Fostering a Culture of Sustainability:

Introducing the case for cultural indicators

Douglas Worts and Lynne Teather

CSIN Conference, TorontoMarch 3, 2010

Objectives of the Workshop

1. that each participant thinks about the role that culture plays in defining their life

2. 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

What are your expectations for the workshop?

Agenda

A. Introductory Exercise

B. Discussions of Culture and Intersections with Sustainability

C. Cultural Assessment Indicators Exercise

Who are you… culturally?1. 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

A. Introductory Exercise

What can be made of these cards?

A. Introductory Exercise

How do these attributes relate to our sustainability / unsustainability?

A. Introductory Exercise

Section B: Culture and its Intersections with 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

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

B. Culture and Sustainability

Culture is: Standing

on the shoulders

of ancestors

B. Culture and Sustainability

Culture is Relationships

FamilyCommunity

Society

Global humanity

Environment

Self

The Unknown

<--Past <--Present --> Future-->

Museums &Cultural Organizations

Forces

of C

hange

Pressures

B. Culture and Sustainability

Sustainability, (and unsustainability)

is a cultural matter

• Our values• Our behaviours• Our attitudes• Our priorities• Our systems

Rooted in:

B. Culture and Sustainability

Sustainability Model

Econom

y

Society

Environment

Sustainability

CultureValues, traditions, behaviours, relationship

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…?

B. Culture and Sustainability

Adaptive Renewal Cycle

Holling (2004) www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss1/art11

B. Culture and Sustainability

Complex Forest Ecosystem B. Culture and Sustainability

Australian Bushfire, 2009

Insurance companies had claims of $22 billion this year

B. Culture and Sustainability

Even more complexity…

Panarchy

B. Culture and Sustainability

“Sustainability is the capacity to create, test and maintain adaptive capability”.

Development is the process of creating, testing and maintaining opportunity

Adaptation in a cultural context…

- changes in personal relationships- changes in career- moving from country to city (or vice-versa)

Personal Level:

Collective Level:- development of new technologies- monocultures => pluralism- urbanization

Change can be either adaptive or maladaptive

Institutional Level:- re-examine first principles

B. Culture and Sustainability

The Challenge of Feedback Loops Indicating a

‘Culture of Sustainability’

Examples => making the invisible, visible

B. Culture and Sustainability

World Population

B. Culture and Sustainability

Convenience of Cell Phones

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

B. Culture and Sustainability

What is this?

Courtesy: Chris Jordan

B. Culture and Sustainability

What is this - 2?

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Courtesy: Chris Jordan

B. Culture and Sustainability

Discarded Cell Phones

Photo by Chris Jordan

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

426,000 cell phones, equal to the number of cell phones retired in the US

every day

B. Culture and Sustainability

Ed Burtynsky - Ship Breaking, Bangladesh

B. Culture and Sustainability

Keeping Places-Australia

Armidale Aboriginal Cultural Centre and Keeping place

B. Culture and Sustainability

Exhibitions with Civic Engagement

B. Culture and Sustainability

B. Culture and Sustainability

“WithoutSanctuary”

Alberta, Canada: Economic Wellbeing

Economy

oikos (household)

nomia (management)

Mark Anielsk

B. Culture and Sustainability

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

Exercise - Report Back

Comments about the workshop?

Many thanks!

Lynne Teather, Professor, Museum Studies ProgramUniversity of Torontolynne.teather@gmail.com

Douglas Worts, WorldViews Consulting,Douglas_worts@rogers.com www.douglasworts.org