Introduction to International Arts Management

Introduction to International Arts Management" strongly advocates for more international transfer and for interdisciplinary networks of academics and practitioners to foster critical discourse about arts management practice and to develop sustainable strategies to deal with increasingly diverse societies. In order to find answers for pressing contemporary concerns, arts managers must leave the comfort of relatively narrow (geographic) confines of similar notions and understandings of arts and culture. Expertise from the global south can no longer be neglected in the critical discourse that arts management practice, as well as education, urgently needs. Mutual learning is paramount, based on the conviction that especially European arts managers have much to learn, inter alia that their approaches will not necessarily work in other parts of the world when not taking possible clashes of values, interests and aspirations of local agents into account, and that many countries in the global south have ample experience when it comes to e.g. the topics of migration or providing meaningful content to diverse audiences.

 

The book makes these processes understandable to future arts managers by providing the necessary key terminology (that is far from being consistent even within the discipline), theory, as well as international best practice examples that deal e.g. with legal, logistic, political, and intercultural issues. It also encourages a broadening of scope within the discipline and the incorporation of content from other fields, including postcolonial studies, geography, history, ethnology, and anthropology into the curricula, seeing as how colonialism in particular has both destroyed and formed cultural identities in many parts of the world. Students should not only be prepared for jobs in international contexts e.g. in official cultural agencies or foundations operating abroad, but even more so for their tasks in cross- and intercultural contexts that will gain increasing importance in our rapidly changing societies.

 

This work is also aimed at those working in arts institutions who already deal with the challenges and opportunities of globalization and specifically of migration on a daily basis. They will gain insights into how other arts managers in similar situations act and react, and additionally they will benefit from an overview of the latest international academic literature on these topics.

 

Another particularly useful portion of the book features a collection of links to residencies, scholarships, networks, and partner organizations in several different countries around the world that could be of help to the internationalization process.

 

This work is suited for those interested in the effects of globalization on arts management and how these are addressed by arts managers around the world.