Harvie, Jen. Fair Play: Art, Performance and Neoliberalism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Print.
It is rare that artists, (in their myriad of forms: painters, authors, musicians, actors) are able to sustain themselves off of the money they make in their career choice, it is for the love of their “craft”, which when applied to many other business models seems completely bizarre. Yet, it continues as it has for decades, some forms of art left even more spectacularly behind than others (compare the worlds of theatre and film). Here, Harvie looks at where theatre excels in the public domain. After economic turmoil, how the public has chosen the path of artistic endeavours and often speaks through a privatization and sponsoring of art. Although she notes that a complete privatization of art will never entirely work, a harmony between a capitalist perspective and the government may not only furthur the value placed on work, but on its longevity.
By Jamie King.
MacDonald, Fiona. “Indigenous Peoples and Neoliberal ‘Privatization’ in Canada: Opportunities, Cautions and Constraints.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 44.2 (2011): 257-73. ProQuest. Web. 11 Aug. 2015.
Fiona MacDonald’s (a professor of Political Theory at the University of Fraser Valley with interests in Indigenous-state relations in Canada, ethics of care philosophy, and critical approaches to multiculturalism) article “Indigenous Peoples and Neoliberal ‘Privatization’ in Canada” offers a counter view to the seemingly overwhelming response to neoliberalism being a purely capitalistic gain that only further benefits those already in power. MacDonald acknowledges that most critical work on neoliberalism highlights “the market and the family as key areas being (re)defined by the neoliberal context” but she argues that “that cultures (particularly, though by no means exclusively, Aboriginal cultures with strong claims to self-determination/autonomy) are also (re)defined in relation to neoliberal attitudes and practices” (258). MacDonald suggests two streams of neoliberalism within which alternative kinds of self-governance can exist: the first is socially conservative and committed to traditional notions of the state and the family; the second is associated with the free market that is often libertarian on both moral and economic issues. This second “libertarian” ideal focuses on individual autonomy. MacDonald quotes Lavina White and Eva Jacobs (from the Haida and Kwakiutl nations, respectively) to suggesting the following “the solution [for the present problems we face] can only be found by our Nations and communities accepting these problems as theirs, and your government recognizing that the methods of resolving these problems must be ours” (262). It’s difficult to believe that this isn’t a common notion, the idea that a group of people should not only have a say but actual control over the issues that affect them. This is a concept that should be applied to literature and all other forms of media. Perhaps most important are MacDonald’s suggestion of intersections between Indigenous claims to autonomy and neoliberal critiques of state authority: “shared emphasis on autonomy, self-sufficiency and a smaller role for the state” (262). I’m interested in this point of MacDonald’s: to find shared interests between groups, as she also suggests a connection of interests with feminism.
By Whitney Millar
Milz, Sabine. “Canadian Cultural Policy-making at a Time of Neoliberal Globalization.” ESC: English Studies in Canada 33.1 (2007): 85-107. Web. 8 Aug 2015.
“Canadian Cultural Policy-making at a Time of Neoliberal Globalization” discusses the reliance of sustaining national identity in Canadian literature on its funding by the federal government. The threat to Canada’s culture, as Miltz claims, comes from “being overwhelmed by internal subversion and foreign incursion.” Including which is the rise of American publication that poses as the main threat, seen as a peril on “our national values, corrupt our literary taste and endanger the livelihood of our writers.” The article also provides a thorough look into the economic impacts throughout Canada’s history (from eighteenth centure bourgeoisie to the 1970s) that has affected the production and publication of their literature. It shows the role of neoliberalism when it came into power after the Second World War when Canada’s protectionist policy towards their culture approach became a part of the discourse of Canadian neoliberalism, “of the latter’s attempt to profitably incorporate the ideological and aesthetic potential of culture and cultural production into its economic potential while simultaneously decreeing as “public interest” the commercialization of cultural goods, policies, and functions.” The article takes a stance on the importance of government’s role in uplifting Canada’s cultural protection and its spread, noting that neoliberalism and influences of economic system as well as American culture of literature only damages the essence of Canada’s background and culture that makes its art so unique and vital. It also aims to reframe the objective “of promoting contemporary Canadian cultural goods and services that are not completely reduced to the logic of the market, an objective whose realization might very well involve protectionist measures, as an issue of democratic decision-making—not “national culture.”
By Angela Olivares
Stanford, Jim. “Canada’s transformation under neoliberalism.” Canadian Dimension. Canadian Dimension, 29 March, 2014. Web. 29 July, 2015.
“Canada’s transformation under neoliberalism” offers a look at, as the title would suggest, the influence that neoliberalism has had on Canadian economics. The article comes from Jim Stanford (an economist and founder of the Progressive Economics Forum) at Canadian Dimension. Stanford’s article is certainly not in favour of neoliberalism, saying it favours the elite, in how “[i]t has clearly empowered and enriched corporations and those who own them, and put workers on the defensive everywhere” without “creating a world economy which is stable, … efficient, or successful in meeting real human needs.” Stanford breaks down three crucial transition points when of neoliberalism: the emphasis of monetary policy in the early 1980s; the implementation of Canada-US free trade in 1989; and the increase in the economy’s reliance on resource extraction and export beginning just after the turn of the century. The article is extremely detailed and is useful for us to hear about neoliberalism’s impact on Canada from an extreme (and self-proclaimed) Left-wing point of view, before we delve into more opinions on the matter.
By Whitney Millar
Taylor, Kate. “How Canadian TV can start thinking really big.” The Globe and Mail, 16 June, 2012. Web. 11 August, 2015.
Kate Taylor’s Globe and Mail article, “How Canadian TV can start thinking really big,” compares Canadian-produced television shows to American and international programs, focusing on American Movie Classics’s (AMC) Mad Men. Taylor is an arts feature writer for the Globe and Mail who is also a novelist. I was searching for an article that would hopefully explain the difference in production quality and appeal between Canadian and American television programs — the medium in which I notice the most obvious discrepancy, more so than film, music, or literature. Taylor notes the difference in budget: “American budgets are bigger, typically $2.5-million to $3-million an hour-long episode versus $1-million in Canada” and explains that “[b]igger budgets provide the money to pay for the fancier costumes and big-name stars that lure viewers … but, more importantly, they pay for more writers, and more time to shoot.” Another interesting point Taylor makes is: “because [Canada’s] risk-averse television broadcasters are failing to back talent in a culture that too quickly turns to airing U.S. television rather than demanding better from its own.” Canadian companies look to create what they believe to be a safe bet with audiences (ie. procedurals and sitcoms), not willing to take chances on different material. This is exactly where programs featuring characters other than attractive Caucasian people could step in. Even the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s (CBC) programs’s casts do not reflect the variety of ethnicities and backgrounds within the country so known for its diversity — one notable exception being the five-season-long Little Mosque on the Prairie.
By Whitney Millar
Vincent, Josèe, and Eli MacLaren. “Book Policies and Copyright in Canada and Quebec: Defending National Cultures.” Canadian Literature. 204 (2010): 63,82,199. ProQuest. Web. 8 Aug. 2015.
The purpose of “Book Policies and Copyright in Canada in Quebec: Defending National Cultures” by Josèe Vincent (a Literature professor at Sherbrooke University) and Eli MacLaren (an assistant professor of Literature at McGill University) is to “describe the twentieth-century emergence of independent trade-book publishing in central Canada as a function of government policy, within an inherited culture and economy of importation” (2). One of the article’s main questions is “why and how has Canada been such an importer of books?” (2), with approximately 78% being exclusive agencies and branch-plant publications, and only the remaining 22% being Canadian titles. Vincent and MacLaren’s article explores the different modes of publishing and varying degrees of success, including the publisher-agent (“the local supplier of a foreign publisher’s book” [2]) and booksellers who also acted as suppliers (who had “significant control” over local supply because they sold wholesale in addition to selling to institutions and individuals). The article also mentions the Writer-in-Residence program (examples of past Writers in Residences at the Vancouver Public Library), which has provided “well-paid, temporary appointments for poets, novelists, and authors of nonfiction at universities and libraries across the country” (6). Vincent and MacLaren explain attempts to fund literature that supported cultural value without regard to the market, such as the Book Publishing Industry Development Plan, “which increased available funding for general operations but stiffened the financial criteria to be met by publishers applying for grants” (7), though funding was cut in 1995 by 55%. Vincent and MacLaren emphasize the importance of local publishing in order to maintain a local voice, stating that “state intervention is crucial to achieving a desirable equilibrium between exposure to the wealth of the world’s culture on the one hand and self-knowledge and sovereignty on the other” (9). From the article, it seems that government grants are an excellent way to fund literature. One point to investigate would be: how successful was this balanced equilibrium at sharing every voice? Looking at these examples, what might be plausible ways to carry forward with programs that will help to focus on cultural exposure, rather than monetary gain?
By Whitney Millar
York, Lorraine. “”He should do well on the American talk shows”: Celebrity, publishing, and the future of Canadian literature.” Essays on Canadian Writing 71 (2000): 96. Web. 6 Aug 2015.
“He should do well on the American talk shows”: Celebrity, publishing, and the future of Canadian literature” discusses the impact of economy and marketing on Canadian literature regarding its exposure, or lack thereof. Though the article centers around the power of celebrities in the production and sales of literature (ie. Oprah’s Book Club), comparing both American and Canadian, York’s study offers an insight on the marketing strategies used that has “repressed” the literary excellence and cultural academia offered through Canadian literature due to “narrow economic interests” (98). York claims her experience in witnessing “a “collective repression” of the economic and cultural production” (98). The article reveals the possible reasons for why Canadian authors might be reluctant to submit their canons built on literary excellence because of economic determinism that denies them away, all based on the realities of publication. She tackles the issue of Canadian literalists as of a weaker critical mind and even weaker literary products within their colleagues of authors. More importantly in the studies York offers, is the question of Canadian’s standing in the literature world with these kinds of controlling economic and marketing impacts in the future. Asking her readers, what would be of future generation of writers who have to come into this kind of economically influenced system – with prizes and awards deemed worthy by celebrities or fame status of the authors. Would their work be inspired purely on what would sell and drop all of their cultural values? Or write for the academia they pursue but end up getting dropped by their unsuccessful sales? The article brings forth a statement that is very much hard to deny by Canadian artists, “Canada isn’t a good place to be known” (99).
By Angela Olivares
Hey Team!
I’m really interested in your Neoliberalism topic! I was just wondering if you could explain how Stanford’s article, and Neoliberalism as a discourse, impacts Canadian literature and specifically Aboriginal Canadian Literature? Do you all think that by scrapping Neoliberalism we are coming closer to a more inclusive Canada that takes a more inclusive approach to being Canadian? Or perhaps this economic disparity is a large reason for the disparity in “Canadian” literature that is lacking ‘aboriginality’– forgive the pun.
Cheers!
Hailey
Hey Hailey,
You bring up some great points. We think it would be interesting to look at the moments that Stanford lays out as “transition points” in Canadian history, as far as neoliberalism is concerned, and connect those with what kinds of work was being published. We don’t think we’ve really gathered enough information to make a definitive statement on our point of view, but theoretically we think if there were representative “committees” or something similar whose duty would be to ensure that different groups’ stories were told, and if there was a guarantee that they would be published, this might offer a more well-rounded solution, rather than simply whichever group has the financial means and networking connections to publish literature.
Hope this answered your question a bit. Thanks for your thoughtful comment! And loving the pun.
-The Team
Our group is looking into Susie O’Brien’s intervention, which advocates for the use of Indigenous studies as a means of connecting the fields of ecocriticism and post-colonial studies among scholars of Canadian literature. Lands inhabited primarily by Native populations are disproportionately selected as sites for resource extraction that irreparably harms the land, its inhabitants, and their culture. What we saw as the unspoken connecting thread between these instances of “environmental racism” was neoliberal economic tactics of the Canadian government. In many of the articles cited in our bibliography, the government’s willingness to cede power to private industry in the interest of economic growth has been devastating to already marginalized populations.
While your group talks about the impact of a neoliberal economy on the publishing industry and the way that potentially silences minority voices in Canadian literature, we look to how a neoliberal economy has adversely affected those voices in real life and the way this translates into literature. York’s article seems to make clear that it’s difficult for just about any Canadian to have a voice in such a cutthroat industry. Of course, most people don’t garner their knowledge of socioeconomic injustices perpetuated by their government and large corporations from scholarly articles like the ones in our bibliography- they do so through engaging with popular culture (for the most part), which means that we need to attempt to give a space for the voiceless to speak within that arena. Is the internet helping to circumvent the exclusionary methods of publishing facilitated by such a neoliberal economy or helping to further balkanize those who are aware and those who remain ignorant to the instances of environmental racism that our articles and books like Thomas King’s “Green Grass, Running Water” help bring to light?
Beyond this, what we’ve seen in our research is that, since neoliberalism is concerned with slashing the fetters that hinder maximum accumulation of profit for corporations, not only are minority voices silenced but a more ruthless approach to environmental exploitation is taken. A healthy economy is important, but the tactics of neoliberalism are fundamentally shortsighted- the lack of regulation simultaneously enables a tyranny of the majority (and eventual disenfranchisement of minority groups) and extraction of resources at unsustainable speeds.
So where do we start- make the publishing industry more equitable so as to enable those without voices to speak, hopefully enlightening the general public on injustices against First Nations peoples and the environment that have become all too commonplace, or do we cut the problem at its source and begin to regulate trade and resource exploration in more rigorous ways? Huge problems. No easy answers. But it should make for an interesting dialogue.
Hi Hayden,
Thanks for starting some dialogue! It’s really interesting to hear about how your team is using O’Brien’s intervention. We looked at hers too.
Like you’ve mentioned, it’s definitely interesting to see how popular culture influences and informs the general public, rather than scholarly articles. Even newspaper/long-form online articles are a harder sell than a quick “tweet” or a humorous approach, such as the success we’ve seen with The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. I think it’s interesting that this seems to be where a lot of young adults/teenagers in particular get their news from, and that these programs run on Comedy Central and HBO, rather than a “proper” news station. I think that the Internet has had a great influence in recent years on these programs reaching more people: short clips can be shared on Twitter/Facebook/Tumblr etc. and garner more attention. So I suppose it doesn’t wholly circumvent exclusionary publishing methods, it certainly has brought a new “channel” to light.
Hi Hayden!
Your research intervention is so close to one of the interventions I was considering, regarding the waterbeds of Canada that gets taken over by infrastructure and stripped away from the owning of the Aboriginals. And now with our neoliberal intervention, it still ties closely with the preservation of Canada’s culture and identity that gets threatened by the neoliberal state, including which getting suppressed by the rise of American culture and control of the market of production and publication. The York article really provided a strong insight into the difficulties faced by Canada and its authors to produce a work of value that encompasses the true wholesome of Canada into their works. It gets trampled by the consumerism deployment of American literature since it offers more of its cultural history and background than the interesting works of, say, John Green’s latest YA novel about girl and boy.
Your point about the role of internet is certainly important, especially since a lot of this (and our fellow classmates’ interventions) revolve around a digitalized structure – it matters what gets talked about, what is in and what is out, what people like to read or visit, their preference on either malls of a natural spot, and so on that is what’s valued in a neoliberal system that we live in. It impacts what gets produced and created, and as you say, the rest (mostly Canada’s history and culture) gets balkanized.
Our intervention does not really take a stance on either neoliberalism or governmental influence but rather we aim to consider both impacts, research their effects, outcomes and history, and consider what it will do (and what it has so far done) to the publication of Canada’s literature. Your points and your sharing of your teams’ intervention have been so useful in shining a light more on the effects of how neoliberalism destroys the very culture of Canada’s structure, “neoliberalism is concerned with slashing the fetters that hinder maximum accumulation of profit for corporations, not only are minority voices silenced” which will greatly help us as we jot down more studies and notes about this side of the spectrum’s influence on Canada’s culture and its production, so thank you!
With regard to the Milz article- it’s interesting to flash back to our earlier discussions of figures like Duncan Campbell Scott, figures who emblematized the hypocrisy of the Canadian government regarding First Nations’ issues, because sections of Milz’s article reminded me that this hypocrisy survived much longer than Scott’s tenure as the Head of Indian Affairs. Milz talks about cultural production and the government’s role in the creation and protection of a national identity in the wake of the Second World War. This is why it helps to interrogate our notions of “Canadianness”- this national spirit that we are often made to feel emerges organically is mostly contrivance. I annotated an article on the Cheslatta T’en people of the B.C. interior, who were pushed off of their land to make way for a hydroelectric dam to power Alcan Aluminum’s operations around the same time of this post WWII cultural boom. When a government prioritizes the market over its people, these are the results.
I agree. The whole article revolves around the importance of government’s role in preserving Canada’s cultural and national identity that gets deprived and threatened otherwise in a market run system. I added the article to our bibliography to have an insight of how literature is handled on the side of a government funded structure, or so at least how it is viewed through the lens of the federal government during a neoliberal state. Yet even with a hypocrisy attached to such claims, it’s vital to note the impact of financially institutionalized publication on literature, in that the “Canadianess” does get stripped away, especially when the American culture is factored in that “threaten[s] [the] national values, corrupt [the] literary taste and endanger the livelihood of [the] writers.” It’s a sort of refreshing ride to read about the government’s goals of preserving Canada’s nationality in a growing neoliberal and privatized world, and certainly important to take into account when researching the stance of Canadian literature, to absorb both sides of the spectrum, both from the neoliberal end to the government side.
But your comment on “When a government prioritizes the market over its people, these are the results” does bring us back to how fickle the government are, especially in handling properties and titles to Canada’s name when there’s a promise of a growing market in return. So it’s definitely a tipping scale situation, one that further research would provide more insight and balance to to provide a clearer outcome for the future of Canadian literature.
Hi team! I love the stuff that you’ve compiled for your bibliography here, but find the article “’He should do well on the American talk shows’: Celebrity, publishing, and the future of Canadian literature” to be particularly fascinating. It is insane how much Canadian literature and culture is influenced by its American counterparts, and it’s always interesting to see how Canadian literary awards, such as the Journey prize, are received by the media in comparison to American awards, such as the Pulitzer—the amount of media attention is vastly different. Maybe it’s because of the huge difference in population between the two countries, but it definitely brings attention to the fact that Canadian national awards and Canadian publishing recognition standards aren’t even close to being on the same level as American ones. I was wondering if you agree with the statement that concludes your annotation: “Canada isn’t a good place to be known” (99). I personally find myself torn, so I was wondering what your feelings were on the matter!
Hava,
What a great quote to pull out – “Canada isn’t a good place to be known.” From my own experience the reach of our community isn’t as wide as it is in Europe or the US. If an artist (writer/etc) becomes successful here, there is a much smaller market to be supported within. If they do a book tour to the major cities in Canada, that’s maybe 15-20 locations. With 52 states, those numbers are going to increase dramatically. No matter how well you succeed in Canada, that seems to barely have any bleed/effect on the American market. Although our government will fund/promote Canadian work, it is very hard to find any help to globalize our work. Usually, any international recognition is received because of international projects (artists from two countries joining together, winning an American/international competition, etc) – Yet to exceed here are we losing our “Canadian Voice”?
You bring up some great points, and I certainly feel the same conflicts as you.
-Jamie.
Hey guys, I’m also repping the ecocriticism group along with Hava and Hayden.
The point about Canadian literature being un-marketable reminds me of the first blog I ever wrote for this class, in which I noted that books advertised as “Can-Lit” seemed to be simply books written by Canadians, without communicating any sense of national identity. It seems like it certainly is unfashionable for your content to appear “Canadian” (I’m reminded of one of the interventions talking about Canadian literature becoming “post-prairie”) and a scary side-effect is that publishers are using the term “Can-Lit” as an empty, ultimately meaningless marketing label.
Some of the research I did seemed to indicate that getting First Nations stories out to the public would be a good way to combat the environmental injustices those communities face, and so reading in your research that institutions of literature have been co-opted into neoliberal systems is a little demoralizing. I like the point in previous comments about other mediums such as the Internet… recently at the library we had an Aboriginal storyteller come in to share stories in a free workshop, which seems like another interesting alternate way to communicate these sorts of ideas, free of the economic concerns that restrict literature. My concern about these new mediums, however, is that this lack of economy may make these mediums ultimately unsustainable. If a person cannot make a living off of it, they will either be discouraged from doing it altogether, or be forced to make it a hobby or secondary part of their life, and these mediums will remain fringe. Do you believe there is a way these mediums can succeed where the publishing industry has failed, or are we better off trying to fix the broken system?
Thanks for your comment Max! That’s really interesting to hear about having an Aboriginal storyteller come in to share stories at the library. The Internet is definitely the most productive way of getting content out there and recognized. I think that these new kinds of media can certainly succeed and sustain themselves as far as reach and intrigue are concerned, but I would worry that, like you said, if they don’t seem profitable, there might be less interest for those funding such products. This is where we start to run into the same problem that so many art forms are facing: in the time where so much content is readily available for free online, how does one make a profit on them? Maybe this is where advertising can come in, the way that YouTube, Spotify and other “free” content providers rely on ads. Sponsorships might offer another solution. It’s certainly not the perfect answer, but maybe it’s a start?
Max!
Ok – yeah the point you made about these mediums remaining “fringe” because they can never really provide a living really hits home; because, well – I grew up in Vancouver’s theatre community and have watched my family/peers constantly doubt their life choices and struggle into old age without anything really to live on. I know an actor that has spent the last 40 years working on large stages and playing star roles and at 60 began a job in the mail room of a corporation just to have job stability for the first time in his life.
So, yes. The fringes are a tough place to be – they offer opportunity, but it isn’t necessarily lasting. But is this going to happen forever? I don’t know. I don’t have the answers. I do think that fixing a broken system is only worthwhile if it has a future having been fixed, and with the current publishing set-up… I don’t know. Maybe to some extent, but certainly not to the pre-internet standards. We are still collectively looking for the next big thing (I believe).
-Jamie.