April 2023— People from different neighbourhoods and social and cultural groups in the municipality of San Luis Potosí, in Mexico, built a renewed legislative base and proposals so that more people exercise and defend their cultural rights, to recognize the value and function of different traditional and current cultural practices and expressions, to promote economic growth, balance urban activities with the environment, and build spaces of peace and dignity for all people while strengthening the right to the city.
UNESCO in Mexico and the Municipality of San Luis Potosí built La Carta de San Luis Potosí por los Derechos Culturales (The Charter of the City of San Luis Potosí for Cultural Rights) through multiple workgroups and consultations. This Declaration was later linked to the municipal cultural regulations to recognize, guarantee, and promote cultural rights, the right to the city and the revitalization of the diversity of cultural expressions, opening up new possibilities for sustainable development.
The Charter will make it possible to promote the territories and the culture of the communities. It responds to a historical demand of the people and of society beyond governments: Culture as a basic need
The Charter was built from a perspective that recognizes culture as a central dimension in all fields of human life and in its relations with the environment, so it must be incorporated into governance, public policies, and the economy, in actions for the guarantee and promotion of human rights, to recognize the diversity of identities and realities, from food to daily forms of life and coexistence.
An example is the relationship between culture, daily life and the night, as occurs in entertainment activities, when we are going out dancing or to a concert when we are moving to go to a traditional ceremony when we are working on an artistic work or an investigation… in several night jobs. In each one of them, worldviews and knowledge are put into practice… Culture expresses itself, but it needs conditions to do so, recognizing its complexities. This occurred during the collective development of the charter, in which the need to recognize what they called the right to night was placed.
This renewed vision of existing ways of life, the right to participate and enjoy cultural life and the city was reflected in the "Guidelines to broaden the vision of cultural rights for the promotion and development of creative capacities" of the Charter of the City of San Luis Potosí for Cultural Rights.
The right to night is the right of all people to enjoy, create, live and participate in the creative and cultural processes that take place at night, moving around safely in each space
These guidelines make it possible to respond in a more relevant way to the needs of neighbourhoods and communities, from their identity, their culture and territories, their linguistic and spiritual practices, and expressions, to undertake concrete actions that contribute to sustainable development.
Street food is an example of this. It has its cultural heritage of flavours and traditions, says Pilar Pérez, promoter of gastronomic culture in San Luis Potosí. He stressed that the Charter allows, for example, to recognize that food from street stalls and small venues is part of the gastronomic cultural assets of the city so that more people taste dishes that they would not dare taste, opening new horizons for economic and social development.
The reason for these possibilities is that the Declaration enunciates a wide catalogue of cultural freedoms and a series of notions of public policy built from the people, from their neighbourhoods, worldviews, and their realities: the recognition of cultural diversity, the access and full enjoyment of cultural life and creativity. On the other hand, it also offers tools to strengthen participatory governance and to guide government budgetary, operational, and technical actions.
The charter provided the possibility of relating culture from the citizenship and with it the certainty that any culture, the central, middle and periphery zones, exist and are valid
Valeria and Diana Palafox, internationalist and cultural promoter respectively, highlight the position of equality and dignity pursued by the Declaration for the full enjoyment of cultural rights and the right to the city, inviting people to listen and address the problems of vulnerated social groups, as well as respecting their cultural expressions, such as trans, lesbian and cisgender women, people with disabilities, migrants, older persons, intersex, non-binary, bisexual and transgender persons and gay men. "Placing the needs of these groups in the front line makes us avoid, or at least begin to talk about how to avoid and reduce violence in artistic and cultural spaces of the city", says Diana.
The instrument is not static and is not anchored to the city from which it emerged. Rather provides guidelines on how to promote actions, policies and programs by the different orders and levels of government, institutions, civil organizations and the private sector. Also so that people can recognize, exercise and defend their cultural rights, elements that can be taken up and adapted for other models of citizen participation in different territories.
It is an opportunity for culture to be a fundamental part of the integral development of the city and not be relegated so that we all can recognize, exercise, and defend our cultural rights. Because I also have the right to know and live my culture
The Charter is a declaration and one of the results of a one-year and nine-month project, guided by the Municipality of San Luis Potosí and the accompaniment of the UNESCO Representation in Mexico. More than 1,100 people who live in or who are in mobility in the capital of San Luis Potosí got involved for the building of the Charter and participated in more than 35 activities such as conversations, round tables and focus groups, whose discussions were systematized by a group of experts. In addition, the Charter achieved a binding and legal scope by being incorporated as part of the Municipal Regulation of Cultural and Cultural Rights and the municipal public administration system.
Find out the details of the processes, dialogues and activities that were part of the project and that allowed the construction of the Charter of the City of San Luis Potosí for Cultural Rights, HERE.
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