Reactik Symposium

Reactik International Symposium 2022

Cultural Diplomacy in the 21st Century: Theorising global, supranational, national and regional intersections

On April 28-29, 2022, Team New Zealand of the Jean Monnet Network REACTIK organised and ran its final event: international symposium “Cultural Diplomacy in the 21st Century: Theorising global, supranational, national and regional intersections”. Presentations of the Symposium build a foundation for the edited collection (publication forthcoming).

Our symposium explored multiple intersections between international relations and culture – the latter broadly defined as a “complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (EB Tylor 1871) -- in the age of multiple global crises and new media ecology. Academic literature and practice increasingly agree that in external relations, culture inherently carries “values”.

We invited our contributors to engage with three questions leading our discussion:

• In what way, trans-national cultural interactions contribute to maximise international reputation, recognition and influence in the world challenged by crises, uncertainty and return of the ‘muscle power’ politics’?
• How international cultural relations can produce economic return and serve multiple state and non-state stakeholders?
• How cultural contacts can help to establish true respectful dialogue and genuine mutually-beneficial collaboration and contribute to the “new” public diplomacy approach?

The event had a dedicated section on the cultural diplomacy of the EU, as well as contributions reflecting on cultural diplomacy by EU member states and other countries around the world, with a special focus on New Zealand. It particularly seeks to comprehend the current global challenges and rationale for EU’s cultural and public diplomacy, taking on board the global impact of the pandemic as well as explore new frontiers and synergies particularly in the digital area.

The symposium calls for innovative theorisation and operationalisation of the cultural diplomacy in the 21st century.  We invited contributions that look into complex crossings of global, national, supranational, regional and local levels when it comes to effective public diplomacy.  
It was supported by the Jean Monnet Network REACTIK (cReative Economy And Culture inTernatIonal link, EU Cultural Diplomacy), Erasmus+, European Commission (2018-2021).