<span>Dear Colleagues,</span><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_quote"><div link="blue" vlink="purple" lang="EN-AU"><div>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span>Please find below the "First Call for Papers" for the upcoming conference in Melbourne, Australia: <b>Making Culture Count: rethinking measures of cultural vitality, well being, and citizenship.
The deadline for the "first call for papers" is December 9, 2011. </b>This international conference</span><span> is presented in Melbourne on <b>May 3-4, 2012, </b>by the Cultural Development Network and the Centre
for Cultural Partnerships, Faculty of the VCA and Music, University of Melbourne. <b>For more information see: <a href="http://www.culturaldevelopment.net.au" target="_blank">www.culturaldevelopment.net.au</a></b></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span>Can you please forward this call to any contacts you feel would be interested in this conference? Thanks and sorry for any cross-posting!</span></p>
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</span></p><div style="color:rgb(0,51,51)"><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif"><pre><font face="verdana, sans-serif" size="2"><span><span style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,153)"><font size="2">Emma Blomkamp<br>
Joint PhD Candidate<br>Centre for Cultural Partnerships, Faculty of VCAM, University of Melbourne</font><font size="2"><br>Department of Political Studies, University of Auckland |</font><font size="2"> </font><a href="http://auckland.academia.edu/EmmaBlomkamp" target="_blank">http://auckland.academia.edu/EmmaBlomkamp</a></span></span></span></font></pre>
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<p style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt"><span style="font-size:8.5pt"> </span><span><b><br></b></span></p><p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span><b>Making Culture Count: rethinking measures of cultural vitality, wellbeing and citizenship.
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<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span>In recent years, culture and cultural development have become internationally recognised as</span><span style="font-size:7.5pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span>important dimensions of contemporary governance and public policy. As in other policy areas</span><span style="font-size:7.5pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span>(economic, social, environmental), the production of accurate and relevant data has become</span><span style="font-size:7.5pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span>central to cultural policy and how the cultural lives of citizens are understood. Conceptual and</span><span style="font-size:7.5pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span>practical developments in measurement tools, such as new forms of cultural indicators, have the</span><span style="font-size:7.5pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span>potential to enrich our understanding of culture's role in well being, vitality and citizenship. From</span><span style="font-size:7.5pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span>UNESCO’s benchmarks for cultural freedom, through comparative measures of states’ cultural</span><span style="font-size:7.5pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span>provision and creative cities indices, to indicators for community arts evaluation, diverse</span><span style="font-size:7.5pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span>approaches to quantifying cultural value and measuring societal progress now exist. </span><span style="font-size:7.5pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span>But how useful are all these measures? Are they helping us to keep track of what matters? What</span><span style="font-size:7.5pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span>opportunities exist to contest, refine or democratise these systems of cultural measurement?</span><span style="font-size:7.5pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span>This international conference brings together diverse perspectives from international guest</span><span style="font-size:7.5pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span>speakers and leading local practitioners to explore the burgeoning field of cultural indicators.</span><span style="font-size:7.5pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span>Participants will engage in a critical dialogue on various approaches to monitoring, evaluating,</span><span style="font-size:7.5pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span>planning, advocating, predicting, and simply understanding, cultural change. Presentations will</span><span style="font-size:7.5pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span>cover a range of theoretical and practical approaches to quantifying cultural values often</span><span style="font-size:7.5pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span>considered intangible, including vitality, well being, citizenship, sustainability and heritage.</span><span style="font-size:7.5pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span>Keynote speakers (so far) include: </span><span style="font-size:7.5pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span>Associate Professor Eleonora Belfiore, Director of Graduate Studies, Centre for Cultural Policy Studies, University of Warwick, UK.</span><span style="font-size:7.5pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span>Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson, Senior Research Associate and Director, Creativity and Communities</span><span style="font-size:7.5pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span>Program, Urban Institute, Washington DC, USA.</span><span style="font-size:7.5pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span>The submission of abstracts for presentations on diverse aspects of cultural measurement are invited. In particular, proposals that address the following topics are welcome:</span><span style="font-size:7.5pt"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<span>Critical accounts of forms of cultural measurement, including cultural indicators.<u></u><u></u></span></li><li class="MsoNormal">
<span>The emergence of new cultural measures, such as categories of cultural vitality, well being, citizenship, sustainability and heritage.<u></u><u></u></span></li><li class="MsoNormal">
<span>Cross-cultural measurement, the relationship between mechanisms and categories of measurement and cultural difference.<u></u><u></u></span></li><li class="MsoNormal">
<span>Community-driven cultural indicators, including attempts to democratise the processes of cultural measurement.<u></u><u></u></span></li><li class="MsoNormal">
<span>The use of arts-based processes in the measurement of culture.<u></u><u></u></span></li><li class="MsoNormal">
<span>The implications of new technologies, digital research methods and information visualisation for the measurement of culture.<u></u><u></u></span></li></ul>
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