Modelling diversity: cultural district policies in Doha and Singapore

ABSTRACT

Over the last twenty years, cities around the world have seen the multiplication of cultural district projects, which aim to concentrate cultural organisations in a circumscribed urban space, or to label a neighbourhood’s cultural scene. This paper examines the adoption and adaptation of a globally circulating cultural policy model as an instrument of urban governance. Moving away from the notion of policy transfer, understood as a neutral and unidirectional process through which successful culture-led development models spread to other contexts, I show how local actors mobilise external references to position themselves in a transnational cultural policymaking field, and construct their city as a model. I compare the multi-scalar politics of urban modelling in Doha and Singapore, where globally circulating culture-led development models have been introduced not only as instruments of economic growth, but also as diversity management tools. On the one hand, cultural districts serve as discursive nation building/branding instruments to project an imagined identity locally and internationally. On the other hand, urban elites can mobilise cultural districts to make strategic shifts in the diversity management discourse, through an engagement with the urban environment, and the co-optation civil society actors at multiple scales.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural district
• urban models
• diversity management regime
• policy instrument
• place branding
• multiculturalism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The content analysis of urban promotion and policy documents has focused, for Singapore, on the Singapore Tourism Board’s Little India guide, and the National Heritage Board’s Little India Heritage Trail. In Doha, I focused on the two catalogues published by Msheireb property in 2018: a commercial catalogue (addressed at investors) and a catalogue addressed at a more general public.

2. I conducted my fieldwork in January and December 2018, respectively in Doha and Singapore. I also did some prior fieldwork in Singapore back in February 2015.

3. http://m.statisticstimes.com/economy/projected-world-gdp-capita-ranking.php.

4. http://www.katara.net/en/about-katara.

5. George Yeo, cité dans: Singapore Tourism Promotion Board (STPB), 1996, Destination Singapore: The Arts Experience, STPB, Singapore.


6. Interview with a employee of the EDB Lifestyle office, in 2015.

7. Excerpt from the Msheireb Catalogue.

8. Interview with the director of Msheireb Museums.

9. Idem.

10. https://www.archdaily.com/111028/musheireb-master-plan-mossessian-partners.

11. Interview with the director of Msheireb Museums.

12. Global Slavery Index (2016) Country Study: Qatar https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/country/qatar/.

13. Urban Redevelopment Authority (1995) Little India Historic District. Singapore: Urban Redevelopment Authority.


14. The three main officially recognised ethnic groups that compose the Singaporean population are the Chinese (74%), the Malays (13%) and the Indians (9%).

15. Presentation of the Indian Heritage Centre in the Little India Brochure.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions [843269].

Notes on contributors

Jérémie Molho

Jérémie Molho is Marie Curie fellow, jointly affiliated with the National University of Singapore and the European University Institute. He received a BA in Middle Eastern studies and a MA in urban studies from Sciences Po Paris and completed his PhD in geography in 2016 at the University of Angers. His dissertation analysed how different cities outside of the West, including Istanbul and Singapore, developed strategies to position themselves as global art market centres. In the last two years, he has been studying Singapore and Doha’s use of cultural policies to govern their diversity.