Greening cultural policy

Abstract

This article focuses on greening cultural policy within a sustainable development context. We examine shortcomings of major public-policy responses to the ecological crisis, linking this to the ambivalent philosophical heritage of anthropocentric worldviews that underpin ideas about the relation of culture to non-human nature. This ambivalence is reflected by weak environmentalism in the cultural policy arena, exemplified by surprisingly non-green cultural platforms espoused by green political parties. Green thinking is further hampered by the widespread adoption of digitisation within cultural organizations, which we contextualise in the broader political economy of digital capitalism and the attendant myth that high-tech culture is a low emissions business. Green cultural policy necessitates intensive self-examination of cultural institutions’ environmental impact, at the same time these institutions deploy art, education, entertainment, sports, and news to raise awareness of ecological crisis and alternative models of economic activity. We cite the efforts of activist artists’ resistance against fossil fuel corporations’ sponsorship of arts and cultural organizations as a welcome provocation for greening cultural policy within cultural organizations and green political parties alike.     

Experiencing Climate: Finding Weather in Eighteenth Century Cumbria

This article examines whether Tim Ingold's concept of the ‘weather-world’ can be applied within discussions of climate in archaeology. Using a case study of eighteenth century Cumbria, the article first looks at the issues arising when environmental models are used to investigate landscape change. It then assesses the insights on landscape, weather and farming that can be gained from two historical diaries. It is recognised that advances in complex ecosystem and agent-based modelling have improved ‘climate change archaeology’, but that there are aspects of people's relationships with the weather and climate that are ill-suited to quantification. The article concludes by arguing that people's qualitative engagements with the weather are integral to how past people viewed and used the landscape.     

The Newport Medieval Ship,Wales, United Kingdom

The Newport Ship is the most substantial late medieval vessel excavated and recovered in Britain in recent years. It was abandoned after extensive salvage, possibly following attempts at repairs to the hull. More than 23 m of the clinker‐built ship were recovered, along with significant artefact and environmental assemblages. Finds point to strong Iberian connections during the active life of the ship, which arrived in Newport in the Severn Estuary, after the spring of AD 1468. The dismantling and recovery of the ship has enabled detailed recording using innovative 3D digital techniques and approaches to hypothetical reconstruction. Publication includes a digital archive hosted by the Archaeological Data Service, a substantial report and this article.     

Why development requires less nuance and more class: a response to Patrick Kilby

The authors review critically an article by Patrick Kilby in Vol. 61(1) of the AJIA on Australian development policy. They claim that the difference between the Government's program and the alternatives suggested by Kilby is one of degree as his objections retain the same neoliberal limitations as AusAID and the Washington Consensus. The authors argue that reducing poverty in a globalized world means going further than institutional changes and considering the key issue of class. They instead suggest a focus on the effect of domestic international politics and the globally constituted nature of poverty.