Together with the Inter-American Development Bank, American University's Center for Latin American and Latino Studies would like to invite you to a symposium exploring the current status and future possibilities of Latin America's rapidly growing cultural industries and creative sector.

A collaboration between the Inter-American Development Bank’s Culture, Creativity, and Solidarity Affairs Division and Culture Center, and American University, the primary question for this project is: What is the relevance of Latin America’s creative and cultural industries to its overall economy? While the economic impact of the creative and cultural industries is increasing in Latin America, we still lack adequate metrics and indicators to understand the economic value of this sector, in particular, the diversity, productivity, consumption of, and growing investment in cultural goods and services. Nor do we understand how the creative sector relates to other important social and economic developments, including the growth of cities and urbanization of Latin American society, the emergence of new social media and the information economy, changing national identities, and multilateral frameworks incentivizing culture industries.

Convening academics, practitioners and policy makers from both the U.S. and the region, an initial symposium, to be held November 25, will address these questions and seek to articulate an agenda for next steps and best practices for researchers and decision-makers, going forward, with the goal of promoting Latin America’s creative economy. This meeting will also generate multiple dissemination products, on the basis of which and in partnership with the IDB, we anticipate convening up to three additional and more narrowly focused workshops beginning in the spring of 2014, with the goal of providing a comprehensive framework for future research.

Details

November 25, 2013
9:00am to 12:30pm
Abramson Family Recital Hall
Katzen Arts Center, American University

Symposium panel descriptions

Detailed symposium description

To RSVP, click here.