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‘Creative industries’: Economic programme and boundary concept

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2011

Abstract

On 31 December 1985, Singapore left the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), turning against the ‘New International Information Order’ demanded by UNESCO at that time. In October 2007, after 22 years of absence, Singapore rejoined UNESCO, looking for an intensification of cultural and scientific exchange. Taking this example of reviving co-operation between Singapore and UNESCO, this paper assesses the concept of ‘creative industries’ as a boundary concept that allows for increased co-operation between players with generally opposing knowledge concepts — as manifested in their respective knowledge and cultural politics. The paper starts with a conceptual discussion on the crossing of boundaries. This is followed by an assessment of first, UNESCO's and second, Singapore's gradual repositioning towards culture. While UNESCO turned from distinctly separating ‘culture’ and ‘market’ in the 1970s and 1980s to an increased openness for profit-oriented conceptualisations of culture today, Singapore identified the economic potential of culture, creativity and the arts, and therefore the need to foster these as part of its development into a knowledge-based economy. The underlying differences in interests and the orientation of content, expressed by the traditionally opposing conceptualisations of knowledge and culture, are still valid today, yet the concept of ‘creative industries’, adopted by both sides, seems to offer a common meeting ground. It acts clearly as a bridge, and hence a boundary concept, allowing for an intensification of mutual co-operation. This is discussed in the final part of the paper.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 2011

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References

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8 This article adopts the term ‘creative industries’, rather than ‘cultural industries’. While this term is used mainly by Singapore and many nation states worldwide, the notion of ‘cultural industries’ meets the terminological preference of UNESCO. For defining both terms, an emic perspective is taken, following the definitions adopted by UNESCO and Singapore. The section explicitly assessing UNESCO's perspective on the topic therefore also adopts the term ‘cultural industries’, but changes back to ‘creative industries’ for the rest of the article.

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38 Additionally to the herein displayed events, the General Conferences of UNESCO (every two years) contributed substantially. These are illustrated in Figure 1 with regard to the degree that the term ‘cultural industries’ was mentioned in the respective resolutions. Figure 1 merely includes the General Conference of 1976, where the term ‘cultural industries’ for the first time entered the resolutions, and the General Conference of 2005, where the Convention on the Promotion and Protection of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions was adopted.

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58 Comprising the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), UIS, United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

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108 Resulting in the opening of the School of Creative Arts and Media at the Nanyang Technological University, as well as the planned opening of a faculty of arts and social sciences at this former technological university.

109 J.Y.P. Tan, Interview with the author, 26 Jan. 2005.

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112 Fore, ‘A new world order in communication’; UNESCO, Many voices, one world.

113 Laws strengthening the government's position are the Societies Act, the Charities Act, the Public Entertainments Act and the Public Lotteries Act for raising public funds, the Newspaper and Printing Presses Act (for the licensing of newsletters) and the Penal Code for unlawful assembly, obscene or other speech subject to criminal sanction.

114 Tan, ‘S'pore rejoins Unesco 20 years after pullout’.

115 Hornidge, Knowledge society, 2007.