This is a SSHRC Partnership Development Grant-funded project prompted by the current sustained moment of global crisis in which mitigating global cultural conflict is the fundamental challenge of our times. By harnessing the critical perspectives, methodologies and approaches of the cultural disciplines and of cultural practitioners, our research aims to establish cultural diplomacy as a critical field of study and practice. We aim to move beyond the “rationalist” tool-kit of nation states (soft power, nation branding, propaganda), which mobilizes unproblematized culture for short term national advantage. Instead, we aim to generate scholarship and research that treats cultural diplomacy as a multi-directional, inclusive and potentially activist practice that encompasses a diverse range of actors from within the state, from civil society and at the blurry boundaries between the two.

Catalysed in three research summits across North America from 2020-2022, this project takes a examines a cultural approach to diplomacy through three main lenses: practice, players, and policy. The first summit on practice was co-hosted by the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, and Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada (Fall 2020). The second summit on players is held by University of Southern California in Los Angeles, USA (Fall 2021). And, the third summit on policy will be held at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, Mexico (Spring 2022), running in parallel to the Mondiacult Conference 2022 to be hosted by the Ministries of Culture and Foreign Affairs of Mexico.

These three summits are designed to help bridge the gap between academics, public officials (including diplomats) and practitioners in hitherto isolated fields of study, contribute to more collaborative theory and methodologies, and spark much-needed innovation in the processes of policy formation.

Additional outcomes include training opportunities for students (research assistantships, internships, a summer school) and policy entrepreneurship through policy briefs, white papers and other engagements with and involvement of policy makers.