Culture in for and as Sustainable Development

ight set of mutually-agreed rules and shared
or mutually-respected attitudes that all successful
commons needs. Approaches to
cultural sustainability had been very diverse,
reflecting the different aims, aspirations and
disciplinary backgrounds of the many different
types of actors, artists, researchers,
practitioners, policy-makers and politicians
who haunted these outfields of what was becoming
‘mainstream’, conventional sustainable
development. Not enough voices called
for new research lines; not enough critical
mass yet existed to establish different policy
contexts or frames of discourse. As in the
real historical world, the shared commonality
of No Man’s Lands had been fractured by
sectoral difference. COST’s endorsement of
the cultural sustainability action provided an
opportunity to (re)discover this unexplored
land, now abandoned at the edges but potentially
central to everything.
Our key task was to embed in various ways
cultural sensibilities and culture in all its
forms into existing sustainability frameworks.
We therefore packed the Brundtland Report
on Sustainable Development as a guidebook,
albeit possible outdated, and carried
the three ‘pillars’ of environment, society and
economy in our toolbox, for want of anything
more modern. Acknowledging the challenges
and some shortcomings of this set of ideas
and implements, we also noted their applicability
in research and power in policy making.
They gave us signposts, directions and occasionally
maps.
The network itself witnessed and
represented a diversity of European
cultures and different perceptions
of sustainabilities. This was a great
resource for our work, but also a
challenge for the co-ordination.
(Katriina Soini)
As the group expanded, it accumulated, experienced
and shared a huge diversity in
ways of dwelling as well as of understanding
of the key concepts, culture and sustainability.
The group embodied social and cultural
as well as disciplinary diversity. Its members
travelled from 25 different countries across
Europe, and three in Australasia, bringing
experience of having worked in and with a
wide range of social and cultural problems
and contexts, and often too at international
level which even further broadened our
world view. This diversity, similar to multidisciplinarity,
enriched the content of the
work. Even the challenges that it brought of
finding a common language, conceptually as
well as linguistically, helped us to sharpen our
questions and strengthen our conclusions. In
and around our vaguely-defined No Man’s
Land, we began to perceive smaller, better
defined territories that started to emerge as
our comprehension grew. Our ‘maps’ became
more detailed and in the untracked ‘waste’
we began to find pathways. Our No Man’s
Land began to resolve or dissolve into a set
of places each with their own character and
identity, problems and needs, resources and
wealth. Some of these were populated by
experts interested in arts and cities, cultural
participation; others were covered by geographers
who were interested in planning
and the maintenance of sustainable places;
others were interested in how heritage and
Photo: Maurizio Sajeva
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