Culturescope.ca - Definitions

Useful definitions of key concepts pertaining to Sustainable Communities: Culture, Creativity, and Inclusiveness are found below:

Culture
Culture and Development (UNESCO)
Culture and Development
Cultural Development
Community Cultural Development
Sustainable Development
Sustainable Community
Community
Heritage
Cultural Heritage
Intangible Cultural Heritage
Environmental Capital
Cultural Diversity
Cultural Capital
Social Capital
Human Capital vs. Social Capital
Social Cohesion

Culture

In 2001, UNESCO reaffirmed the following definition:

“…culture should be regarded as the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group .… [I]t encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs….”
Source: UNESCO, UN Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity

Culture and Development (UNESCO)

"The central argument advanced in [...] Our Creative Diversity is that development embraces not only access to goods and services, but also the opportunity to choose a full, satisfying, valuable and valued way of living together, thus encouraging the flourishing of human existence in all its forms and as a whole."
Source: World Commission on Culture and Development, Our Creative Diversity (1995)

Culture and Development

“In general terms, Culture and Development is about the role of culture and cultural processes in achieving development, as in issues of poverty, human rights, gender equality, health, environmental concerns, and associated fields. The objective of Culture and Development is development: it is about the relationship between culture and very pragmatic and practical issues of survival and the improvement of the human condition, and ways in which culture can contribute to, or influence, the success of interventions in these areas.”
Source: Culturelink Review, Special Issue 2000, “Outlining the Debate”

Cultural Development

“Cultural Development focuses on the development of cultures and cultural capacities. This terminology encompasses a vast range of issues appertaining to cultural policy, cultural industry and socio-cultural development. The objective of Cultural Development is culture – as a sociological dynamic in which society grows and changes; as a powerful sector of the economy; as a professional environment inhabited by skilled creators, artists and craftspeople; as a transmitter of aesthetic expression, ideas and values.”
Source: Culturelink Review, Special Issue 2000, “Outlining the Debate”

Community Cultural Development (CCD)

“Community development principles are a useful starting point for understanding CCD, however, CCD is more than community development + art. It is a unique practice that works creatively with communities on their own ground, on their own issues, through cultural practice.”
Source: CCD.NET, Community Cultural Development in Australia

“… community cultural development is deeply concerned with:

Democracy – All people’s voices must be heard and dialogue between and among groups is foundational.
Social justice – Equitable access to resources for all people and equitable treatment of all people is essential, whether the arena is environmental equity, racial equity, economic equity, legal equity, gender equity or countless others.
Diversity – Communities, places and cultures are unique and shape people and their behaviors and relationships; diversity is essential for democracy; and its opposite—the uniform, the generic, the monolithic—is a dangerous social state to be avoided.”

Source: Linda Frye Burnham, Steven Durland, and Maryo Gard Ewell. “The State of the Field of Community Cultural Development: Something New Emerges. A Report from the Community Arts Network Gathering, May 2004.” Art in the Public Interest, July 2004, p. 11.

Sustainable Development

“The term 'sustainable development' was popularised by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) in its 1987 report entitled Our Common Future….

The aim of the World Commission was to find practical ways of addressing the environmental and developmental problems of the world. In particular, it had three general objectives:

To re-examine the critical environmental and development issues and to formulate realistic proposals for dealing with them;

To propose new forms of international co-operation on these issues that will influence policies and events in the direction of needed changes; and

To raise the levels of understanding and commitment to action of individuals, voluntary organizations, businesses, institutes, and governments.”

Source: UNESCO, “What is Sustainable Development?”

“… sustainable development [is] a notion which implies the interaction of economic, social and environmental factors in order to build a society that is more equitable and uses natural systems in a way that protects them for future generations. In other words, it is not about growth at all costs.”
Source: Kate Oakely. Developing the Evidence Base for Support of Cultural and Creative Activities in South East England. South East England Cultural Consortium (SEECC), March 2004, p. 12.

“… the need for sustainability is not only about retaining industries and jobs and local services, it’s [also] very much about sustaining our values as a people. It’s about sustaining our culture, our identity, and our sense of place.”
Source: Jennifer Bott. “Cultural Sustainability and the National Agenda,” The Fourth Pillar of Sustainability Conference Report, 2004, p. 30.

“Sustainable development ... is about the achievement on a global scale of three principals: economic development, social justice and ecological responsibility. These principals exhibit a dialectical tension. Sustainable development is in practice always likely to be shifting compromise among them.”
Source: B. Gleeson and N. Low. “Cities as Consumers of the World’s Environment,” Consuming Cities, 2000. London: Routledge, p. 6.
Cited in: Jon Hawkes. The Fourth Pillar of Sustainability: Culture’s Essential Role in Public Planning. Australia: Common Ground Publishing and the Cultural Development Network, 2000, p. 11.

Sustainable Community

“The concept of a ‘sustainable community’ does not describe just one type of neighborhood, town, city or region. Activities that the environment can sustain and that citizens want and can afford may be quite different from community to community. Rather than being a fixed thing, a sustainable community is continually adjusting to meet the social and economic needs of its residents while preserving the environment's ability to support it.”
Source: Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Sustainable Community Development. “What is Sustainable Community Development?”

Community

Community “should be distinguished, for example, from ‘neighbourhood’. “Neighbourhood’ is easy. It’s the locality where people live, or work, or whatever. ‘Community’ is related more exactly to groups, to people’s beliefs and ways of life.
A community can share a religious faith, or a secular faith, or a profession, or a passion for sport or the arts or some other enthusiasm, or a sense of ethnicity, or a sense of social class ...”
Source: David Horne. “A Great New Revitalising Idea?” The Fourth Pillar of Sustainability Conference Report, 2004, p. 26.

Heritage

“…heritage is a legacy inherited from the past, valued in the present, which it helps interpret, and safeguarded for the future, which it helps shape. It provides a collective identity, a sense of the common good, and defines individual and community ways of life, values and beliefs. Natural and cultural heritage take many tangible (built heritage, cemeteries, garbage dumps, middens, places, spaces, geology, landscapes, gardens, plants, written records, music, dance, arts, literature, artifact collections, food, clothing...) and intangible forms (experiences, oral tradition, customs and stories, spirituality…). Heritage brings people together in collectives and organizations to be imagined, constructed and expressed in many ways, a reflection of a community to itself and to visitors, through books, festivals, events, exhibitions, etc. Heritage is also a cultural industry that requires public policy and legislation, enterprise, innovation, and communication.”
Source: City of Ottawa. “What is Heritage?,” Ottawa 2020 Heritage Plan.

Cultural Heritage

“Cultural heritage encompasses many aspects, including the national and global corpus of literature and music, the historic heritage of architecture and historic places, and our natural wilderness and other sites.”
Source: David Nortbakken and Charles Morrow. Investing in Culture for Development: The Role of Cultural Expression through Television. A Contribution to the World Bank Conference on Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development, Washington, DC, September 28-29, 1998, p. 1.

Intangible Cultural Heritage

“The Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage defines the intangible cultural heritage as the practices, representations, expressions, as well as the knowledge and skills, that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognise as part of their cultural heritage. It is sometimes called living cultural heritage, and is manifested inter alia in the following domains:

oral traditions and expressions, including language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage;
performing arts;
social practices, rituals and festive events;
knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe;
traditional craftsmanship.

The intangible cultural heritage is transmitted from generation to generation, and is constantly recreated by communities and groups, in response to their environment, their interaction with nature, and their historical conditions of existence. It provides people with a sense of identity and continuity, and its safeguarding promotes, sustains, and develops cultural diversity and human creativity.”
Source: UNESCO, Culture: Intangible Heritage

Environmental Capital

“SEEDA’s [South East England Development Agency’s] objectives for the sustainable use of natural resources revolves around the notion of environmental capital, included in which is the natural, built and historic environment. It is in these links to the built environment and, in particular, the historic built environment, that work on culture comes closest to providing an evidence base (and the potential for an improved evidence base in future), that can be used to support environmental objectives.”
Source: Kate Oakely. Developing the Evidence Base for Support of Cultural and Creative Activities in South East England. South East England Cultural Consortium (SEECC), March 2004, p. 26.

Cultural Diversity

“Cultural Diversity is a fact.

The World has some 6000 communities and as many distinct languages. Such difference naturally leads to diversity of vision, values, beliefs, practice and expression, which all deserve equal respect and dignity.

Cultural Diversity is our everyday reality.

The international migration rate is growing fast every year. According to the ‘International Migration Report 2002’ of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the number of migrants has doubled since the 1970s. The report also says that around 175 million persons are residing away from the country of their birth and one in every 10 persons in the developed regions is a migrant. Also, more migrants are coming from countries ever farther away.”
Source: UNESCO Culture Sector, “What is Cultural Diversity?”

Cultural Capital

“Cultural capital is the system of beliefs that holds a society together and their transmission mechanisms—the cultural institutions.”
Source: Charles Landry, The Creative City. London: Earthscan Publications, 2000, p. 60.

Social Capital

“Social capital consists of the stock of active connections among people: the trust, mutual understanding, and shared values and behaviors that bind the members of human networks and communities and make cooperative action possible.”
Source: Don Cohen and Larry Prussic. In Good Company: How Social Capital Makes Organizations Work. Massachusetts: Harvard School Press, 2000, p. 4.

Social capital is “the degree to which a community or society collaborates and cooperates to achieve mutual benefits.”
Source: Robert D. Putnam. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster Publishing, 2000.

“The notion of social capital first appeared in Lyda Judson Hanifan's discussions of rural school community centers.... He used the term to describe 'those tangible substances [that] count for most in the daily lives of people' (1916, p. 130). Hanifan was particularly concerned with the cultivation of good will, fellowship, sympathy and social intercourse among those that 'make up a social unit.’

... [Social capital] is now being used by the World Bank with regard to economic and societal development and by management experts as a way of thinking about organizational development.”
Source: INFED. “Social Capital,” The Encyclopedia of Informal Education, 2005.

Hanifan sources:
L. J. Hanifan. 'The rural school community center', Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 67, 1916, pp. 130-138.
L. J. Hanifan. The Community Center. Boston: Silver Burdett, 1920.

Human Capital vs. Social Capital

“Human capital includes people skills, talent and health, while social capital includes people’s networks and connections, their membership of groups, their relationships of trust that facilitate cooperation, reduce transaction costs and provide informal safety nets. Social capital enhances economic efficiency by facilitating the development and sharing of knowledge and helping innovation.”
Source: Charles Landry, The Creative City. London: Earthscan Publications, 2000, p. 60

Social Cohesion

The Council of Europe’s Revised Strategy for Social Cohesion (2004) defines social cohesion as: “the capacity of a society to ensure the welfare of all its members, minimising disparities and avoiding polarisation. A cohesive society is a mutually supportive community of free individuals pursuing these common goals by democratic means.”
Source: The Council of Europe. European Strategy for Social Cohesion

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