The Schar School of Policy and Government released a report on March 6 that examines the significance of a “cultural turn” in international development that began in the 1980s. The report describes the effects of “strengthening infrastructures” for the production of arts and cultural expressions and offers policy prescriptions for making art “relevant and sustainable.”
Author and Schar School professor of International Commerce and Policy J.P. Singh presented the report—“Culture and International Development: Towards an Interdisciplinary Methodology”—during a Wednesday morning ceremony at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. An audience of about 40, several of them Schar School masters and PhD students, were in attendance.
Singh was accompanied on the presentation panel by Alicia Adams, vice president of international programming and dance at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and Michael Woolcock, lead social scientist in the research division of the World Bank. Adams and Woolcock offered responses to Singh’s findings from their perspectives as practitioners in arts and economics.
The study was commissioned by the British Council, the U.K.’s international organization for cultural relations and educational opportunities.
Singh began work on the study at the University of Edinburgh where he held the chair in Culture and Political Economy before moving to the Schar School last year. He has included the report in the reading list for his ITRN601: Technology, Culture, and Commerce class.