The Cultural Turn in International Aid Impacts and Challenges for Heritage and the Creative Industries

With contributions from experts around the globe, this volume critically assesses the impact of international aid, including the diverse power relations and inequalities it creates, and the interests it serves at international, national and local levels. The book also considers projects that have failed and analyses the reasons for their failure, drawing out lessons learnt and considering what could be done better in the future. Contributors to the volume also consider the influence of donors in privileging some forms of culture over others, creating or maintaining specific memories, identities, and interpretations of history, and their reasons for doing so. These rich discussions are contextualised through a historical section, which considers the definitions, approaches and discourses related to culture and aid at international and regional levels.
Providing consideration of manifold manifestations of culture, The Cultural Turn in International Aid will be of great interest to scholars, students and practitioners. It will be particularly useful for those engaged in the study of heritage, anthropology, international aid and development, international relations, humanitarian studies, community development, cultural studies, politics or sociology.