December 1, 2021
Cultural Practice and Transnational Outreach is the third day of a four-day research summit, Players: We are all Practitioners, organized by NACDI and hosted virtually by the University of Southern California.
Keynote: Minding the Gaps: Connecting Diversity, Diasporas, and Skate Diplomacy
9:00 AM (PT) / 10:00 AM (CT) / 12:00 NOON (ET)
Speaker: Neftalie Williams Provost’s Post-Doctoral Scholar at the Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California. Visiting Fellow in Race, Culture & Community, Yale Schwarzman Center
Chair: Nicholas J. Cull Professor of Communication and Global Communication Policy Fellow, Center for Communication, Leadership, and Policy, University of Southern California
Click here to read more about this Keynote’s participants
Dr. Williams’ keynote argues for a new sport and cultural diplomacy agenda which reimagines diverse non-state actors as the critical connectors and agents of change capable of advancing multiple interdisciplinary policy goals of nation-states. Drawing upon experience as envoy for the US Department of State in Cambodia, the Netherlands, Kazakhstan, and NGO efforts in South Africa, Cuba, Williams demonstrates how his efforts to develop skateboarding as a tool for cultural diplomacy operates at the nexus of sport, culture, education, and community. Williams’ talk establishes a new critical paradigm for developing more inclusive, sport and cultural diplomacy efforts that simultaneously speak to the needs of diverse audiences. When utilized, this framework places both state and non-state actors in allyship with the movements driving positive change across the globe.
Panel 1: Always Already Players: Considering the Cultural Diplomacy of Artists
10:30 AM (PT) / 12:30 PM (CT) / 1:30 PM (ET)
Moderators:
- Sarah E.K. Smith Assistant Professor, Faculty of Information & Media Studies, Western University
- Linda Grussani (Algonquin Anishinabekwe, Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg), Ph.D. Candidate, Cultural Studies, Queen’s University
Panelists:
- Carla Rippey, Visual artist
- Jeff Thomas Curator and Photographer
- Lori Blondeau, Assistant Professor at the School of Art, University of Manitoba
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Recent scholarship in cultural diplomacy has focused on institutions and national players; overshadowing the role and impact of cultural producers. Reflecting the emphasis of the second summit on players, this panel engages with visual artists to understand their contributions and experiences, as well as the diverse networks to which they contribute. The cultural diplomacy of artists is often addressed within larger frameworks, such as national representation and foreign policy agendas, or alternatively, artists are perceived to be isolated within creative discourses. Conversely, this session seeks to advance visual artists as engaged players within the diplomatic landscape; and notably, players who have long been participants and initiators of significant networks, contributing through complex relationships that work in hand with (and at times against) cultural institutions (public and private), as well as with other cultural producers and workers, and a range of geographic structures (local to global).
The panel will address how artists wield their agency, even when contributing to larger institutional and structural agendas. Additionally, the panel will consider the issue of artists’ lack of self-identification as players within cultural diplomacy. Further, the discussion will attend to how artists build productive collaborations globally, and how artists seek to challenge normative frameworks and understandings which encompass issues from artists’ material conditions to decolonial agendas, and more.
Panel 2: Performing Connections: Musical Performance and Cultural Relations
12:00 NOON (PT) / 2:00 PM (CT) / 3:00 PM (ET)
Moderator:
- Eric Fillion, Buchanan Postdoctoral Fellow and Term Adjunct, Department of History, Queen’s University
Panelists:
- Astrid Hadad, Artist, musician, and performer
- Umair Jaffar, Executive Director, Small World Music
- Mark Katz, John P. Barker Distinguished Professor of Music and Director of Graduate Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Julia Palacios Franco, Liaison and Special Projects Coordinator of the Communication Department, Universidad Iberoamericana
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Music is a powerful medium through which cultures around the world have expressed themselves. It can organically bridge cultural divides and allow communities to explore common cultural identities. As a practice of cultural relations, music can break down language barriers and promote cooperation and understanding among different cultures and communities to promote social cohesion. It is an artistic expression that can inspire people to create community and build something together that would not be possible to build separately. Governments have also used music as a diplomatic tool to connect their citizens with citizens from other countries to build or improve relations. Besides being a language for community building, music is also a form of dissent through which disenfranchised communities express their social, economic, and political realities in ways that question oppressive governments, racism, and systemic power inequalities affecting their livelihoods. As this initiative continues to look at cultural diplomacy critically, these inclusions become an essential aspect of its practice.
Music is inextricably linked with the context in which it is produced and consumed. It is not only an instrument to improve intercultural communication and cooperation, artists become diplomats whose music serves as a vehicle for conveying messages of resistance and subversion. The Performing Connections brings together practitioners, artists, and academics whose work in and about the music industry suggests different approaches to music diplomacy. It suggests questions such as: What is the relation between the society we live in and the role, function, and position of music within that society? How is music influenced by social, political, economic, technological, and other developments and vice versa?
Plenary Listeners’ Closing Remarks & Discussion
1:30 PM (PT) / 3:30 PM (CT) / 4:30 PM (ET)
Moderator:
- Amanda Rodríguez Espínola, Research Fellow, North American Cultural Diplomacy Initiative
Plenary Listeners:
- Rosalba Icaza Garza, Associate Professor at the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam. (Session 1)
- Gerardo Ochoa Sandy, Journalist, writer and cultural worker, former cultural attache for the Mexico Embassy in Czech Republic, in Peru and the Consulate of Mexico in Toronto (Session 2)
- Cynthia Schneider, Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy; Co-Director, Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics Georgetown University (Session 3)
Click here to read more about the participants of the Plenary Listener’s Discussion
Join the Plenary Listeners for a moderated discussion on the main themes and practical considerations generated in Sessions 1, 2, and 3 of the Research Summit.
