Erasmus+! Is it for us too?
[This article was originally published in French, translated in English by EPALE France].
Co-operating with peers in Europe and internationally is no simple task! Participating in exchanges with the support of European funding may seem inaccessible! For local associations, being supported by a programme that focuses on education and training like Erasmus+ seems impossible!
Many cultural, socio-cultural, youth and popular education associations look at information on European and/or international cooperation projects and say to themselves: "that’s not for me! Europe would never finance one of my association’s projects".
This feeling of a lack of legitimacy in accessing European funds is, in our opinion, linked to a French environment that maintains the confusion between popular education and socio-cultural animation and builds its public policies around cultural and socio-cultural activities in a separate and distinct way.
As a local cultural association for youth in France and popular education, Samba Résille has always defended the idea that every individual has the right to access to an artistic practice, even as an amateur, from taking lessons to presenting shows. This notion goes against the beliefs of many cultural actors who claim to be "professional" and who do not always see this militancy in a positive light for fear that it poses a threat to their employment opportunities.
Samba Résille brings this militancy to life through an inclusive collective utopia which was initially named "les délires associés" and whose actors today reaffirm their desire to defend this spirit by claiming a place as an “Unidentified Cultural Organism” in the cultural and creative landscape.
This observation, which is still relevant today on corporatism in culture, was already made 20 years ago by Pierre Mollinier, a specialist in cultural policies in France, in his book Les associations dans la vie et politique culturelles: regards croisés (Perspectives on associations in cultural life and policies), published in 2001. Indeed, the author emphasises a paradox in the classic distinction between the "associative being" and "associative activities"; the "cultural" sector is more interested in the latter, in its productions and contents, than in the former, nonetheless crucial for founding the public and private sociability desired by the legislator in 1901. As in philosophy, it could be said that the cultural sector has favoured the accidental to the detriment of the essential. Or that it has "instrumentalized" the law to prioritise products (works of art, shows, cultural facilities, etc.) to the detriment of agents and actors (amateurs, spectators, visitors, creators, members of associations, etc.). In fact, most cultural managers, with the help of their administration, tend to put the spotlight on "professionals" who specialise in "excellence", which they oppose to the approximate amateurism of volunteers: “Curiously, the cultural field is thus a very prolific creator of associations, but does not place an exemplary value on the fact of being an association.”
Moreover, the confusion maintained between popular education and socio-cultural animation is the result of public policies that have neutralised its critical power, and which have resulted in many associations self-censoring themselves to correspond to what is expected of them. Yet, popular education has nothing in common with the notion of "leisure", which, as Jean Foucambert of the French Reading Association writes, is "time well spent, time to forget about work, to recover from it, and then to get back to it.” “Popular education is a cultural practice of resistance”, wrote Belgian pedagogue Jean-Pierre Nossent. Or more precisely, the implementation of a culture of resistance. Resistance against anyone who wants to reduce individuals and social groups to objects for capitalism, which tries to chain them to the service of consumer goods, both through their inclusion in its system and through the exclusion of some.”
Culture is a tool of dignity for peoples. But by “culture” we do not mean the production of "works" by recognised "artists" that the public must admire in order to be recognised as "cultivated". The important thing, once again, is to encourage people to create. It is less a question of bringing people to "culture" than of promoting the expression of their own culture, or at least their identity. This is precisely the goal of Samba Résille!
Intense international cooperation involving and associating many European, African and Latin American partners, led to more than 1,000 international mobilities between 2016 and 2020. It brought about the dissemination of works and the promotion of many local and international artists, creating spaces for cross-residences for artistic and cultural operators and training seminars for cultural operators and youth actors. As a result, we can testify that Erasmus+ has acted as a framework for the support and development of our cultural projects, where the French Ministry of Culture provides little support for amateur practices, leaving it up to local authorities, at their discretion, to deploy a policy dedicated to amateur artistic practices.
We can affirm that Erasmus+ has provided added value, and continues to do so, in implementing cooperative actions that have laid dormant due to a lack of means and encouragement from local and national policies; this European programme has enabled us to ostensibly improve our capital of experience but also a wealth of skills among our members and those of our European and international partners, both employees and volunteers.
So when you hear someone talking about European and international cooperation, cultivate your own legitimacy in taking part! For a long time, we too thought it wasn't for us! For a long time, we were told it was for others!
Erasmus+ offers more than physical and geographical mobility, it allows you to be actors of transformation in a world that is rich in cultural diversity just waiting for you! :-)
Discover our projects https://samba-resille.org/international-platform/
Mr. Hamza MEDKOURI, Director of Samba Résille
