Sixth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability
Jun 29th, 2009 by roryturner
This looks like a very interesting conference that explores sustainability from a “four pillars” approach. The conference will be held at the University of Cuenca, Cuenca, Ecuador 5 to 7 January. Those interested in presenting at this conference, note that the deadline for submission is July 9, 2009. I would love to go to this, but we start our first week long residency in the Cultural Sustainability program at Goucher the next week. I’m guessing I will be busy!
I was especially interested in learning about conference plenary speaker Douglas Worts and his work. Worts writes on his blog:
“How can humanity create a ‘culture of sustainability’ within our increasingly pluralist, urban communities? Psychologist Edgar Shein defines culture as the mechanisms by which individuals and collectives adapt to a changing external environment, and integrate those adaptations internally. Humanity is not doing so well at coping with changes to its external environment - hence, we struggle with such phenomena as climate change, pollution and systemic inequity within our pluralist societies.
Currently, cultural organizations, like museums and art galleries, do little to reflect or engage the living cultures of our societies and the environments they inhabit. They have the ability to do so - although it will require a complete reassessment of what these organizations assume are the cultural needs of our communities. New insights into how best to address these needs will also be required - leaving behind the presumption that culture is essentially a specialized commodity for the leisure-time market. (Italics added) New professional competencies and novel approaches to public engagement strategies will have to replace old institutionalized structures and traditional programs if these organizations hope to engage the cultural pulse of our cities.”
Worts seems to understand that thinking deeply about cultural sustainability requires us to go beyond a narrow definition of culture, and to develop tools to more fully understand communities. I’m hopeful that Goucher’s new curriculum will respond to this call for engagement in innovative and powerful ways…
