UNESCO and cultural diversity: democratisation, commodification or governmentalisation of culture?

Abstract

The Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) was first adopted by its member states in October 2005. The document defines UNESCO's general principles and conceptualisations regarding culture, cultural diversity and expressions. In order to better manage culture, cultural expressions refer above all to goods and services of the markets, but another, more universally humanitarian and participatory aspect is also present. For the United Nations member states and especially countries that ratified it, the Convention offers policy and legal guidelines to support all forms of cultural diversity and expressions and the actors working with them. By using Foucauldian discourse analysis and Foucauldian, Marxist/Frankfurtian, and Habermasian theoretical frameworks, this article considers the Convention's way of defining rationalities for culture and cultural diversity, and practices through which the goals embedded in rationalities are achieved. As a result, three different but intertwined discourses take shape: governmentalisation, commodification and democratisation.