The UNESCO-Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions – Stocktacking on Implementation and Application in Austria
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Prepared by: österreichische
kulturdokumentation Veronika Ratzenböck, Anja Lungstraß, Katharina Okulski and Sari Asikainen, commissioned by the Austrian UNESCO Commission (ÖUK), Wien 2010, 41 S. price: for free, you will be charged for p&p Order (in german language) Download as pdf (in german language) |
Description
The österreichische kulturdokumentation has prepared a current stocktaking on the implementation of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions: where is there a need for cultural policy action in Austria in the sense of the convention? Where are there problems and how can solutions be formulated for them with the help of the convention?The UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005) is aimed against a global cultural monoculture and against (market) liberalisation of cultural enterprises. It recognises the dual nature of cultural goods and services as commercial commodities on the one hand and as the bearers of cultural values and identity on the other and is a binding instrument of international law which gives all signatory states (so far 110, Austria signed in 2006) the right to an independent cultural policy. The field in which the UNESCO convention can and must be applied is a broad one. It ranges from sensitisation to the issue, raising of awareness of its lasting importance to society, the economy and politics, from the motivation work for its implementation through cooperative and effective collaboration of all players up to and including many specific individual measures from the most diverse fields of arts, culture and cultural policy. For this stocktaking the österreichische kulturdokumentation has for the first time collected, viewed and presented comprehensively relevant material and demands from expert circles: this touches on questions of the situation of artists and cultural workers in Austria in relation to their working situation and tax and insurance modalities. National support conditions in various branches were analysed, open questions on copyright as the most important protection right for creative workers in the digital age were formulated and the field of the creative industry and international cooperation in relation to its importance for cultural diversity were screened. What has been produced is a collection of cultural-policy themes that Austria must deal with in the immediate future, as in signing the convention it has committed itself to presenting a report in 2012. This collection offers an outstanding starting basis for this.