The Importance of Foreign Artists in Nationalism - Research Proposal Example

The Contribution of Arts to a More Sensitised Nationalism Institution: Name: Introduction Nationalism is the spirit of belonging that exists in the whole nation (Barragan, 2013). It is what defines citizens and contributes loyalty to their country. There are many factors behind strong nationalism, but arts take centre stage because it portrays people’s cultures. The works of art whether written, painted or oral depicts the aspects of the nation. This paper presents a research project on how arts contribute to sensitised nationalism among the citizens. This is because there are some aspects of strong nationalism may hinder co-existence with other multinationals or may be a limiting factor towards gender sensitivity. The research project seeks to find out importance of foreign artists in nationalism and influence of un-indigenous history on nationalism. The other factors that affect sound nationalism include contribution of female artists, product-country image and literature marketing of the arts. 1.0 annotated bibliography Hardaker, G & Sabki, A. (2007). “Black day to freedom”: Informal multicultural education initiative supporting expressions of refugee identity by migrant artists. Multicultural Education & Technology Journal, 1(2), 80-99. This journal presents a research on asylum seekers and how nationals treat them. The authors coined the title “Black Day Freedom” from an artist participating in a workshop where participants expressed different views on social movements, globalisation and identity (Hardaker & Sabki, 2007). The leader of the workshop is asylum seeker who sensitises nationals on the need to respect refugees and those seeking asylum through multicultural education and visual art expression. The authors use ethnographic approach or methodology in describing multicultural informal education that helps refugees express their identity through migrant artists. Underlying assumption is that nationalism hinders social well being of refugees and individuals seeking asylum. The host countries through strong nationalism may look down upon these foreigners. Harder and Sabaki in their research explains how refugees can use arts to convince nationals to embrace co-existence. They argue nationalism that respects everyone irrespective of where he or she comes from gives the country a good reputation. This text is relevant to this research study since it provides a detailed overview of the importance of multicultural educations in building strong nationalism. Most significant, these two authors cite the discriminatory background of social migrants and refugees in UK thus building relevance of this article to the research (Hardaker & Sabki, 2007). Eventually, the authors, in page 97, explain lessons learned from their detailed research. In summary, the article gives some lessons learned from the research that include the importance of cultural integrity how multicultural education empowers the freedom of expression and the need of countries to embrace understanding in the modern world and religion. O’Dowd, M. (2012). Engaging non-indigenous students in indigenous history and “un-history”. An approach for non-indigenous teachers and a politics for the twenty-first century. History of education review, 41(2), 104-118. This journal article best suit this study because it is most recent (published in 2012). The author, Mary O’Dowd is a senior lecturer and carries out researches in indigenous knowledge’s and she also majors in indigenous research. History of a country is its cultural heritage that is passed from one generation to another. These historical perspectives influences people’s behaviours and dictate whether a person is patriotic about his or her culture. O’Dowd analyses resistance of non-indigenous students to their indigenous history and aims at improving their engagement in native history. She uses praxis methodology as a theoretical approach in discussing the reason behind this resistance. The author talks about diminishing Australian history due to little emphasis on the need to embrace un-indigenous history. History as an art gives the country its national identity and results in a more sensitised nationalism (O’Dowd, 2012). The author presumes that modern students do not put emphasis on indigenous and non-indigenous history thus their commitment to nationalism is in question. The learners should try to foster understanding with non-indigenous people so as to achieve a more acceptable form of nationalism than their contemporary forms of nationalism. A brief revisit of the Australian history is significant in this study because it explains how nationalism of Australia originated (O’Dowd, 2012). The author also argues that broader historical perspective prepares Australian students in appreciating history of Australian arts (colonial) and general culture than narrow historic learning. She further adds that this move will enable students to understand national image of Australia. However, this research infers that Australia should adopt a modern political approach where there is non-indigenous history ownership. Politics is part of art of the history thus it is also an art and it makes the journal article very relevant to this research. Rentscler, R. (2007). Painting equality: female artists as cultural entrepreneurial marketers. Equal opportunities international, 7(1), 665-677. Female artists have done a great job in the cultural entrepreneurship because they market these products. Rentscler (2007) challenges the traditional perspective of entrepreneurship and tries to incorporate the feminist theory in cultural entrepreneurship. She studies the role of two women artists. The author digs into history of early female artists and later applies modern theories of entrepreneurship into their marketing criteria. This helps in identifying innovation, change adaptability and market approaches of these two women. The author also argues that these two Australian women artists operated their marketing activities at the international scale. This gives the nation a pride and a sense of respect for women as dedicated entrepreneurs who are striving to improve marketing in the arts sector. It is a clear indication on how arts play a vital role in ensuring a sensitive nationalism that integrates everyone irrespective of their gender. Rentscler (2007) explains the reasons to why the article chooses feminist because it is the women who brought a sense of modernism in arts industry through proper marketing. In this era, modernist arts incorporated theories that marginalised women and students learned outside classrooms with most taking part in museums. In page 668, the author talks about cultural entrepreneurship and compares it to social entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurship effort is a milestone towards a better economy for the country since nations define themselves by life styles that its economy dictates. The author is only trying to insinuate contribution of women to the economy through arts. One of the women, Margaret Preston lobbied for a distinctive nature of the Australian national art. She advocated her moves through her literally work by attacking the traditionalism. The other woman, Thea Proctor brought a new approach that was more modernism oriented since the sense of modernism was growing fast. Her works prevailed in fashion and arts after the World War I. The author combines three concepts that include innovation and creativity, change adaptability and market approach. D’Astous, A., Voss, Z. G., Colbert, F., Caru, A & Caldwell, M (2008). Product-country images in the arts: a multi-country study. International marketing review, 25(4), 379-403. This is a journal article whose authors are reputable university lectures from different countries. The article best suit this project since the authors come from reputable universities like Sydney, Boconi University and southern Methodist University in Texas. The study examines impacts countries can on the consumption of artistic products (D’Astous et al 2008). On the other hand, the article explores variables explaining how consumers of arts develop perceptions on countries producing cultural products. The big number of authors made is possible to conduct surveys in many countries as a methodology for their research. They presented a variety of nine products with respect to countries reputation from about sixteen countries. The results show that product familiarity and consumer openness to home country biases influence product-country images of arts. The scope of this study explains how intangible, aesthetic and complex art products have affective responses within the consumers. This means that valuable arts improve the nationalism of a country through affective recognition. O'Reilly, D. (2011). "Mapping the arts marketing literature", Arts Marketing: An International Journal, 1(1), 26 – 38. The author hails from university of Sheffield, in the UK. His work is relevant to this study due to his good knowledge on management. This paper tries to map marketing of the arts of journal literatures. Arts contribute to national pride of the country since marketing the arts at international level gives the country a good reputation (O'Reilly, 2011). Eventually, this move achieves a sense of belonging or nationalism. The author depended much on secondary information by extensively researching titles and abstracts to find out the relationship between arts and literature. The author then classified the papers using topic criteria. Finally, he drew visual maps to show how different literature covered the topics that are relevant to the study. This is a research the author primary based his research on secondary sources. In his findings, the author infers that relationship between marketing and arts is extensive as well as multi-disciplinary. The research implies scholars who are marketing arts have a reason to smile since the area is outside the ordinary marketing sector. This argument explains how national scholars can market their works of art and contribute to the economy of the country. Nationalism entails all efforts that nationals put towards building the economy of the country so as to gain international recognition (O'Reilly, 2011). By using the maps, this journal article gives the reader an easy task of identifying existing works on the same topic or area and makes it possible to identify areas that scholars have not covered. The journal is important to arts studies since there is a growing trend in the arts marketing through numerous researches. 1.1 The scope of the research This research aims at finding out the arts can contribute to sensitised nationalism. In most cases, nationals cling to their national values without considering others. Countries have diverse populations including refugees and asylum seekers. On the other hand, there is the need to embrace nationalism that respect for both genders. Women have been voiceless in national matters, but trough arts; they are becoming more active in national issues. This research paper represents its findings based on the secondary research that it has carried out in around ten works of literature. 1.2 Importance of foreign artists in nationalism A good nationalism strategy must respect foreigners, and it should not harass them. There has been an increasing concern on xenophobia as nationals do not want to co-exist with other nationals. However, the way a country treats immigrants may make it popular or unpopular. For instance, when the Australian Paul Assange was seeking asylum in some countries, he was declined in most countries (Mcgovern, 2012). This shows how countries are not yet ready to accept other nationals. In addition, refugees are also receiving the same treatment. In the real sense, national policies are views of the citizens collected and integrated thus they influence the constitution of the country. When a country has a bad reputation on handling critical issues, it depicts the attitude of the whole population. Some countries have for many times protested against foreigners in their country citing economic and social concerns. However, works of art have played a big role in encouraging individuals to tolerate one another. Hardaker and Sabaki (2007) in their research found out the contributions of foreign artists in ensuring that countries have nationalism that do not infringe on the rights of immigrants. When a country accepts refugees or asylums, it is an act of humanity. The citizens should treat them with respect. On the other hand, arts have become a global idea and people from different walks of life enjoy them. For example, tourism industry heavily depends on the cultural heritage and it is one of the world’s leading economic sectors. The world has not played a deaf ear to this xenophobia, and many people have diverted to visual arts to help people understand the importance of good co-existence. An example of such outstanding effort is the building of a workshop for expression of different views about socialism, identity and globalisation. In this context, the asylum seeker is trying to influence good nationalism through multicultural education and visual arts. Refugees come from different backgrounds and their views cut across diverse social origins. However, this report finds out that some scholars are against the concept of nationalism. They claim that nationalism stresses negative elements and creates artificial divisions between non-natives and natives (Barragan, 2013). They compare nationalism to utopia of the twentieth century. The argument is that national governments have limited control over citizens. This is evident in the recent riots seen in Arabic countries (The Guardian, 2013). The recent world has become global, and most people wonder whether it is important to consider the originality arts. Art exhibitions have gone international, and people do not defy arts by the geographical pedigree. 1.3 Importance of un-indigenous history on nationalism This concept shows the importance of a country history in developing a better nationalism. Modern students do not have an interest in the un-indigenous history (O’Dowd, 2012). What they do not know is that history broadens their way they perceive the world. Non-indigenous population may include refugees and individuals seeking asylum. In Australia for instance, this neglect has led to the diminishing of the country’s history due to perspectives of the modern students (Rentscler, 2007). In the Australia history, the country had to endure marginalisation that the colonial era presented to them. Art and sculptures found in this country should remind the citizens of the path they took in order to gain sovereignty and nationalism. It taught the indigenous community needs to foster mutual understanding and respect as elements of good nationalism. It is also necessary for the country to adapt an approach that do not specify who are indigenous and who are not. In history, there are two ideologies on the origin of nationalism; primordial and modernist (O’Dowd, 2012). Primordial explains how nationalism reflects the ancient period and how humans evolved to organise themselves. This is a heritage which is an art of the country because it is passed from one generation to another. Modernist perspective describes how nationalism is a recent occurrence and requires modern structures for its existence. People do not accept non-indigenous history because it may have elements that are inferior to them. Teachers of arts have the obligation to sensitise their students on the need to accept indigenous and non-indigenous history because it results in a sound nationalism. They should make the learning of non-indigenous history interesting by the use of props and organise exhibitions for the students. 1.4 Product-country images in arts and how it affects nationalism In this context, the researcher examines impacts of consumption of artistic products of a specific country. There are variables that explain how of art products perceive the countries of origin. Surveys reveal how product popularity and customer openness to his or her home country biases affects the image of a country’s image (D’Astous et al., 2008). On the other hand, intangible, complexity and aesthetic nature of the products influences consumer responses. The more the art is valuable the more the country has a strong nationalism. The best method to examine consumer behaviours is by consumer ethnocentrism method. The consumers believe that their products are superior to others. In arts for instance, most citizens perceive buying foreign products as being unpatriotic. The nationals must first promote their culture before going extra miles of buying goods beyond their national scope. People who believe in their national product have strong nationalism, and they will feel offended when people look down upon their product (Benny, 2012). The only problem with strong nationalism is that it hinders regional integration. It can result in neighbouring conflict (Benny, 2012). 1.5 Female artists as cultural entrepreneurial marketers equal opportunities international Studies show that women also have influence in nationalism through works of art (Rentscler, 2007). This research examines their contribution in the cultural entrepreneur. In many parts of the world, women are still struggling to survive in the male dominated society that most nationalism provides. However, the trend has changed, and a valid nationalism is one that respects women’s contribution towards the development of the country. It has not been an easy task for women for women to find their place in nationalism. It took the effort of pioneer women artists to show how women have a significant contribution in the arts industry. The female artists throughout history are instrumental in the adoption of the modern entrepreneurship that incorporates innovation, market approaches and change adaptability in the marketing of artistic products. A country that allows women to exercise their innovativeness is poised to achieve a sound nationalism. Interestingly, cultural entrepreneurship has contributed to the identification of female entrepreneurs as primary contributors in sensitising the country to foster gender equality in nationalism. The sense of modernity did not happen haphazardly in the arts industry because women helped bring change in the arts industry through proper marketing (Rentscler, 2007). Initially, theories of modern arts marginalised women but cultural entrepreneurship of two women, Margaret and Thea, in the post war eras was a milestone in achieving gender sensitivity in nationalism (Rentscler, 2007). Women as caregivers in the house preserve a country’s culture by maintain the status quo in the households. This presumption is also vital in women artists as they are known to be conservatives and can maintain the culture of the country from generation to generation. They are not much involved in modernism that has rocked most of the male artists. In history works, women contributed in the building nationalism of most countries through literature by writing poems that advocated for equality of everyone. Most significant is the contribution of modern women artists in music. They bring forth teachings that encourage nations to respect women. This shows how art has contributed to accepted forms of nationalism. 1.6The role of literature marketing (of arts) in nationalism Proper marketing of arts contributes to economic growth of the country (Baniotopoulou, 2001). Economic advancement gives the country a name through especially if it meets the international standards. This move encourages scholars to work extra hard in their marketing publication that enlightens the rest of the world on the types and values of the arts that exist in the country (O'Reilly, 2011). It is a marketing strategy that other contemporary marketing initiatives have not exploited. Usually, entrepreneurs market their products through the social media and other technological innovations like the internet. However, marketing in this context entails the act of encouraging the rich brains of the country as a national pride to direct their efforts in marketing the arts of the country through mapping areas that fellow scholars have not identified. Eventually, the country will achieve better social well being through the use of arts as a strategy to improve its economy and national pride (nationalism). Baniotopoulou (2001) explains how the movement of western countries in the post-industrial era has put the present day art museum in a significant position. The stakeholders have realised the contribution of arts in the economic development. The example is Bibao in the 1980s that used arts to attract many tourists to improve the infrastructure of the region. It shows how public and the private sectors integrated their efforts to receive economic gain from the art museum business. This is a clear indication of how arts contribute to economic well being of a country. However, countries must make use of untapped marketing strategies like the use of scholarly articles directed to social elites and academicians throughout the world (O'Reilly, 2011). Using arts for economic benefits is becoming part of the strategies of the modern museums. Baniotopoulou (2001) associates modern arts with publicity and consumerism. Modern scholars can take advantage of the commercialisation of arts and do extensive marketing through academics publications to expose the art of the country for economic realisation and national pride. Conclusion In summary, a sensible nationalism depends on any factors. This research finds out that foreign artists have a role to play in the development of a country’s nationalism. They influence the host country by building platforms in the form of workshops to help sensitize the country on the need to embrace social tolerance. On the other hand, the paper finds out the importance of non-indigenous history and how it enlightens students with regard to non-native history. Female artists also have a role in building a good nationalism. This study infers that women have shaped the history of many nations using their artistic works. On the other hand, the product-country image can give a nation a good perception and vice versa. Finally, there is a new trend in marketing arts known as literature marketing that involves scholars marketing their country’s arts using their literature works. They map the areas that other scholars have not discovered. The above efforts aim to sensitise citizens on the need to embrace good nationalism because it has many advantages that the paper discusses in details. References Baniotopoulou, E. (2001). Art for Whose Sake? Modern Art Museums and their Role in Transforming Societies: The Case of the Guggenheim Bilbao. Journal of Conservation and Museum Studies, 7(1), 1-5. Barragan, P. (2013). Push to flush/ the rhetorics of nationalism. Retrieved from http://artpulsemagazine.com/push-to-flush-the-rhetorics-of-nationalism Benny, G. (2012). The Indonesian nationalism and perceived threats of neighbouring countries: public opinion toward the Asean Community. International Journal on Social Science Economics and Arts, 2(3), 38-44. D’Astous, A., Voss, Z. G., Colbert, F., Caru, A & Caldwell, M. (2008). Product-country images in the arts: a multi-country study. International Marketing Review, 25(4), 379-403. Hardaker, G & Sabki, A. (2007). “Black day to freedom”: informal multicultural education initiative supporting expressions of refugee identity by migrant artists. Multicultural Education & Technology Journal, 1(2), 80-99. O’Dowd, M. (2012). Engaging non-indigenous students in indigenous history and “un-history”. An approach for non-indigenous teachers and a politics for the twenty-first century. History of education review, 41(2), 104-118. O'Reilly, D. (2011). "Mapping the arts marketing literature", Arts Marketing. An International Journal, 1(1), pp.26 – 38. Rentscler, R. (2007). Painting equality: female artists as cultural entrepreneurial marketers. Equal opportunities international, 7(1), 665-677. Mcgovern, R. (June 22, 2012). Will Eduardo give Assange Asylum? The real times news, Retrieved from http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=8511 The guardian, (2013). Arab and Middle East Unrest. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/world/arab-and-middle-east-protests Read More