Overcoming obstacles to minority cultural expression
Side Event to the UN Forum on Minority Issues – 17th Session: The representation and self-representation of minorities in public spaces and discourses
Overcoming obstacles to minority cultural expression
29 November 2024, 13:00 to 14:00
Room XXI, Palais des Nations
Co-sponsors: Minority Rights Group, Permanent Mission of Austria
This session of the UN Forum on Minority Issues (UNFMI) invites stakeholders to explore the representation of minorities in public spaces as well as their self-representation. This year, the UNFMI gathers alongside the minority artists who have participated in this year’s International Contest for Minority Artists. The theme this year is ‘Memory in the Present’, reflecting the reality that minorities are routinely excluded from national historical narratives, while they often carry with them the legacies of unaddressed historical injustices.
This side-event therefore focusses on the importance of minority cultural expression as a channel for self-representation. For many minorities, cultural expression is a crucial means to affirm and develop their identities. At the same time, culture can be a challenging space for many minorities, with governments curbing self-representation either expressly through censorship or by limiting access to the public space. The growth of social media as key platforms for cultural expression has provided many minority artists and activists with the means to reach far wider audiences than previously imagined. This comes with risks, however, as many of them are ever more exposed to hate, threats and negative stereotyping.
The panellists will explore what cultural expression means to their minorities, while describing the obstacles they face and the ways in which they and their communities overcome them. One of the panellists will be a minority artist who has participated in the International Contest, who will reflect on the importance of their artistic practice as a means of minority self-representation. The side-event will also deepen the audience’s understanding of the intersectional aspects of minority cultural expression as a means of self-representation, especially for minority women and minority women with disabilities.
Two experts, the UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues and the Co-Executive Director of Minority Rights Group International (MRG), will then share their reactions and reflections after hearing these testimonies, and the floor will be open for questions or brief comments from the audience.
Moderator
Ms. Vera Fuchs, Permanent Mission of Austria to the United Nations in Geneva
Minority Panelists (5-7min each):
- Ms. Luciana Viegas, Director of Movimento Vidas Negras com Deficiência Importam (VNDI – Black Lives with Disabilities Matter) (Brazil)
- Accessibility and Intersectionality: Absence of Representation of Minorities with Disabilities in the Construction of Memories
- Mr. Ntakirutimana Richard, Exectutive Director, African Initiative for Mankind Progress Organization – AIMPO (Rwanda)
- Managing Batwa Indigenous Knowledge And Traditional
Cultural Expressions: Impossible in Rwanda
- Ms. Dharsika Sivapragasam, Human Development Organization (Sri Lanka)
- Cultural expression of Tamil Malayaga community
- Mr. Francis Estrada (Filipino artist, United States)
Discussants (5-7min each):
Mr. Nicolas Levrat, UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues
Ms. Claire Thomas, Co-Executive Director, Minority Rights Group International
Interactive Discussion (10-15min)
Featured image: Members of Uganda’s Batwa community perform a traditional dance for tourists. Currently, the culture of the severely marginalized Batwa is largely performed for tourists as a source of income, mediated by third parties. Credit: Thomas Alboth.
