Abstract

Culture and development are both ubiquitous and highly contested terms in social sciences. By paraphrasing Joseph Nye’s quote on power and love (Nye 1990, p. 177), I should perhaps acknowledge two things: whereas culture, like love, is easier to experience than to define or measure, development seems to be the reverse; it’s easier to define or measure than to experience. Of course, in recent years, there has been a proliferation of international norms and mechanisms dealing with the ‘culture and development’ nexus, and multiple actors have demonstrated a willingness to promote a specific set of ideas on the nexus. At the same time, the main question asked by an increasingly academic form of research is from which point of view to address the links among culture, cultural policies, and development (Stupples and Teaiwa 2016): sociological, economic, anthropological, institutional, or legal?