What is Cultural Entrepreneurship?
Simply defined, Cultural Entrepreneurship could be considered the process of getting a cultural product such as a film, a craft, a record track, a book etc from the artist/composer to the consumer. This entails managing and organising all the other factors involved in the production, distribution and commercialisation of cultural products. The main actor in this process, referred, to as the cultural entrepreneur, is charged with the task of identifying the market opportunity for cultural goods and services.
In business terms, he is the risk and uncertainty bearer. When Cultural entrepreneurs come with new ideas using cultural matri-patrimonies of their people, it means trespassing into social fields in which they don’t belong and that is also taking risk.
The burden of the market outcome falls directly on him. The cultural entrepreneur needs to be looking at whom the market is, how to value the time, how to be commercial in the cultural sector and how to collaborate with the other actors in the sector – that is networking. In this paper, we set out to investigate into the ability of those in the cultural industries, to be able to carry out this function. What obstacles do they face? Who is on their way?
What are Cultural Assets?
Cultural assets are those consumer goods that convey ideas, symbols and ways of life. Such goods inform or entertain, contribute to build collective identity and influence cultural practices. Cultural assets are synonymous to cultural goods or cultural products. They include books, magazines, multimedia products, software, records, films, videos, audio-visual programmes, crafts and fashion design, and many more.
Cultural assets constitute the outputs of the cultural industries - those industries that combine the creation, production and commercialisation of contents, which are intangible and cultural in nature. Individual creativity skills and talents promote these industries and endow them with the potential for wealth and job creation, through the generation of intellectual property. Very often these industries are also referred to as creative industries.
Creative industries may constitute the following sectors and in some cases more:
· Printing,
· Publishing And Multimedia,
· Audio-Visual,
· Phonographic And Cinematographic Productions
· Crafts
· Design And Designer Fashion,
· Software
· Fine Arts And Antiques
· Performing Arts
· Libraries And Archives
· Museums, Monuments And Art Galleries
· Radio And Television
· Traditional Food Beverages
· Traditional And Alternative medicine.
These industries add value to contents and generate values for individuals and societies. They are knowledge and labour-intensive, create employment and wealth, nurture creativity, which is the raw material they are made from, and foster innovation in production and commercialisation processes. They are central in promoting and maintaining cultural diversity and in ensuring democratic access to culture.
Creative industries, according to the World Bank report of 2003, were estimated to account for more than 7% of the world’s GDP and forecast to grow at 10% per annum. Today these industries represent one of the most dynamic sectors in the global trading system (UNCTAD 2004) with high skill and value added content and strong employment linkages, particularly in small and medium-sized industries.
The Nigerian Holly Wood Visual Arts Industry, for example, is the second revenue developer next to the petroleum industry! The growth of the film industry in Nigeria is an indication that Africa could develop from the roots of its heritage.
This is suddenly happening to Nigerians because they seem to be the go-getters in the region. They are succeeding in building a regional market for the film and to some extent the music industries. The success is clearly explained by the fact that the themes in the movies reflect the indigenous cultures.
Governments in the region need to provide financial support and protection to these cultural industries. This will enable the industries to improve the quality of the products, thereby fostering their competitiveness in the local and foreign markets.
As far as the exploitation of Africa’s cultural heritage for purpose of commercialisation is concerned, Africa in general and Cameroon in particular can still be considered very virgin. Cultural Entrepreneurs from Giant economies have been more interested in exploiting the situation rather than developing it.
In an attempt to make the cultural assets marketable, cultural entrepreneurs who are foreign to Africa are not interested in developing the cultural heritage of the people.
Africa has been fed till today, with technology that is purely western and not adapted to local environment. After all it has all been to serve the interest of the colonial and then the neo-colonial masters. Africans have, therefore, not learnt to produce appropriate technology from local materials and cultural techniques; or at least those that take into account the local tastes and consumption habits.
In the architectural domain for example, civil engineers are trained and encouraged to use foreign and expensive materials and structures that are not appropriate to the climatic and geophysical needs of the country and people. Appropriate technology for producing building materials from local materials is not very much encouraged.
The indigenous consumer has been brought up to adore anything western at the detriment of local products. For example, it is not uncommon to find government offices or state houses furnished with imported furniture made of “artificial” wood which usually constitute the waste crumps of the rich wood exported from the continent. The importation of such assets does not only drain the economies financially, but generate very negative multiplier effects.
Foreign NGOs like Habitat for Africa, implant themselves in the continent to build cheap houses and lease them to the local people and reap profits which could have been reaped by the African and further guarantee the growth of the industry.
In the textile industry the story is same. The African cultural entrepreneur can hardly succeed due to the consumption habits. Also most of the textiles and leather products are produced with products and machinery imported from the West at usually very high cost. The cost of production ends up being high and thus they just cannot compete with similar goods from other regions.
The Governments need to finance and promote the Arts Design and Productions at different levels and categories to enhance internal consumption.
Raison d’être of Cultural Entrepreneurship.
The cultural entrepreneur may not necessarily set out to start a business. At face value the target of the entrepreneur is development. His main focus may be on developing his own practice or simply developing a cultural asset, but then he faces the need to come to terms with the commercial environment in order to be able to make enough money to continue his cultural work; or sees the commercial market as a means to reach a larger audience. All these in a bid to further develop the cultural assets. At this juncture the cultural producer is obliged to develop the necessary skills in management and organisation to forge ahead.
A cultural entrepreneur in Africa faces a multitude of obstacles to carry out his task:
He needs to be competitive enough to enter the highly competitive markets. To stay in this market and remain competitive is a major challenge for the cultural entrepreneur in Africa. This certainly does not favour the development of creative industries in the continent.
They face very unfavourable competition from the developed countries. In most cases the African cultural entrepreneur hardly succeeds in penetrating the western markets. His goods are often labelled inferior according to western standards.
The cultural entrepreneurs cause anxiety and mistrust making the elders, bi-gendered, who are custodians to form and build up resistance. The cultural entrepreneurs would have to get into negotiation with the members of a particular or more fields from which they want to use cultural symbols as emblems for enhancement and cultural development. An example of such is creating a museum using sacred objects of the society as central piece of exhibition.
These sacred objects first of all were handled within a closed museum within whose social field knowledge was managed and handed down to initiated members. But a cultural entrepreneur coming to make these public with the backing of foreign agents, for developmental reasons will meet obstacles from the elders that will block the process altogether or require a long period/process of negotiation. The fear of losing control in the management of the production, distribution, and consumption of these cultural matri-patrimonies is top most on their minds even if the project has the potential of bringing in other developmental project opportunities to the community.
The diverse nature of African culture at times works against the African Entrepreneur. It becomes difficult in most cases for a cultural entrepreneur from one cultural background to introduce a cultural product to consumers of a different background. Politicians sometimes meddle with this to make the situation the more difficult. For example, in Cameroon, there are about 250 tribes with 250 different languages and cultural backgrounds. This aspect already limits the market for a cultural entrepreneur who comes from a particular tribe and tries to introduce his product in the local market. He needs to work very hard to have his product recognised by the rest of the population from different cultural backgrounds.
The African needs to have control of the local market (African) before trying to grasp the foreign market. Unfortunately, the lack of expertise in entrepreneurship and the natural forces against the local entrepreneur present serious drawbacks in the cultural industry that need to be redressed otherwise apart from depending on the market forces.
In the modern state of Cameroon where politics of belonging is quite important for the daily interaction and running of the states, cultural entrepreneurs have taken the opportunity to launch cultural and development associations. Through these they source for and generate funds, internally and externally, for the revitalisation of their cultural matri-patrimonies geared towards cultural development especially where the government has failed. Some of the funds especially the external ones do come with strings attached that could lead to loss of control by the managers. However, it is not strange to find associations with uniforms on which cultural symbols are imprinted on them for specific identifications. By producing these textiles for distribution and consumption within the group, the cultural entrepreneurs continue in the process to generate funds and also in exhibiting something of their cultural matri-patrimonies to other societies.
These cultural and development associations most often than not do engage in the process of reinvention and revitalisation of languages and dances of their society. In Cameroon and many other African countries there are several local language centres for the promulgation of languages that are threatened with extinction due to pressure from stronger neighbouring languages or because of English and French as official languages. It is becoming very popular for cultural and development associations to be invited to grace and animate occasions with traditional songs and dances.
When cultural entrepreneurs engage themselves in such activities they go a long way to keep their cultural matri-patrimonies alive by giving the peoples a sense of being. This beingness is what gives us a sense of identity in the process of cultural development. The cultural entrepreneur at this level has brought in developmental projects for the enhancement of his people. This action should be applauded especially when the whole focus is on the society.
On the other hand cultural entrepreneurs could just be another story like that we heard of NGOs whose founders sell their societies for self-gratification. Through cultural entrepreneurs funding bodies might take over to destroy the rich and diverse cultural matri-patrimonies instead of promoting, revitalising and preserving it in the name of replacing out dated practices with modern and efficient ones.
Creative expressions, by drawing on a wealth of historical and contemporary values and symbols, allow countries to tell their own stories, protect their images, and share their own challenges and aspirations both among their own citizens and with those from other countries. In this respect, support for domestic creative industries should be seen as an integral part of the promotion and protection of cultural diversity thus enhancing cultural development
Entrepreneurship in the creative industry has to be recognised as a distinctive and increasingly important area of the national economy. Emphasis should be laid on the development of business and entrepreneurial skills, presentation, networking and fundraising skills.
In developing the new policy response for the promotion of cultural industries, a combination of market and non-market based mechanisms is recommended, with a focus on the facilitation of market access for the smaller players and sharing more equitably the rewards of their creativity.
Edwin Binfon
Office Pro Group
edwin.binfon@officeprogroup.com
edbinfon@yahoo.com