Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T03:45:34.791Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mobility of Cultures and Knowledge Management in Contemporary Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 March 2012

Sakari Taipale
Sakari Taipale
Affiliation:
Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä, PO Box 35, 40014 University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Email sakari.taipale@jyu.fi
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the aftermath of the fall of the Iron Curtain, the European Union (EU) has included more and more new member states from Central and Eastern parts of the European continent. This enlargement process has increased the cultural diversity of the European community as new languages and minority groups have been subsumed into the EU. It is the purpose of this article to discuss the challenges that result from the EU's enlargement, together with the added intra-European mobility of cultures, that affect the national knowledge infrastructures. Based on recent social scientific scholarship on mobility and cultures, this article proposes that knowledge management in contemporary Europe is not only a technological or organisational issue but also a cultural question. Since people are free to move within the EU, it becomes of greater importance not only to increase our understanding of other cultures but also to ensure that member states can provide public services for EU citizens arriving from other cultural regimes. The paper shows that, because of the increased mobility of cultures, national knowledge infrastructures have to be opened and remodelled. New forms of collaboration between national knowledge systems are needed to guarantee the equal treatment of people representing different cultures in contemporary Europe.

Type
Focus: Knowledge Management in Contemporary Europe
Information
European Review , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , 30 March 2012 , pp. 173 - 181
Copyright
Copyright © Academia Europaea 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Beck, U. (2006) Cosmopolitan vision (Cambridge: Polity).Google Scholar
2.Urry, J. (2000) Sociology beyond Societies (London: Routledge).Google Scholar
3.Urry, J. (2007) Mobilities (Cambridge: Polity).Google Scholar
4.Sheller, M. and Urry, J. (2006) The new mobilities paradigm. Environment and Planning A, 38, 207–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5.Kellerman, A. (2006) Personal Mobilities (London: Routledge).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6.Richards, G. (2001) European cultural attractions: trends and prospects. In G. Richards (ed.) Cultural Attractions and European Tourism (Cambridge, MA: CABI Publishing), pp. 241–254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7.Touraine, A. (2007) A New Paradigm for Understanding Today's World (Cambridge: Polity).Google Scholar
8.Beck, U. and Grande, E. (2007) Cosmopolitan Europe (Cambridge: Polity).Google Scholar
9.Sennett, R. (2004) Respect in a World of Inequality (New York: W.W. Norton & Company).Google Scholar
10.Delanty, G. (2001) Challenging Knowledge. The University in the Knowledge Society (Buckingham: The Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press).Google Scholar
11.Wallerstein, M. (2004) The Uncertainties of Knowledge (Philadelphia: The Temple University Press).Google Scholar
12.Feiring, M. (2009) Hybrid knowledge in mental health field. Abstract presented at ESA 2009 Ninth Conference of European Sociological Association.Google Scholar
13.Zuany, R.G.M. (2009) Building hybrid knowledge at the Intercultural University of Veracruz, Mexico: an anthropological study of indigenous contexts. Intercultural Education, 20, 211–218.Google Scholar
14.Taipale, S. (2009) Recognizing human culture on the internet. The Nordic Journal of Cultural Policy, 12, 73–88.Google Scholar
15.Taipale, S. (2009) Transformative Technologies, Spatial Changes. Essays on Mobile Phones and the Internet. Jyväskylä Studies in Education, Psychology and Social Research, No. 362 (Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä).Google Scholar
16.Rigney, A. (2005) Plenitude, scarcity and the circulation of cultural memory. Journal of European Studies, 25, 11–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
17.Jozwik, F.X. and Gist, J.M. (2009) Angst and Evolution: The Struggle for Human Potential (Mills, WY: Abzar).Google Scholar