Linda Constant

Balance of culture: the perpetual process of sociocultural, political and economic equilibrium between distinct entities and perspectives; a preliminary condition of utilizing soft power and cultural diplomacy.

Here it is—this is the brief version of my working definition of balance of culture (which I will usually refer to as BoC). I’m sure the IR-savvy have more than an inkling of my reference—I am indeed branching out from the classical concept of neorealist theory, balance of power (though since we’re talking about culture instead of power here, the implications of this definition obviously diverge quite a bit from BoP--in other words, it's improbable that substituting terms that apply to BoP will necessarily qualify in BoC). I believe that if we were to look at a network which displays various entities maneuvering throughout the broad system of global communications, BoC may be a condition that leads to the utility of soft power as well as cultural diplomacy. BoC would be a valid condition only after a consensus of identity by a group or nation is established in some form (like “yogis” or “Incredible India,” respectively).

Unlike the traditional concept of BoP, BoC exists at both the local and global level. In other words, the “distinct entities and perspectives” in BoC can refer to a community context (contending sides in a city regarding gentrification of a particular area, for instance) or between nation states in their recurring struggle to achieve--or maintain--a certain status or condition (take the case of Turkey, which has very intriguingly played the cultural balancing game vis-à-vis the EU and the Muslim world).

In our highly interconnected world today what is considered local or global can be extremely subjective and, ultimately, I think that the exchange of ideas and signifiers are beyond these rapidly aging categories. This blog is my documentation and examination of reports, opinions, events and images (and who knows what else) that involve communities, regions and nations and their processes of utilizing certain cultural identities or perspectives in the public realm. The objectives of these courses in the public eye will undoubtedly be broadly different, from gaining political support to making money to simply trying to be hip and stylish at the moment. I do anticipate adjustments to my definition of BoC as this process unfolds, and I welcome any comments or suggestions to contact me at Linda at balanceofculture dot com.

I graduated from the University of Southern California where I majored in International Relations. Afterwards I worked at a law firm as well as a dispute resolution nonprofit organization while contemplating law school. Instead I decided to pursue my long time interest in human rights issues, which led me to spend quality time working at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, alongside excellent human rights policy NGOs that tirelessly labored on passing resolutions regarding human rights violations in North Korea. Back in the States, I briefly continued this route in DC before working a few years at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California. I knew I’d never be satisfied with just a BA so I left the mother of all think tanks to enter USC’s graduate school, where I received my Master’s in Public Art Studies. During the two years of graduate school, my husband Nikos and I opened a small contemporary art gallery in Culver City in order to maximize my art school experience outside of the classroom (the gallery has since moved to a location that is currently being reconstructed). The experiences we collected during those two years are priceless.

My intentions were to fuse the IR world with the world of visual culture via soft power and cultural diplomacy--particularly because I had already focused on the two latter concepts for years. Since the subjects of IR and art seem so far apart from each other (which is untrue but the way they are taught certainly makes it seem so), there is an unfortunate void of graduate programs that cater specifically to this integration. As such, I had to construct this “program” myself--and I’m thrilled I did. When most people hear the phrase “public art studies” they tend to think of sculptures in front of offices buildings, billboards, monuments, murals and the like. While there is nothing wrong with any of these things, I think that public art is also a concept that has long been utilized by entities in contexts that, strangely, have barely been approached by the art world (neither in discourse nor lexicon).

My graduate thesis investigated the role of the international exhibition as a tool of cultural diplomacy—namely, postwar Germany with documenta in 1955 and post disaster New Orleans with Prospect.1 in 2008. In my second year of graduate school I was fabulously guided through the nuances of cultural diplomacy—and public diplomacy—with Professor Nicholas Cull at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School for Communication, which profoundly influenced my graduate school experience and still stick with me today. This process of writing my thesis is pretty much how I arrived at the idea of BoC and I soon realized that, after much searching, this concept has not been explored to the extent that (I believe) it should. So here I am--and thank you for visiting my blog!

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