This past week's reading discussed cultural economic theory and government funding of the creative and cultural arts industry, and this portion of the text reminded me of a large chunk of my time in South Africa this past summer.
I interned at the Social History Centre, an institution that is part of the Iziko Museum complex, right in the heart of Cape Town for the month of July. Unbeknownst to myself and the four other people on the study abroad program, there is a good amount of tension between South African museums and the federal government right now, and it all relates back to funding. Politicians recently decided that every museum needs to submit an estimate of what the institution is worth, meaning they will need to valuate each object in their collections as well as any office furniture, supplies, computers, etc., in order to receive federal funding. Not only is this an extremely complicated and time-consuming process, but placing a monetary value on cultural object (and culture itself) is widely seen as unethical in the museum world.
The excerpt that we read mentions that government funding is essentially dependent on politicians' opinion of how important arts and culture is at that time, and it's clear that the South African government does not view museums and their contents to be of particular importance right now. Though in the past museums in the country only served elite audiences, the efforts to break down this idea in post-apartheid South Africa and reach out to local communities has been halted in order to satisfy these new government requirements and to get back the funding they need.
I interned at the Social History Centre, an institution that is part of the Iziko Museum complex, right in the heart of Cape Town for the month of July. Unbeknownst to myself and the four other people on the study abroad program, there is a good amount of tension between South African museums and the federal government right now, and it all relates back to funding. Politicians recently decided that every museum needs to submit an estimate of what the institution is worth, meaning they will need to valuate each object in their collections as well as any office furniture, supplies, computers, etc., in order to receive federal funding. Not only is this an extremely complicated and time-consuming process, but placing a monetary value on cultural object (and culture itself) is widely seen as unethical in the museum world.
The excerpt that we read mentions that government funding is essentially dependent on politicians' opinion of how important arts and culture is at that time, and it's clear that the South African government does not view museums and their contents to be of particular importance right now. Though in the past museums in the country only served elite audiences, the efforts to break down this idea in post-apartheid South Africa and reach out to local communities has been halted in order to satisfy these new government requirements and to get back the funding they need.
