During the Harlem Renaissance when Alain Locke spoke the words above, I wonder if he considered how accurately his words characterized the lived experiences of all people of African descent around the globe? Although scholars have explored aspects of arts management and cultural policy throughout the African Diaspora, a damning myth persists that people of African descent do NOT know how or care about managing their culture. Indeed, Europeans have used this myth as justification for kidnapping, pillaging, and profiting from the cultural products of people of African descent so much so that 90-95% of the material cultural legacy of sub-Saharan African exists outside of the African continent.
Arts Management, Cultural Policy, & the African Diaspora
arts management
The planning, organizing, leading, and controlling that arts managers do to disseminate arts and culture to people from cultural organizations.
Cultural Policy
The ways in which corporations, governments, individuals, and institutions constrain and/or enable cultural practices and values.
African Diaspora
The modern African diaspora consists of the millions of peoples of African descent living in various societies united by a past based significantly, but not exclusively upon racial “oppression and the struggles against it; and who, despite the cultural variations and political and other divisions among them, share an emotional bond with one another and with their ancestral continent; and who also, regardless of their location, face broadly similar problems in constructing and realizing themselves.
the Authors
