Does the act of observing change the behaviour of the observed? This key question is in the background as work being done on South Africa’s first ever Cultural Observatory gains momentum and the foundations for the Observatory of the future are laid.
To better understand Cultural Observatories, and their reason for being as a global standard for essentially ‘counting culture’, it is prudent to look back and their origins and rationale for being.
Cultural Observatories are established to essentially observe. Augustin Girard, one of the founders of cultural observatories in France, speaks of the deliberate choice of the terminology to indicate that Observatories “follow”, “study”, or “conduct careful surveillance”.
He says: “This new institution is created not for management or control purposes, but for tracking, observing, analysing and providing information.
“We didn’t want to use the word centre, we liked observatory much more. An observatory is a place of negotiation and interactivity. It does not pass judgements.”
According to the Cultural Partnership, the two institutions that are most often cited as the archetypes or best practice manifestations for cultural observatories are: the Observatoire des politiques culturelles in Grenoble and the European Audiovisual Observatory in Strasburg.
The LabforCulture, a European website, provides a good definition of the rationale for cultural observatories: “Cultural observatories not only observe phenomena, they also identify trends and tendencies in the cultural sector. They monitor and disseminate the results of their observations, reporting back to the sector by developing strategies that reflect on past cultural trends and predict future developments. Observatories operate at different levels: internationally, nationally, regionally, sub-regionally and locally. They play an important role in the development of future policies.”
Key words that keep popping up in reference to Cultural Observatories are: Analysis; comparison; systematic review; production and dissemination of information; trends; audiences; creatives; cultural policies; impact and outcomes; cultural agents and cultural institutions.
The reason for this is because in essence Cultural Observatories create cultural information systems that enable the quantitative study of human culture.
Ultimately, the South African Cultural Observatory (SACO) has arts, heritage and culture as the central focus of its research agenda. Study of the creative and cultural industries (CCI) falls neatly into this focal zone. Currently the full SACO research agenda is being finalised and a methodology established that will help align research in the sector.
The research agenda has been informed by a number of best practices globally, including the UNESCO Framework for Cultural Statistics, but also other novel approaches taken by cultural observatories around the world. For example: Arts education, tourism, foreign languages, culture and health, sustainable development, culture and state-of-the-art technologies are all possible areas of enquiry.
Observatories also operate in different geographical or administrative levels, taking on local, regional or national functions.
In being the custodian of information about all aspects and trends of South African cultural life, the SACO aims to contribute to, and impact on, public cultural policy.
Essentially, observation is the core role, but so is the development and support of collection and analysis of evidence, influence of policy, sharing of insights and building of intellectual capacity through the arts, culture and heritage sector by working across the breadth of cultural domains, including the arts, heritage, tourism, museums, libraries and archives and creative industries.
Whether culture is being observed or not, it stills needs to be captured and retained, now and into the future so that the sector can be adequately and appropriately developed.
Some information sourced from: https://www.culturepartnership.eu/en/article/what-do-the-results-of-culture-monitoring-look-like
Pic by Paul Wright
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