Abstract
This chapter explores the reality of the practice of cultural governance in South Africa. It provides the reader with an overview of the struggle and challenges faced in South Africa, but also concludes that this type of project is well timed in terms of the stage the country has reached in its present history. This is a country informed by struggle, apartheid, compliance, and policy, and how the cultural institutions face the future is important in terms of the future. Therefore, in the following pages the reader is given an insight into the influence and challenges that are being faced.
Avril Joffe, Johanna Mavhungu and Munyaradzi Chatikobo all lecture in the Cultural Policy and Management Department at the Wits School of Arts while Annabell Lebethe is a research associate of the department.
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Notes
- 1.
The idea of the cultural worker and culture as a weapon of struggle emerged out of the week-long Culture and Resistance conference at the University of Botswana in 1983, where emphasis was placed on creating discipline-based associations.
- 2.
ACTAG was mandated to reconfigure the arts and culture landscape to redress past imbalances and reflect an inclusive democratic South Africa in the period 1994–1996.
- 3.
White Papers are issued by the SA government as statements of policy and set out proposals for legislative changes which may be debated before a Bill is introduced. The latter can be formalized as an Act of Parliament as was the case with new institutions such as the National Arts Council or the National Film and Video Foundation.
- 4.
Figures from 2004/2005 show that expenditure on DAC is only 0.03% of the total public expenditure according to the South African National Budget for 2008, http://www.treasurey.gov.za/docments/national-budget/2008/arts.pdf.
- 5.
The 2005 UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions suggests that the quality and functioning of a system of governance for culture depends on several factors including, amongst others, political will and the level of priority given to the cultural sector; and the engagement of civil society and professional operators (Cliche 2015, p. 19).
- 6.
Business and Arts South Africa was founded in 1997 as a joint initiative of the Department of Arts and Culture and the corporate sector, as part of a strategy to secure greater involvement in the arts and from businesses operating within South Africa (see www.basa.org.za).
- 7.
ODA and some international NGOs pulled out of directly funding the independent arts and culture organisations from 1994 once South Africa had a democratic government. They now chose to channel their contributions through state institutions or to other countries seen to have greater need.
- 8.
As May, Sulla and Zikhala observe, ‘despite more than two decades of democratic government and the adoption of a plethora of transformative and redistributive policies’, there has been a persistence of ‘sharp inequalities and differentiated access to privilege’ (2016, p. 3).
- 9.
Declared in terms of the Cultural Institutions Act (1998) as amended by the Cultural Laws Amendment Act (2001).
- 10.
BASA is an associated cultural institution set up with funding from the national Department of Arts and Culture and the private sector.
- 11.
The corollary of this is general government ‘distrust of critical and independent and independent citizenry and social movements’ (Peterson 2014, p. 217).
- 12.
Repeated concerns by our funding bodies such as the NAC that it is regarded as an ATM (a cash machine), as people require funds for survival.
- 13.
In total, 143 CACs were built after 1994. These have been criticised not only in terms of their management and performance but with regard to the very idea that these centres could cater for the full range of artistic and cultural needs of communities with little support given either in human resource terms (facilitators with artistic knowledge or curatorial experience) or in financial terms.
- 14.
- 15.
Soweto From Here Entertainment (formerly The Living Newspaper) is a Soweto-based theatre organisation which operates from Dhlamini Multi-Purpose Community Hall, which was founded in 2005 with the objective of rehabilitating young people from gangsterism and substance abuse through theatre.
- 16.
Moving Into Dance is a trailblazing, nationally acclaimed, professional dance company, as well as an accredited training organisation which has produced a multitude of award-winning and productive dancers, choreographers, arts administrators and teachers throughout South Africa and internationally.
- 17.
‘From the on-set, the whole idea of Keleketla as a space is just that of experiencing art and exploring what art does in life, how does it end and how does it become relevant. We used it to address issues of heritage and the danger of one story and allow that space be a place where multiple stories and multiple narratives can exist parallel each other in order to challenge dominant narratives, for example.’
- 18.
SAGA is a powerful, unified voice for actors in the film, television, stage, commercial and corporate sectors in South Africa. The Guild exists to promote professionalism in the performance industry, and to protect and enhance actors’ working conditions, compensation and benefits; see http://www.saguildofactors.co.za/.
- 19.
Business and Arts South Africa (NPC) is an internationally recognised South African development agency with a suite of integrated programmes implemented nationally and internationally. BASA encourages mutually beneficial partnerships between business and the arts, securing the future development of the arts sector in South Africa and contributing to corporate success through Shared Value. BASA (NPC) was founded in 1997 as a joint initiative of the Department of Arts and Culture and the business sector as a public/private partnership; see http://www.basa.co.za/about-us/about-basa/.
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List of In-depth Interviews
Apartheid Museum.
Funda.
Hillbrow Outreach Centre.
Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra.
Keleketlha Library.
Moving into Dance.
The Craft Institute.
Soweto from Here Entertainment.
Themba Interactive.
T Musicman.
Vuyani Dance Company.
Word and Sound.
Cultural Governance Workshop.
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Joffe, A., Chatikobo, M., Lebethe, A., Mavhungu, J. (2019). South Africa. In: King, I., Schramme, A. (eds) Cultural Governance in a Global Context. Palgrave Studies in Business, Arts and Humanities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98860-3_7
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