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Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the injunction of art as a lever for social transformation in development programs financing cultural and creative industries in Africa. It will be based on the study of a program carried out by the French Development Agency and the French Institute.

Paper long abstract:

This paper aims to contribute to the reflection on the integration of cultural and creative industries in development and cooperation policies on the African continent, that has increased since the 2010s. In particular, it focuses on a predominant paradigm in these policies: the injunction of art as a lever for social transformation and economic development. The reflection will be based on a specific case: a program launched in 2020 by the French Development Agency (AFD) and the French Institute (IF), "Accès Culture", which finances cultural mediation projects aimed at creating "social links" for "audiences far from culture" throughout the African continent, all artistic disciplines included. Beyond this program, AFD, among other institutions, seeks to contribute to the structuring of an economic sector and ecosystems, while emphasizing the social responsibility of artists (Bertho, Gaulier, Le Lay, 2022; Andrieu, 2010). The paper will question the political and ideological expectations carried by these institutions, their "normative frameworks" (Müller, 2012). On the other hand, it will also question how the apparently "apolitical" semantics (Ferguson, 1990) mobilized is perceived by the cultural operators of projects. The analysis will be based on doctoral research begun in 2020, with a fieldwork conducted both with institutions and project leaders and episodic meetings between the former and the latter (in particular a workshop of several days organized in 2022 to exchange around the key notions of the program).