Fostering a Culture of Sustainability: Introducing the case for cultural indicators

1. Fostering a Culture of Sustainability: Introducing the case for cultural indicators Douglas Worts and Lynne Teather CSIN Conference, Toronto March 3, 2010

2. Objectives of the Workshop that each participant thinks about the role that culture plays in defining their life to identify ways that our society’s unsustainability is rooted in cultural values and behaviours 3. identify ways to create and use cultural indicators that can help shift how individuals and societal systems operate

3. What are your expectations for the workshop?

4. Agenda A. Introductory Exercise B. Discussions of Culture and Intersections with Sustainability C. Cultural Assessment Indicators Exercise

5. A. Introductory Exercise Who are you… culturally? Spend a couple of minutes and write down 2 short descriptors (1-3 words) that would provide a sense of how your culture is expressed in your life. 2. Pair up with someone you don’t know. Each introduce yourself - name and the two descriptors you have chosen for yourself 3. Share one descriptor to share in large group

6. A. Introductory Exercise What can be made of these cards?

7. A. Introductory Exercise How do these attributes relate to our sustainability / unsustainability?

8. Section B:Culture and its Intersections with Sustainability

9. B. Culture and Sustainability Culture “a basic pattern of assumptions invented, discovered or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration” Edgar Shein In, Mastering Civic Engagement

10. B. Culture and Sustainability Another Definition of Culture …. all of the ways in which a people relate to those aspects of life which: a) they can know and control; as well as, b) those they can’t fully know or control, but to which they must have a conscious relationship. Worts, 2001

11. B. Culture and Sustainability Culture is: Standing on the shoulders of ancestors

12. B. Culture and Sustainability The Unknown Culture is Relationships Environment Global humanity Pressures Forces of Change Society Museums & Cultural Organizations Community Family Self <--Past Future--> <--Present -->

13. B. Culture and Sustainability Sustainability, (and unsustainability) is a cultural matter Rooted in: • Our values • Our behaviours • Our attitudes • Our priorities • Our systems

14. B. Culture and Sustainability Economy Sustainability Model Society Adapted Sustainability Environment Culture Values, traditions, behaviours, relationship

15. B. Culture and Sustainability What are Some Attributes of Culture • Reflection (individual and collective) • Participation/engagement in what is relevant • Relatedness - connection to others/environment • Awareness of history - learn from the past • Creativity - & have faith in it personally • Conscious systems of knowledge - including values • Connection to the symbolic & the spiritual • Connection to what cannot be controlled • Responsible action • Capacity to embrace change • Attendance at cultural facilities…?

16. B. Culture and Sustainability Adaptive Renewal Cycle Holling (2004) www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss1/art11

17. B. Culture and Sustainability Complex Forest Ecosystem

18. B. Culture and Sustainability Australian Bushfire, 2009 Insurance companies had claims of $22 billion this year

19. B. Culture and Sustainability Even more complexity… Panarchy “Sustainability is the capacity to create, test and maintain adaptive capability”. Development is the process of creating, testing and maintaining opportunity

20. B. Culture and Sustainability Adaptation in a cultural context… Personal Level: • - changes in personal relationships • changes in career • moving from country to city (or vice-versa) Collective Level: • development of new technologies • monocultures => pluralism • urbanization Institutional Level: - re-examine first principles Change can be either adaptive or maladaptive

21. B. Culture and Sustainability The Challenge of Feedback Loops Indicating a ‘Culture of Sustainability’ Examples => making the invisible, visible

22. B. Culture and Sustainability World Population

23. B. Culture and Sustainability Convenience of Cell Phones

24. B. Culture and Sustainability What is this? Courtesy: Chris Jordan

25. B. Culture and Sustainability What is this - 2? Courtesy: Chris Jordan

26. B. Culture and Sustainability Discarded Cell Phones 426,000 cell phones, equal to the number of cell phones retired in the US every day Photo by Chris Jordan

27. B. Culture and Sustainability Ed Burtynsky - Ship Breaking, Bangladesh

28. B. Culture and Sustainability Keeping Places-Australia Armidale Aboriginal Cultural Centre and Keeping place

29. B. Culture and Sustainability Exhibitions with Civic Engagement

30. B. Culture and Sustainability “Without Sanctuary”

31. B. Culture and Sustainability Alberta, Canada: Economic Wellbeing Economy oikos (household) nomia (management) Mark Anielsk

32. C) Cultural Assessment Indicators Exercise • Divide into 3 groups • Each group is given a topic to develop a public engagement initiative on a sustainability topic • Each group will brainstorm 2 or 3 ideas • Each group will assess the ideas using a series of questions, provided - from the Critical Assessment Framework - and report back on one ‘best’ idea

33. Exercise - Report Back

34. Comments about the workshop?

35. Many thanks! Lynne Teather, Professor, Museum Studies Program University of Toronto lynne.teather@gmail.com Douglas Worts, WorldViews Consulting, Douglas_worts@rogers.com www.douglasworts.org