBN 978-84-370-2317-5

17 Culture and sustainable develop-ment: A framework for action”,Washington DC: World Bank,1999, 48 p. Available at:

http://www-wds.worldbank.org/ex-ternal/default/WDSContentSer-ver/WDSP/IB/2005/12/16/000011823_20051216164530/Rendered/PDF/34671.pdf

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It is for this reason that we at the World Bank believethat respect for culture and for the identity of per-sons is an important element in any viable approachto a people-centered development."

With this background, the United Nations Devel-opment Program in its 2004 Annual Report, entitledCultural Liberty in Today's Diverse World18, claimsthat, if the world wishes to achieve the MillenniumDevelopment Goals and eradicate poverty, first itmust successfully tackle the challenge of building in-clusive, culturally diverse societies; in other words,it must cultural diversity and encourage the coexis-tence and peaceful interaction of such diversity.

In another paragraph, the report highlights thathuman development is about broadening people'schoices, i.e., allowing them to choose the kind of lifethey want to live, while also providing them withboth tools and opportunities so they may crystallizethose choices. This calls for political will, and is some-thing the State should provide for by law and imple-ment through public policy.

By will of the State Parties, — including all Ibero-American countries— the relevance of diversity incultural expressions has been laid down in the 2005UNESCO Convention19, where the importance ofcultural goods to bring about cohesion and sense isacknowledged, in addition to their contribution forgenerating economic resources through cultural in-dustries.

All four objectives of this Convention—it is notjust about the creative economy and that is why I un-derscore this— are as follows: 1) to support sustain-able cultural governance systems; 2) to attain abalanced flow of cultural goods and services, not


18 UNDP, Human Development Re-port 2004. “Cultural Liberty in To-day's Diverse World” Available at:http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/fi-les/reports/265/hdr_2004_com-plete.pdf

19 Convention on the Protection andthe Promotion of Cultural Expres-sions. Available at: http://en.unesco.org/creativity/convention

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only through the circulation of artistic works inas-much as they are aesthetic works, but also throughthe circulation of a diversity of codes, symbols, andmeanings in order to increment the wealth of humancreativity; 3) to integrate culture within the contextof sustainable development; and 4) to promotehuman rights and fundamental freedoms. This iswhere I think the European Union has great, quiteadvanced experience in terms of promoting andguaranteeing human rights based on cultural rights—an experience that may be broadly shared withIbero-America.

As pointed out by SEGIB's General Secretary,Latin America is the first region to recognize theConvention for the Protection and Promotion ofCultural Expressions and implement it at an Ibero-American level20, while also integrating our own wayof being in the world to this international vision... Ourcodes, our symbols and meanings, those which arethe raison d'être of our region culturally speaking,based on the cultural mixes we originally share.

One particular cultural quality of the Ibero-Amer-ican community is knowing how to manage our com-mon ancestral roots in a diverse manner. Suchdiversity comes mostly from the wide social and en-vironmental variety found throughout the region.

Here I would like to point out that the 2013 Cre-ative Economy Report21 specifically mentions exam-ples where culture impacts on development from alocal level, from a small scale, from a very local scale.

That is how we get to September 2015, when UNMember States unanimously approved the Agenda2030 for Sustainable Development22. The Agendaincludes 17 Sustainable Development Goals which,


20 SEGIB, Carta Cultural Iberoame-ricana (2006): http://www.oei.es/xvi/xvi_culturaccl.pdf

21 PNUD y la UNESCO, INFORMESOBRE LA ECONOMÍA CREA-TIVA, EDICIÓN ESPECIAL 2013,titulado “Ampliar los Cauces delDesarrollo Local”. Disponible en:http://www.unesco.org/cul-ture/pdf/creative-economy-re-port-2013-es.pdf

22 Agenda 2030 for Sustainable De-velopment. Available at: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld

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as my dear Lázaro Rodríguez has well pointed out,are the new "hardware for development."

From the moment it has taken effect, the point isno longer about promoting development solely asthe need to increase the amount of economic re-sources available, of being a little more environmen-tally sustainable, of advancing human rights. Now allthree aspects are seen as an integrated systemwhere each part is interdependent with the others,and culture plays a cross-cutting role.

The way of being in the world determines the par-ticular meaning that issues such as the end ofpoverty, zero hunger, healthcare and welfare, edu-cation and creativity have for each people, for eachnation and for the region as a whole. Every one ofthese 17 objectives is deeply determined by our wayof being in the world and by the store of creativitywe may use for development in each milieu in ourterritories.

While there is enormous capacity in the market-place to generate identity through symbolic circula-tion means, skills and capacities are actuallygenerated for consumption, rather than for personaldevelopment. This is particularly relevant for LatinAmerica, where we have high poverty rates, butabove all the world's highest inequality index.

Here I would like to point out something impor-tant: in Mexico we are 122 million inhabitants withan average Human Development Index of 7.737.There is a total of 2,745 municipalities in my coun-try. A shocking figure is that 95% of the country'spopulation lives in municipalities with over 10,000inhabitants., and yet these municipalities account foronly 53% of the total number of municipalities


"Our codes, oursymbols andmeanings, thosewhich arethe raison d'être ofour regionculturally speaking,based on thecultural mixes we originally share"

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(nearly 1,454). By contrast, those munici-palities with less than 10,000 inhabitantsshelter 4.8% of the population, for a totalof 47% of all municipalities. What do wedo with these persons, with this 4.8% ofthe population, which are scattered in1,297 municipalities that do not reach theeconomies of scale needed to make themviable?

We have to be very careful when wepromote this idea of creative cities, ofgenerating creative production hubswhich at one point may favor, or perhapseven deepen, these inequalities. We needvery clear public policies so that such cre-ativity acts as a harmonizing core, ratherthan as an excluding, differentiatingghetto. Thus, the process should make itpossible to irradiate this creativity, thissymbolic circulation toward those territo-ries with a lower density of symbolic cir-culation, and which are usually identifiedas the periphery and the rural areaswithin cities.

A lot has been said about how impres-sive creative economy rates are. However,the major economic returns of creativeeconomy are in the area of design, in thepress/editorial industry, the audio indus-try, in jewelry making and in fashion, butthose elements we traditionally identifyas "culture" in Latin America and in Ibero-America have little impact. The share ofhandcrafts, performing arts, and art edu-

cation schools is very reduced when con-sidered within the large numbers of cre-ative economy. Design alone accounts for60% of the overall creative economy fig-ures.

This is important because severalcountries are still restructuring their cul-tural institutions, and some are even re-founding their ministries of culture. Thisis the case with Mexico, Uruguay, Panama,and Chile, where the tension between cul-ture as a right and culture as an economicresource is present in the discussion intheir respective Parliaments.

It seems to me that this possibility ofcollaborating with the European Unionmay provide us with many more elementsto empower this vision of culture as aright, as the promotion human capabilitiesfor a full exercise of freedoms establishedby law, as the main source of balance insustainable development, as we move inin this ministry restructuring.

A lot of progress has been made interms of Ibero-America's cultural space.In addition to Iber programs there is theIbero-American Cultural Charter; Ibero-American congresses have been held inMexico, Sao Paulo, Medellin, Mar delPlata, Zaragoza, and Costa Rica. Thereare also the so-called "Local Iber-Cul-tures", which is still not a program offi-cially speaking. These are gatherings ofIbero-American local governments to


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talk about cultural policies., and havebeen held three times —in Puebla, Marde Plata and Quilmes. We also have dia-logues on culture and social cohesion,and the dialogues for preparing the re-port on Ibero-American cultural space.Progress has been made from the stand-point of the Ibero-American culturalspace to incorporate, to generate this vi-sion of culture and development and Ithink we have to keep on moving for-ward.

I would like to finish with a highly rele-vant quote by Carlos Fuentes: "Both cap-italism and socialism have proved to be

incapable of getting most of our peoplesout of poverty. Hence the following ques-tion regarding culture: Is there anothersolution, a solution of our own? Is it thatwe do not have an intellectual and organi-zational reservoir in tradition and imagi-nation to devise our own developmentmodels consistent with the truth of whatwe have been, what we are, and what wewant to be?"

Thus, the question that I leave in the airis, can we build a notion of sustainable de-velopment of our Ibero-American beingwith European Union support? That iswhat we wish.


IIFROM CULTURAL PRACTICES TO PUBLIC POLICIES: ART ANDINITIATIVES FOR SOCIALINCLUSION

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ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION FOR INCLUSIONFederico Seineldin. Co-founder of the innovation space Njambre, Argentina .

ABSTRACT:

Innovation comes from the private sector and not from the State. The State mustdetect these innovations and help scale them.Change happens if we integrate the perspective of the current paradigms that areno longer valid (social, political, economic and environmental).We need more people willing to move away from the current corporate world to fo-cus on innovation with social and environmental impact.

Every generation goes through one ormore crises. My generation has lived incrisis for years, and we will keep on shak-ing with this "feeling of being out in theopen" unless we come to understand howto change our status quo, our current or-ganizational models. Even for our govern-ments, in which we delegate power ascitizens, it is all the more complex. It isvery difficult in many ways: first, in thewords of Colombian philosopher Fer-nando Toro, governments can only dowhat is written as law, and that meanszero innovation and no speed. The rest oforganizations both in the private sectorand in organized civil society may do any-

thing that is not forbidden. Therefore, thesmallest organizations have more flexibil-ity to innovate and run risks that govern-ments actually like, so that governmentsshould apply judgment to identify wherethere is innovation in order to promote itand scale it up, so that ideally we ulti-mately have sustainable public policies orlasting structures. But lack of flexibility isnot the larger issue, but rather citizens'hypocrisy when claiming fast solutions,with governments lasting in power only 4-5 years, even though no organizationreaches a stability point before 10 years.If I were asked today whether I would in-vest in a project or business that is not

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going to last for more than four years, cer-tainly I would not invest; and neitherwould I invest if a project were to last fiveyears. Therefore, it is very difficult to buildmechanisms that are sustainable overtime from the point of view of major insti-tutions and the lack of time.

I come from an organization calledNjambre. An "enjambre" (swarm) is thisgroup of bees or wasps which, upon see-ing their hive has collapsed, they go outlooking for a new place, they all leave notknowing where they are going, and theykeep on searching for something new be-cause their old home is no longer func-tional. Our organizational model ismutant; we view ourselves as a living or-ganism, and ever since we started we havealways changed our appearance and theway we interact, although our aim is al-ways the same—building technology-based projects with people and theplanet's development being at the heartof our work.

The way we shape ourselves is contin-uously changing, we cannot organize our-selves in a static manner when the contextand the needs are changing, are continu-ously mutating. So we were a start-up ac-celerator, then a company builder, andnow we are a group of impact enterprises.

I would like share with you two proj-ects so you may have an idea of how it ispossible to turn gaps and problems in so-

ciety visible while working from the small-est places, and then build solutions andoffer them to the government so they canbe scaled up. The first one is an enterprisecalled Umana. Umana is working in thenorth of Argentina in the provinces ofSalta, el Jujuy. We had identified thatthere was a great incidence of cervix can-cer and breast cancer among Colla in-digenous women because they did not getany healthcare, they did not go down fromthe hills for their annual tests, and they didnot do it not because there is a lack ofpublic hospitals—there are public hospi-tals, and they are free—but rather be-cause healthcare, while public and free, isvery costly for low income sectors, be-cause it is so inefficient and careless. Pa-tients are not seen in a speedy manner,there are not enough spots and thesewomen who live on the hills would oftenhave to stay at least one night on thestreet so as to have a spot or get minimumattention at the hospital. So theireconomies were precarious, they had toleave their children tens of miles away,and once they were given a spot and re-ceived attention at the hospital, some-times they were mistreated. An inefficienthealthcare system is not what one wouldwant, and people die. So, in trying to findthe cracks, we saw what was happeningwith private healthcare in our country.

There are a lot of fine physicians in the


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private healthcare system, but this systemis within the orbit of private, pre-paid orpublic social works, where people withformal jobs pay a monthly contribution totheir union and/or private healthcare cov-erage systems. Doctors are tired of thissystem because after all bureaucratic pro-cedures, they get paid for a patient theyhave seen only after three or four months.In countries where there is inflation, thisis taxing on income. So we made a pro-posal to a group of doctors: Why keepworking with this system that you do notlike and mistreats you? And to the Collaswomen: What can we do so you receivetreatment? We established a link, andtried to hack the public and the privatehealthcare system.

We asked the doctors, "If we give youthe volume of patients enough for a tradi-tional social or pre-paid service, can yousee these women living on the hills?" Theiranswer was, of course they would. Notonly could the Collas women afford theconsultation—we are talking aboutUSD6-10 per appointment—but at thebeginning they did not believe us that bycalling a phone number they would get aspot within a week. We started to showthem that it was clearly possible, thatthere were other sectors who called adoctor on the phone and if they had themoney or if they were covered by the so-cial works they would get healthcare. Thatwas how we started trying. To this date60,000 members have used the Umanasystem. We started with women, but thenthey brought their children and their hus-bands. This is still a pilot; we have 60 doc-tors affiliated to the system. It is acollaborative economy model, a systemwhere members join for a USD10 annualfee. We bring together doctors who needmore volume of patients, and patientswho do not want to pay every month orwho cannot afford an expensive insur-ance, so that when they have to go to a gy-necologist or an ophthalmologist, they cando it. Today, these persons do not spendmore than $90 a year if they're not seri-ously ill. Umana is an hybrid enterprise;we like public-private hybrid models be-

From Cultural Practices to Public Policies: Art and Iniciatives for Social Inclusion

"...the smallestorganizations havemore flexibility toinnovate and runrisks thatgovernments actually lack..."

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cause we're taking cost off the public sys-tem, while taking advantage of the effi-ciency and flexibility of a private system.Our idea is to start sending SMS or What-sapp messages to women if they stopcoming down from the hills for their an-nual tests (mamographies and papanico-lau tests), because by staying in touchwith them and knowing who they are wewill be able to do preventive healthcare—something that no one in the privatehealthcare sector does in my country. So itis all about providing decent, high-qualityhealthcare for low-income sectors.

The second project is called Arbusta.An arbusto (shrub) is a plant whose veryroots are transformed into its trunk andbranches. We believe that in low-incomecommunities, as Rebeca Grynspan wassaying in the opening session, there aremany talented people but there are no op-portunities. At Arbusta we have set our-selves the goal of finding those roots,those talents, to bring them closer to theopportunities. We turned the Spanishword arbusto into a feminine noun be-cause we believe in the ethics of caring,and we believe that women have that abil-ity for caring that we as men are lacking(we are more prone to warring and hunt-ing). Arbusta is that: a labor inclusion en-terprise aimed at "NiNis" (the Spanishequivalent of NEETs), i.e., those 20 millionLatin American youths who are neither

studying nor working, where 75% ofwomen are household heads who usuallyenter into a vicious, degenerative cycleabout their future because they do nothave any hope, as opportunities do notreach them.


“The way we shapeourselves iscontinuouslychanging, wecannot organizeourselves in a staticmanner when thecontext and theneeds are changing,are continuouslymutating.”

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Latin America is a huge lab, since todaywe are seeing what will probably happenin all other continents over the next 30years—this fragmentation, this growingurbanization and high inequality levels.Today there are almost 290.000 uncov-ered working positions in the technologysector. If they existed, these people wouldhave jobs. But in our beloved continentwe keep on offering our youth from work-ing class communities’ traditional jobs:construction work, woodwork, hairstyling, manicuring, bakery. These young-sters do not want to be those things, sothere are more chances of them gettingcaught up in other more perverseeconomies in their search for higher in-come. Today our great challenge is togenerate "ethical" economies in thoseplaces where there is no economy oreconomy is precarious. So art, or culture,or ethical economies have to enter thestage to provide opportunities, as theseyouths are subjects of law and they arewonderful; these are people who, whengiven a chance, they hold on to it and givetheir best. Our model at Arbusta is toidentify "NiNi" youth with a high poten-tial and integrate them so that in workingfor Arbusta they provide digital servicessuch as software testing (i.e., finding er-rors in web pages or in mobile apps, orfinding system bugs) or data and contentmanagement, management of social

media content, classifying informationand moderating content. We are able toprovide these services because there is amarket for them, and the Internet andmobile phones unwillingly turned ouryouth literate, and Arbusta's approach ofteaching to work by working. Therefore,it is about providing training and offeringthem actual work; and the model of pro-moting technical training, with the prom-ise that they will then be included in a jobbank, waiting for the marketplace tocome looking for these working classcommunity youth, because that neverhappens. It does happen often that theyare sought for construction work, but notto be computing technicians. In Arbustawe are committed to providing real jobs.We have a sales team that goes out andsells whatever they produce—we are atechnology enterprise and our offices arelocated in working class neighborhoods.We do not work to reduce the digital gap,but rather to provide working opportuni-ties in the digital world. They come in witha minimum salary, and work part timefour hours because in these communitiesand especially women cannot work eighthours a day. There are a lot of pre-con-ceptions as to why people do not work, orwhy people in the poorest communitiesdo not work, and there are many situa-tions that prevent them from workingeight hours.


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Today Arbusta employs 70 people. Weare in two Argentine cities: Rosario andBuenos Aires, and two months ago westarted in Medellin, Colombia with a pro-gram at the Medellin Mayor's Office. Be-cause both the Government of the SantaFe province, the government of BuenosAires, Argentina's National Government,and the Medellin Mayor's Office realizethat Arbusta is a concrete, self-sustain-able model of social inclusion.

Money is a means, not an end for us atNjambre. But we do not have ideologicalissues with money either, because the realissue is sustainability and development ofour species in this beautiful planet. Wewant to be the software of the MDG (Mil-lenium Development Goals). If the MGDare the hardware, we have to provide itwith the software. The hardware alone isdumb, it is useless, and I feel that is wherewe have to be, with innovation... Puttingthe dots together, binding together thatwhich is disconnected, broken. As SteveJobs used to say, it is easy to put the dotstogether if you are looking backward, butwe have to put the dots together as wemove forward, and that can only be doneby changing the paradigm and under-standing that the common good and pub-lic goods are not only the responsibility ofgovernments... Common goods are un-derstood here as everything that is con-venient for us all in the same quality and

quantity and at all times, as is the casewith security, healthcare, and education,and all sectors are responsible for this. Soby innovating from below and in a smallscale and testing in a flexible manner, wecan then generate the input to impact onnations and on cities. And that is the chal-lenge.


"Latin America is a huge lab, sincetoday we are seeingwhat will probablyhappen in all other continentsover the next 30 years"

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I would like to quickly mention a coupleof other projects. One is for urban recy-clers, for "cartoneros," as we call them inArgentina. It consists in computerizing allof their cooperatives, because these arealso decent people. For us, cartoneros orurban recyclers are "saints", they are thebottom line of human dignity and kind-ness. Starting one millimeter below theycan have more profitable livelihoods —al-though such livelihoods might be danger-ous and illegal. They check the garbageand try to recycle our garbage and eatfrom there. For us, they are a sector worthdefending. In Latin America there are 5million of them. We are working withtechnologies for them.

The other project is called Mama-Grande. The name comes fromPachamama (Mother Earth). It is abiotechnology project. By identifying bio-logical ecosystems and bacteria, we arecleaning (putting a remedy to) contami-nated waters from the city sewage, fromtoilets, from our homes' toilets. We arealso working to change starch intobiopolymers through the use of bacteriain order to replace oil in our economy asregards plastic production.

These enterprise examples seem to beeasy to replicate, but the issue is not onthe models but rather on managerial andorganizational capacities, on the strength

of entrepreneurship, on the emotional,social, and even spiritual capital that thegroups of individuals working for Njam-bre's enterprises contribute to every proj-ect. Therefore, our main challenge is tofind leaders. We need to find leaders whowill move from industries having the ex-pertise, to these new industries where in-tegrating social, environmental, andeconomic visions is further required to in-novate. Identifying and bringing in peoplewho want to take a leap and who are notfulfilled with their present lives, who arenot satisfied with the corporate world. Itis the same problem that social economyhas. In my view, the great problem withthe social economy is a sale one, in thatthey know how to produce but not how tosell. So we keep on providing microcred-its for people to produce, and then theydo not know where to sell their productsand go broke. So this is more about trans-ferring a kind of knowledge that cannot al-ways be systematized, but which insteadcomes from the body, from putting one'sbody and getting to work in these proj-ects. We also need to speed up the migra-tion of leaders from the business world tothe world of impact entrepreneurship;people who can see, vibrate, and want tolive in other (integration) paradigms. So tome, it is more about people than it is aboutthe system.


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THE IMPACT OF SPORTS AND CULURAL MEGAEVENTS IN CITIESBeatriz García. Director, Institute of Cultural Capital, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom.

ABSTRACT:

This paper offers a reflection on the value of investing in cultural interventionsin cities that are in the process of transformation. The example of cities as di-verse as Glasgow, Liverpool, Marseille or Rio de Janeiro, all representative of

urban environments marked by social division and great economic challenges, showsus how it is possible to create new opportunities and change the aspirations and ex-pectations of residents and visitors. Culture, interrogated and developed as a ca-talyst for change, can offer a creative outlet that is inclusive for cities that have beensocially and economically stagnant for decades. To do this, it is necessary to over-come preconceptions about what counts as a valid culture, art and heritage, to takerisks and, especially, to be open to diverse, even contradictory, contributions fromall social groups and, especially, those who have traditionally been marginalized orexcluded from the dominant cultural discourse.

This presentation is a reflection on theworth of cultural interventions in citiesthat are undergoing transformationprocesses. These are cities as diverse asGlasgow, Liverpool, Marseille or Rio deJaneiro, all of them urban environmentsmarked by a social division and significanteconomic challenges, and showing how itis possible to create new opportunitiesand change the aspirations and expecta-tions of residents and visitors. Ques-

tioned and also developed as a catalyst forchange, culture may provide a creativeand also inclusive way out for cities thathave been socially and economically stag-nated for decades. To this end, it is neces-sary to overcome pre-conceptions onwhat is regarded as culture, art, and avalid heritage. It is also necessary to takeon risks, and especially be open to diverse,even contradictory contributions from allsocial groups, and especially from those

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who have been traditionally marginalizedor excluded from the mainstream domi-nant discourse.

For nearly 17 years I have been work-ing on the effect of major, "mega" eventsin urban environments. I am talking aboutthe largest possible event, the OlympicGames. I have also been very interested inthe relationship between culture andsports, particularly from a cultural point ofview. And on the other hand, I have linkswith the EU European Capital of CultureProgram, created in 1985 and which hasbeen held in some 60 European cities eversince. I have focused on these two typesof interventions because I think they offera very interesting opportunity to discussthe extremes that can be reached in anurban environment when there is pres-sure, when a platform is generated or cre-ated, when we are all forced to think ofwho we are and how we want to be seen.There are many contradictions in the con-text of a major event when it is used as themain objective of an urban cultural policy,because they may be quite aggressive, be-cause they come with certain directives,with a specific timeline, with needs thatare always extreme, but at the same timethey provide an occasion to force every-one into trying to speak to each other be-cause the opportunity is there, becauseeveryone will be watching, and when it isgone it will probably not come back.

Additionally, I am a member of the In-ternational Olympic Committee's Com-mission on Culture and Heritage since lastyear. This is quite a new thing because is-sues like culture have usually been re-garded as something secondary. It is agreat moment to introduce changes, to bemore demanding as to how culture is ad-dressed in the context of a sporting eliteevent.

If we speak from the point of view ofsocial inclusion and social effects, we arefaced with a paradox, i.e., to what extentthese types of initiatives allow for inclu-sion and tolerance, and to what extent—ifthey are poorly managed—they can bemost alienating, excluding, and indeed asource of trouble for a city.

The work I have done on cultural capi-tal cities has been at another level, sincethese are events with less of a media im-pact, they take place for a much longertime—usually one whole year— and theyinvolve something as complex as cultureitself... What is it? How do we define it?But what happens in both cases —and Ithink this is relevant here— is that be-cause these events have an impact oneveryone because they are not like an artsfestival, they really force people to reflecton topics relating to their identity andtheir own projects, their dreams, their is-sues; they force them to create thesecommunication bridges. Sometimes they


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are failed but when they are not, the ef-fect may be significant in creating a long-term legacy. They may be a great deal ofhelp for certain cities to improve theirreputation, change their image, especiallythose cities that are stereotyped, and es-pecially from a national point of view, iftheir economy has failed and they need toreinvent themselves. Having this kind ofattention focus may help retell stories, re-connect with things, in addition to clearlyproviding an opportunity to strike a bal-ance between the local, the national, andthe international levels.

I have a series of key questions to makethese kinds of events work. The threequestions that I think are more relevant inthe context of this seminar are, firstly,what counts as a public space in the con-text of this kind of event? Because whenwe talk about events on this scale andwith the kind of media attention they callfor, what matters from a cultural point ofview is not really what is happening in the-aters, concert rooms or art galleries. Thestreet is what matters, because these aretimes of festivity, of celebration. The aspi-ration is that everyone will somehow par-ticipate, and that is what is needed, thateveryone make these spaces their own.How do we define that? Are we talkingabout iconic places, those everyone canrecognize and look nice on the TV? Is itthe city skyline, the city profile and the

most well-known buildings? Or are wetalking about the peripheries? Whatspaces will be used when you have suchmedia attention? This is the first debateand is usually a central one.


"...The effect may be significantin creating alongterm legacy.They may be agreat deal of help for certaincities to improvetheir reputation,change theirimage..."

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The second question for discussion is,what counts as a valid cultural expressionwhen you have such a focus of attention?In the case of the Olympic Games thereare a couple of weeks when you have allthe athletes and all the delegations. Whatare you going to show about your cul-ture? What are you going to use? How doyou use an opening and a closing cere-mony? What kind of narrative emergesthere? But first and foremost, how do youuse the streets to show certain things?With a cultural capital this happensthroughout an entire year, but there areusually some attention spots and, again,here is the great debate: Who is entitledto represent the city? Do we want tofocus on the iconic, on the heritage? Ordo we want to bet on something new,something that is emerging, on some-thing risky, or contradictory? These de-bates are important.

The third issue is, of course, who is sit-ting at the table to make decisions aboutwhat a public space or a valid cultural ex-pression is? What tends to be more com-mon (especially over the past 15 yearswhen there has been more demand fortransparency in major events and ahigher expectation that these events donot just "begin and are over" but ratherleave a legacy) is that efforts are made toopen up these roundtables, that they arenot be made up only by the most consol-

idated institutions and the sports or artsleaders. Doors are increasingly opening,but it is a complex process and it does notalways work as well as it could.

I would like to illustrate with some ex-amples that I think are appropriate as towhat may work when an event is sustain-ably and sensitively used. First is the ex-ample of Glasgow. Glasgow is a Scottishcity, and it was the first city to obtain theEuropean Capital of Culture title in 1990without being already a major, wellknown capital city. Up until then this titlehad been awarded to major cities—Flo-rence, Athens, Paris. Glasgow had towork at it and claim the title. Effortsbegan during the mid-1980s, and themain argument (it was quite innovating;now we take it for granted, but at the timeit was bold) was to say, "We want it be-cause we need it, because we have a his-tory to tell, because culture keepschanging. This would not be a celebrationbut rather a prize to effort, some help, acatalyst for change." It was also highlypraised, and quite astounding at thattime, that they said they would not onlycelebrate the major aspects of their Asianculture, but they also wanted to celebrateand discuss about religion, about sports,about hunting, their traditions, what itwas to sing and the coral groups they hadin several communities, since that was allpart of their narrative as well. That was


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quite bold and surprising; it worked andit changed the way in which the CapitalCity of Culture works today. In fact, todaythe title is most usually awarded to citiesin need of such pressure.

In France, the case of Marseille wasreally interesting, very complex, becausethe city really needed this chance to re-count, reconnect, and speed up certainprocesses that had not worked as well asthey could. And what happened in Glas-gow after the event is also interesting.There was a great debate on what countsas a public space, what counts as a spacefor cultural exploration. The idea thatpopular culture should also be seen froma contemporary point of view has beenmentioned here. Also, the notion ofbreaking away should not have to be apower vested solely on the middleclasses or avant-garde artists, as thishappens at all levels. Well, one of the de-bates was about opening a cultural cen-ter in a highly impoverished marginalarea en Glasgow. It was a streetcar sta-tion. It started off as a center for avant-garde arts, and the typical thinghappened: if the place is located on theoutskirts and the only users are the usualgroups who would come in their taxisand their trains without connecting withtheir surroundings, the great debate washow to change that. After 1990 the ideaof creating some gardens—the Hidden

Gardens—within that cultural space sothat communities would take full owner-ship of these gardens, and hard work wasdone, particularly on interculturality, onreligion. It is fascinating to see how thespace has changed, as people go therenot only to see contemporary dance, butalso to have a curry meal, or to do a festi-val of light hosted by some of the small-est communities in its surroundings.

The second example is Liverpool—an-other case of a city with a major reputationproblem— although not internationallybut rather in the British context. The mainissue was how to take cultural activitiesthere; how to do something that was be-yond the Beatles or those notions thatcity is already celebrated for; how to con-nect with several environments so as tocreate an iconic and appealing mix. Sothey created a giant spider robot thatwalked all over the town and broke withall kinds of molds in terms of how to usethe streets. Moreover, some odd thingscame out too that can only be explainedin the local context, e.g. the "Superlam-banana". This is an odd creature that peo-ple decided to adopt as the new Liverpoolicon, a mix between a lamb and a bananathat is actually a symbol of Liverpool'spast as a center for product imports andexports. The city was created based onmerchandise trade, so this icon evokesthe bananas brought from America, and


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the wool brought from all across Englandthat is exported to the rest of the world.

I conclude with the following: one thingis the type of dynamics brought about bythe creation of a cultural capital—there istime (one year), and culture is at centerstage—but when we talk about theOlympic Games, the opportunity is sig-nificantly greater because there is muchmore media attention, and there is usuallymore money. And yet creating culturalnarratives that go beyond a tourist at-traction and the super simplistic is verydifficult, and the pressure is there. I al-ways think the example of Mexico in 1968is fascinating. These were extremely com-plex, yet very interesting times in terms ofcreating reference points using graphicarts, and how it was conceived; how theycould prove that a country that was re-garded as economically underdevelopedwas completely forward-looking in termsof culture and art; and, on a primary level,how it was used to discuss peace an inclu-sion issues.

I will be in Rio watching what happensthere. I am very much interested becausewe are at a much more ambitious point, acity with many more needs than a placelike London or other recent seats. I thinkthat in terms of inclusion it will be quiterevolutionary, it will change many othervisions in the Brazilian and the city con-text, especially the connections with is-

sues like disability. This is a major item inthe agenda contributed by the OlympicGames in its relation with the Paralympicmovement, which during the past five orsix years has been growing, and offers fas-cinating examples that may completelychange the kinds of relations and percep-tions established.


"...when we talkabout theOlympic Games,the opportunity issignificantlygreater becausethere is muchmore mediaattention..."

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There are risks, some of which I havealready mentioned: a simplification of nar-ratives, a short-term vision, and that somethings be favored over others. But thereis also enormous opportunity. There aremany examples of cities that have donegreat changes thanks to this kind of event.Sometimes change does not happen im-mediately but five, six, or 10 years later,but this pressure of having to act and col-laborate, and that need to save face, thatyou just cannot fail especially if percep-tions from the outside are very negative,sometimes lead to obtaining results thatwould otherwise take much longer.

These kinds of events put pressure onboth the celebration and activism. A lotof activism is also the result of this ten-sion, and the creativity that emergesfrom those groups that want to respondmay create disruption at times, not be-cause they do not value the celebration,but to show that there is always contra-diction. This is very enriching and attimes has been extremely interesting towatch, especially in cities where therehas been great suffering like Glasgow,Liverpool and Marseille, with a largeworking class that knows what it is like tobe on the margins, what it is like to havenothing. Some fantastic initiatives havecome up in response to the events. Theideas to launch campaigns, the sense ofhumor to turn logos and mottos around,

and in the end, this is all an expression ofcreativity. But events are always an op-portunity to generate discussion and cit-izenship. I always say that organizersshould not have to see this as somethingnegative. It is also a way of activating cit-izenship. Of course, it would be ideal tobe able to listen and eventually capturethat, so it may also impact on politicalchange. But even in the times of peakclash, as long as there is no violence or di-rect aggression, what you find is an abil-ity to disagree. The fact that no oneremains indifferent when it is time forthe Olympic Games —whether you likethem or whether you feel nothing— thisbuilds society, it creates a need to engageand be part of a group. I think all of thishas very positive effects on a city. It is notjust saying "This is all very nice." Let us goeven if it is just to complain; that is also apositive example of citizenship and of en-gagement. So I would recommend doinga little research on campaigns and ac-tivism that are usually a result of majorevents like the Olympic Games.

We have been talking about the powerof culture to change places for 30-35years. At first this debate was focused onthe impact of cultural infrastructure. Nowwe realize that what matters is the sym-bolic, not only a physical regeneration butalso a symbolic one. And this is not some-thing to be underestimated or regarded


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as anecdotal. It is important and there areways to capture it. It is complex, but thereare ways to try and understand the emo-tional impact certain interventions have.A lot of work has been done in this area.Slowly, but the great debate (and this ismore recent, 8-10 years) revolves aroundcreating reference models, comparativeframeworks, indicators, a base of evi-dence where certain terms are defined inthe same way so as to be able to drawcomparisons. It is highly technical and tir-ing. Sometimes there is great resistancefrom the various cultural environments.It is always useful not to lose perspective:formulas are not always feasible or good,and neither is starting from scratch. Thesoftware Impax08.net is an example ofsomething developed to systematize evi-dence on how a city can change its cyclesand ambitions based on a particular in-tervention. In the European context, 60cities have been compared over a 30-yearperiod of time. There are many questionmarks, many things that are not compa-rable, but there are certain traceable ele-ments. Some things that I think areapplicable as principles to documentsomething in a systematic, assessablemanner are, for example, developing alongitudinal perspective, observingsomething at different points in time. Ifsomeone wants to understand what

changes, they cannot do a study on a spe-cific moment and that is it; some follow-up is needed. It takes years to understandwhat has happened in Glasgow or Liver-pool. Repeating the research, that is onething. Another thing is not just to watchfor the outcomes, but also the processes.And something else that I always recom-mend: using a holistic approach. You haveto consider the economic, social, and cul-tural aspects; you have to try and applythese perspectives more or less at thesame time, and use methodologies thatkeep that in mind, because success willdepend on what you set your mind to.Some activities may work better if it is aneconomic objective, but that does notmean it will have a social impact of thesame magnitude. You have to combine allthese lenses at the same time and I thinkthat is quite safe, just as it would be use-ful for any person who wants to embarkon an analysis of what works in any kindof cultural initiative. I think there is greatvalue in trying to do this and not make itjust an European analysis, but rather atransatlantic or an international one, pro-vided we recognize that there will in-evitably be some aspects that will beunique and particular to each place. Thishas to be done, it is being done, and wehave to keep on doing it because it is theonly way to move forward.


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REFERENCES

• Garcia, B. (2012) The Olympic Games and Cultural Policy, Routledge.• Garcia, B. (2008) ‘One hundred years of Cultural Programming within the Olympic Ga-

mes. (1912-2012): Origins, evolution and projections’, International Journal of Cul-tural Policy (vol 14, n 4) (pp 361-376)

• Garcia, B. (2008) ‘Política cultural y regeneración urbana en las ciudades de Europa Oc-cidental: Lecciones aprendidas de la experiencia y perspectivas para el futuro’, Re-vista de Investigaciones Políticas y Sociológicas 7(1): 111-126

• Reason, M. & Garcia, B. (2007) ‘Approaches to the newspaper archive: Content analy-sis and press coverage of Glasgow’s year of culture’, Media, Culture and Society (vol 29,n 2) (pp. 305-332)

• Scullion, A. & Garcia, B. (2005) ‘What is cultural policy research?’, International Journalof Cultural Policy (vol 11, n2) (pp. 113-127)

• Garcia, B. (2005) ‘De-constructing the City of Culture: The long term cultural legacies ofGlasgow 1990’, Urban Studies (vol 42, n5/6) (pp. 841-868)

• Garcia, B. (2004) ‘Cultural Policy in European Cities: Lessons from Experience, Prospectsfor the Future’, Local Economy, 19(4) (pp. 312-326)

• Garcia, B. (2004) ‘Urban Regeneration, Arts Programming and Major Events: Glasgow1990, Sydney 2000 and Barcelona 2004’, International Journal of Cultural Policy,10(1) (pp. 103-118)

• Garcia, B. (2001) ‘Enhancing Sports Marketing through Cultural and Arts Programmes.Lessons from the Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festivals’, Sports Management Review,4(2) (pp. 193-220)

SPECIALIZED REPORTS• Garcia, B. Armitage, N. (2014) Heritage, Pride and Place. Exploring the contribution of

World Heritage Site status to a city’s future development. Liverpool: Institute of Cultu-ral Capital (supported by five technical appendices)

• Garcia, B. (2013) European Capitals of Culture. Success Strategies and Long Term effects.Brussels: European Parliament (supported by nine technical appendices)

• Garcia, B. (2013) London 2012 Cultural Olympiad Evaluation. London: Arts CouncilEngland (supported by seven case study and technical appendices)


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• Garcia, B. et al (2010) An international framework of good practice in research and de-livery of the European Capital of Culture programme. Brussels: European Commission

• Garcia, B., Melville, R. and Cox, T. (2010) Creating an Impact: Liverpool’s Experience asEuropean Capital of Culture. Liverpool: University of Liverpool (supported by 27specialist reports).


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CULTURAL PRACTICES AND PUBLIC POLICIESMercedes Giovinazzo. Director, InterArts, Barcelona (Spain).

ABSTRACT:

Culture constitutes one of the structural bases of any society. Its role has beenessential in the development of the human conscience, which is why State'sincentive to cultural practices is essential. The Public Administration has the

duty to lay the foundations for the development of spaces of expression and cul-tural diffusion. However, it is well-known that cultural policies sponsored by the au-thorities are often inconsistent with cultural practices.Beyond the role played by culture in any society, it is also possible to recognize theimpact it has on international relations, as has been recognized by different multi-lateral organizations.

The roundtable that I have had thepleasure of moderating has allowed us,thanks to the contributions of outstand-ing speakers, to raise some importantquestions on the dichotomist tension be-tween cultural practices and cultural pub-lic policies. The experiences and thereflections presented by speakers fromgeographically distant countries both inLatin America and in Europe, and fromvery different sectors and cultural per-spectives, has allowed us to lay on thetable relevant issues and questions of in-

terest for experts attending this seminarwho are dedicated to culture.

There is no question that culture is anessential engine for human developmentand, over the past 25 years, a great job hasbeen done to raise awareness on thisissue which fortunately seems to be start-ing to bear fruit. Nevertheless, there isalso no question that we need to go be-yond declarations of intent and of goodprinciples.

Specifically, and with regard to the roleof culture in inter-governmental cooper-

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ation, I think it is worth pointing out two recent mile-stones. As mentioned by the Ibero-American Gen-eral Secretary, the EU High Representative forForeign Affairs and Security Policy, FedericaMogherini, recently spoke at a convention gathering800 cultural operators, where she highlighted theimportance of culture within the framework of UEforeign relations23. It is the first time that a politicalstatement is made on the importance of culture inthe context of the UE's international relations. Nev-ertheless, the next step is to endow such political willthe necessary and corresponding operational capa-bilities. The second milestone concerns recent ne-gotiations within the framework of the UN on thepost-2015 agenda for development. I honestly be-lieve that efforts by the cultural sector to include cul-ture in the agenda's text in a more structural mannerhave failed. It is true that culture is mentioned in thePreamble and in some of the objectives and indica-tors, specifically in Objective 11.4 and in a cross-cut-ting manner in another three. But the fact that thetext of the Agenda does not include a specific objec-tive on culture will reduce the capacity for opera-tional impacts. In my view, this would be a battle thatthe cultural sector should fight over the next fewyears so that culture is given its rightful place in theinternational agenda of development cooperation.


23 European Commission, JOINT COMMUNICATION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THECOUNCIL Towards an EU strategy for international cultural relations JOIN/2016/029 final(http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=JOIN%3A2016%3A29%3AFIN).

"The PublicAdministration has the duty to lay thefoundations for the developmentof spaces of expression and culturaldiffusion."

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As Costa Rican Minister Durán has said, itis ultimately a budged item: if culture isnot also considered to be provided withoperational instruments and tools for im-pact, we would only be left with the moregeneral orientation, without much of anactual capacity for impact.

Based on these general considerations,I would like to point out the ideas that Ihave personally found key in each of thethree presentations within thisroundtable, all of them very interesting.

From our discussions, I would point outthe importance of the role played by localpowers in the new governance systems.Such powers have the fundamental re-sponsibility within each territory, and atthe same time—as we have seen—in thecreation of public spaces, since suchspaces are—as the British say—conduciveto the creation of an actively participatingcitizenship, which is necessary in any so-ciety aspiring to be sustainable and devel-oped.

As regards Beatriz García's presenta-tion, I would like to underscore the im-portance of the data she has presentedand the fact that, as she has well pointedout, while it is true that the impact of cul-tural projects may be quantified, it is nev-ertheless extremely difficult toextrapolate qualitative data that are ex-tremely important, particularly over themiddle and long term.

Finally, on Federico Seineldín's presen-tation I would like to point out the ideathat ethics and ethical principles shouldbe present in the entire economic pro-cess. I think this is an extremely importantissue that has been illustrated to perfec-tion by the speaker with highly relevantexamples. A society whose objective ishuman development cannot focus solelyand exclusively on economic matters; andon the other hand, such matters cannot—and should not—be exempt from an ethi-cal reflection.


IIIDIGITAL CULTURE POLICIES FORSTRENGHENING SOCIALCREATIVITY AND CITIZENINNOVATION

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DIGITAL CULTURE AND CITIZEN ENGAGEMENTPaola Ricaurte. Researcher, Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico.

ABSTRACT:

The term digital culture is used generically to refer to a number of socio-culturalprocesses and practices triggered by digital technology development.

It is worth noting that several digital cultures actually coexist that are not necessa-rily convergent, and which are rooted in the contexts in which they originate. Therefore, we should talk about our cities not as digital or smart cities, but rather aslearning cities— i.e., learning from their citizens, learning from diversity, learning fromexchange and learning from their experience and a wealth of knowledge amassed bygenerations.

Digital culture is an operational andconceptual tool generically used to referto a number of practices and socio-cul-tural processes triggered by digital tech-nology development in modern times.Using both theoretical and pragmatic ap-proaches to digital culture, somestrengths may be identified in the mutualtension between the different social ac-tors and their interests. On the one handis a group of technology corporationsdominating the ecosystem of technologyinfrastructure; on the other hand, are gov-ernments, designing and implementingpublic policies to guide the access andownership of such technologies; and on

the other hand are users, taking owner-ship through their daily—whether criticalor uncritical—use of these technologies.These actors are to be seen in a contextwhere it is important to distinguish the re-lations between the economic system,knowledge production systems, mediasystems, and technology infrastructure(Morozov, 2013) with an eminently polit-ical dimension. For this reason, variousdigital cultures actually coexist that arenot necessarily convergent, and which arealso rooted in the contexts where theyoriginate.

In this scenario, a number of emergingmovements promote a digital culture

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based on an open, collaborative, and com-munity paradigm, in their bet for socialchange. Thus, when talking about digitalculture, this is done from a perspectivehighlighting the social dimension that is atthe foundation of technology infrastruc-tures. It is in this sense that tensions be-tween the abovementioned macro andmicropolitical contexts are highlighted.This open digital culture, which also pro-motes a critical sense of ownership oftechnology, is nurtured by the hackerethics and the freedoms defined by thefree software movement deriving fromsource code access and the possibility forusing it, studying it, improving it, and dis-tributing it. To achieve this, collective, self-managing and sustainable communityaction is essential.

As regards social systems, the impactof these movements—which are nour-ished by local cultures—is leading to a re-formulation of institutions and toredefining citizen participation and themechanisms to address the problems af-fecting us. It is then necessary to addressthe complexity of social issues resortingto complex collective responses; to talkabout an urgent need to change the insti-tutional ecosystem so that it responds tothis new rationale for governing with aflexible, open, inclusive, and horizontal ap-proach. To this end, interfaces should begenerated to allow for a genuine partici-

pation and collaboration at all levels, pro-cesses and moments of public administra-tion, while also incorporatingexperimentation as a paradigm, not onlywhen prototyping projects at a microlevel, but also when prototyping institu-tions under new governance and organi-zation models.

Participation involves enabling plat-forms to guarantee the sum of all players,particularly those who have been silencedand made invisible. Above all, it involves


"Digital culture is anoperational andconceptual toolgenerically used torefer to a number ofpractices and socio-cultural processestriggered by digitaltechnologydevelopment inmodern times."

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including dissident voices, voices that areusually not heard—the different, the ex-cluded, those who are in the periphery,those who have not had an opportunity oftaking spaces. Participation does notmean consulting or instrumentalizing cit-izens, but rather opening up venues forco-management and for designing of acommon future, including aspects such asdeliberating about priorities and prob-lems, as well as decision-making, planning,implementation, and oversight of govern-ment action.

To think of digital culture and techno-logical infrastructure with a critical per-spective means to problematize the veryfoundations of the knowledge society—aterm that has turned into an euphemismfor developing a circuit of knowledge pri-vatization. For this reason, we would haveto question the kind of knowledge we areproducing and its role, and consider thepossibility of building open knowledge so-cieties where life and good living are madepossible. Thus, it may be appropriate torefer to our cities not as digital or as smartcities because they integrate technologyto their processes, but rather as learningcities —i.e., cities learning from their citi-zens, learning from diversity, learningfrom exchange, learning from their expe-rience, and from a wealth of knowledgeamassed by generations. Consequently,talking about open governments is not

enough as long as there is no co-gover-nance, as long as other mechanisms arenot in place other than the mere access toinformation and transparency, makingroom instead to jointly build such infor-mation and figure out its use for the com-mon good.

To conclude, this understanding of thedigital culture should integrate the prac-tice of hacking, understood as a search forpossibilities unexpected by the systems,of breaking predefined programs andschemes—hacking culture, hacking insti-tutions—under this precept or this coreidea that it is by learning and living to-gether, by learning to defend the commongood together, including digital commongoods that are threatened today morethan ever...Turning ourselves into hackersand daring to hack codes and build newones . Only those who control codes maybe genuinely free, since they have theypossibility of deciding on their presentand designing their future.

REFERENCES

• Morozov, E. (2013). Internet, la política yla política del debate sobre internet. EnBBVA, Cambio, 19 ensayos fundamen-tales sobre cómo Internet está cam-biando nuestras vidas. Madrid: Open-Mind, pp. 154-165.

Digital Culture Policies for Strenghening Social Creativity and Citizen Innovation

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FIFTEEN YEARS OF DIGITAL CULTURE POLICIES IN BRAZIL: ERRORS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTSRodrigo Savazoni. Director, Instituto do Procomum, Brazil.

I t is my pleasure to be here in Brusselsinvited by the Ibero-American Gen-eral Secretariat and the European

Union to participate in this importantseminar aimed at reflecting on our pre-sent time and seeking future projects thatimprove the quality of life in our countries.

Unfortunately, this is my first time inthe city, considering it is such a difficultweek. A week when the NationalCongress has staged a coup d'état againsta democratically elected president, sup-ported by an alleged public opinion ap-proval.

A terrifying shadow is looming over ourfuture. An unacceptable shadow, I wouldsay, which is provoking us after so manyyears of struggle to reduce inequality andturn Brazil into a little more just country.Therefore, I ask for your understanding; itis not easy to be here.

For days before actually leaving Brazil Ithought I would cancel my trip. However,I felt encouraged by the opportunity tosee great friends again and lean on them,and finally accepted the invitation. I alsofelt encouraged by the fact that I wouldcome here and tell our partners at theIbero-American General Secretariat and

the European Union that citizen innova-tion may be the way to broaden demo-cratic capacity in our countries, toencourage autonomous and creative citi-zen action. So let the record show mygrief, because none of what I am about tosay on what we used to be or what we maybe can actually exist without democracy.And for this reason, the tone of my pre-sentation will be less optimistic thanusual. I am going through a very insight-ful moment, and would like to take this op-portunity precisely to think out loudabout our accomplishments and errorsover the past 15 years, when we suc-ceeded in developing "imaginative andbrave" cultural public policies, through acreative partnership between the Gov-ernment and society that turned us into aworldwide role model. This partnershiphas been based on a solid notion that weare not pursuing the kind of inclusion thatis just concerned with expanding con-sumer markets.

True social inclusion in our time is ad-vanced by a culture of doing together andfrom the bottom up, with the aim of pro-moting common goods; the kind of cul-ture that has gained momentum thanks

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to people's interconnections throughglobal networks. True social inclusion isthat which nourishes bodies, minds, anddreams.

I hope this reflection may contribute tothe success of this seminar which, as faras I understand, seeks to encourageprogress in cultural policies toward urbandevelopment across the world, while em-phasizing in Latin America. And those ofyou who are European, please be assuredthat the first step for making it to the fin-ish line is that you help us prevent taking astep back in democracy. And the secondstep is that you help us so we may keepmoving toward developing "imaginativeand creative" exits.

1. At this time of crisis, it is worth askingourselves, 'Have we done thingsright?'And in this question, when I say "we", I

am not talking about a political party, or agovernment team, not even a movement.The "we" that has built an idea of digitalculture in Brazil is made up by a multiplenetwork of people involving many forces.

I am 35 years old and my life is allblended with imaginative and brave cul-tural policies implemented in Brazil. I havealways been linked to the free culturemovement. Maybe that is what defines methe best. And I have been through quite afew experiences throughout these years.

I was an advisor to Lula's 2002 cam-paign, and back then I also helped createan NGO advocating the right to commu-nication called Intervozes, which eventu-ally became one of the most powerful inour country. Those were the times of theWorld Social Forums, the times of "an-other world is possible." When I was 23 Imoved to Brasilia, our capital city, to takepart in the Government and help createdigital inclusion and democratic commu-nication policies. When I was 25 I led theprocess that placed all the contents of


"True social inclusion in ourtime is advancedby a culture of doingtogether andfrom the bottom up, withthe aim of promotingcommon goods; the kind ofculture that has gainedmomentum thanks topeople's interconnectionsthrough global networks".

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Brazil's public communications companyunder a Creative Commons License.Please bear in mind that back then, in2005, licenses were a great novelty.

Then I helped formulate and create—from the outside in—the Ministry of Cul-ture's digital public policies, Brazil’sDigital Culture Forum and a social net-work platform aimed at policy-makingcalled the Digital Culture Network(www.culturadigital.br) were both put inplace. In this same period, we estab-lished an NGO called LaboratórioBrasileiro de Cultura Digital and theCasa da Cultura Digital. This was a col-lective house that was truly insane, andfor four years it led many imaginative andcreative processes from Sao Paulo. Wecan well claim we were an autonomousfree culture lab.

By the time I was 30 I had alreadytaken part in several NGOs, enterprises,producer companies and governments, al-ways promoting free culture and freegoods. I have always been committed tothis. And if I revive my history here it is notbecause I like to talk about myself, but be-cause I think it highlights a relevant fact: Iwas only able to live this way becauseBrazil's digital culture policy, in its searchfor creating a new common venue for po-litical construction, dared erase the fron-tiers between government and society. Avenue that, to be fair, was not even fully

understood by the popular democraticproject spearheaded by the Workers'Party, but which nevertheless could nothave existed without it.

In my view, those erased frontiers rep-resent one step forward in the idea ofdemocracy. A step that leads to givingpeople back their ability to believe in col-lective processes, because by with theseborders being erased we may then believethat we the citizens are the good policymakers.

But let us go back to the story thatchanged our lives. It begins in 2002 withthe election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva(Workers Party) as President of the Re-public, and the resulting designation ofmusician Gilberto Gil as Minister of Cul-ture. Stimulus to online political expres-sion in Brazil began with these two facts.The first decade of the century wasmarked by profound changes on the po-litical scene, particularly by a growing civilsociety participation in governance.

In an interview granted to Emir Saderfor his book 10 anos de governos pós-ne-oliberais no Brasil: Lula e Dilma (Ten Yearsof Post-Neoliberal Governments in Brazil:Lula and Dilma) the former presidentclaims the main legacy of his administra-tion was precisely "that the people feltthey were taking part in the government."

And if I may, I would like to read the fol-lowing quote:


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“[Brazilians] begin to feel part of the project: they know,they contribute, they give their opinion, they are for oragainst... This was consolidated through national confer-ences. We had no participative budget; it was not possible tomake a participative budget in the Union. And that is why wedecided to create the necessary conditions for people to par-ticipate. We called municipal, state, and national conferences.It was a fantastic way for a President of the Republic to hearwhat the people had to say." (Lula, apud Sader, 2013, p. 11).Lula created lulismo. And as explained by sociologist AndréSinger in his article “Raízes sociais e ideológicas do lulismo,”24

( Social and Ideological Foundations of Lulismo) published bythe journal “Novos Estudos do Cebrap”, lulismo was consti-tuted as a pact based on economic orthodoxy and redistri-bution of wealth focused on the lower income population.However, to rise as an "arbitrator above classes" (Singer,2009), Lula needed precisely to open his administration tothe growth of organized social agents, and once these wereintegrated, they began to collaborate in the social validationof said redistributive process. Having been previously in theopposition, social movements turned into public policy par-ticipants.

Although economy-wise Dilma maintained the samestructuring pact as lulismo, working on the "orthodoxy/re-distribution" dichotomy, the citizen participation and devel-opment relationship actually lost room. Unlike Lula, Dilmagave a hint of an ideological confrontation between the pil-lars of economic orthodoxy, which might be viewed as a shiftto the left (although her administration was characterized asbeing rather impermeable to social movements), thereby tak-


24 O artigo pode ser lido no Scielo: <http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0101-33002009000300004&script=sci_arttext> Acessoem 21 abr. 2014

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ing a step back in terms of cultural andhuman rights policies, indigenous matters,land reform, the environment and youth,among others. This may explain her mis-fortune to a certain extent.

In parallel fashion to this social expan-sion and participation process, we had thisfabulous experience of having Gil—a trop-ical musician, a black man from Bahía— incharge of the Ministry of Culture. Hechanged the Ministry into "a house for allthose who think and build Brazil." Statingthat "Every cultural policy forms part of asociety's and a people's political culture",Gil outlined what would eventually be-come one of the main characteristics ofhis term as Minister: to contribute to thetransformation of Brazil's political cultureby performing "a kind of anthropologicaldo-in, as in Eastern energy massage,whereby the vital points of country's cul-tural body that had been most neglectedand temporarily anesthetized were mas-saged." (Gil, 2003, online).

The rationale consisted in reviving theold and inciting the new.

Under Gil's tenure, the Ministry of Cul-ture would be "a space for experimentingnew paths" of "adventure and boldness."Over the years, Gil and his collaborators,particularly his then Executive Secretaryand subsequent Minister of Culture, JucaFerreira (2008-2010), understood this"imaginative and brave" political project,

with democratization of access to cultureand the promotion of cultural diversitybeing the backbone, in line with changesmade by breakthroughs in digitalization ofsymbolic goods.

The main expression of this anthropo-logical do-in expressed in public policywas the Program Culture, Education, andCitizenship-Living Culture, whose majoractions are the so-called Cultural Spots.The program was formulated based onthe principle that the State, while an in-ductor of cultural processes, is not how-ever the agent responsible for "doingculture." Ultimately, it falls on the State tocreate the conditions and mechanisms sothat citizens not only have access to sym-bolic goods, but also produce and find theway to channel their own cultural goods,enabling the local context as active sub-jects of these processes.

Based on these principles CulturalSpots were brought to life by means ofpublic tenders aimed at civil society orga-nizations that had been active for at leasttwo years, located in areas where publicservices were scarcely provided, and en-gaging poor or socially vulnerable popula-tion groups. Those organizations that wonthe tenders (which at that point becameCultural Spots) had to coordinate andpromote cultural actions at the local level.To this end, they received 5,000 reales amonth for three years.


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Included in tenders was also the fact—and this isa key point in my presentation—that every CulturalSpot should have a multimedia digital room. The re-sources provided had to be used to purchase a mul-timedia kit: computers with Internet connectivity, allof them using free software, and all other necessaryequipment for video and audio recording and edit-ing —movie and video cameras, sound table, and soon. Clearly, this must have been the largest publicprogram for the promotion of a free culture everknown, covering more than 3,000 spots.

According to researcher Eliane Costa, author ofthe book Jangada Digital, this work done togetherby Gil and Juca was relevant because " [it] broad-ened the concept of culture, the bet on diversity inthe so-called periphery culture and in innovation, aswell as because of the dialogue between [cultural]heritage and advanced technology (2011, p.37). AndI think we could also add that said process not onlyled to a new phase of cultural policies, but also to aradical change in political culture, particularly amongcultural agents and promoters with links to the so-cial movement.

Gil's policy greatly encouraged digital culture andexchange-based networking. We came to think thatwe were dreaming when we confirmed how braveour policy was in terms of the use and promotion offree software. Back then, the Ministry of Culturespearheaded efforts to promote values of exchangecommunities. And, when all of this was starting, theso-called Web 2.o was still in its infancy (YouTubeand Facebook did not even exist).25

I would like your permission to read part of aspeech delivered by Gil at the University of Sao


25 “Hackers resolvem problemas ecompartilham saber e informa-ção. Acreditam na liberdade e naajuda mútua voluntária, tanto queé quase um dever moral compar-tilhar informação, resolver.

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Paulo in 2004, because to many thisspeech remains the political agenda forthe present and for the future. We con-tinue to live inspired by the hacker ethics.Gil said: “I, Gilberto Gil, a Brazilian citizenand a citizen of the world, Brazil's Minis-ter of Culture, work in music, in the Min-istry and in all dimensions of my existence,inspired by the hacker ethics and worriedby the questions my world and my timepose, as is the case with the question ofdigital inclusion, the question of free soft-ware, and the question of regulation andthe (...) production and dissemination ofaudiovisual content by any means and forany ends." (Gil, 2004, online).

Hence, the hacker ethics emerges as anew political culture based on freedom,generosity, exchange, free technology anddemocratic political participation. Untilthen, many of us had always been out ofthe attention focus of State action, for ex-ample groups of popular culture, of urbanperiphery culture, of indigenous peoples,and also the urban youth that remaineddistant from the major cultural produc-tion centers. And in this project we foundshelter for our most forward-lookingdreams. The new was stirred, just like Gilexpected, and networks—lots of them—were created, changing the face of Brazil-ian civil society.

For those 15 years we experienced thepossibility of jointly managing and formu-

lating public policies that could deeplychange our reality. We experienced thisunbelievable partnership between dissi-dents and rulers, between hackers andmanagers, between inventors and bu-reaucrats. And I still believe that, politi-cally speaking, our countries will not beable to make progress over the next fewyears unless we come up with new work-shops that produce this kind of hybridmodels. That is precisely why I am cur-rently working on creating an action plat-form—Instituto Procomum—that can behome to this positive chaos.

2. We have in front of us a human raceon the brink of collapse, with globalwarming demanding our entire atten-tion. And still there are people fo-cused on conspiring againstdemocracy, destabilizing our future,and striving to maintain corruption. Some lessons remain from that won-

derful story we have lived, and I would liketo share them with you as I conclude mypresentation.

LET US START WITH OUR ERRORS:• We need to watch for the institutionaldimension, and change laws based onthe common. Many of the processes that I have men-

tioned (including the Cultural Spots pol-icy, but particularly the digital kits policy)


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suffered due to a lack of institutionalstructures so that they could fulfill theirmission.

Supported by precarious structures,there was no stability when hiring theteams or in process management, and as aresult the experience was actually fragile.The Digital Culture Action, which was in-tended to provide training for a criticaluse of technology, and was a brave andnecessary action, was based on "gaps"(that is what activists taking part in thisaction called the long periods of timewhen they were not paid for their work.)

It is true that a traditional institutionalmodel would never have the capacity forimplementing such a pioneering, innova-tive program. But it is also true that ourdedication to institutional creativity wasless than our capacity to invent new paths.Not that were was not enough debateabout this. I think this remains a funda-mental issue. It is not enough to adaptwhat we are to the existing legal and reg-ulatory models. It is necessary to come upwith new models; models that dress usthe way we are, and which strengthenrather than penalize those who createnew worlds.

• Our ideas must reach the higher po-litical echelonsSatisfied with such a significant

progress at a micro-political level, in those

years we did not succeed in making ourflags strong enough to reach the BrazilianParliament. In 12 years we did not electONE SINGLE Member of Parliament ef-fectively linked to the causes of free cul-ture and citizen innovation.

Some parliamentarians did embraceour ideas, although not strongly enough interms of what we stood for. And I thinkthat, for example, is no longer happeningin experiences like Spain's. I am certain wemissed something and we need to change.

A huge victory that gives us a clue as tohow we can move on to attain macro-po-litical changes is the bill on the Civil RightsFramework for the Internet. This is a billthat was written online through a partici-pative process, and resulted in a law thatupholds citizen rights in the digital era.This popular law was conceived from thebottom up, and was passed in 2013 aftera long battle against economic and politi-cal interest groups in Parliament.

• Attention needs to be paid to initia-tive sustainability Many of our initiatives proved to be

ephemeral over the course of those 10years. Few of them included a sound strat-egy for survival. There is one sector, moreakin to entrepreneurship, that tends toblame the very initiatives for this failure,arguing that they were not consolidatedbecause they chose to establish relations


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with governments. I do not think so. To methe issue has more to do with the model.In the case of Brazil, there is no structuredpolicy to support this new kind of produc-tive expression of a free culture and citi-zen innovation.

Moreover, in the area of innovation weknow the traditional way of private fi-nancing based on risk capital. But we havealways defended that not every innova-tion will become a start-up, and it is good

that this is the case. The California modelis not the only one for the digital culture.Therefore, it is necessary to think of a sup-port structure for digital culture's citizenentrepreneurship. This is a challenge wecan strive to overcome together.

AND NOW THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS: • Work is needed to encourage dissent

André Gorz, in his beautiful book "L’im-matériel", credits us free software andfree culture activists with being digitalcapitalism dissidents. Well, if there was in-deed a significant accomplishment inthose years of digital culture in Brazil, itwas precisely the possibility of havinggovernments that saw dissent as an allyfor building a new society. Consideringthe condition of our States, I think this issomething rare and worth praising.

This was not always a peaceful rela-tionship. I would even say it was con-stantly subject to a great deal of tension,as many of us were always looking for theleaking spots so as not to get caught by asystem that would subsequently turnagainst activists themselves. But most ofthe time—as is the case with cultural pub-lic policies and policies to promote freesoftware production and use by the pub-lic administration, in open governmentand transparency policies and in the CivilRights Framework for the Internet—

"It is not enough toadapt what we are tothe existing legal andregulatory models. It is necessary tocome up with newmodels; models thatdress us the way weare, and whichstrengthen ratherthan penalize thosewho create newworlds."


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hackers were called when it came to pre-senting political solutions. Dissidents arepart of the creative, renovating source ofcontemporary culture. And for this reasonpublic policy must necessarily take theminto account when formulating such poli-cies.

• The State should be understood as anexperimentation field Gil used to say that we needed to go

through the experience of reaching theState nourished by the dream that oneday we might live without the State. Thistouches on one of the most original for-mulations of current Brazilian thought, byanthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Cas-tro and his Amerindian perspectivism,when he proposes an indigenous future. Itis not about going back to live in huts, butrather about the possibility of seeing our-selves in the light of indigenous contribu-tions and identifying in them the paths forour future. Somehow, as far as I can see,that is what Ecuador and Bolivia are vin-dicating with their new constitutions, andwe in Brazil have not been able to do it yet.But we have to do it.

Precisely because we saw the State asa historical battleground, it was then pos-sible to view it as a ground for experimen-tation with imagination and courage.Clearly this is no easy task, because thenormalizing power of bureaucracy always

acts taking the compass toward the cen-ter of the circle, but the intention is valid.And I think this has been one of our ac-complishments, even though with highlyrelative results from a practical point ofview, I would say.

• There is a need to promote a criticalsense of ownership of digital tech-nologies One of the main aspects of digital cul-

ture and inclusion policies is Brazil overthe past ten years has been the statementthat technology is not a good in itself.Every technology is a result of a certainpolitical construction, and for that reasonits ownership must be associated to asense of criticism. While on the one handit was key to offer unconnected users thepossibility of producing multimedia con-tent and browse on the Internet, it wasalso essential to reflect with each of themabout the meaning of such technologies,their forms of production, and their use.

This gave rise to the concept of a criti-cal ownership of technologies, where lit-eracy took place at the same time as amore profound vision of such work wasdeveloped. In other words, we were try-ing to break from the black box enigmathat characterizes these beautiful, seduc-tive devices, often times leadings us to adeep alienation. It only takes to see aniPhone to understand what I am saying. In


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this case there is no more illustrativemetaphor than reality.

With the growth of web pages and so-cial media services such as YouTube andFacebook, this complex process hasgrown deeper, as these are technologiesthat we can easily take ownership of butwhich do not always operate based onfree knowledge values. For this reason, itremains vital to fight the lock on knowl-edge and an uncritical ownership of digitalculture processes. We already know theend of the story: turning our countriesinto huge consumer markets for tech-nologies created at the heart of capital-ism.

• Work is needed to promote indepen-dent networks Gil said that one of the aims of his work

was to incite the new. Well, he succeeded.Over the last decade we have seen an ex-plosion of interconnected networks inBrazil, based on actions where softwareand free culture were at the core.

Networks of quilombo peoples (theheirs of the African diaspora whoemerged from their fight against slavery)for example the MOCAMBOS NET-WORK or the Candomblé interconnectedlands.

Networks of indigenous peoples, inwhose villages there are Cultural Spotsthat have allowed them to establish directcontact with agents from all over theworld. Examples of these are Indios On-line and the Ashaninka people, located inAcre, on the Brazilian border with Peruand Bolivia.

Networks of youth from urban periph-eral zones exchanging information and de-veloping alternative production models,as is the case with the RED ENRAIZA-DOS and the Saraus Networks, from SaoPaulo's peripheral zone.

Networks of young cultural producersfrom cities that are completely isolatedfrom the cultural hegemonic circle, pro-ducing a new economic sustainabilitymodel based on solidarity and communi-tarianism, for example Fora Do Eixo.

"While on the one hand it was key to offer unconnectedusers the possibility ofproducing multimedia contentand browse on the Internet, it was also essential to reflectwith each of them about the meaning of suchtechnologies, their forms of production, and their use."


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A network for experimentation andproduction of critical technologies basedon electronic recycling, as is the case withMetareciclagem. A network for collabora-tion and collective creation including dig-ital culture houses, and more recently the"hackerspaces" and the "makerspaces".

A civic and inside hackers network,hacking governments and projects, as isthe case with Transparência Hacker.Clearly we cannot attribute solely a gov-ernment with all this explosion of choices,but we do need to recognize that was atime favorable for invention, and this isprecisely because the aim of these publicpolicies was to open the way for an emer-gent cycle of creativity expansion fromthe bottom up, and also because thedemocratic foundations were solid.

That continues to be a guideline for thedevelopment work done by FernandoHaddad in the City Council of Sao Paulo.His policies include the occupation oftown squares and parks by digital cultureagents, as well as deploying a public net-work of digital manufacturing workshopscalled makerspaces.

The abovementioned networks, whichhave been created in recent years, are oneof the great political legacies of the periodthat I have analyzed in this presentation.And they in turn have resulted in the the-oretical and practical structure that mayallow us to take a step forward.

• There is a need to go beyond partici-pation to reach a space for politicalco-creationAnd now we get to the final section of

my presentation. And this relates to theslide I have left on screen during the timeI have been reading my speech.

This was a dinner party at the WorldSocial Forum that brought together Gil,sociologist Sergio Amadeu da Silveira—amajor free culture leader in Brazil—alongwith activists, many of them hackers. Inthis picture there is a kid showing his back,and wearing a T-shirt that reads "This ishow democracy looks like!"


"Over the lastdecade we haveseen an explosionof interconnectednetworks inBrazil, based onactions wheresoftwareand free culturewere at the core."

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In fact, one of the fundamental aspectsof that whirlwind we lived was that of en-couraging radical participation environ-ments, where authorities and activistswould share the same space without anykind of mediation. And not just partici-pate, but also make shared policies. Notonly make ourselves be heard throughpre-established channels, but actually en-gage in face to face dialogue with repre-sentatives and public officials. And notjust engage in dialogue, but jointly pro-duce policies.

When I recovered this picture I re-membered another story that I witnessedduring the First Forum of Brazilian DigitalCulture, which we hosted back then at theHouse of Digital Culture, in collaborationwith the Ministry of Culture. This is astory of 2009, and I remember preciselybecause I am here, at the city that is hometo the European Parliament.

Amelia Andersdotter, who at the timehad just been elected as an Eurodeputy bythe Pirate Party, was one of our guests.And she was wondering around the SaoPaulo Film Library building when she ap-proached a roundtable of activists whowere freely chatting with a man who wasolder than them. A true conversation, withno filters or mediators. And Amelia real-ized that the senior man who was talkingand making gestures sometimes in agree-ment, and sometimes in disagreement,was Minister of Culture Juca Ferreira.Amelia was stunned. Were there not anysecurity guards, or any protections, or anybarriers between the Minister and the ac-tivists? Were they talking at the samelevel?

Clearly, in Europe there is a lot moredemocratic tradition than in Brazil, butthese small subversions of creating disar-ray in spaces of power made and still makesa lot of sense when we are faced with thechallenge of thinking about democratic po-litical solutions for our future.

"...that was a timefavorable for invention,and this is preciselybecause the aim of thesepublic policies was toopen the way for anemergent cycle ofcreativity expansion fromthe bottom up, and alsobecause the democraticfoundations were solid.”


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We have talked a lot about the potential of new technologiesfor creating new governance models. There is no doubt that tech-nologies can be tremendous allies for making culture a social in-clusion tool. And I think that the Brazilian experience that I havebrought all the way here is prove of this—faults and accomplish-ments included. That is why I do not think this is a time to takeany steps back. And because of this, long live democracy showingits face!


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DIGITAL CULTURE AND OPEN GOVERNMENT POLICIESDardo Ceballos. Director of the Open Government Program, Government of Santa Fe, Argentina.

ABSTRACT:

In my presentation for the Urban Culture for social inclusion in Latin America Se-minar I will try to address the relationship between open government and citizeninnovation in some key points. The idea is to think about this relationship by re-

calling the ideas put forward by Yochai Benkler on the battle over the institutionalecology of digital environments, which has left us many learning that could be appliedto the devices of citizen innovation.

I intend to talk about the relationshipbetween open government and digital cul-ture. In the previous presentation MarcosGarcía paved the way on many aspects re-garding our notions on digital culture. It isno coincidence that we stayed in that Me-dialab-Prado residence along with othercolleagues, because our understanding ofdigital culture is exactly as Marcos stated,with the same hacker ethics as RaúlOliván stated, and with the same ethics asthose kids that make up the Zaragoza Ac-tiva community. That is what we under-stand digital culture is all about.

But we also have to recognize that forthe past ten years, the concept of opengovernment has increasingly permeatedgovernments. A concept which, thanks to

international organizations such as theOpen Government Partnership, is in-creasingly penetrating national govern-ments and, over the past few years, alsosubnational—i.e., regional and local—gov-ernments. Being the director of OpenGovernment in the Santa Fe Province, oneof the questions I ask myself is, what therelationship is between that vision of dig-ital culture and open government policies.That is what I would like to address in thispresentation.

To this end, I have thought of a series of"mash-ups" mixing ideas, and the first onestarts with taking up a notion by YochaiBenkler on the battle on institutional ecol-ogy of citizen innovation. In his book TheWealth of Networks—another "bible",

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along with Pekka Himanen's work onhacker ethics that has already been men-tioned here— Benkler proposes at onepoint that this as an issue in the fight sur-rounding digital institutional ecology.Today we wonder what the battle on in-stitutional ecology of citizen innovation islike, and we are considering to include cit-izen innovation as part of our open gov-ernment policies. As you may know, thenotion of open government involves threecentral concepts: transparency, participa-tion, and collaboration. The last of these—i.e., collaboration— is like "the uglyduckling" of open government plans, theone that is always forgotten, and I think incollaboration strategies therein lies a po-tential for digital culture and for citizenlabs. So we are witnessing this battle, andthe truth is that this battle of institutionalecology resembles old bureaucratic struc-tures, as these are not so permeated bydigital culture or by the hacker ethics, andthey are not working this concept of thewealth of networks. Institutions and gov-ernments at all levels, remain tough interms of allowing themselves to be per-meated by this new digital culture; a digi-tal culture which—as has been saidhere—is what the younger generationscome with in their unconscious. That iswhy there is a gap between institutionsand the new generations. There are insti-tutions that no longer represent a good

many generations of citizens. So we needto fight this battle and we think it may befought from spaces like these ones.

There is another fight and another"mash-up" that we think needs to befought. It involves smart cities and smartgovernments, and we need to relate thisto the notion of open government. Thereis increasing talk about smart regions andsmart cities. But, How are smart cities un-derstood, and how is the open govern-ment understood? I think smartness isunderstood as a metaphor; it is all abouthyper-connected cities, cities that arecrisscrossed by sensors, and arduinos,and technology. However, in this conceptof smartness citizens are barely in the pic-ture. What kind of smart city can be builtwithout its citizens?

That is another battle we have to fight,because included in the plans of action re-garding open governments and trans-parency is the issue of open data, andeven big data. The example just used byMarcos of citizens working with the city'sopen data, is not the most common one.Overall, big telecommunication compa-nies sell intelligence packages to the gov-ernments, and governments are alwaysquite willing to buy quick solutions, intel-ligence packages, and the truth is thatsometimes these packages are not evenadapted to the regional contexts, let alonetake into account citizens. This is a cultural


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kind of battle, a battle where citizens arenot participants in these smart cities, andI think we need to integrate them to thesestrategies.

In the Santa Fe Government and thepublic innovation team we are workingwith the support of the Citizen InnovationProgram of the Ibero-American GeneralSecretariat, as well as Medialab-Prado,Zaragoza Activa, and other groups beingcreated to promote an open governmentculture.

And this is where we get to the part ofculture: we need "hackers inside", i.e., in-side the institutions. We do not view ahacker as someone who breaks the law orviolates institutions, but rather as some-one who, based on those practices, knowshow to build new models of doing; that isthe concept of hacker we have used in dig-ital culture. A hacker is not this notion soldby corporations of someone who steals.Instead, this is someone who finds newways of doing within processes, in ma-chines, in things. When we talk about"hackers inside" institutions, we meanhacking institutions so they are moreopen to citizens.

We recently launched our Citizen In-novation Lab project in Rosario, Santa Fe.Many girls and boys have participated,doing the same things that are done inMedialab-Prado, and which only a fewmonths ago they were doing in their own

places without any kind of State accom-paniment. And when we decided that weare "hackers inside" it is because we wantthem to have the possibility of joining atrue open government process and weare putting it into action. This event wasattended by the main authorities of ourregion: the Governor, Deputies, the Pres-ident of the House of Deputies, and theCity Intendant. They listened to the hack-ers, they listened to the makers, and tooktheir ideas to try and take them to the in-stitutions. We think that this really is anopen government strategy, and that is alittle bit the idea behind being "hackers in-side."

What we are thinking—and I wouldlike you to join me in this idea—is that cit-izen innovation labs should probably bethe collaboration interface in open gov-ernment strategies. It is a discussion, be-cause overall open governmentstrategies are found in central govern-ment bodies, i.e., in divisions directly at-tached to the Executive, in heads ofCabinet, but clearly not in the Ministry ofCulture. Here I would like to make a con-nection that I find interesting. Open gov-ernment strategies are carried out by theexecutive, which also implements trans-parency and open data strategies. How-ever, once these data are released bygovernments, How are citizens empow-ered so they may take ownership of such


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data and propose improvements? Whatis the interface? That is the question weare making in Latin America, where westill do not have any institutions like Me-dialab-Prado, not even like Zaragoza Ac-tiva. While we do have some similarinstitutions, we need collaboration inter-faces and we might have digital inter-faces. But clearly, today we need physicalinterfaces, we need physical spaceswhere citizens are invited to collaboratewith the government.

We have another kind of relationshipwith the government. We are rather ben-eficiaries, we can go do a bureaucraticprocedure, we can deliver a service, butwe do not have a place where we can jointo work on a collaborative project, and wethink citizen innovation labs are a collabo-ration interface that should be maximized.We are working on that. That is part ofwhat we did at Medialab-Prado residence,where we discussed these ideas and triedto learn some practices to adapt them toour territories. In our province we startedan exploratory process, and in just 60 daysstarting on the date our citizen lab projectwas launched, we have already found veryactive open communities working onopen data, data visualization, makers,hackers, kids working in digital inclusionorganizations with renewable energy pro-jects, internet of things and other innova-tive topics, and we realized that most of

them lacked an interface to work in. So weare thinking about this, because it is truethat within governments, ministries of cul-ture are the ones most used to imple-menting interfaces, for example thevarious kinds of museums and otherspaces open to citizens, and these areusually in the cultural sector. Generallyspeaking, cabinet ministers, heads of de-partments and executive bodies do notimplement these practices. So it is neces-sary to build new cross-cutting policieswith governments, where open govern-ment strategies may converge with digitalculture strategies cross cutting our livesat all levels.

It should be noted that in Argentina wedid not even have a process as they did inBrazil in terms of digital culture, and theprocess conducted by Gilberto Gil andJuca Ferreira from the Ministry is so valu-able, and has been implemented for over adecade now. In Argentina we have not hada digital cultural policy, so we are a little bitbehind, but at the same time we have anunexplored territory to work on involvingthese collaboration interfaces.

And that is how we have come to thestate-of-the-art or the current situation.We devised a project called SantaLabthat we have been mentoring for about ayear and which we recently launched toturn it into a collaborative building strat-egy with people in the two most impor-


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tant metropolitan areas of the province.In the city of Rosario's metropolitan area,which is the largest one with 1.5 millioninhabitants, and in Santa Fe's metropoli-tan area, with more than half a million in-habitants. In these two areas we arealready working with communities. Dur-ing the past 60 days we have found morethan 350-400 persons who have joinedgroups that are carrying out innovationprojects, and we want to integrate themto the government. We have hostedsome presentation events where wehave taken decision makers and, to-gether with this community, we areputting together a schedule of eventsthat includes a mapping of citizen initia-tives, including hack meetings on specificsubjects, aside from implementing somepractices such as the Medialab-Prado.But basically, what we are doing withthem is a collaborative building processto learn what kind of equipment we aregoing to need to set up this collaborationinterface. We are going to build thisequipment together, i.e., we are not goingto wait for citizens to come, but insteadwe are all going to devise it and build ittogether. We are in this process.

To ensure the continuity of this pro-cess, one of the things we are thinking ofand which we think is so interesting totell, is that because of policy backs andforths, (in Argentina, for example, a lot of

us worked for many years on this MediaLaw; a new government came and it wasall over for this Media Law, although it istrue that many things were done wrongwhen implementing it) we are thinking ofworking collaboratively by using the In-ternet's tools in Santa Fe, so as to pro-duce a citizen innovation law toguarantee that regardless of these polit-ical backs-and-forths, collaborative in-terfaces remain in place and theirfinancing and working possibilities areensured. But we need this to be verymuch a bottom-up process so that it isthen difficult to eliminate, as it happenedwith the Media Law.

One related subject is that of public in-stitution and public university financing.In Latin America—or at least in Ar-gentina—we have a long-standing tradi-tion with public universities. Today in2016, not even public universities have aclear understanding that the knowledgethey produce is part of a collective effort.Such knowledge is built together and can-not be privatized because we all collabo-rate so these universities may exist, we allcollaborate so that governments mayexist, and we all collaborate so that manyONGs receive public financing. Therefore,part of an open government might be tocompel these publicly financed NGOs sothat the knowledge they produce be re-leased to the public.


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REFERENCES

• BENKLER, Yochai. "The wealth of networks, How social production transforms marketsand freedom." Icaria Editorial, Year 2015.

• HiMMANEN, Pekka (2002). [E-Book] The ethics of the hacker and the spirit of the infor-mation age. Foreword by Linus Torvalds | Epilogue by Manuel Castells, 2006.

• KAUFMAN, Esther and OSZLAK, Oscar (2014). [E-Book] Theory and Practice of Open Go-vernment.

• ESTALELLA, ROCHA and LAFUENTE. Common laboratories: experimentation, recursionand activism. Teknokultura Magazine, (2013), Vol. 10 Num. 1: 21-48 - Online at: http://tek-nokultura.net/index.php/tk/article/viewFile/121/pdf

• Citizen laboratories: spaces for citizen innovation. Initial text generated by the collabo-ration between Citizenship 2.0 and Medialab Prado. Online at: http://www. ciudada-nia20.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Documento-Colaborativo_LabsCiudadanos.pdf

• Letter of Proposals to Heads of State for the promotion of Citizen Innovation in Latin Ame-rica. Online in: http://ciudadania20.org/innovaciudadana/innovacion-ciudadana-en-ibe-roamerica/arta-a-jefas-y-jefes-de-estado-y-de-gobierno-iberoamericanos/

• Extituciones: nuevas institutions ciudadanas. By Vivero de Iniciativas Ciudadanas; El País(26/5/2014). Online at: http://blogs.elpais. com/alterconsumismo/2014/05/extitucio-nes-nuevas-instituciones-ciudadanas.html


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CITIES LEARNING THROUGH NETWORKINGMarcos García. Director, Medialab-Prado, Spain.

ABSTRACT:

Cities have always had spaces of encounter between their inhabitants, but alsobarriers that have helped to build homogeneous worlds and hampered com-munication among them. Nowadays, technological advances have revolutio-

nized the concept of city and citizenship: new technologies have turned upsidedown the way residents interact in large cities and have offered a unique opportu-nity to generate new structures, models and protocols allowing users and citizensto develop initiatives that strengthen the common good. New spaces, such as the la-boratories of citizen innovation, stand as meeting points for the improvement of li-ving conditions in urban nuclei.

Aristotle used to say that a city is madeup by different types of men, as no citymay be created by similar individuals. Allthe innovation potential of a city is basedon the fact that cities allow for an inter-action among different people, for a con-nection between different worlds. Towhat extent the cities we have inheritedand their institutions encourage a mean-ingful interaction among differentworlds?

There are various spaces for en-counter in cities like public squares, cafés,libraries and markets. But there are also

all kinds of barriers, for example a roadthat divides and prevents two communi-ties from interacting, enclosed residentialareas and gated communities, universitycampuses, or the so-called cities of cul-ture, all of them located in the city out-skirts, and which contribute to buildexcessively homogenous worlds with lit-tle interaction with the rest of the city. Inother words, they go against whateverthe city may have to offer.

At the same time this segregation ef-fect is produced in today's cities, thepromise of Internet as a venue where

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connections among those who are differ-ent flow easily, without the obstacles ofthe physical world, is always floating inthe air. Everything seems to be connectedby a click, and yet, after more than 20years of World Wide Web evolution, wesee that the tendency to get togetherwith our peers is also reproduced there.Therefore, before I am accused of beinga techno fetishist I would like to recall thewords of Cedric Price, the utopian archi-tect of the Archigram group, when he saidin the 1960s: "Technology is the answer,but what was the question?" And with theadvent of digital technologies the ideathat any problem may be solved with amobile app is highlighted but, What wasthe question? What is the notion of digitalculture that we want to place at stake?

Just as it happens with the term "cul-ture" when we talk about digital culture itis worth specifying what it is that we aretalking about. In the 1980s RafaelSánchez Ferlosio wrote a text for thedaily El País entitled "La cultura, ese in-vento del gobierno" (Culture: That Gov-ernment Invention). Rulers back themhad apparently adopted a cultural policycompletely opposite the one defined byGoebbels' famous phrase "Whenever Ihear the word 'culture' I release thesafety on my pistol," which was changedby "Whenever I hear the word 'culture' Iwrite a blank check to the bearer." If talk-

ing about culture in general as somethingthat only promotes positive values istroublesome, making it necessary to clar-ify what we mean en each case, the samething happens when we use the term dig-ital culture. We have to specify what kindof digital culture we are talking about. Inour case, we are interested in the kind ofdigital culture that promotes user in-volvement, that triggers new forms of or-ganization among users in productionprocesses, and on the design of new plat-forms and new infrastructures wherethey operate. Operation protocols of theWorld Wide Web, free software, andWikipedia are paradigmatic cases.


"All the innovationpotential of a city isbased on the factthat cities allow foran interactionamong differentpeople, for aconnection betweendifferent worlds."

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Coinciding with the development ofdigital networks, most studies on innova-tion conducted over the past 15 yearshave presented the same idea with dif-ferent names: social innovation, hiddeninnovation (i.e., not picked up by tradi-tional indicators), user-based innovation,as well as civic innovation and citizen in-novation. It is the idea that users/citi-zens/individuals come up withunexpected uses, innovations, and a kindof value that is usually not found amongtraditional innovation players such as ex-perts and renown research centers. Thishas become evident on the Internet:There are multiple platforms where usersorganize themselves and generate value.The question is, if users are the ones gen-erating value, who gets the benefits? Forexample, Facebook is not the same asWikipedia. While users produce the con-tent in both cases, the benefits of the so-cial wealth collectively produced are notdistributed in the same way. I think thiswould be one of the greatest opportuni-ties offered by digital technologies—gen-erating new structures, new models, newprotocols that allow users, individuals,and just anyone to get involved and de-velop their abilities in projects thatstrengthen the common good. Digitaltechnologies also provide a chance to re-think forms of organization of the knowl-edge we have inherited. In El Libro de los

Árboles (The Book of Trees) Manuel Limatalks about how we have structuredknowledge using the tree as a metaphor.Thus, knowledge is divided in branchesthat are sometimes very much apart fromeach other. What happens with projectsor with life issues that call for many disci-plines, many spheres of knowledge? Howcan we address the complexity of socialmatters without resorting to this imageof a tree, which sometimes seems insuffi-cient in that it tends to overspecializa-tion? Manuel Lima proposes the image ofa network as a mechanism to deal withthe complexity of social issues in complexmanners.

Most cultural institutions we have in-herited are part of this organization sys-tem by disciplines, and they operatebased on a hierarchical structure whereexperts are in a privileged position, ascontent producers and project develop-ers, and the rest of us only take part asspectators. It is in this context that thenotion of citizen labs came up, thesebeing places where citizens themselvestake part in experimentation processes.

We find examples of citizen labs in var-ious places throughout the world: aparish in Detroit, the Mind Lab in Copen-hagen where public policies are jointlydesigned by citizens and administrationexperts, and the Othello network, whichcomprises small rural labs in Austria. Me-


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dialab-Prado is set within this context. Itis an initiative of the Madrid City Councillaunched over a decade ago. Since 2013it is based in a former sawmill near ElPrado Museum.

Medialab-Prado is intended to be avenue for encounter, for production andexperimentation, rather than just a placefor conveyance or for presentations. Me-dialab-Prado is a production platformwhere anyone may present an idea or gettogether with others who have proposeda project, and develop it in workinggroups. It is more of a workshop than it isan exhibition room, and it is more of a labthan it is a museum: It is a place for doing,not just receiving. Nevertheless, Medi-alab does not give up the exhibition for-mat as an instrument to make certainprocesses public. The projects under-taken by Medialab-Prado are presentedin public. They are prototypes that oftentimes are not entirely functional, butwhich are presented as experiments thatanyone can take part of. Medialab-Pradois more of a lab than it is a museum be-cause it does not take part of the cultureof excellence as much as it takes part inthe culture of experimentation. In otherwords, the idea is to offer a space whereerrors are possible.

Medialab-Prado provides an open in-frastructure and some tools for projectdevelopment, but maybe that is not the

fundamental part. The fundamental partis that it is formed by a community activeusers who collaborate to produce theproposals by contributing their knowl-edge and their time. It is a communitybuilt around specific projects that are car-ried out by various types of workinggroups. Some have a more academic ortheoretical approach; others have a moreactivist approach; others are more scien-tific in type; and still others have a moreartistic/design-oriented. But the aim isfor persons from different worlds to havean opportunity to be together and con-tribute their knowledge. Aside from get-ting involved in projects, many of theseusers are interested in the work of this in-stitution they feel a part of. Thus, theyparticipate in the discussion on the cen-ter's model and operations through an ac-tivity called Thinking and DoingMedia-Lab-Prado.

I will now describe an activity formatthat allows for building a space wheresomeone who has an idea may get to-gether with others who can collaborateto carry it out. It involves productionworkshops. Ten years ago, in April 2006,we hosted the first "Interactive?" work-shop, using a methodology that workswith a very simple system of two calls forproposals: for projects, and for collabora-tors. A first call is issued to receive ideasthat will be developed in the course of


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two weeks by working teams made up by promot-ers of the 8-10 selected projects and by volunteercollaborators, all of whom register once through asecond open call once the projects are chosen. Thisis an international call, so people from all over theworld respond, both by presenting their ideas andthen to take part as collaborators. From 60-90 peo-ple—including project promoters, collaborators, fa-cilitators, and invited experts—get together for twoweeks to carry out the various proposals chosen.

Following is a brief description of some examplesof projects implemented in this kind of workshop.These are proposals involving the city's air quality.

• The project In The Air (http://www.intheair.es/)proposed by Nerea Calvillo in a workshop whosetheme was "the city as a database." The aim wasto make a visualization on different air compo-nents, using information collected by the mea-surement stations of the Madrid City Council.

• The group "Internet of Things, Madrid", coordi-nated by Sara Alvarellos and César García, witha proposal to build data collection infrastructureusing open hardware devices called Air QualityEggs, which allow anyone to place one of thesehome-made meters somewhere in the city andthen share the data on an online platform.

• Avis Data https://vimeo.com/126062775 , byKepa Landa proposes an approach to the issue ofair pollution using sound art. Thus, contaminationdata collected in real time by the mediation sta-tions of Madrid's City Hall would be translatedinto the sounds of calls made by different birds,

"Medialab-Prado isa productionplatform whereanyone maypresent an idea orget together withothers who haveproposed a project,and develop it inworking groups."


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so that if the threshold recommendedby the World Health Organizationwere surpassed, the bird callingswould get distorted.

• And finally, the initiative Air Qualitywith Biomarkers: Lichens, found in theplatform crowdcrafting.org uses on-line mass participation mechanisms(crowd sourcing) so that people mayanalyze large amounts of lichen im-ages in this case taken by users.Lichens appearing on a tree cortex aregood bioindicators of air quality. So auser takes a picture using a coin nextto the lichen so as to determine thelichen's size on the screen image, andthat way we know what the air qualityis like at that point in town.

In all of these projects documentationis of the utmost importance, since itmakes it possible to replicate them else-where, as well as to collaborate remotely."Autofabricantes" is a project to designand manufacture open-code, low-costprosthesis of hands for little children,which must often be replaced becausethese children are on a growing phase.Using 3D printers, free hardware forelectronics and a distributed design sys-tem and working groups from differentparts of the world, costs are reduced sig-nificantly, and practice & knowledge com-

munities are built by prosthesis usersthemselves along with people working onvarious disciplines.

Because projects are documented, notonly are they replicable, but methodologiesand working formats are more easily con-veyed. When talking about innovation,emphasis is often placed on product-basedinnovation. However, there is immense po-tential for innovation in processes, formats,and organizational models. Medialab-Pra-do's production workshops are a goodexample of a replicable format: They havebeen replicated in more than 20 citiesaround the world in various contexts, incities such as Lima, Mexico City, BelloHorizonte, Dublin, New York, Gijon, SanSebastian, and Nuven, the latter being a ru-ral lab rural Brazil. There have also beencases where the format has been adapted,for example the Laboratory Life, inBrighton's Lighthouse, or Birmingham'sOpen Innovation Lab in the summer of2015, where a version of this workshopwas implemented with sustainable ener-gy enterprises. Perhaps the most signifi-cant experience are the Citizen InnovationLabs (Laboratorios de Innovación Ciu-dadana, LABIC) promoted by SEGIB's Cit-izen Innovation Program in collaborationwith Medialab-Prado. Thanks to their in-vestment on a model including improve-ments on participant conditions, therehas been an increase in participation both


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at the workshops organized in Veracruz(2014) and Rio de Janeiro (2015), as wellas the one to be held in Cartagena de In-dias soon in 2016. I think it is a formidablebet that is helping build collaboration net-works in Ibero-America. During the lastworkshop in Rio de Janeiro, a so-called"telegram group" was created, with a totalof 130 people that remain in conversationmonths after the workshop was held. Acommunity of people from diverse back-grounds has been built who are already in-teracting and generating projects far be-yond what was done in the labs.

Another example of collaborationforms are citizen innovation lab resi-dences in Ibero-America, which arejointly hosted by Medialab-Prado andSEGIB. For two weeks in September2015 representatives of six lab projectsparticipated in these residences, to besubsequently implemented in Ibero-American cities. In this case, it is a small-scale action with great impact, sincehaving a few people live together for twoweeks has helped them build a collabora-tion network.

When we talk about education, weoften underscore the importance of"learning by doing." When it is a collabo-rative project, and what is done is alsopresented in public and integrated withinthe community, learning is much greater.Learning by doing together in public is the

"Because projectsare documented,not only are theyreplicable, butmethodologiesand workingformats are moreeasilyconveyed."


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proposal of citizen labs. Learning to co-operate means developing a number ofskills associated with listening, empathy,and mutual recognition. Citizen labs areideal for this kind of learning throughpractice, and for learning to live together.And how we learn to live together is aquestion we should never lose sight of.


"the mostsignificantexperience are theCitizen InnovationLabs (Laboratoriosde InnovaciónCiudadana, LABIC)promoted bySEGIB's CitizenInnovationProgram incollaboration withMedialab-Prado."

IVTHE ROLE OF CULTURE INBUILDING DEMOCRATIC SOCIETIES

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LA FAMILIA AYARA: INTEGRATION FROM HIP HOPDon Popo. Founder and Director, Fundación Artística y Social La Familia Ayara, Colombia.

ABSTACT:

The day-to-day challenges of maintaining the art of hip hop alive, of making itknown and of changing negative stereotypes that used to make it look like itwas a criminal expression, motivated a group of young artists to work as a

community to generate resources and ideas, for leading these youths and helpingthem make a sustainable livelihood through hip hop. That is how Fundación La Fa-milia Ayara was created. At first, La Familia Ayara appeared to be a youth entrepreneurship option to sellhip-hop related products, and it was first to create its own brand for Colombia's hiphop community. Love for our work and a belief in hip hop as a tool for change leadla Familia Ayara to grow beyond a business logic, and turn into a cultural exchangevenue, where youngsters would meet not only to learn about hip hop as an artisticmovement, but also to create and spend their time in art, away from the violenceexperienced in their neighborhoods. This venue turned into a cultural center andtoday, after 20 years, it continues to work every single day by offering workshops toyouth and teenagers on their fundamental rights, a culture of peace, peaceful con-flict resolution, prevention of psycho-active substance consumption, and supportto women's empowerment, among others, by means of art, rap, break dance andgraffiti. The life stories of the Foundation members, their day-to-day contact with youthwho were clearly in need of spaces to change their lives through art and the re-sponsibility they felt of contributing to peace-building in a country that was beingbled by a pointless war, led La Familia Ayara to set a goal for itself of turning hip hopinto a tool to make Colombia a more just country for children and youth.

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Some friends in the commission havesuggested that we should have a little bitof urban art in this Urban Culture Forum,and have asked me to sing one of mysongs. I asked if they knew my music andthey said no. I asked if they would be will-ing for the audience to be exposed to thatand they said yes. Rap acapella is our style,is our way; it is all emotions, sensations,thoughts, ideas going through your brain,being felt in your skin, your heart... So letus see:

"Listen up! 'Cause the enemy is an-other one. Listen up! 'Cause is the enemyis another one. The tough thing aboutpoverty is not the dead, it's the hopeless-ness and not knowing if tomorrow will bebetter. Fidel won't let Cubans out, the op-posite of us Colombians, the world won'tlet us in. Forty years in a war, millions are

displaced, whether you're fool or you'reeducated there is no work, the desperate,the hitmen, the guerrillas, the military andthe paracos, these are the people's poorand they're gunning each other. Listen up!'Cause another one's the enemy. Listenup! 'Cause another one's the enemy. Lis-ten up! 'Cause another one's the enemy."

"I was cheated; my duty to the nation isan outrage. A nation that has given menothing, has taken away, and has tied mypeople down to poverty. Our blood 'sbeen spilled by governments, to give theempire to the oligarchs, 'cause money isnever enough for them. A killing of mindsand innocent bodies, gunning each otherdown day in, day out. My people's peoplemassacre for lands, for drug dealing, forarms for war, to the benefit of the richmother-fuckers, it's not my war. Listen up,


With La Familia Ayala as a pioneering organization, today hip hop has gone frombeing an urban culture, to respond to the needs on communication and dissemina-tion of fundamental rights in various parts of the country that have been negativelyinfluenced by the armed conflict and social inequality. It has been proven that thereare no borders or limits in terms of the understanding of hip hop and of the actionsfor the rights of children and youth.

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listen up, gas is blowing up, and disap-pointment is on the rise. I see many anx-ious faces and a few tears here and there.Listen up! 'Cause another one's theenemy. Listen up!"

“Last night I had a dream: a world withno owners; last night I had a dream: therewere no emigrants, no illegals, no bordersor nationalities; no refugees 'cause therewas no war. Last night I had a dream thatmultinationals didn't fund the paramili-tary, that they didn't displace peoples likeanimals to extract matter, oil and minerals;that the mineral resources they're takin'out they were givin' back turned into

trash, and 'cause of that trash we thinkwe're gettin' better, the poor in the ghet-tos don't kill each other no more. I had adream that our land was no dunghill andleaving was not the only way out, Idreamed that migrants living in the cul-prit's land were not despised. It was just adream."

“I had a dream, me, I had a dream, me.I had a dream so nice, but it was a dream,I had a dream..."

That is hip hop, a way of showing feel-ings, ideas, and thoughts to catalyze themand expose them. When these reflectionscome out of your heart or your brain to beknown using your own language, suddenlyyou feel they are no longer dangerous,they are just art and can help have a con-versation, a discussion, and then they en-courage transformation,consensus-building, and social construc-tion.

Hip hop is a massive, connecting move-ment that allows anyone to participatewith no discrimination, as it may involvemen and women alike, regardless of theirage, ethnic background, social status, ge-ographical location, sexual identity, politi-cal ideology, or personal beliefs. It mayreach any community and allows formicro-territories where there is often nosignificant State presence and no accesseven to social services to actually gain vis-ibility. It creates networks among commu-

The Role of Culture in Building Democratic Societies

"Rap acapella is our style, is our way; it is all emotions,sensations,thoughts, ideasgoing through yourbrain, being felt inyour skin, yourheart..."

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nities, whether it be through music making (rap),dancing (break dance) or painting (grafitti). Itpresents these processes in a tangible manner,and today it also makes them viral through newcommunication means such as the social mediaand web pages.

Hip hop is a social and political movement forchange, and also for entrepreneurship. La Fa-milia Ayara is an example where you can feel thestrength of hip hop to facilitate the realization oflife projects thanks to entrepreneurship. It wascreated when we, its founders, were still kids. Iwas the oldest among my friends, and I was just18, but we had already been practicing some hiphop disciplines for some years, so we nourishedcommon skills, similarities and dreams.

La Familia Ayara was founded based on twosolid guiding principles, which we have furtheredthanks to the bonds created through hip hop.The first one is that we truly believe that art—and particularly this art—is a powerful tool forsocial change, and a fantastic means of commu-nication within participant groups, with closegroups, and with the community in general. Thisis because it helps breaks barriers to engage indialogue with people from different sectors, dif-ferent backgrounds, and different origins. Sec-ondly, we believe that children and youth aresubjects of choice for social change and trans-formation. Regardless of the roles some mightwant to see them in—whether as rights holdersor as victims (and in some cases as victimizers)—in their various contexts, we see them as carri-ers of change and solutions, regardless of the


“Hip hop is amassive,connectingmovement thatallows anyone toparticipate with nodiscrimination, as itmay involve menand women alike,regardless of theirage, ethnicbackground, socialstatus..."

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psycho-emotional, political or economicissues they might have experienced be-cause of their personal or their family his-tories.

In our years as a foundation, La FamiliaAyara has done social work in drug rehabsites, in juvenile prisons, in communitiesand in contexts where youngsters havebeen removed from the armed conflict,from paramilitary groups, guerrillagroups, and we have also worked withyouth prone to join these groups or to becaught by organized and non-organizedcrime. Thanks to these processes, wehave continuously developed and im-proved two work methodologies of ourown. One is the Ayara High ImpactMethodology, and the other is called RapDebate.

The first one is a psycho-emotional andpsycho-social approach based on thetools hip hop provides—rap, break danceand graffiti—whereby painting, music,dance, drama, and audiovisual means,among others are linked. Through thismethodology, which has its own timing,discourses and concepts, we approachany population group—whether or not hiphop lovers— to convey practices, habits,values, and meanings; and from that pointon, changes are brought about in the par-ticipants' behavior until ensuring a changein their social behavior. We have used thismethodology to work on psychoactive

substance abuse prevention, preventionof violence and sexual abuse, gender em-powerment, ethnic identity, ethnicity, mul-ticulturality, and preventing targetpopulations from joining the armed con-flict, all of this within the framework of thepromotion and guarantee of humanrights.

On the other hand, Rap Debate is amethodology basically focused on speech.We think that language limits and con-tributes to create imaginaries that lead usto create our reality and conditions ouractions in it. That is why we use rap to getto those contexts with high rates of vio-lence, fear, risk, inconformity and con-frontation, to provide a tool that allowsfor dialogue, and encourages debate, ar-gumentation and critical thought, as wellas active citizenship. Because it is art, wetear down this very common myth foundin our country that in Colombia you can-not use your voice because that may in-crease the chances of putting your life indanger.

La Familia Ayara also designs socialmobilization strategies using the newtechnologies, all the social marketingstrategies and some that we have devisedourselves based on the hip hop culture,mobilizing public masses, informing themand raising awareness, thereby broaden-ing that social responsibility we should allshare.


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In another aspect of our work, we use aplatform of 10 youth organizations at anational level, and in turn each of these or-ganizations works in coordination withanother 10, so that we have a total of 100youth organizations or more. Throughthis network we provide each other train-ing and we strengthen each other. It pro-vides us with background information,sometimes services, as well as logistical orsocial capabilities in order to get to thesemicro-territories across the country, andwe offer them organizational strengthen-ing, fund-raising methods, technologicaldevelopment methods, as well as admin-istrative and management models.

For our own sustainability, at La FamiliaAyara we also have a section for providingservices to the private sector. This ac-counts for over 50% of our income. Wesell our show with a group that brings to-gether 150 artistic groups. We sell BTLmarketing strategies, social marketing, fi-nancial marketing for major brands usingour artistic expressions, and strengthen-ing of human talent in companies.

That is what we do as La Familia Ayara,an organization that emerged thanks tothe hip hop culture and which todayshowcases the potential of art as a tool forchange, social responsibility, and en-trepreneurship.


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LIVING CULTURE: INNOVATIVE CULTURAL PROCESSESIvana Bentes. ∗Professor at the Postgraduate Program in Communication and Culture atthe Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

ABSTRACT:

Culture at the heart of new development models for Latin America. The con-cepts and practices related to the Living Culture Policy in Brazil are presen-ted, where culture is viewed as a "commons", a common good. By supporting

4,500 community-based cultural networks and groups in 27 Brazilian states, signi-ficant visibility has been given to a broad cultural, traditional, cultural, urban, and pe-ripheral production, thereby gradually transforming these territories. The Living Eco-nomy and the states' challenges to finance processes and lives, rather than"products." Cultural Spots as citizen, social innovation labs and their expansionthrough a culture of networking. .

Using culture to propose social pro-jects and actions with an impact on terri-tories. The experience presented here byColombian hip hop singer Don PopoAraya expresses the same concept andpractices I will talk about, and which werefer to as Cultura Viva —or Living Cul-ture— in Brazil.

The Living Culture Program was cre-ated in Brazil by the Ministry of Culture,headed by Minister Gilberto Gil in 2004,thereby introducing an anthropological,expanded concept of culture to culturalpolicies that goes beyond the cultural in-dustry.

This Program meant a significant mo-ment of social imagination and policy, inthat community and territorial-based cul-tures (traditional and popular cultures,rural, urban, and peripheral culture) weremapped out, supported and provided withfunding.

The Program's greatest innovation wasthat existing cultural projects and actionswere supported through calls for propos-als. The so-called Cultural Spots were de-fined as non-profit units, groups ornetworks—whether with or without alegal status—which had a cultural natureand purpose, so that they could develop

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or coordinate cultural activities in com-munities or in networks.

This is one of policies with the highestcapillarity and visibility devised by Brazil'sMinistry of Culture. There are CulturalSpots in all 27 Brazilian states and in morethan 1,000 municipalities. There are over4,000 cultural spots throughout the coun-try, bringing together—whether directlyor indirectly—an approximate 8 millionpeople through their actions.

Among the Program's main beneficia-ries and protagonists are the youth andtraditional groups, reaching a cultural pro-duction that comes from the peripheriesand inner Brazil, and ranging from digitalculture to indigenous peoples. CulturalSpots have become a cultural policy land-mark within and outside Brazil, and havebeen adopted in several Latin Americancountries such as Argentina, Chile, Peru,Colombia, and Costa Rica.

Through IberCulturaViva, Cultura Vivais part of the Iber Programs, which arefound in 10 Latin American countriestoday. This is a program that has inspiredpolicies in other Latin American min-istries, and has now reached Spain whereit has inspired actions by the BarcelonaCity Council under Ada Colau's tenure.

This is a Brazilian policy that has trav-elled through Latin America, inspiringalong the way other programs and othercultural policies and practices. It is worthhighlighting that this Program marks abreaking point from institutionalized cul-tural policies in Ministries of Culturethroughout the world.

Cultura Viva rose in that paradigmaticturning point in Brazil that was the pro-gressive administration of Luís Inácio Lulada Silva, a period that continued underPresident Dilma Rousseff, but which atthe time being is in danger of being inter-rupted through a political maneuver in


"This Program meant asignificant moment ofsocial imagination andpolicy, in thatcommunity andterritorial-based cultures(traditional and popularcultures, rural, urban,and peripheral culture)were mapped out,supported and providedwith funding"

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Congress, with the risk of PresidentRousseff being impeached and having anend put to these public and cultural poli-cies.

The greatest innovation of the LivingCulture Program is quite a simple, yet rad-ical idea that cultural production and cul-ture cannot be conceived as a sector. Norcan they be thought of as a hyper-frag-mented field divided by languages (audio-visual production, film production) thatare part of a cultural industry where wehave products.

Therefore, in a way Cultura Viva hasbrought this notion that culture is a com-mon good, a "commons" producing sym-bolic value, producing immeasurablevalue that often times does not translateinto a monetary value, it does not turninto a cultural product.

The definition of a Cultural Spot isquite interesting in that it allows a wholecontinent of community-based or socio-cultural experiences to emerge, and theseare not synthesized into products, but arerather considered as processes. In otherwords, they do not fit into the dynamics ofthe cultural industry, not even under theconcept of a creative economy.

We are talking about non-profit cul-tural communities and entities with orwithout a legal status. An indigenoustribe, for example, has no legal status; ahip hop group does not necessarily have a

legal status. Nor are they managed bylegally constituted entities. So, how it ispossible to make public policies forgroups, for persons whose cultural pro-duction is absolutely associated to theirvital, day-to-day expression? What is theproduct of an indigenous tribe? Whatdoes an indigenous tribe produce? Music,housing, clothing, food, handcrafts, lan-guages. Their very life and existence istheir product. Therefore, we are talkingabout a public policy that has started toassign a monetary value—i.e., to finance—processes rather than products.


"IberCultura Viva ispart of the IberPrograms, which are found in 10 LatinAmerican countriestoday."

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In other words, the Program has broken from thestandard of the cultural industry. It has broken fromthe traditional role of ministries of culture all overthe world, whose priority is to support institutionsand groups that are already legitimate, institutional-ized. We went the other way around and saw a gi-gantic continent emerge in Brazil, with a culturaldiversity that obviously already existed, but whichthe State has come to acknowledge, finance, and sup-port.

Therefore, above all, the Living Culture Programhas meant a symbolic recognition that society pro-duces culture, language, aesthetics, and that theseproducts cannot necessarily be reduced to the ra-tionale of the cultural industry—entertainment, abook, a film, or other products.

Living Culture has a potentially huge, diverse so-cial foundation that includes an indigenous tribe asmuch as a group developing free software; a groupof hackers; a hip hop group; or a funk or other musi-cal style group; a group whose cultural production isassociated to minorities, LGBT groups, digital cul-ture... a whole range cultural processes and produc-tions for which there used to be no room in theBrazilian State or in ministries of culture at large.

Such practices and expressions are recognizedtoday in several other Latin America countries withpublic policies for their community-based culturalgroups, and have looked at Living Culture as a defini-tive moment and a critical milestone of such recog-nition of culture based on a territory or a network,even on a virtual network, and encompassing allkinds of cultural and artistic languages.

So today we have in Brazil Cultural Spots associ-


"We went the otherway around and saw agigantic continentemerge in Brazil, witha cultural diversitythat obviously alreadyexisted, but which theState has come toacknowledge, finance,and support."

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ated to indigenous groups, to hip hop, toaudiovisual production, drama, free soft-ware developers, digital culture, and soon. It is a broad range that also reflectsthat very diversity of cultures and pro-cesses.

There is a lot of talk about social inclu-sion, but the Living Culture Programworks with a concept that is crucial in myview, namely subjective inclusion. Theseare groups that are disputing the world'snarrative, the narrative of culture. Theyuse their territory to basically claim them-selves as being subjects of the world, cul-tural subjects, aesthetic subjects, politicalsubjects, and subjects of cultural rights.

And so it is very interesting to think,even in qualitative terms, of the broadrange these groups include. We might saythat today this socio-cultural productionmay constitute into what we call a "socialmovement of culture." This movement be-gins with using culture to think about sub-jects relating to economics, healthcare,housing, and several other areas.

The Program has an enormous capil-larity. It is implemented in exactly thesame way it was created in all 26 Brazilianstates, in the Federal District, and in 1,200municipalities. There are 5,000 munici-palities in Brazil, but it works in 1,200 ofthem or a little more, and it ultimatelybenefits some 8 million people throughthese projects. These are very small pro-

jects, sometimes for three or four people,but much bigger, highly structured pro-jects are also included. The Program hasthat characteristic, this hyper-capillarity,a hyper-territoriality. And above that, it isabout understanding the concept of aCultural Spot as a State investment inwhat is already there. It started by meansof calls for proposals, where groups wouldsubmit what they were doing and theState would provide support and financ-ing. So, up to this date 4,500 CulturalSpots have been funded. However, whenwe actually think about how huge thiscontent of cultural agents and producersis, we can imagine there are not 5,000 cul-tural spots in Brazil, but rather 10,000, or30,000, or 100,000 Cultural Spots. And ifwe were to take stock of and do a mappingof Cultural Spots in all of Latin America,there would be thousands of them.

Beginning in 2015, we moved from apolicy of financing these Cultural Spots, toa second policy of symbolic recognition,so that those groups that do not receivefunding may be recognized as relevantculture producers. A "symbolic coin" wasofficially coined to this end. In addition tofinancing to support project sustainability,we have introduced a self-declaration ofCultural Spots, whereby groups self-declaring themselves present their port-folio, their activities, and they arerecognized and certified by the State.


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It may not make sense in Europe forthe State to recognize a group as a cultureproducer, but this is critical in Latin Amer-ica. This symbolic recognition that oftenprevents a cultural group from a violentperipheral zone to be obliterated by thepolice. Additionally, it prevents their par-ticipants from being persecuted, sincethese Spots have a State seal recognizingthem as relevant culture producers.

By being Points of Culture they arepart of a safety network, an exchange net-work, a network for adding value, some-times the entry point for peripheral zonegroups that had never before had any re-lationship with the State through a publicpolicy. Therefore, this entry point is criti-cal for peripheral minority groups, tradi-tional groups which until then had norelationship with the State and were com-pletely left aside from public policy.

It is interesting to find that, in a way,many Cultural Spots play a role of simu-lating public policies themselves. So, if wetake the large museums, we have CulturalSpots that work as Memory Spotswhere—unlike the major museums— it isthe community or the territory which pro-duces a record of their cultural activities,i.e. the actual documentation. In otherwords, they work as the living memory oftheir territory and their community; a sim-ulation of the major museums, I would say.That is citizen innovation!

There is also the question of disputingvenues of recognition and consecration.Indigenous Cultural Spots want to be rec-ognized for the aesthetic production ofthese groups—their music, handcrafts,and rituals. This is a way for indigenousgroups to express themselves to the out-side world, to be recognized, and to com-pete for a position, even with regard tocontemporary art.

Today many groups (here is a picture toillustrate this) are disputing the produc-tion of contemporary aesthetics. Why areindigenous groups not featured as "per-formers" in museums and cultural cen-ters? Today, some indigenous groups wantto compete for institutional spots withtheir rituals, their music, going beyond theliving experience in their territories. Thisis a very interesting movement in Brazil asregards indigenous groups. Why not holda Biennial Exhibit of Contemporary In-digenous Art? Why do we deny them theircontemporary character?

Now, going back to Cultural Spots as asimulation of State structures, we alsohave the example of Community Muse-ums. These are built to preserve commu-nity memory, and are one of the policies ofBrazil's Ministry of Culture.

Another knowledge recognition policyis that for masters of oral tradition, mas-ters of popular culture, storytellers, ma-trons... Persons whose knowledge is


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different from written, school, or university culture.Today we have a Master's Degree bill in Brazil, stillin Congress pending to be voted, whereby popularmasters in oral tradition are to be equated with a uni-versity Master's Degree. This is something alto-gether radical. In other words, what are these groupsdisputing is the production of knowledge, becausewhen taught in universities, traditional and popularculture are ranked as outreach programs, as some-thing rather superfluous or secondary.

Today these traditional community groups wantto compete for the production of knowledge, theconceptual production. In other words, an indige-nous group says, "We have a different world vision,concepts, and our own understanding of the world,"and they are often competing, for example with thecapitalist production, the social and economic sys-tem as we know it.

Therefore—and this is very interesting— thesegroups produce concepts involving collaboration, ex-change, and a sense of community that are highly or-ganic, associated to their territories and their moretraditional experiences. And these are many of thevalues we have seen here to be of great interest tothe digital culture, to a whole range of cutting-edgeexperiences of contemporary and urban culture—the idea of "commons," of the common good, of citi-zen innovation.

When we talk about these peoples and digitalquilombos, we are also talking about a very interest-ing movement. Some groups in Brazil are stagingwhat we call technological or intercultural owner-ship, thereby making technology as their own to pre-serve and record their traditions. There is, for


"Today thesetraditionalcommunity groupswant to compete for the production of knowledge, the conceptualproduction. In otherwords, an indigenousgroup says: 'We havea different worldvision, concepts, and our ownunderstanding of the world."

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example, Indios Online and the Indigenous Web,which are portals for the production and dissemina-tion of indigenous experiences, languages, rituals,and for keeping record of their culture on the web.

In my view this is a critical issue. We must think ofthe use of digital culture and how to harmonize thevarious cultures and contemporary matters withthese traditional experiences. I think this is the greatcontribution of Latin America to a discussion on theharmonization between the traditional and the con-temporary... A popular digital culture, or a traditionaldigital culture, and I feel this means taking a step be-yond the more limited notion of digital culture itself.

And so, what I would like to say is that in additionto community culture we also have several key urbanexperiences—those involving the occupation of pub-lic spaces, of streets and public squares. At the Min-istry of Culture's Citizenship and Cultural DiversitySecretariat we were thinking, for example, of creat-ing Street Spots. These would be Cultural Spots op-erating on the streets in nomadic fashion,performing on streets and public squares and otherpublic spaces, as a way of taking the streets. Becausetoday cities are the new factories, the new studios,the new cultural production labs in Brazil and all overthe world. They are all competing for the streets, forpublic spaces, as a way of taking over the cities, thecity "commons", the city of common goods, the citythat we understand to be our own.

Without a doubt, Cultural Spots in Brazil operateas citizen labs. I find a very interesting issue to raisehere this concept of a Network State, i.e., wherethese spots work as public policy hubs or labs.Clearly they do not replace public policy, and often


"These groupsproduce conceptsinvolvingcollaboration,exchange, and asense of communitythat are highlyorganic, associatedto their territoriesand their moretraditionalexperiences."

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times they lack the scale, so while they areterritorially-based, they may even inspirelarge scale policies. I am sure that a pro-gram like the Living Culture one has thepotential of becoming large-scale, pro-ducing both actual and symbolic currencyand monetizing, pointing to innovativepaths to make these cultural practicessustainable.

This is the great challenge of these pro-jects. How can you assign a monetaryvalue to life? How can you assign a mone-tary value to procedures? It is just like Ihave said. An indigenous tribe has noproducts; its cultural "product" is its life,its community. What are the means totheir avail? Today, part of these indigenousgroups, for example in Brazil, are living inthe cities. They are urban natives whohave to reinvent their culture outsidetheir territories. How does the State en-gage in dialogue with these groups?

This idea of Cultural Spots as citizenlabs, this idea of a Network State, is criti-cal. Cultura Viva did a very interesting co-management experience between thesegroups and the State, using many ideasfrom cultural groups, many experiences ofnetworks and circuits to inspire the callsfor proposals.

Last year we did three calls for propos-als: one for Free Media Spots, one forNetworking Culture, and another one forIndigenous Cultural Spots. The proposals

were discussed collaboratively. So, Howcan this Network State be created?Clearly, these public policies, including theLiving Culture Program, and even theMinistry of Culture, run the risk of beingde-constructed and dismantled in the faceof President Dilma Rousseff's destitutionprocess, whereby these policies would besuspended, and would be a mistake.

But if this happens, we might be ableto create an autonomous experience, a"parallel government" or a Para-State,whereby this Network-State would playa key role, because this network of Brazil-ian Cultural Spots has strengthened.Today they exist as a community of iden-tity, perhaps as a political movement vin-dicating policies that go beyond culture.

So it is very important that we see cul-ture at the heart of political processes, ofinclusion processes that work as a SocialMovement of Cultures. I think this is ab-solutely crucial. These are new subjectsof the discourse, new political subjectsconstituted based on these incrediblyrich cultural experiences. For example,today the hip hop movement is the seedof a political party of blacks in Brazil. Acultural network like Fora do Eixo in-spires a networking culture, and is thecreator of a remarkable experience offree media like Mídia Ninja, which hasbeen doing a critical job of competing forthe narrative.


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To finish my presentation, I would liketo talk about the importance of this cul-tural production coming from peripheralzones... The importance of these periph-eral zones, not only in Brazil but through-out Latin America and the world—citizeninnovation coming from the ghettos.

There is no doubt that a favela likeRocinha in Brazil, with some 100,000 in-habitants, is a city. It has dynamics of itsown, and today's urban cultural produc-tion comes largely from favelas—theirfashion, language, clothing, lifestyle, andtheir way of being. Thus, they are a trulyenormous area of cultural influence.

We cannot think about the future ofcities without thinking of a public policy ornetworking actions for peripheral zones.That global periphery that rap singer DonPopo has expressed so well here. Becausethese global ghettos are also producinglanguage, and successfully transformingthe most hostile of all things—poverty andviolence—into language, aesthetics, andvalue.

They are machines turning the mosthostile and precarious into social con-struction, creation, into exits and solu-tions. And for me this is critical when wetalk about citizen labs. I call it the wealthof poverty. Poverty produces an enor-mous wealth all over the world, and per-haps the greatest wealth of all, which is animmeasurable symbolic production com-ing from these places. And this happens inperipheral zones all over the world.

Therefore, these experiences of coor-dination between Brazil's local peripheralnetworks with other Latin American net-works are critical. And we always find so-lutions. That is why I also say that this com-munity-based cultural production, thiscultural production associated to theseprocesses also constitutes a new, very im-portant force of capitalism, i.e., the pre-cariat. These are groups of self-employedworkers, often working in the informaleconomy, and which are constituted


"Cultura Viva did avery interesting co-managementexperience betweenthese groups and the State, using many ideasfrom cultural groups,many experiences ofnetworks and circuitsto inspire the callsfor proposals."

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around these circles based on a sense ofbelonging and language. I am talking aboutthe precariat, but some scholars are al-ready talking about the cognitariat, be-cause these self-employed also work withthe production of knowledge, with inven-tions, with information. Their brain is theircapital, not the fordist work force.

Everyone thought that culture, the cul-tural production model, was an exceptionin the world of work. That the world ofwork would remain formal, offering jobsecurity to individuals, providing laborlaws with a universal coverage, etc. Buthere we are in the 21st century and thispromised horizon of full employment andjob security is over. Today the greatestworkforce all over the world is relatedand linked to emigrants, to the periphery,to the precariat. In other words, it is ahuge force. And, rather than being the ex-ception in the world of work, culture hasbecome the model of the new form ofwork. The precariat is the model withincultural, knowledge, and information cap-italism.

To sum up, we should think about theeconomics experiences relating to thisprecariat, because they are enduring, theyare sustainable, they devise communitybanks and social currencies and collabo-ration economies, pointing to this criticalquestion which is a living economy. Thisinformal economy, for which there are nodata or rates in Brazil. And I think the timehas come when public policies, and theMinistries of Culture of Latin America andthe world should expose this continentmade up by the economics of livelihood.

What do these groups produce? Howdo they subsist? How do they link up? Thatwould be the next program we would de-velop at the Ministry of Culture—underLiving Economy— which I think will beaborted through the ongoing legal/mediacoup. But we will resist in a parallel gov-ernment, a Para-State, thinking of a pro-gram called Networking Culture, which isabout articulating and mobilizing thesegroups that over the past 10 years haveemerged, and which are a new politicalforce when they link up and mobilize.


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THE ROLE OF CULTURE IN THE DEVELOPMENTOF DEMOCRATIC CITIESPaul Dujardin. Executive Director, BOZAR Center, Belgium.

ABSTRACT:

Culture has revealed itself as one of the structural bases that support the co-existence in society. It constitutes the main mean of bonding citizens who in-habit a certain territory. Through it, different political and social concerns are

manifested as a result of democratic health. These cultural manifestations oftenserve as a channel for integration and participation.

I am deeply interested in the role ofculture in democratic cities development,for several reasons. First of all, it is at thevery core of the Palais des Beaux-Arts: itwas conceived by civil society in 1928 asa public space for cultural gatherings, andnot as a traditional museum with a vastcollection. It embodies something elsethat is even more valid today: it is anagora, a space where different communi-ties can dialogue. The second reason liesin Brussels as a metropole. After the hor-rible terrorist attacks in Brussels, I be-lieve more than ever in culture, tightlylinked with politics and education, canmake a difference. Brussels has a huge di-versity with numerous communities.Brussels will never be Paris or London,

and our situation will never be comparedto what we see in mega cities in LatinAmerica which are greatly improving witha lot of creativity. The question is, then,what can we learn from Latin Americatoday.

BOZAR is a house of culture open toall, and it reflects diversity of a cos-mopolitan city as Brussels in a globalizedworld. Cultural exchanges, freedom ofspeech and citizenship participation arethe pillars of a healthy democratic society.Interestingly, today artists are not alwayspart of discussions in social, political andeconomics realms. It is not easy becauseartists are individuals, but they are veryresponsible. I am always amazed to seeone of the most famous artists from the

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post-Second World War generation, Italianartist Michelangelo Pistoletto. He recently wentto Cuba where he was doing a fascinating work-shop with civil servants from the Cuban Ministryof Culture to explore how the future could bewith artists working together with public ad-ministrations. BOZAR tends to be a space thatbrings together people coming from differentorigins and disciplines: artistic, scientific, politicalor civil society representatives. I firmly believein projects emerging from civil society andreaching political decision-makers. Thus, weneed to give those initiatives and artistic activi-ties a place to develop. BOZAR can act as a plat-form, an intermediary and as a facilitator.

Today, BOZAR is organized with verticalstructures by disciplines, as most of institutions,like the Ministry in Brazil for example. The clas-sical ones (for music, for performance arts, cin-ema, culture industries), but we decided recentlyto also have horizontal ones, with a different ap-proach. A more geopolitical approach with BozarAfrica or Bozar Latin America. Mainly becausewe are globally analphabets: we think that thecenter of the world is Europe and to change thisperception we need to look at things in a morehorizontal and multilateral way. But not only atthe level of esthetics, but also at the level of eth-ical questions, such as those we are discussing inhere: immigration, gender issues and otherglobal issues. From that perspective, a commondiscussion together with Latin America andother regions is very important. In this sense,there are two essential elements to take into ac-


"After the horribleterrorist attacks inBrussels, I believemore than ever inculture, tightlylinked with politicsand education, canmake a difference."

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count: one of them is mobility; one of Europe’smost important acquisition is the Erasmus Pro-ject. I think it is an extremely important oppor-tunity when I saw students from Latin Americancountries coming to study, not only in Spanishbut in all European universities. In June 2015 wehad in Brussels the II CELAC-EU Summit, andwhat came out there was the model we have inBOZAR, the idea of networking in cooperation.This is why BOZAR organized a cultural forumsimultaneously with the Summit.

BOZAR, as a federal platform, has to workwith more than two hundred and fifty partners,networking. The other element is, as stated be-fore, the matrix of the verticality and horizontal-ity in our organization. It is impressing to seehow cities can transform the reality of social is-sues through the use of culture. One of the mostimportant projects I have learned as presidentof the International Music Council, and net-working with the Latin American Music Councilwas “El Sistema”. This project, a model from theVenezuelan Ministry of Culture, had a tremen-dous impact. Also, with the assistance of LatinAmerican countries we started projects asMúsica Viva that had an impact on European cul-ture institutions and in our communities. Thoseare examples of how artists can, through bot-tom-up initiatives not as a result of a political en-gagement but as citizens, as people from thecommunity, can be part of the solution duringcrisis. Likewise, one can also cite the examples ofthose artists and cultural activists now being ac-tive with local communities including young peo-


"...we think that thecenter of the worldis Europe, so it’simportant that welook to these thingsin a moremultilateral ,horizontal way."

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ple in poor urban areas across LatinAmerica. I think about El Salvador, Medel-lín or Brazilian favelas. BOZAR also has tobe active in this respect by giving a plat-form for these actions.

There are several formal examplesthat can illustrate BOZAR recent actionsconcerning democratic development atcities. Three of those are the projects“We-Traders. Sous la crise, la ville!”, “NextGeneration, Please” and, finally, ‘LAIC -Culture and arts supporting social cohe-sion in Latin American cities’

The first one, was a project by theGoethe Institute started in 2013 whichbrought together artists, designers, ac-tivists and many citizens of Lisbon,Madrid, Toulouse, Turin, Berlin and Brus-sels. An exhibition in 2015 at BOZAR re-vealed a large number of citizens'initiatives across Europe, showing howcitizens, "We-Traders" redefine the rela-tionship between shared values, the gen-eral interest and the benefit of everyone.The We-Traders offer a wide range ofpossible actions in response to urbancrises, whether economic, social or envi-ronmental. “Next Generation, please” oneof our pilot projects, brings together 200young people from 12 schools and asso-ciations and to reflect and with the par-ticipation of artists at various issues,including borders (openness), culture andthe European identity, citizenship (partic-

ipatory), democracy, freedom of speech,migration and diversity.

Thirdly, we are now partnering with In-terarts in Barcelona to implement the EUproject ‘LAIC - Culture and arts support-ing social cohesion in Latin Americancities’. This ambitious and experimentalinitiative aims at gathering artists and cul-tural activists within workshops in Brus-sels and Medellín in 2016. It willculminate with an exhibition at BOZAR inMay-July 2017 showcasing Latin-Ameri-can projects and installations engagingwith key issues such as mobility, educa-tion, sustainable development, memoryor violence. I am convinced we need tofurther encourage this sort of network-ing process and offer it more visibility.

For, to serve as a public space occupiesa very important element at the time ofplanning activities in a great number ofcultural organizations as BOZAR. BesidesLAIC, I would also like to underline theconnections established by BOZAR help-ing artistic projects in different publicspaces of cities: in the exterior of thePalace of fine arts, up to in Quito and thewill to carry out this year the United Na-tions Conference, Habitat III.

With our partners we’re determinedto strengthen the dialogue on the role ofculture in the development of inclusivesocieties. Latin America has much toteach to Europe in this field. I am sure


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that artists have an important responsibility to-wards civilians. Art, Culture and Creative Industriescan be the real engine of cultural, social and eco-nomic development for more cosmopolitan urbanand public spaces, whether in Latin America or Eu-rope. Today’s topic really touches my heart, so thatit’s an honor for me sharing with you this importantreflection.


"It is impressing tosee how cities cantransform thereality of socialissues through theuse of culture."

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I JUST WANT TO BE HAPPY AND LIVE A QUIETLIFE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD I WAS BORN: Communication as the Backbone of Culture andCitizenship BuildingAndrea Ipinze. Communicator, Red Científica Peruana, Red Peruana de PeriodistasCulturales.

ABSTRACT:

We are part of a historical time where we people feel we are world citizens.In this globalization stage we have stopped looking from the inside out; or,as we say in Peru, we have stopped looking at our own navel. On the con-

trary, today we often connect more with stories and news coming from other con-texts and realities. Technology development and a growing access to the Internethave allowed for this global view of reality to become the new paradigm of urban ci-tizens. In this sense, being a world citizen means to be online at all times, and to re-ceive such a huge amount of news per day that we are unable to read them and takethem in. This bombardment of information from communication media whose in-tention is to unify cultures (in the sense of homogenizing) rather than unite us is, gra-dually disconnecting us from our own reality. This globalized, unilateral, and homo-genizing type of communication whose manifest bombards us every day innewspapers, television, social media and other aids, represents a major threat to theexistence of cultural diversities and their integration. Based on this vision, and takingsociety and its needs as the central point for building better lives and spaces, our pro-posal is to work toward a closer communication with our milieu, thereby reviving andprioritizing the value chains each culture decides on for its own development, andbased on this, build various narratives and stories in communication media that re-present their citizens. This principle is our point of departure and the reason why wecreated the Red Peruana de Periodistas Culturales (Peruvian Network of CulturalJournalists). This is an education, social construction and integration project basedon the ideas of the Escuela Latinoamericana de Comunicación (Latin AmericanCommunication School) and the principles of indigenous communication. We striveto work on communication based on the harmony of contemporary and pre-Hispa-nic knowledge.

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I would like to begin my presentationby taking up again something RebecaGrynspan said, when she mentioned thatnearly 70% of all university students inLatin America are first to attend univer-sity in their families. I belong to that 70%because my parents did not go to the uni-versity as they lacked the economic re-sources. I come from a neighborhood thatI had to move from because it was so dan-gerous, and I have found in culture—andin the opportunity it has given me— achance to build my own identity, move on,and be a better person.

“I just want to be happy and live aquiet life in the neighborhood where Iwas born." That is the title of my presen-tation. I took this phrase from a Brazilianfunk group ("Eu só quero ser feliz", byCidinho e Doca), because it representswhat we all pursue for our lives in a way—to be happy in those places we love, with-out being forced to migrate or see ourplaces forsaken due to social exclusion. Ialso chose this name because to attaincomplete happiness and full citizenship,we must necessarily think of communica-tion, on the influence it has on our livesand on how we build our legitimacy andidentity.

A place in the South deserves a kind ofcommunication conceived in the South

We all come from Latin America,where every country in turn containsmany countries within. We are plurina-tions; we are many cultures in one terri-tory (I think the same goes for Europe).For this reason, the State should recog-nize that we are a nation of nations, thatwe are many cultures cohabitating in onesingle space. This acknowledgement hasalready taken place in Bolivia, but still notin Colombia or in Peru. We have yet to ex-plore and work on our pluricultural na-ture as a distinctive feature of worth andas a factor for our integration. This situa-tion is expressed through the variouscommunication media, where the valuesof these millenary cultures are not inte-grated to the mainstream culture. Thus,their wisdom and their world vision arenot communicated, thereby preventingthe rest of society from understandingthem and respecting them.

For this reason, if the media do not tellthese life stories, and if citizens lack themeans to get to know these other cul-tures, the big question that comes up is,How can we get to know each other andconnect from a perspective of our differ-ences? How can we overcome this rup-ture, this disconnection? Where can wesee represented all of these initiativesthat allow us to raise awareness about a


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more human type of development? As ordinary citizens, we all understand

that the media are important to make ourpractices and advances visible (and alsoto legitimize them) as a group and as a so-ciety. Furthermore, we envision commu-nication as the very possibility ofconveying messages. But we should alsothink about its endless possibilities forcreating more just realities, "as the pro-duction of links and meanings, and not asthe production of means and messages",in the words of Gabriel Kaplún.

In the face of this situation, it is neces-sary and quite urgent to envision com-munication as the backbone for buildingculture, and to understand its importancefor their recognition and valorization. AsKaplún says, we must think of "a [kind of]communication whose raison d'être is theunderstanding of each culture." The pathtoward this kind of communicationshould be understood not from the pointof view of feedback, but rather from thatof pre-feeding—a state where the pointof departure is defined by the communi-cator as "the subjects s/he wants to com-municate with each other. Use the otheras the point of departure, listen to themattentively, [understand] their concernsand interests, their knowledge and expe-riences, their hopes and fears, is an es-sential virtue of the communicator," saysKaplún.

By following these paths of dialogueand horizontality, communication and themedia will fulfill their intended purpose,which is "to share something" (accordingto the meaning of the Latin term "comu-nicar.") This way, it will succeed in con-tributing something to build more justand inclusive communities, cities andcountries, with increasingly happier citi-zens who also feel more at ease with in-habiting spaces conceived for a goodliving.


“it representswhat we all pursuefor our lives in away— to be happyin those places welove, without beingforced to migrate orsee our placesforsaken due tosocial exclusion."

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Peasant rounds are not about violence; they areabout culture

(An example of cultural invisibilization in tradi-tional media and of possibility for the new media)

In Peru, for example, the issue of the "RondasCampesinas" or Peasant Rounds (and the peasantswho make up this group) is often on the press. Theseround makers (in Spanish "ronderos"), are authori-ties in charge of enforcing order and watching pub-lic spaces in communities and in the country'sAndean region. They are elected and recognized bycitizens through a self-devised organization system,but they are still not recognized by the State. Hence,there is a power fight between the people and theState in areas where these rounds are carried out.Who are peasant round makers? Many people in thecountry and throughout the world ignore it and theyfirst hear about them from the mainstream media. Inthis context, their activities have been overshad-owed and misrepresented though violence and sen-sationalism, forcing them to leave behind anindigenous practice dating back to over 40 years.

Peasant rounds are a native practice, but becausethey have been stigmatized by the media, this An-dean living culture is gradually disappearing due tothe ignorance of the new generations, thereby in-creasing its chances for extinction.

For people in towns, ronderos do an important jobbecause they look after their hens, and they watchover for water not to get contaminated. Moreover,in places where there are extractive industries, theyare the guardians of environmental sustainability.They watch over lagoons and pasturelands, whichare part of their world vision as well as a food source.


"By following thesepaths of dialogueand horizontality,communicationand the media willfulfill theirintended purpose,which is 'to sharesomething."

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The information presented in themedia is out of touch with reality. Be-cause of this, the Red Peruana de Peri-odistas Culturales works to create adifferent narrative in Peru to coordinateefforts, discuss and devise solutions tocultural communication from both alocal and a regional perspective.

Networks for inclusion: Red Peruana de Periodistas Culturales

The Red Peruana de Periodistas Cul-turales (Peruvian Network of CulturalJournalists) was created with this rea-soning in mind. We view it as a chancefor creating another type of narrativethat is just as powerful as the main-stream media's.

One of our principles is to communi-cate culture to be agents of change. Wecame to understand that academic train-ing is necessary to be able to move on, sowe decided to open venues for learningwith collaborators from different coun-tries whom we often invite to deliverworkshops. We came to understand thatthose of us working in cultural commu-nication—and especially in independent,horizontal projects—did not have anykind of university education. Therefore,we decided to do something so that wecould add theory to our day-to-day prac-tices, and then be able to create citizenpower blocks. In this process of sharing

what we learn, we also deliver work-shops with a dynamic of sharing our ex-periences in order to find methods, andthen replicate them in our work zones.

At the Network we have also under-stood that sometimes the same mediaformats such as television, radio, and theInternet, exclude some populations thatdo not include them as part of their dailylives. That is how we have learned,thanks to popular and indigenous com-munication, that an oral narrative—an in-digenous ancestral practice— is also ameans of communication, as are thelabyrinth designs in Amazon art, and the"ícaros" (songs) of the Shipibo people.This kind of communication meansshould be recognized by the State, sinceit is meaningful in terms of building theidentity of native peoples and of the restof citizens.

Finally, I would like to point out thatcommunication, understood as a funda-mental part of culture building, is essen-tial to bring about social, human, andeconomic development, and to build thehistory of our countries more in keepingwith what we all dream of—just, inclu-sive places filled with harmony, wheredifferences may enrich us rather thanseparate us.


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REFERENCES

• Comunicación y Educación popular. Centro Memorial Martin Luther King. EditorialCaminos, Cuba.

• José Teixeira, Por una Política Cultural Integracional• Hacia una economía para la vida

http://revistas.unisinos.br/index.php/otraeconomia/article/view/1093• Ryszard Kapuscinski, Ébano• Mónica Chuji, Los medios de comunicación indígena al servicio de los derechos huma-

nos http://www.alainet.org/es/active/16282• César Calvo, Las tres mitades de Ino Moxo• Isabel Rauber, Reflexiones desde abajo http://isabelrauber.blogspot.pe/• Luis Ramiro Beltrán, La comunicación antes de Colón• Manuel Castells, Comunicación y Poder• Milton Santos, Los espacios de la globalización• Alfonso Gumucio, Haciendo Olas (Historias de Comunicación Participativa para el

cambio social)http://www.communicationforsocialchange.org/pdf/haciendo_olas_%5Bf%5D_7_23.pdf

• Omar Rincón, Narrativas mediáticas: http://cmap.javeriana.edu.co/servlet/SBRea-dResourceServlet?rid=1J2S7FDYN-22Z90QB-208

• Néstor García Canclini, Comunicación, Cultura y Ciudadanía, una conversación:http://medialab-prado.es/article/comunicacion_cultura_y_ciudadania

• Jesús Martín-Barbero, De los medios a las mediaciones: http://perio.unlp.edu.ar/ca-tedras/system/files/de_los_medios_a_las_mediaciones.pdf

• Paulo Freire, Pedagogía de la autonomía. Editorial Caminos, La Habana.• Stefan Kaspar, Comunicador por la autonomía audiovisual

http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2013/11/01/actualidad/1383340423_940315.html


VFINAL REFLEXIONS

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CULTURE, A NEW VECTOR FOR SOLUTIONSJolita Butckeviciene. Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, General Directoratefor International Cooperation and Development, European Commission.

First of all I would like to thank all ofyou for coming to share your expe-riences and views on culture. This

seminar has opened the door to a livelyand stimulating debate and I hope thishas improved our understanding of cul-ture as a vector for strengthening socialinclusion in urban contexts.

I very much appreciate the picture onthe screen which said “Yo quiero ser feliz.”This is a beautiful message; I wrote itdown because in fact this is the purposeof our work. When we are talking aboutdevelopment, it is not just about increas-ing the GDP, but the real purpose ishuman development. Human develop-ment based on a human rights approachis something that is high on our agenda,and that is why for us it was extremely im-portant to organize this event and tobring great minds together. We all have acommon commitment called the 2030Agenda for Sustainable Development,which for the first time has included cul-ture among its objectives. The EU has ac-knowledged the need to establishstrategic and operational guidance on therole of culture and creative activities forsustainable urban development, so we

are now looking at how to deliver to-gether against our commitment.

Your discussions of today will not belost. For us it was extremely important tosee how your experience, your view ofthe world could turn into action for usand how we could support you to takeforward the challenges that each of youface, and how we can translate this un-derstanding into a better life for all of us,so that we and those who live around usmay say: “Yo soy más feliz.”

The panels were extremely rich. I wasgoing through the conclusions and thelessons learned, and they are not ele-ments that I think would be easy to trans-late into specific projects, but I thinkthere are a lot of ideas that will inspireour engagement with the Latin Americanregion.

First of all, a very significant point –Ithink for all of us– is that culture is one ofthe new vectors that could help in findingsolutions, and maybe solutions which areunorthodox. We talk about the citieswhich are hubs for individuals and collec-tive creativity; there are hubs of prob-lems but there are also hubs of solutions.And solutions will not necessarily come

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from above, but rather will be built fromthe people living in the cities. In this senseLatin America is ahead of the tide in find-ing local urban solutions. So this is reallyfor us to find policies which have to bebuilt based on local knowledge. We haveto take the responsibility and promote aninclusion in the urban context, and rein-terpret the urban policies to include thecultural dimension and lead to what localpeople need today.

Reviewing what came as a feedbackfrom the sessions, I can see the most pop-ular word is tolerance, which is definitelysomething that we have to assimilate andlearn through different means: culture isa vector of tolerance. Culture is a visionfor a better world because it can encour-age an identification of tangible objec-tives and find –again– appropriatecreative solutions for more economic, so-cial and environmental development.

I hope that the discussions you've heldtoday will inspire a long-term dialoguebetween the EU and LAC Countries and

future pilot projects in the field of cultureand urbanization. Today's event can feedinto this dialogue and could generate pri-orities for our future collaboration.

We have good ideas which shouldbuild on this laboratory for interculturaldialogue, diversity, and promotion ofdemocracy. I think we still need tostrengthen the platform between all ac-tors at a Latin American level and Eu-rope-Latin America, to actuallyunderstand what needs to be done andhow we can translate all these ideas intoprojects that we would like to support forthe better and happier lives of all peoplein Latin America.

So I really would like to thank you; yougave a huge input in shaping EuropeanUnion's engagement to working in LatinAmerica.

Many of us certainly live in cities, wewill continue to live in cities, we dependon cities. Solutions will not be simple, butwill be appropriate if we look at diverse,adjusted solutions.


VIPARTICIPANT BIOS

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REBECA GRYNSPANRebeca Grynspan is an economist andformer Vice-President of Costa Rica. Shewas unanimously elected as Ibero-Amer-ican General Secretary on February 24,2016, in Mexico City, by the 22 countriesmaking up the Ibero-American Confer-ence. Her mandate started on April 1,2014.

Before her appointment as Ibero-American General Secretary, Ms.Grynspan was Assistant Secretary Gen-eral of the United Nations and AssociateAdministrator of the United Nations De-velopment Program (UNDP), as ap-pointed by General Secretary BankKi-moon on February 1, 2010.

From 2010 to 2016 Ms. Grynspanwas UN Under-Secretary General, andRegional Director of UNDP's RegionalOffice for Latin America and theCaribbean.

Before that, she served as Director ofthe Subregional Office of the EconomicCommission for Latin America and theCaribbean —ECLAC— in Mexico. There,she co-chaired the Executive Board ofthe International Institute of Researchon Food Policy, and was part of the advi-sory group of the IADB's PROLEAD Pro-gram (supporting women's leadership inLatin America).

Before joining SEGIB and the UN, Ms.Grynspan was elected as Vice-President

of Costa Rica (1994-1998). During thisperiod, she also served as Minister ofHousing, Coordinating Minister of Eco-nomic and Social Affairs, and she wasalso Vice-Minister of Finance during theOscar Arias Administration.

Ms. Grynspan is author and co-authorof numerous papers and books on eco-nomic and social policy, as well as on gen-der and poverty.

She was born in San Jose, Costa Rica,and holds a Master's Degree in Eco-nomics by the University of Sussex inEngland.

LEONEL FERNÁNDEZLeonel Fernández Reyna was born onDecember 26th, 1953 in SantoDomingo, capital city of the DominicanRepublic. After completing his primaryand secondary studies between theUnited States and his country, he joinedthe Law Department at AutonomousUniversity of Santo Domingo (UASD). In1978, he obtained the PhD in Law. Histhesis, "The crime of public opinion” en-riched the debate about this topic, andpaved the way to the beginning of hisacademic career.

In his almost 20 years of academic lifehe lectured several generations of pro-fessionals in journalism and communica-tion, graduated from the Universidad

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Autónoma de Santo Domingo. In this uni-versity, he lectured on press law, history,communication sociology and interna-tional relations. He also lectured at theLatin American Social Sciences Institute(FLACSO) in the Dominican Republic.

In 1995 he was nominated the presi-dential candidate of the Dominican Lib-eration Party (PLD) for the elections ofMay 16, 1996, which he successfullywon becoming the youngest president ofthe Dominican Republic (1996-2000),and the first from the party PLD

He finished his Presidential mandateon August 2000, however on May 16th2004 he was once again elected Presi-dent, in this occasion for two periods,until August 2012.

The Presidency of the EU-LAC Foun-dation is ad honorem and nominated bythe Board of Governors every four years.

MARJETA JÄGERDirectorate General for InternationalCooperation and Development of theEuropean Commission. She has been Director of Security in theDirectorate of Energy and Transport ofthe European Commission and DeputyPermanent Representative and MinisterPlenipotentiary of Slovenia to the Euro-pean Union (2002-2004). In addition, hewas Undersecretary of State of the Cab-

inet of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ofSlovenia; Counselor of the Ministry ofForeign Affairs of the Republic of Slove-nia for relations with the EuropeanUnion (1991-1995) and First Secretaryof the Slovenian Mission to the EuropeanUnion (1995-1999). Ms. Jäger holds adegree in Law and International Lawfrom the University of Ljubljana (1991).

SYLVIE DURÁN SALVATIERRASylvie Durán graduated in Dramatic Artsat the Universidad de Costa Rica. Shehas received professional training at theEscuela del Método Lecoq de Actuaciónde Buenos Aires, Argentina, and hasbeen certified as an EntrepreneurTrainer by Doinglobal- Universidad deSalamanca. Ms. Durán also graduated atthe Body-Mind Centering School Pro-gram in Berkeley, California, as well asthe Training Program on Somatic Educa-tion and Reeducation of Movement, So-maryhtms Approach, Costa Rica(1993-1995).

She has worked at both an institu-tional and development cooperationlevel at the Ministry of Culture andYouth, UNESCO Office for CentralAmerica in San José, the Central Amer-ica Support Program for Regional Inte-gration within SICA, and the Network ofCultural Centers of the Spanish Cooper-


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ation Agency (Agencia Española de Co-operación Internacional, AECID). Shehas also worked as a teacher and re-searcher, and a facilitator of group pro-cesses on cultural matters. At presentshe is part of the research staff of sev-eral graduate programs on culture.

She has also worked in teaching andresearching, and facilitated group pro-cesses on cultural matters. She is cur-rently part of the research staff inseveral graduate programs on culture.Additionally, she has been a consultanton culture and development; nationalheritage and cultural tourism; network-ing and partnering skills; economy, sus-tainability of culture and managementmodels.

JUCA FERREIRATwice Minister of Culture of Brazil,2008-2010 and 2015-2016. He was stu-dent leader and presidio the BrazilianUnion of Students of Secondary (Ubes)during the dictatorship. He lived nineyears in exile during the authoritarianregime, a stage that I took to study socialsciences. Back in Brazil I work in the en-vironment field and in different culturalprojects. In 1993 he was elected Coun-cilor of the city of Salvador by the GreenParty (PV), being reelected for that sameposition in year 2000.

MOISÉS MEDRANODirector of Populations, Ministry of Cul-ture, Colombia

Moisés Medrano, is a professional ofthe Social Sciences. He has been a uni-versity teacher in the areas of conflict,humanitarian action and vulnerable pop-ulations. Formed in international coop-eration and development, he has workedin organizations in the field of gender,planning and management of coopera-tion resources. Permanent guest to na-tional and international events on Afroissues for his in-depth knowledge of thesubject.

RAÚL OLIVÁNDirector of Zaragoza Activa, City Coun-cil of Zaragoza, Spain

Raul Oliván has a Bachelor's Degreein Advertising and Public Relations, aDiploma in Social Work, and has donespecialized university courses on Per-suasive Communication, Citizen Partici-pation Techniques, and Urban StrategicPlanning Specializing on Culture.

He has worked on projects involvingyouth, social education, citizen partici-pation, employment, entrepreneurshipand citizen innovation. For the past 6years he has designed and headed a localgovernment program called ZaragozaActiva, an ecosystem of enterprises, in-

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dividuals, and public projects such as anEntrepreneur Nursery, Seedbed ofIdeas, La Colaboradora (Banco delTiempo and Coworking P2P), the Cen-tro de Economía Creativa Las Armas,Made in Zaragoza, ZAC social media,and the lab ThinkZAC. During this timehe has promoted over 400 enterprises,and carried out more than 2,000 activi-ties.

Zaragoza Activa has received re-gional, national, and international recog-nitions and awards, including Aragonesesdel Año. It was also selected by SEGIB asa model for its citizen innovation agenda.Mr. Oliván has sporadically published ar-ticles in Periódico de Aragón, in El Paísdaily's blog Alternativas, and in his ownblog on subjects such as collaborativeeconomy and social innovation(www.raulolivan.com, @raulolivan).

CARLOS J. VILLASEÑOR ANAYAInternational consultant on cultural pol-icy for sustainable development. Mr. Vil-laseñor currently resides in Panama. Heis part of the EU/UNESCO Group of Ex-perts on Cultural Governance and Cre-ative Economy (UNESCO 2005Convention); the Cultural Economy Net-work (Jiao Tong & Monash Universities);and the Latin American Studies Associa-tion (USA).

For more than 20 years he has collab-orated with various public institutions inMexico (INAH, ITC, CONAGO, Chamberof Deputies). Mr. Villaseñor is a consul-tant in cultural policies since 2005, andhas worked in all the states of the Mexi-can Republic, as well as in countries likeArgentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica,Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, France, andPanama.

FEDERICO SEINELDINCo-founder and Director of the holdingNjambre, a venue for joint envisioning,co-creating, watching over, and develop-ing to scale innovation enterprises witha socio-environmental impact. Examplesof these enterprises are Arbusta, Mama-Grande, Teqxac, and Umana. He was oneof the promoters of the Corporate SocialResponsibility movement in Argentina,and throughout his life he has co-founded several social organizations, en-terprises and movements. He wasrecognized as a global entrepreneur bythe Endeavor Foundation and FundaciónAvina.

BEATRIZ GARCÍABeatriz García grew up and received hereducation in Barcelona, where she stud-ied Communication Policy, City Market-


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ing, as well as the then emerging field ofresearch on international cultural policy.While studying, she also lived in France,Australia, the USA, and Great Britain,where she now lives.

Dr. Garcia has been at the forefrontof discussions on urban cultural regen-eration for more than a decade. Her pio-neering work on cultural impact and thelegacy of major events has informedstrategists in cities around the world,from Sydney to Liverpool, and from Lon-don to Taipei. She headed and produceda high-profile project to study the im-pacts of major events (www.im-pacts08.net), which simultaneouslyanalyzed the economic, social and cul-tural impacts—on both the short and thelong term—of the European Capital ofCulture Program –ECC. Impacts 08 wasfocused on the case of Liverpool 2008,and was a point of departure for anotherbenchmark study, published by the Eu-ropean Parliament, on the first 30 yearsof the ECC Program. Other studiesheaded by Ms. García include an analy-sis on the cultural impact of the artsagenda for the Olympic Games, particu-larly including the cases of Barcelona1992, Sydney 2000, and London 2012.She has been an academic cultural ob-server in all Olympic Games editions(both winter and summer) since 2000,and is currently a member of the Culture

and Olympic Heritage Commission ofthe International Olympic (IOC).

MERCEDES GIOVINAZZODirector of Interarts, a private agencyspecialized in international cultural co-operation. She is a member of the RomeTheater Administration Council. From2008 to 2015 Ms. Giovinazzo chairedthe Executive Committee of Culture Ac-tion Europe, an European platform forarts and culture. From 2008 to 2011,she chaired the European CommissionAccess to Culture platform. Before that,she was Director of Services and DeputyDirector of Customer Service of theUniversal Forum of Cultures inBarcelona; Administrator of the Direc-torate of Cultural and Natural Heritage,Council of Europe; Director of the Mas-ter's Degree in Cultural Management ofthe Higher School of Commerce, Dijoin,France. She holds a Laurea in Lettere bythe Università degli Studi La Sapienza inRome, Italy, and a Master's Degree inCultural Management by the HigherSchool of Commerce in Dijoin, France.

PAOLA RICAURTEResearch Professor, Instituto Tec-nológico de Monterrey, Mexico.

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Paola Ricaurte is a full-time researchprofessor at the National School of Grad-uate Studies in Education, Social Sci-ences, and Humanities at the InstitutoTecnologico de Monterrey. She is the Di-rector of Openlabs, a citizen innovationproject in this School. While working as aprofessor she has taught courses at bothgraduate and undergraduate levels. Shehas broad experience teaching for diplo-mas, workshops, and other courses in or-ganizations, political parties, as well asprivate and public institutions in Mexicoand abroad on subjects relating to digitalculture, technopolitics, and educationalinnovation.

RODRIGO SAVAZONIRodrigo Savazoni is a Brazilian writer,multimedia director, cultural activist, andresearcher. He obtained a Bachelor's De-gree in Journalism in 2001, and Master'sDegree in Humanities and Social Sci-ences from Universidad Federal Do ABCin 2013.

At present, he is one of the foundersof Instituto Procumum, a new organiza-tion aimed at promoting common goodsand a free culture (www.procomum.com.br). Through this institute, he coor-dinates projects involving alternativetechnologies Committee(www.tecnolo-giasalternativas.org.br, as well as LABxS

(Lab Santista), which is a citizen innova-tion lab.

Mr. Savazoni was Subsecretary of Cul-ture of the Sao Paulo Intendant Office(2013-2014). He was also a co-founderof the Casa da Cultura Digital and of theFestival CulturaDigital.Br (www.cultur-adigital.org.br).

He is the co-author of "CulturaDigi-tal.br", jointly with Sergio Cohn(Azougue, 2009), "A Onda Rosa-Choque- Reflexões sobre redes, cultura e políticacontemporânea" (Azogue, 2013), "OsNovos Bárbaros - A Aventura Política doFora do Eixo" (Aeroplano, 2014) —to beedited in Argentina in 2016— and "Poe-mas a uma Mão" (Azougue, 2015).

DARDO CEBALLOSDirector of the Open Government Pro-gram, Government of Santa Fe, Ar-gentina.

Graduated in Social Communicationfrom the National University of Rosario(UNR) he has worked as a consultant incommunication and digital marketing.University teacher. He has also been Di-rector of Digital Communication in theSecretariat for Modernization of Man-agement, Ministry of Government andState Reform, Government of Santa Fe.Formerly coordinator of multimediacommunication at the UNR.


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MARCOS GARCÍA Marcos Garcia, holds a degree in FineArts from the Complutense University ofMadrid and currently serves as directorof Medialab-Prado, an initiative of theMadrid City Council. Medialab-Prado isconceived as a citizen's laboratory forthe production, research and dissemina-tion of cultural projects which exploresthe forms of experimentation and collab-orative learning that have emerged fromdigital networks.Between 2006 and 2013 he was respon-sible for the coordination and program-ming of Medialab-Prado, along with LauraFernández. From 2004 to 2006, theylaunched the MediaLab Madrid educa-tional program, in which they developedthe cultural mediation program and theinteractive project, a research and pro-duction platform about the creative andeducational applications of technology.

DON POPOJeyffer Tadeo Rentería, better known asDon Popo, has devoted his life to tellingstories through rap. He is the Founderand Director of the arts and social foun-dation La Familia Ayara, in Colombia.Through his work, he intends to insist onone single message: That we all have sev-eral voices. And that one of them —hiphop—serves for exorcising a difficult

past. Through rap beat and through artin general, this native of the Choco De-partment, a leader of Bogota's urbanmovement, has consolidated a large fam-ily of youth who have found in art a wayout of conflict in their environment,where Fundación Ayara is at the heart ofthis change.

With a Pfaff 260 sawing machine,Don Popo set up the first distributor ofhip hop clothing in Colombia in 1995. Hegot to own 17 stores in just a couple ofyears. With the sale of clothing he andhis group started doing workshops in ju-venile prisons. Using a simple, yet effec-tive methodology (i.e., urban art), Jeyfferstarted training youth in leadership andentrepreneurship. In 2006 La FamiliaAyara was created as a foundation work-ing through rap, graffiti, and breakdance.

IVANA BENTESFormer Secretary of Citizenship and Cul-tural Diversity, Brazil's Minister of Cul-ture, de 2015-2016. She is a professor atthe Graduate Program on Communicationand Culture at the Universidade Federaldo Río de Janeiro. She writes essays onCommunication, Culture, and the Media,Ms. Bentes was Director of the Communi-cation School from 2006-2013. She ob-tained a Bachelor's Degree in Journalism(1986), and completed her Master's De-

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gree with a dissertation entitled "Percep-tion of the Truth: Philosophy of Cinema(1997). She is the author of Cartas aoMundo: Glauber Rocha (organization andpresentation, published by Compañía delas Letras, 1997); Joaquim Pedro de An-drade: a revolucao intimista (Editorial Re-lume Dumará, 1996), Avatar: O futuro docinema e a ecologia das imagens digitais(Editora Sulina, 2010); and Mídia-Multi-dão: estéticas da comunicação e biopoder(Editora Mauad, 2014). She is the coordi-nator of the Digital Cultural Spots Pro-gram at ECO/UFRJ. This office is chargedwith coordinating the Cultura Viva (LivingCulture) Program. At present she is work-ing on two research projects: “Estéticas daComunicação: Novos Modelos Teóricosno Capitalismo Cognitivo” (sponsored byCNPQ) and "Periferia Global", about theimaginary and actions in favelas and pe-ripheral zones, both in Brazilian cultureand in the global stage, as well as their ar-ticulation networks.

PAUL DUJARDIN He has been the director and artistic di-rector of the Center for Fine Arts(BOZAR) in Brussels since 2002. Underhis direction, the Center has become aninternationally recognized, multidisci-plinary and interdisciplinary center ofart, offering a wide range of events, from

concerts to exhibitions, cinema, litera-ture, theater, dance performances or de-bates and workshops for your audience.

Paul Dujardin represents the Centerfor Fine Arts in Brussels on various plat-forms, such as the European ConcertHall Organization (ECHO), the Interna-tional Society of Performing Arts (ISPA),the European Network of Ancient Music(REMA) and ASEMUS - Europe Network(since September 2010). Since 2013 hehas been President of the InternationalMusic Council (IMC). He has been amember of the board of directors of theEuropean Festivals Association (EFA)since February 2014.

Dujardin is also a passionate sup-porter of the European project. It de-votes its special interest to creating adialogue between the arts and the polit-ical spheres. It has succeeded in devel-oping BOZAR as Agora, a platform toinitiate the debate between the citizens,the arts, the decision makers and othersectors. He is the animator of the steer-ing committee of the project "New Nar-rative for Europe", an initiative of the EUthat tries to give to Europe a new andmore cultural vision for the future of thecontinent.

From 1992 to 2002, Paul Dujardinwas general director of the Société Phil-harmonique de Bruxelles, before whichhe was, among others, in charge of the


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annual "Ars Música" festival dedicated tocontemporary music.

ANDREA IPINZEAndrea Ipinze is a student of Organiza-tional Communication at the UniversidadComplutense de Madrid. She graduatedas a journalist and has experience on dig-ital media, with an emphasis in communi-cation, culture, and development. She hasstudied the space and dynamics of cul-ture in Peru's communication media since2008. In 2010 she co-directed the Aso-ciación Cultural Sientemag and launchedsientemag.com, one of Lima's most rep-resentative communication and cultureportals, which has been recognized byPeru's Ministry of Culture for its contin-uous work with civil society. In 2011 shefounded the Peruvian Network of Cul-tural Journalists, the first meeting placecreated in Peru to discuss and devise so-lutions and opportunities for culturaljournalism in this country and in LatinAmerica.

Ms. Ipinze has worked as a digital jour-nalist in Terra (2008-2009), as an editorfor the Peruvian League against Cancer(2010); as an RPP digital journalist(2010-2011). She has also been a digitaljournalist for the cultural section inLamula.pe (2011-2012). She has devel-oped digital communication strategies at

Centro de Cultura España-Lima (2013-2014). She has also worked as the Direc-tor of the Asociación Cultural Sientemag(2010-2014); organizing content at theObservatorio Cultural de Cuba; and ascontent analyst and strategic communi-cation analyst for Red Científica Peruana(2016).

JOLITA BUTKEVICIENEWith a portfolio of ongoing operations ofalmost3 billion € and an annual budgetof 700 million euros,

Its Directorate is responsible for allthe bilateral, regional and thematic co-operation between the two regions.

For thirteen years, Mrs. Butkevicieneworked at the United Nations Confer-ence on Trade and Development (UNC-TAD) in the field of negotiations on tradein services and services’ development.She joined the European Commission in2007, where ahe has assumed differentmanagement positions.

Her formal training and experience isin the field of quantitative economics andcommercial law negotiations.

Mrs. Butkeviciene began her careerteaching economics at the University ofVilnius, Lithuania, and subsequently at theUniversity of Binghamton, New York, USA.

She has postgraduate studies of bothUniversities.

Participant Bios

Urban Culture for Social Inclusion in Latin America - SEGIB

Documents

Transcript of Urban Culture for Social Inclusion in Latin America - SEGIB