Event Details
Date
March 7, 2019
Time
1:30pm ET
Location
Trinity College, University of Toronto
6 Hoskin Ave, Toronto, ON
Join NACDI for the launch of its report, Culture and Trade: Making Connections, a Technical Report Report prepared for the Copyright and International Trade Branch of the Department of Canadian Heritage with an event at Trinity College at the University of Toronto.
Co-organized with the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History.
Sarah E.K. Smith (Carleton University) will present the report and NACDI's approach to cultural diplomacy. NACDI takes an expansive and nuanced approach to the term culture, rooted in a belief in the necessity of relational, rather than transactional engagement. It is informed by an interest in understanding the significance of non-state actors in the current network environment of diplomacy. Rather than seeing the multifaceted nature of cultural diplomacy as a challenge, NACDI points to complexity as a reason to advance nuanced discussions, including the recognition of a wide-range of actors and activities, and well-developed indicators that have specific qualitative and quantitative measurements.
The report demonstrates that cultural diplomacy and trade are intrinsically linked, and that investment in cultural diplomacy results in a corresponding impact in trade. She outlined the four part structure of the report, which begins by emphasizing the need for common language to facilitate conversations between policymakers, practitioners, and academics. Next, the report addresses the history of Canadian cultural diplomacy and trade, suggesting that Canada needs to understand its successes in cultural diplomacy to date in order to establish and build on best practices. Third, the report engages with the thorny issue of metrics as a means to monitor and demonstrate the impact of Canada’s cultural diplomacy. Here, NACDI argues for comprehensive indicators that take into account short, medium, and long-term assessments, and that utilize qualitative and quantitative measurements. The fourth component of the report addresses a range of case studies from Australia, Japan and South Korea. These provide strategic information as to how other nations are utilizing cultural diplomacy, specifically with regards to creative industries and trade.
Smith's presentation will be followed with a panel discussion moderated by Sascha Priewe (Royal Ontario Museum). Panelists include: Lynda Jessup (Queen’s University), Christine Nakamura (Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada), Salvador Alanis (Institute for Cultural Exchange - Americas), César Villanueva Rivas (Universidad Iberoamericana), and Ben Schnitzer (Queen’s University).