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Wiggle Room d o r i s s o m m e rCulture is the area in which humanist values are created and established. . . .That is why we interpret it in the broadest possible way to include everything from customs and traditions of distinct sectors that make up Chilean society to the most developed forms of creative and artistic expression: from mass entertainment and recreation to the most specialized manifestations of art. . . .In culture thus conceived tradition lives alongside novelty, historical memory alongside utopia, what we have been and what we can be. . . .Culture is, therefore, a dimension of life that involves all the inhabitants of the country, that which confers a sense of belonging, or a project, of community and nation, and that which spiritually binds them all with the rest of humanity.-Concertaciónde partidos por la democracia, ''Programa de gobierno'' Documentos diario La Época (Santiago, 1989) Some years ago, Bogotá, Colombia, was the most dangerous city in Latin America, if you believed the U.S. State Department advisory not to go there.At airports, o≈cial warnings singled out Lagos, Nigeria, and Bogotá as places too troubled to tra≈c in tourism.On this count, Bogotanos themselves didn't doubt the North American advice to keep a safe distance from their own city.Many had lost confidence altogether, and those who were not emigrating tended to live very sheltered, private lives.The situation seemed hopeless, given the general level of corruption that could turn any investment against itself.More money for economic recovery might deepen the pockets of drug dealers; more armed police would increase the number of guns and the level of violence.What intervention could possibly make sense in this stagnant and volatile situation?In 1995, the newly elected mayor of Bogotá, Antanas Mockus, proposed a bold program of cultural agency, a term this book proposes to name and recognize as a range of social contributions through creative practices.Simply stated, Mockus put culture to work.