ROLE OF CULTURE FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Second role, connecting and mediating. Culture as driver of sustainability

processes; this transcends the drawbacks and benefits of ecological, economic and
social development. Economic, social and ecological sustainability afforded by
culture.
Since all human beings both have culture and are cultural human beings, we need a
broader conceptualisation of culture that includes the diversity of human values,
subjective meanings, expressions and life-modes, and that allows us to distinguish
between differences in culture and between cultures in a fruitful way, without
making judgments about qualities of art and culture. Culture is the meaningful
content of human societies and communities. It is made by individuals within
societies whilst simultaneously also shaping their lives and existence. In terms of
sustainabilitys three pillars, culture can be the way to balance competing or
conflicting demands and work through communication to give human and social
meaning to sustainable development. Culture can be a go between or intermediary
to connect the various dimensions of sustainability.
Culture processes and translates into a common language the ecologically,
environmentally and socially founded reactions to proposed development or
imminent avoidable change. Generally speaking however some sort of lens or filter
is required to understand how culture mediates the relation between society and
environment. One might be the concept of landscape, for example, another might
be the context of territorialisation, a third could be ecosystems services, and
creativity might be fourth example. All require a cultural context and an
understanding and welcoming of diversity of cultural expressions, and most
importantly some level of co-production rooted in human intentionality expressed in
practices, i.e. culture. The fact that the potential of cultures mediating role has
rarely been exploited perhaps why sustainable development has proved to be so
elusive.