Policy recommendations

Shifting systems level beliefs and behaviours

Recommendation 15: Development and application of an Equity Framework

UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003) calls for the “[adoption of] a general policy aimed at promoting the function of the intangible cultural heritage in society, and at integrating the safeguarding of such heritage into planning programmes.”

At a high level, we recommend that the City of Vancouver develop an equity framework to better include and understand the needs of Vancouver’s existing and growing diverse populations. The topics discussed in this report do not exist in a vacuum, but rather have complex intersectionalities, which can only begin to be understood from a framework of equity. For example, conversations about contributing to Chinatown’s character must be rooted in an understanding of the cultural blindness of orientalism and racial stereotyping.

The equity framework would apply to all aspects of municipal governance, such as services, outreach and engagement, decision making, hiring, and other key functions of the City. Multiple forms of equity, such as gender, race, disability, and economic, should be taken into account.

This framework would include a holistic recognition of culture (beyond Arts & Culture) and from there, approach policy-making and implementation through a culturally appropriate lens. As discussed in our Vancouver Chinatown Food Security Report (2017), we recommend that the City recognize the importance of culture and enact culture as the 4th pillar of sustainability. Similar equity-based approaches can be found in UNESCO’s definition of Intangible Cultural Heritage where culture “is recognized as such by the communities, groups or individuals that create, maintain and transmit it—without their recognition, nobody else can decide for them that a given expression or practice is their heritage.” This speaks to the self-determination approach where a healthy community is one that has the right and the ability to shape their own present and future.

This equity framework will be critical in our collective work to further define Chinatown’s intangible cultural heritage—a key part of the community’s bid for a UNESCO designation. UNESCO states that intangible cultural heritage “has capital importance as it allows cultural diversity to be maintained through dialogue between cultures and the promotion of respect towards other ways of life.” The phrasing “other ways of life” comes from principles of recognizing that diversity is beyond a settler-centric celebration of perceived differences; it’s about meaningfully working alongside diverse people towards empowering their autonomy and actualization.

This gives credence to the understanding that there should be more emphasis put towards the community’s right to self-determine their future. Further work will need to be completed to design a tangible and measurable framework that covers the various forms of disparities that our communities face and hold.

Policy recommendations

Shifting systems level beliefs and behaviours

Recommendation 16: Improve social cohesion and decreasing social distance

As shown in this report, parallel economic and social systems exist and are pronounced in Chinatown. While there are multiple parallels in existence in all neighbourhoods to a degree, we believe that it is highly pronounced in this neighbourhood due to its demographics, history, and recent changes.

As identified in the Resilient Vancouver Phase One Engagement Report (2018), social cohesion and community connectedness were of key interest to the City. The engagement report explores several reasons as to why there are high levels of social isolation, including the “lack of understanding about Vancouver’s history and cultural heritage.” This cultural blindness contributes to the reinforcement of injustices and inequitable flow of knowledge and resources.

To fully recognize historic ethnocultural spaces and parallel social and economic systems will:

• Meaningfully shift the orientation of policy from “Place-making” to “Placekeeping;”
• Support the maintenance and growth of Chinatown’s social infrastructure as something critical to residents, businesses, and other groups; and
• Broaden the definition of “food assets” to include cultural food assets for their role in ensuring residents have access to healthy, culturally appropriate, and affordable food, along with a place for community identity and social connection.

This approach should be applied across the city to historically significant and culturally specific neighbourhoods where there are clear parallels in social and economic systems. We recommend that there be further public discourse to recognize the histories and relations with the Coast Salish peoples, along with Hogan’s Alley due to the community’s shared space and history

As our findings showcased and we have discussed in our conclusion, integration is not always possible nor is it ideal. Policies should start to recognize these parallels and their histories; measures of social cohesion and social distance both reflect the segregation that we rarely talk about as a city.

There are also UNESCO implications beyond just recognizing and valuing diversity through intangible cultural heritage; “within the context of globalisation, Intangible Cultural Heritage has capital importance as it allows cultural diversity to be maintained through dialogue between cultures and the promotion of respect towards other ways of life.” Intangible cultural heritage, as UNESCO states, will contribute “to social cohesion, encouraging a sense of identity and responsibility which helps individuals to feel part of one or different communities and to feel part of society at large.”

While several actions are discussed in the recommendations to “Addressing Parallel Systems,” we believe that focusing on increasing civic and public knowledge of our history and cultural heritage will result in an emergence of strategies and tactics that will reflect a more equitable reality.