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ABSTRACT
Teaching and learning cultural policy are not as open as the research practice emphasising inclusiveness and equal participation suggest. Existing references and theoretical frameworks are mostly from the Global North, even when subaltern and peripheral phenomena are explored. In mainstreaming subaltern epistemic perspectives, the first step demands emancipation of subalterns, enabling them to gain self-confidence in their own capacities. Therefore, a classroom is not about the transfer of knowledge or the development of skills but about ‘decolonising minds’. Through an auto-ethnographic approach, different classroom experiences that questioned situations of subalternity and exclusion were documented and further explored. This paper refers to three cases of ‘tears in the classroom’ when the students (Kurd from Iran; working-class student in the post-industrial academic world, and Palestinian from Old Jerusalem), realising that their experiences and values are not part of the class body of knowledge, felt double-excluded. I question how subaltern knowledge might enter the academic world of cultural policy and how it will be used in more and more multicultural classrooms. Also, if the voice is given to subaltern and peripheral social locations, what might guarantee that the knowledge coming from there would mean ‘thinking from a subaltern epistemic location’?
Acknowledgments
This text was developed as part of the following research projects: EPICA – Empowering Participation in Culture and Architecture (supported by the Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia, ID 7744648); SHAKIN’ – Sharing subaltern knowledge through and for international cultural collaborations 2020–2023 (Erasmus+, 2020-1-FR01-KA203-080017); Art*is – Art and research on transformations of individuals and societies 2020–2025 (Horizon 2020, ID: 870827); and Stronger Peripheries: A Southern Coalition 2020–2024 (Creative Europe, 616751-CREA-1-2020-1-PT-CULT-COOP2).
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. based on personal experience of teaching at universities worldwide since 1978, and an extensive experience of a trainer in numerous CPD courses in CPCM, since 1984.
2. In the last 30 years, research projects of the Department for cultural management at my Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade had been categorised by the relevant bodies of the Ministry of Science as contributions to the knowledge about language and literature, history, sociology, economy and business. Such categorisation was not based on the research topics, but on passable administrative frameworks. The researchers were also classified into different academic disciplines (economy and management, sociology, history and theory of arts) and their works published under very different UDC numbers.
3. Dubois identified social factors involved in the making of educational and occupational choices and, consequently, how these choices reveal social reproduction strategies, contributing to the involvement of sociology of class and stratification in cultural management as a discipline. His findings related to the French university system showed to what extent positions in cultural management (inside and outside academia) still share the characteristics of ‘new’ occupations. ‘This professional galaxy remains quite heterogeneous. There has been little standardisation of jobs and paths of access’ (Dubois Citation2013, XVIII). Indicating that it usually concerns a distinct fraction of the upper middle class (complex socio-professional trajectories, including precarious work with a lower level of economic capital and a higher level of legitimate cultural capital), his research showed that these professions do not include knowledge produced outside of a system nor professionals that are raised from minorities or different groups of marginalised and excluded people.
4. Focus groups with different generations of students were held during summer and winter schools on 14–15 October 2021 in Belgrade; 15–22 March 2021 in Lyon; 11–13 October 2022 in Weimar; and 14–16 March 2023 in Lyon. Throughout the project, professors who were SHAKIN’ team members (17) and 20 guest professors from other partner universities (Grenoble, Bordeaux, Lisbon, Barcelona, Rome, Athens, Hildesheim, Heilbronn, etc.) were interviewed.
5. In socialist Yugoslavia, the law allowed private enterprises (services, shops, restaurants) with a maximum of five employees, and cooperatives that could manufacture products.
6. As a difference from other socialist countries, private agricultural property was not state-owned and individual families could own up to 10 hectares of land (besides forest), so the stratum of peasants that used this right after a long battle with the State (in 1948, when the State administration broke its ties with the Soviet Union) was truly a separate social category. The State did not endorse individual farming (no trade unions or social security and pension rights – all that came in sixties with the socio-political stabilisation and the creation of a specific Yugoslav self-governing system).
7. An individual could open a foreign currency bank account with a proof that the money in foreign currencies is a saving from per diems received for official journey abroad.
8. In one of the first programmes for Roma cultural managers, organised by the Roma Cultural Centre (Belgrade) and held in Valjevo, it was expected that Roma cultural managers speak both Serbian and Roma language and there were no interpreters. I have not prepared the translation of Tony Gatlif’s movies (in Roma language). However, one of the participants did not know Roma language and he was embarrassed to admit that. The reason was revealed – his parents came from Romania, descendants of slaves who were not allowed to speak Romani. In Romania, this issue of slavery was sent to oblivion as a shameful past. Since it was unknown in Serbia, this participant felt even more humiliated by telling it to the group who, due to the lack of knowledge, seemed not to believe him. The film ‘Aferim!’ (R. Jude, dir. / 2015) that came after was the first to introduce this issue to the European cultural space.
9. Those invisible became visible walls. Due to the attack of Hamas on Israel on 7 October 2023 and Israel’s counterattack on Gaza, the situation had been worsened to the extreme, especially for the civilian population in Gaza and the Palestinian population on occupied territories and Israel. The titles in European press related to it as ‘the War in the Middle East’ (see the euro|topics daily press review from October 10–13, 16, 20, 26, 31 and November 1, 2, 6), starting with the Hamas’s terror against Israel and questioning ‘the right response’. In time, the number of titles diminished and the accent was put on questions that are more relevant for Europe (‘Is antisemitism becoming socially acceptable again?’) or worrying ‘Why is Erdoğan siding with Hamas?’. Cultural conferences such as the ASSITEJ Artistic Gathering 2023 (in November) carefully avoided the issue, although discussing ‘Children’s and Youth’s Right to Culture: 10 Years On’ in the moment when children were deprived of the right to life in its own home, and Israel’s attack has already taken over 6,000 children lives.
10. However, there are Israeli artists who dare to deal with Palestinians’ right to memory, their current exile, or the empowerment of refugees through theatre (Vujić Citation2018, 31, 35, 61, 283, 287).
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Milena Dragićević Šešić
Dr. Milena Dragićević Šešić, prof. emerita, former President of University of Arts, Belgrade, Founder of UNESCO Chair in Interculturalism, Art Management and Mediation, professor of Cultural Policy & Management, Cultural studies, Media Studies. Diplomas: D.E.A. Paris-VIII 1977, M.A. University of Arts Belgrade (1981), and Ph.D. in literature and communication University of Belgrade (1990). Doctor Honoris Causa University of Montpellier (2023). Commandeur dans l`Ordre des Palmes Academiques (French Ministry of Education) 2002. ENCATC Fellowship Laureate 2019. University of Arts Laureate in 2004 and 2019. Guest Lecturer at numerous world universities. Authored and co-authored 20 books and more than 250 essays: Vers les nouvelles politiques culturelles; Art management in turbulent times: adaptable quality management; Intercultural mediation in the Balkans; Art and Culture of Dissent; Culture: management, animation, marketing. Translated in 19 languages. Expert for UNESCO, EUNIC, European Cultural Foundation, Council of Europe (realized 50 projects in Europe, India, Cambodia, Arab countries, Thailand).