"THE PROMISE OF CULTURAL NETWORKS: Towards a research framework for the study of region-specific cultural network ecosystems" presented at the Cultural Trends Conference "IN SEARCH OF CULTURAL POLICY" on Thursday, November 24th, 2011 (London, United Kingdom).

1. THE PROMISE OF CULTURAL NETWORKS
Towards
a
research
framework
for
the
study
of
region-­‐specific
cultural
network
ecosystems
MAURICIO DELFIN
IN SEARCH OF CULTURAL POLICY
Cultural Trends Conference
Thursday, November 24th, 2011
London, United Kingdom

2. A story

3. CONFERENCE
Creating a Future for Arts and Culture in Latin America
Costa Rica, October 2010

4. CONFERENCE
Creating a Future for Arts and Culture in Latin America
Costa Rica, October 2010

5. CONFERENCE
Creating a Future for Arts and Culture in Latin America
Costa Rica, October 2010

6. CONFERENCE
Creating a Future for Arts and Culture in Latin America
Costa Rica, October 2010

9. “cultural network”

10. “a particular ecology of cultural networks
in Latin America”

11. “A call to organize cultural networks”

12. “…to engage cultural policies in the
region”

13. PROYECTO RIO - América Latina
Redes, Interacciones y Organización del sector cultural
2012-2013
First meeting: March 2012, Nicaragua

14. 40+ NETWORKS PROJECTS
• CUFA
o
Afroreggae
• Red Profesionales del Teatro de Nicaragua • Cultura Digital
• Red de Software Libre • Alianza Latinoamericana Cultura y Política
• Red Residencias Artísticas • Red Latinoamericana de Gestión Cultural
• Foro Nicaragüense de Cultura (RLAGC)
• Relajo • Red Suramericana de Danza (RSD)
• Asociación Nicaragüense de Cinematografía • Red Latinoamericana de Arte y
• Puntos de Encuentro Transformación Social (RLATS)
• Centroamérica-redes • Cofralandes
• Caja Lúdica/Red Guatemalteca de Arte • Pueblo Hace Cultura
Comunitario (RGAC) • Red de Programadores de América Latina y el
• MARACA Caribe
• GUANARED • Cultura Senda
• Red Centroamericana de Danza • Chaski, Red de Microcines
• Proyecto Lagartija • Asociación para el Desarrollo de la Industria
• Carromato Musical Iberoamericana
• Mujeres en las Artes • Plataforma Puente Cultura Viva Comunitaria
• Cultura & Integración • Red Latinoamericana de Teatro en
• CINERGIA Comunidad
• Red Dominicana de Culturas Locales • CAN y alrededores-buenas prácticas
• Circuito Fora do Eixo • Culturaperu.org
• Puntos de Cultura/TEIA • Fundación Imagen/Martadero
• Núcleo dos Festivais Internacionais de Artes • Red Festivales de Danza en Red
Cênicas do Brasil • LabComplex
• Fes:val
Cena
Contemporánea
• Somos Cultura

15. “cultural network”

16. mapping à organizing

17. Cvjetičanin, Biserka (2011)
Networks: The evolving aspect of
culture in the 21st Century.
Culturelink, IMO.

18. Cultural networks as:
• Emerging artistic forms (Fiedler)
• Processes of
deterritorialization/
transterritorialization (Wortman)
• Straightforward political
practices in a networked age
(Van Paaschen)
• Distracting ‘talismans’ of
different sorts (Isar)
Cvjetičanin, Biserka (2011) Networks: The evolving aspect of culture in the 21st Century. Culturelink, IMO.

19. “(Cultural) networks in Latin America
exist out of necessity and today they
have developed massively in the new
economic, political and cultural
context of the region, in the light of
new circulating imaginaries about the
importance of making use of
instances of civil society, and as the
base for a social development that
has not only economic consequences,
but that also creates social links,
horizontal and based in solidarity”
- Ana Wortman in Cvjetičanin, 2011; 177
Cvjetičanin, Biserka (2011) Networks: The evolving aspect of culture in the 21st Century. Culturelink, IMO.

20. “Is this the time for a new cultural
deal? Are we approaching a post-
network situation? Is networked
cultural entrepreneurship out of
date, or does it offer new
perspectives? Are we moving from
networking of cultures to
networked cultures as a significant
response to new challenges? The
time to establish new policies and
practices is now!
- Foreword, Cvjetičanin, 2011; 177
Cvjetičanin, Biserka (2011) Networks: The evolving aspect of culture in the 21st Century. Culturelink, IMO.

21. The evolving aspects of cultural networks

22. “cultural network”

23. We need more depth

24. The promise of cultural networks

25. The promise of cultural networks

26. old questions à new questions

27. old questions à new questions
what à how
less productive for… à more productive for…

28. “OLD” QUESTIONS:
What is a cultural network?
How many cultural networks
are there in X?
What do cultural networks do?
…

29. “NEW” QUESTIONS:
How do cultural networks work in X (region/issue)?
How do cultural networks vary according to regional/socio-
cultural context?
What does it mean when a cultural network “fails”?
How do certain socio-technological aspects of cultural
networks sustain essential net-domain functions?
How do networks engage in the construction and
reconfiguration of “cultural value”?

30. Theoretical/Analytical framework(s)
• Identity and control (White, 2008)
– Vocabularies: Identity (levels), control, “stories”, netdoms
• The Network Inside Out (Riles, 2001)
– Diagrams as “network artifacts” (.ppts), failure, self-reflexivity,
“institutionalized utopianism”
• The Capacity to Aspire: Culture and the terms of recognition
(Appadurai, 2004)
– Futurity, terms of recognition
• Organized Networks (Rossier, 2006)
– Organized networks (socio-technical systems), transdiciplinarity
(educational practices of networked cultures)
– From representational processes to relational procedures

31. CLAIM 1
cultural networks
entities/actors à domains/environments

32. CLAIM 2
cultural networks
maps/topologies à layers/articulations/“stories”

35. CLAIM 3
cultural networks
“civil society” à “networked” political identities

36. White, H. C. (2008)
Identity and control : how social
formations emerge.
Princeton University Press.

37. “Identities spring up out of
efforts at control in turbulent
context”
“Networks lay out the space
of social action”
“Identity is produced by the
contingency to which it is a
response…”
White, H. C. (2008) Identity and control : how social formations emerge. Princeton University Press.

38. “Since social situations
include stories, nonverbal
relations, and instantaneous
ties, I conclude that social
networks emerge only as ties
mesh with stories”
“Contextualizing contexts is
central”
White, H. C. (2008) Identity and control : how social formations emerge. Princeton University Press.

39. CONTEXT
Crisis (economic/political/social)
Colonialism/Capitalism
Inequity/Poverty
Governance/“cultural” policies
institutions vs. communities
Narratives of “Development”
Lack/Absence of Information

40. An example from few months ago…

46. Another example

50. CONTEXT
Crisis (economic/political/social)
Colonialism/Capitalism
Inequity/Poverty
Governance/“cultural” policies
institutions vs. communities
Narratives of “Development”
Lack/Absence of Information

51. Riles, A. (2001).
The Network Inside Out.
University of Michigan Press.

52. ”(A Network is) a set of institutions,
knowledge practices, and artifacts
thereof that internally generate the
effects of their own reality by reflecting
on themselves”
“For those concerned with the
intersection of modernist epistemologies
and liberal political philosophies, the
Network offers a poignant case study of
institutionalized utopianism, an ambition
for political change through
communication and information
exchange, of universalism after cultural
relativism…”
Riles, A. (2001). The Network Inside Out. University of Michigan Press.

53. Appadurai, Arjun (2004) “The Capacity
to Aspire: Culture and the Terms of
Recognition” in Rao & Walton (2004)
Culture and Public Action.
Stanford Social Sciences.

54. “The capacity to aspire is a navigational
capacity (to explore the future) (…) it has
to do with how collective horizons are
shaped”
“The norms of futurity are shaped by the
capacity to aspire”
“(harnessing this capacity means)
altering the terms of recognition in a
particular (cultural) regime"
Appadurai, Arjun (2004) “The Capacity to Aspire: Culture and the Terms of Recognition” in Rao &
Walton (2004) Culture and Public Action. Stanford Social Sciences.

55. Rossiter, N. (2006).
Organized Networks: Media Theory,
Creative Labour, New Institutions.
NAi Publishers.

56. “The network models of sociality made
possible by information and
communication technologies have
resulted in new forms of social-technical
systems, or what I am calling emergent
institutional forms of organized
networks.”
Rossiter, N. (2006). Organized Networks: Media Theory, Creative Labour, New Institutions.
NAi Publishers.

57. “Transdisciplinarity can be understood
as an experimental research
methodology and pedagogy that
emerges within the logic of networks as
they traverse diverse institutional forms.
To this end, transdisciplinarity is a
practice interested in the educational
capacities of network cultures.“
Rossiter, N. (2006). Organized Networks: Media Theory, Creative Labour, New Institutions.
NAi Publishers.

58. Three Stories

59. Three stories/ties
• Incorpore: Mapping networks in Central
America (Costa Rica/CA)
• The Network of Cultural Organizations in
Cusco (Peru)
• Plataforma Puente (multi-network initiative)

60. Incorpore (Costa Rica/CA):
Mapping networks in Central America
• “Rupture” (1997) – Crafting an ontology
• Vision/Practice of Cultural Diversity
• Diagramatic structures
• Ecological approach
• Complexity
Themes:
– Networks and genealogies
– Rupture/Resistance

61. Presentation (.ppt) Redes e integración cultural en Centroamérica:
algunas experiencias y sus conclusiones en proceso (2011)

62. “La red como un término
comodín para visibilizar y
reconocer lo invisibilizado,
nombrar lo silenciado, lo
novedoso, lo que no cabe en
otros conceptos.”
“The network as a “wild card”
term to make visible, and
recognize that which has been
made invisible, name what has
been silenced, the new, what
does not fit in other concepts”
Presentation (.ppt) Redes e integración cultural en Centroamérica:
algunas experiencias y sus conclusiones en proceso (2011)

63. Presentation (.ppt) Redes Culturales: Una opción para fomentar la corresponsabilidad
social y la sostenibilidad en el aprovechamiento de los recursos culturales (2011)

65. The Network of Cultural Organizations
in Cusco (Peru)
• “Birth” (2011)
• Burden of traditional organizing cultures
• The ideal of leaderless-ness (no caudillos)
• “The value or doing our own thing”
• Establishing connections with authorities
• “The network is and is not there” (Moscoso)
Themes:
– Non-traditional forms of political organization
– How to build a networked “domain”
– Negotiating Non-economic goals

66. Cusco, Perú
March 29th, 2011

74. Plataforma Puente - Cultura Viva Comunitaria:
A multi-network initiative
• “Articulations” (1995-2010) – 100+ organizations, extreme diversity,
network of networks and organizations (cultural diversity, mestizaje)
• Placing poverty as a site for cultural politics (“social transformation”,
cultura popular) – participative democracy
• “Cultura Viva Comunitaria” (Living-Community Culture) vs. Heritage/
Monument/Fine-Arts/Cultural Industries
• Regional campaign (revindication) – “0.1% for Cultura Viva”
• “Continental Week for Community Culture” (April 2012)
• Socio-technological/Transdiciplinary tactics
Themes:
– Networked regional agenda
– Networked actions
h@p://culturavivacomunitaria.org

78. Cultura Viva Comunitaria
Regional impact on local cultural policies
Lima, Peru

84. Recurring image:
“Articular” (verb) | Articulación (noun)

85. Articular | Articulación

86. Articular | Articulación

87. “cultural network”

88. CLAIMS/SHIFTS
cultural networks
entities/actors à domains/environments/practices
maps/topologies à layers/articulations/“stories”
“civil society” à “networked” political identities

89. “We need more depth”

90. “We need more depth”

91. Research agenda
• Sociological/relational/ecological dynamics –
from society to “arrangement of identities”/
informational cultures
• Ethnographic/qualitative depth – layered
dynamics, political configuration of identities
• Anthropology of public policy/tensions – spaces
for (cultures of) engagement with policy; for the
construction of “cultural value”
• “Mediology” of cultural networks (mediated
dimensions of…) – configuration of network
domains

95. MAURICIO DELFIN
Director
Culturaperu.org
delfin@culturaperu.org

96. THE PROMISE OF CULTURAL NETWORKS
Towards
a
research
framework
for
the
study
of
region-­‐specific
cultural
network
ecosystems
MAURICIO DELFIN
IN SEARCH OF CULTURAL POLICY
Cultural Trends Conference
Thursday, November 24th, 2011
London, United Kingdom