The Creative Industries in the Commonwealth in a post-Brexit/ Covid-19 era
I have been toying with trends in the creative industries for a some time now. While I initially set out on mapping a landscape from the context of UK cities outside of London - e.g. Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds & Manchester, my adventure has taken me further afield — notably to the Global South.
Let me start with a quick summary of my UK based exploits and/or exploration of the creative industries. The first article “Mapping out the Regional landscape of the British creative industry,” was presented at the British Academy of Management conference in 2017, and then incorporated into the curriculum at the Bloomsbury Institute in London. It was later published with students’ input in a Working Paper Series of the same Institute.
A summary of that published volume was also presented in a blog article, “New Bloomsbury Institute Working Paper focuses on Brexit, Commonwealth and the Creative Industries” in May 2020.
Taking a step back, I was in the Ghanaian capital of Accra for the entire month of January 2020 and was privileged to engage with the recently concluded, and much celebrated “Year of Return” (YoR), which took place in 2019.
As part of the YoR initiative was the agenda of going beyond and consolidating the gains from that Diaspora return initiative — in follow on agenda, “Beyond the Year of Return.” I took the opportunity to present the evidence to a group of postgraduate students at the University of Ghana, “DOME holds 8th Practitioner Series for Postgraduate Students,” capturing the contributions of the creative industries and the pronouncements of Mr Akwasi Agyeman, Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Tourism Authority.
On my return from Ghana in February 2020, I decided to explore potential collaborations in the creative industries space. This was presented to a group of staff and students at the Abertay University Dundee drawing upon further insights from the Arts scene in Dundee, as well as insights from the Dundee Africa Research Network (DARN) event in February 2020. The rationale was simple, as John Paterson, Executive Chairman of the Scottish Africa Business Association (SABA) pointed out:
“Scottish partners are a natural fit for African governments due to the shared history […] Scotland has a long heritage in Africa, not all positive obviously, and not all related to David Livingstone… If you look at Africa’s general needs and at Scotland’s expertise, there’s a huge overlap… The fundamental objective is to make it easier to do business between Africa and Scotland.”
Only recently, I was privileged to participate in a panel consisting of Her Excellency Karen-Mae Hill, UK High Commissioner for Antigua and Barbuda; Alison Cox OBE, Founder and Co-Director, The Commonwealth Resounds! and Head of Composition, The Purcell School, UK; and Andrea Berbegal, Director of Development, Brass for Africa — at the Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) themed “Removing barriers and welcoming all” — organised by the Commonwealth Businesswomen’s Network (CBWN), where I highlighted the need for strategic diaspora engagement in “building better”, as far as the creative industries and the Commonwealth is concerned.
With one in three people on the planet from the Commonwealth, 60% of its people under the age of 30, home to half of the top 20 global emerging cities and adding middle class consumers faster than any other global grouping, the Commonwealth has strong…untapped opportunities for greater collaboration and support for its creative industries. Whether in music, performing and visual arts; film, TV, video, radio and photography; or architecture, crafts and design the creative talent from entrepreneurs across the Commonwealth is world-leading and resilient.
Indeed a recent tender by the Caribbean Export Development Agency seemed to underlie this need.
Ultimately, Brexit has expedited the need for deeper intra-Commonwealth engagement — especially between the UK and its partners in the Global South.
