Cultural districts and innovation: A focus on the global south

Virani, Tarek

Abstract

This report explores how cultural districts in the Global South are either innovating or creating the conditions to meet the needs of new and existing challenges – either brought about or amplified by the pandemic. Here, innovation is understood as the capacity to enable cultural district ecosystems to flourish so that new or improved ideas may continue to be nurtured and developed in order to create new market demand or solutions to economic, social and environmental challenges. Consequently, the innovations here are not linear but as adaptive as organisations within cultural districts are, exemplifying the agility and adaptability prevalent in the cultural economy of which cultural districts are a part. This is evidenced by how, despite gaining momentum in many countries of the Global South, many cultural districts do not have formal governance structures, and in fact usually sit under or work within the remit of multiple authorities and stakeholders. However, their socio-economic and cultural benefits to cities are without question.

• Report Type: Research Report
• Acceptance Date: Nov 1, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Dec 1, 2022
• Publication Date: Nov 16, 2022
• Deposit Date: Dec 8, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 8, 2022
• Keywords: Cultural Districts, innovation, cultural and creative economy, global south
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10227329
• Publisher URL: https://gcdn.net/research/