Locally Vibrant/Globally Engaged

By highlighting the role of culture and cultural districts, this report foregrounds a cultural economy framework that offers an alternative to the often economically reductive creative economy narratives.

Cultural districts, such as the Bloor St. Culture Corridor (BCC), have the potential to be effective diplomatic actors as they are principally concerned with conducting relations to build bridges between groups. The BCC is a consortium of 22 arts and cultural organizations in downtown Toronto including a cinema, museums and art galleries, concert halls, performance theatres, multipurpose event spaces, and national cultural institutes libraries. The BCC’s member organizations collaborate on local audience development and cross-pollination, tourism marketing, neighbourhood branding, and programming. Cultural practitioners and those working in this sector are already engaged in diplomatic activity. They embrace people-to-people relations and long-term sustainable relationships and focus on the non-governmental nature of global activities. This report outlines a framework for viewing the BCC as a diplomatic actor and argues for its diplomatic engagement.

This report is based on the research gathered in the Mitacs-funded project Toronto City Diplomacy: Arts, Culture, and Heritage