Tony Bennett, Differing diversities - Council of Europe

Differing diversitiesclasses artists or audiences in terms of their ethnicity; and the difficulty whitepolicy makers and researchers experience when trying to learn more about thecultural activities of ethnic minorities or indigenous peoples who, complainingthat they have been virtually studied to death in the context of colonial historiesand administrations, are understandably reluctant to collaborate in such inquiries.It needs to be recognised, however, that, as cultural policies assume an increasingimportance in view of their now evident economic significance in the knowledgeand information economies of developed societies, so they are also likely to besubjected to increasingly sophisticated forms of quantitative assessment. This, inturn, is likely to mean that cultural policy approaches to diversity will need to followsuit if they are to compete with other cultural policy agendas or, just as important,be effectively integrated with them. Since “governing by numbers” isinescapably a central aspect of modern technologies of government, culturaldiversity policies will need to develop approaches to the production of culturaldiversity indicators that can allow them to function effectively in the context ofsuch technologies. This requires a closer statistical knowledge of the ways inwhich everyday cultural practices map on to the key social variables of gender,age, class, and ethnicity – and the relations between these – than is presently availablein most jurisdictions. 1At the same time, the need for qualitative forms of assessment is increasinglyrecognised. These are, indeed, crucial if cultural diversity policies are to engagewith the ways in which the relations between different cultures are experienced bythose who live at their intersections. They are also crucial if the relations betweencultural diversity and concerns about social cohesion, national identity and socialinclusion are to be addressed.The evidence to date suggests that this is much more likely to be successful whereassessment methodologies and processes actively involve the communities thatare concerned and, ideally, are led by members of those communities. 2 The studiesconducted in the United States by watchdog organisations like the NationalAssociation for the Advancement of Colored People seem especially promising inthis respect. It is also noticeable that the most critically valuable cultural diversityresearch in Austria is conducted by independent research organisations while, inCanada, the work of the independent Centre for Research-Action on RaceRelations is impressive in its methodological innovations and the clarity of itsfocus.__________1. See, for an indication of the issues involved here, Bennett, Emmison and Frow, 1999.2. I draw here on research position paper 2: “Assessing the implementation of cultural diversity policies”by Arnold J. Love.62