Planning Culture: Cultural Policies, Unesco and Brazil (1966-1988)

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to delimit the notion of cultural policies coined by Unesco between 1960 and 1980. So as to do it, documents which gradually give shape to this definition are analyzed. In this scenario, particular attention is paid to the way in which cultural policies get to be understood as a series of governmental actions aiming at meeting the cultural needs of the citizens. At the same time, an understanding of culture as a right and the adoption of an expanded notion of culture – often qualified as anthropological – underlies this perspective. In order to reflect on the scope of these elaborations at national levels – a counterpoint to the bibliography that tends to analyze the Organization’s documents in isolation –, I argue that this conceptual framework gains eloquence in Brazil only in the process of redemocratization. This analytical movement leads us to believe that the effectiveness of the ideas produced at international level depends on cultural and political national situation.