The idea of culturally sustainable development has strong Nordic origins within the research and praxis of international development work and cultural policy. UNESCO’s World Commission for Culture and Development gathered in Sweden in 1994 and published later on the report Our Creative Diversity (1995), seen as one of the first milestones combining the concepts of culture, sustainability and development. All this took place during the “culture in development decade” when development issues were introduced first time in the sphere of cultural policies in Nordic countries and some other European countries. Since early 1990’s international organizations, such as UN and UNESCO, have enhanced cultural dimensions and human-centered development within the ecologically and economically stated, commodity-centered discourse of sustainability and development. However, despite of being an instrument in taking culture into account in the context of development, cultural policy includes past and present practices of bringing developing countries into the “levels of Western ways of thinking and action”. To find ways out of this “colonialist ethos”, cultural policies and their research need to adopt wider cultural understanding than arts and civilizing aspect, and approach the development work holistically.

This workshop challenges to debate on questions related to above mentioned issues and following sub-themes:

• Definitions of culture and cultural sustainability in Nordic and international development and cultural policies.
• The role of international cultural policy and cultural/creative industries in development context.
• Themes of cultural rights, cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue in development work.
• Sustainability of indigenous cultures in “developing” and “developed” countries, and cultural sustainability in the development work and research in circumpolar areas.
• Cultural rights, diversity and sustainable development as counteracts to the present “pessimism” toward development work and aid appearing in the Nordic and European countries.
• Raising awareness on cultural and ecological sustainability through education.
• Indicators for cultural sustainability.