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Imagining Impacts

Research on Cultural Relations in Sub-Saharan Africa

Imagining Impacts: Research on Cultural Relations in Sub-Saharan Africa  

The significance of cultural relations, along with artistic and heritage practices, is widely acknowledged. However, there is limited research specifically addressing this within Sub-Saharan Africa. Imagining Impacts is a research initiative undertaken by the Goethe-Institut South Africa and the University of Cape Town’s African Centre for Cities, aimed at filling this research gap.

This study seeks to understand the role and impact of culture in Sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on the interplay between national cultural institutions like the Goethe-Institut, various cultural stakeholders, and the specific cultural and environmental contexts in which all these actors operate.

The research results are presented on this website and comprise six Impact Narratives, a Tool Kit, as well as a video clip.

Read more about the background and study design here

THE SIX IMPACT NARRATIVES

1) “BEAUTIFUL POCKET”

[institutional situation, structure, systems]

‘Beautiful pocket’ is the term coined to describe the Goethe-Institut’s mode of funding, which was characterised as ‘beautiful’ for a lack of complication, as demonstrated by a contractual simplicity, clarity and ease, that makes the funding broadly accessible to artists. The analogy of the pocket refers to one component of a garment: it is a container, a holding space stitched into the larger fabric; hence, while funding is an integral component of the garment that is the Goethe-Institut, it is by no means the entirety thereof.
 

Imagining Impacts: Beautiful Pocket  

2) A “SHY INSTITUTE”

Implicit in the characterisation of the Goethe-Institut as “shy” is an appreciation for the organisation’s posture of humility and restraint, demonstrated by an aversion to overshadowing or upstaging the individuals and organisations it supports. This coyness was attributed, in part, to the recognition by Goethe-Instituts located outside of Germany, of the precarity and politic animating their duality as entities originating from the global North but located in the global South. This duality was recognised to position localised GIs to assume, intentionally or not, the function of cultural and linguistic bridge enhancing the trust quotient, mobility and relationality between these geopolitical spheres.
 

A “SHY INSTITUTE” [personality / positionality / politics]  

3) LEARNING

Learning is an imperative for any organisation: both as an entrenched internal practice to enable critical reflection, and by implication, adaptation, innovation, refinement; and as an external offering, facilitated, inter alia, through contributions to the cultural cannon and archive. Responsiveness, relevance, and relationality are key sensibilities to think through learning.

Imagining Impacts - LEARNING [responsiveness / relevance / relationality ]  

4) RADICAL PRACTICE

Radical experimentation is acknowledged to enrich and deepen cultural practice, with the creative process perceived to be as important as the end it pursues. On this view, even the “manure” generated through radical experimentation, exploration, and invigoration can fuel and enrich future creative expression. Most donors’ aversion to funding radical practice stems from a failure to appreciate the value of the messy, liminal, experimental process preceding (and necessary) to obtain a cogent, coherent cultural output.

RADICAL PRACTICE [experimentation / exploration / energisation]  

5) SOLIDARITY

Solidarity implies a political dimension to the relationships (personal and/or professional) catalysed by networking opportunities which national cultural institutes, such as the Goethe-Institut, facilitate. Such relationships are, in many instances, carefully nurtured and sustained over many years. Solidarity can thus be understood to stem from multiple overtures extending beyond an initial meeting, linking people or cultural collectives from different organisations or geographical locations, whose conversations and engagements span time and place, deepening over time, and encompassing some form of collective action, collaboration or cooperation; solidarity was perceived to imply a common purpose, synergistic values, a convergence of interests and responsibilities.

SOLIDARITY [collective / collaborative / cooperative]  

6) CONTEXT AND CULTURE

GI support was recognised to contribute to the vibrance, dynamism and sustainability of Africa’s cultural sector; assuming the role of a creative “acupuncture”, fueling creative aspirations and amplifying productive efforts. GI’s project funding was perceived as akin to a seed, allowing for the planting of ideas, which if well-nurtured and attended to, have the potential to become far more aspirational, amplifying the ambition, scope, reach and impact of what is initially envisaged.

CONTEXT AND CULTURE [acupuncture / aspiration / amplification]  

THE TOOL KIT

The absence of common assessment frameworks and indicators across the studied projects circumvented this study’s deployment of conventional impact measurements. Project implementers who’ve received support from the Goethe-Institut were thus called upon to give practical expression to the Imagining component of the study title, designing creative yet rigorous study methods and processes.
This toolkit distils and synthesizes these methods and processes, providing an easy-to-use guide that shies away from reliance on technical jargon. Therefore, it is targeted at a diverse audience, including but not restricted to art practitioners, scholars, and institutions, cultural funding agencies, development associations, and non-profit organisations.

THE TOOL KIT  

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