NFT: A New Tool for Cultural Diplomacy

 Dr. ASLI VAROL

Cultural diplomacy, in its most general definition, is the promotion of a country's cultural items abroad. Although cultural diplomacy is a field of public diplomacy, today it has expanded its borders with the participation of non-state actors in the diplomacy process. In this context, businesses, cultural institutions, NGOs, think tanks, universities, cultural communities, artists and art communities, digital communities and the media are actors of cultural diplomacy. Cultural diplomacy strengths the soft power of a country and mediates the establishment of ties between countries and societies with different cultures. With the expanding range of actors, state and non-state actors will benefit effectively from the innovations brought by digitalization.

Strengthening Soft Power 

Joseph Nye points out that the soft power of a country rests primarily on three resources. These resources are the culture, political values and foreign policies of that country (Nye, 2008: 96; Nye, 2009). Nye expresses culture as a set of practices that create meaning for a society and says that it has many manifestations. In this context, a country may have high culture appealing to the elite such as literature, art and education, and popular culture focused on mass entertainment (Nye, 2008: 96).

Examples of soft power and cultural diplomacy existed long before today. For example, it is known that after its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, the French government sought to restore the nation's shattered prestige by promoting its language and literature through the Alliance Francaise, created in 1883 (Nye, 2008: 96). Berridge and James state that cultural diplomacy is the promotion abroad of a state’s cultural achievements. In countries such as France and England, cultural diplomacy is mostly the promotion of their languages.  In cultural diplomacy, countries send cultural attachés to embassies. And also, private organizations closely associated with the diplomatic service, such as the British Council, are sometimes employed. Such organizations have their own offices and libraries in major foreign cities. Cultural diplomacy is broadly defined to include advertising achievements in the arts, humanities, social sciences, science and technology. Cultural diplomacy places special emphasis on developing ties between parallel institutions at home and abroad, for example between local and foreign universities (Berridge & James, 2003: 62).

Tokenization of Cultural Heritage Objects

Digitization has also revolutionized the art world. The emergence of digital artworks and the growth of the NFT (Non-fungible token) market has turned the art world's attention to crypto artworks. Using blockchain technology, NFTs turn digital artworks into registerable and tradable assets. However, NFTs have unique identities that no token can copy; they cannot be divided and reproduced. In short, NFT can be defined as a unit of data on the blockchain that represents ownership of a unique digital item such as a sound file, text or image. The interest in NFT works of art paves the way for the cultural elements of the countries to be present in the digital world by tokenizing. In this context, NFTs are emerging as new tools in cultural diplomacy.

In South Korea, the Kansong Art and Culture Foundation planned to tokenize the National Treasure No. 70 Hunminjeongeum Haerye to raise funds for the foundation. The Kansong Art and Culture Foundation operates the country's first private museum, the Kansong Art Museum, which was founded in 1938. The 33-page book from the Joseon period details the proclamation of Hangeul, the Korean writing system, and the uses of the letters. Also named Memory of the World by UNESCO, the copy is recognized as an invaluable piece of cultural heritage that demonstrates why King Sejong of Joseon created the Korean writing system for humans (Yuna, 2021a). In late July 2021, the Kansong Foundation tokenized National Treasure No. 70 Hunminjeongeum Haerye to raise funds to operate the foundation. Thus, the book was tokenized as NFT and became the first national treasure to be traded on a blockchain platform (Yuna, 2021b).

UAE has prepared the first NFT stamps in the region to promote its national identity on the global platform. To commemorate the UAE's National Day 2021, Emirates Post Group pioneered the printing of postage stamps as the first company in the region to issue NFT stamps. Four different NFT stamps were issued to coincide with the country's Golden Jubilee 2021 celebration. Each of these four different NFT stamps carries a distinct design that focuses on the UAE national theme. UAE envisioned these innovative NFT stamps to have a digital twin on the blockchain and be sold as digital collectibles linked to their physical stamp counterpart (Office of Public and Cultural Diplomacy, 2021).

As it is understood, presenting the NFT version of a country's cultural heritage and promoting a country's national identity through NFT are important steps for cultural diplomacy in the digitalized and globalized world.

 

References

Berridge, G.R., Alan James (2003): A Dictionary of Diplomacy, Second Edition, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Nye, Joseph S., Jr. (2008): “Public Diplomacy and Soft Power”, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 616, March 2008, 94-109.

Nye, Joseph S., Jr. (2009): “Get Smart Combining Hard and Soft Power”, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 88, No. 4 (July/August 2009), Published by: Council on Foreign Relations, 160-163.

Office of Public and Cultural Diplomacy (2021): “Emirates Post unveils region’s first NFT Stamp”, 29 November 2021, UAE, https://opcd.ae/emirates-post-unveils-regions-first-nft-stamp/.

Yuna, Park (2021a): “Kansong Art and Culture Foundation to tokenize national treasure as NFT”, Jul 22, 2021, The Korea Herald, http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20210722000897.

Yuna, Park (2021b): “Art Center Nabi, Kansong Foundation launches heritage NFT Project”,  Aug 7, 2021, The Korea Herald, http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20210805000824.