{"title":"Governing the creative city: the practice, value and effectiveness of cultural intermediation","authors":"B. Perry","doi":"10.1332/policypress/9781447344995.003.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781447344995.003.0008","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter rejects the binary between top-down and bottom-up approaches to the creative city. It argues that we need to pay greater attention to the ‘grey spaces’ in the cultural urban economy, where a range of engagement practices are being undertaken by local cultural organisations under difficult circumstances. This chapter re-appropriates the vocabulary of ‘cultural intermediation’ to reveal, revalue and reassess the role of cultural organisations that operate within local contexts to bridge between formal and informal ways of understanding culture and creativity. It shows how local organisations are engaged in meaning making, market making, community making and making do under conditions of austerity. We need a more ecological approach to the creative city, in which alternative spaces, practices and norms are made visible and valued","PeriodicalId":182739,"journal":{"name":"Cultural intermediaries connecting communities","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116555561","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From the inside: reflections on cultural intermediation","authors":"Y. Jones","doi":"10.1332/policypress/9781447344995.003.0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781447344995.003.0016","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter draws upon the author’s personal experience gained in a career as an arts practitioner, between the production of performance and other forms of production as well as policy formulation and analysis. It reflects upon and assesses intermediation processes ‘from the inside’, reflecting particularly on the culture of the art world and the aesthetics of cultural production – in intent and outcome. The chapter suggests how this is an issue often neglected in discussion of the politics, policies and practicalities of participation and intermediation. It commences with a reflection on the culture of practice that has nurtured social engagement in the arts, exploring the work of Visiting Arts, where the author is Executive Director, reflecting on the evolution of the ‘Square Mile’ project. This venture is international in scope and gives a wider perspective on intermediation and engagement and the particularities of those projects and milieu dealt with across this book.","PeriodicalId":182739,"journal":{"name":"Cultural intermediaries connecting communities","volume":"81 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125692249","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Intervention: Force deep","authors":"Chris Jam","doi":"10.1332/policypress/9781447344995.003.0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781447344995.003.0013","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter comprises an original poetic commission by Chris Jam reflecting on creativity and community in the Balsall Heath neighbourhood of Birmingham, UK. The poem was the key output from a community film making project in the neighbourhood, led by the author, exploring residents’ feelings about Balsall Heath, its many textures and rhythms. The poem is the author’s personal response to the raw material gathered in the film-making process, giving a unique artistic response to an area that has a long history of people working together to create a better community.","PeriodicalId":182739,"journal":{"name":"Cultural intermediaries connecting communities","volume":"76 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124988240","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Towards cultural ecologies: why urban cultural policy must embrace multiple cultural agendas","authors":"B. Perry, J. Symons","doi":"10.1332/policypress/9781447344995.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781447344995.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter draws on local ethnographic work undertaken in Ordsall, Salford UK. The Ideas4Ordsall initiative comprised 25 ideas for cultural activity generated by local people, funded by the AHRC Connected Communities programme. People’s ideas for cultural activities included dog-walking, beekeeping, photography, craft, cooking, bike workshops, a community festival, a community noticeboard and a graphic design company. We argue that local people’s ideas speak back and challenge narrow framings of the creative city, with a focus on connecting community; curating history; developing social enterprise; capturing a sense of place and sharing knowledge. Although disconnected from mainstream cultural activities, our process revealed a rich and vibrant community in the area, running through family networks where people socialise daily with each other, and find culture in community, mutuality, sociality, history and place. We draw on our study to argue that progress towards cultural democracy can be enhanced through anthropological understandings of culture as webs of significance and the patterns through which people accommodate their daily activities","PeriodicalId":182739,"journal":{"name":"Cultural intermediaries connecting communities","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125278471","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mapping cultural intermediaries","authors":"L. D. Propris","doi":"10.1332/policypress/9781447344995.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781447344995.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter undertakes the first value chain analysis of cultural intermediation, breaking the process down into three stages: creation; commodification; and outreach. Based on a quantitative analysis of the industrial sectors identified as being part of the creative economy, the chapter uses location quotients to analyse the geographic distribution of different parts of the cultural intermediation value chain. It concludes that, like the cultural sector itself, key elements of the intermediation value chain are disproportionately concentrated in south east England and the wealthier parts of English cities. The outreach stage of the value chain – the part most closely linked to communities – is particularly concentrated in city centres. This suggests that a policy debate is needed on the distribution of outreach intermediation activities if the desire is to provide easier connections for deprived communities into creative economic activities.","PeriodicalId":182739,"journal":{"name":"Cultural intermediaries connecting communities","volume":"438 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122788250","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘An area lacking cultural activity’: researching cultural lives in urban space","authors":"S. Warren","doi":"10.1332/policypress/9781447344995.003.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781447344995.003.0006","url":null,"abstract":"Focussed on the Balsall Heath area of Birmingham, this chapter explores the specific ways in which individuals are situated by intermediation practices, policy imperatives, discourses and imaginaries as cultural consumers, participants and sometimes producers. In tandem with the attention afforded its demographic diversity, levels of deprivation Balsall Heath has been an object of cultural policy initiatives seeking to engage disadvantaged and ‘hard-to-reach’ communities. The chapter first outlines the particular socio-economic character of the area and discusses the method of walking interviews that was employed to engage with residents. The method does not offer am exhaustive picture of cultural engagement, conceived instead as a means of ‘thinking with’ participants within a local landscape of social, material and religious relations that shape individual agency.","PeriodicalId":182739,"journal":{"name":"Cultural intermediaries connecting communities","volume":"110 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117229480","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Participatory budgeting for culture: handing power to communities?","authors":"Phil Jones","doi":"10.1332/policypress/9781447344995.003.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781447344995.003.0009","url":null,"abstract":"The concept of participatory budgeting was developed as a means of bypassing corrupt local elites and creating better governance in developing countries. Applied in the global north, it attempts to give power back to communities to set spending priorities within their neighbourhoods. This chapter examines two attempts at participatory budgeting for the arts in Birmingham – the city council’s Arts Champions scheme and a participatory action research project led by the author. Two key problems highlighted by the case studies are identified. First, funders being reluctant to hand full control to neighbourhoods over how spending is undertaken, with a tendency to push communities toward the funders’ spending priorities. Second, and related to this, is a lack of capacity at neighbourhood level to move beyond the “ideas generation” stage, toward having the confidence to design and commission cultural projects to realise those ideas. This speaks to wider problems in deprived communities – notably education, skills and confidence – that cannot be tackled simply by adding cultural activity.","PeriodicalId":182739,"journal":{"name":"Cultural intermediaries connecting communities","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121531265","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction: Bringing communities and culture together","authors":"Phil Jones, B. Perry, Paul Long","doi":"10.1332/policypress/9781447344995.003.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781447344995.003.0001","url":null,"abstract":"Introducing the book as a whole, this chapter examines how the arts sector and wider creative economy are evolving, particularly in the context of austerity. The idea of cultural intermediation is introduced, building on the work of Pierre Bourdieu to examine how organisations and individuals attempt to use cultural activity as a tool to improve the lives of individuals living in deprived communities. Austerity economics has had a major impact on the work of intermediaries, with communities simultaneously made responsible for solving their own socioeconomic problems, while the institutions with the capacity to mitigate inequality have been eroded through funding cuts. The cultural deficit model is challenged, noting that exposure to arts activities in and of itself does little to overcome entrenched inequality and social exclusion. The chapter also introduces the wider case studies used within the book, primarily examining the UK, with a particular ethnographic focus on the neighbourhoods of Ordsall in Salford and Balsall Heath in Birmingham.","PeriodicalId":182739,"journal":{"name":"Cultural intermediaries connecting communities","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130511927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Engineering cohesion: a reflection on academic practice in a community‑based setting","authors":"Arshad Isakjee","doi":"10.1332/policypress/9781447344995.003.0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781447344995.003.0012","url":null,"abstract":"Social policies in the United Kingdom have undergone a ‘community turn’ over the last two decades, with emphasis increasingly on ‘community cohesion’ rather than ‘social disadvantage’ and exclusion. Whilst academics have explored this trend, there is less reflective work on academic community-based practice that operates on the same terrain. This chapter offers critical self-reflection of our academic practice within the community budgeting and commissioning phase in Balsall Heath, Birmingham. Reflecting on the processes of bringing different parts of the Balsall Heath community together for the project, we consider not just the challenges of ‘constructing community’ in this way, but also, the logics that underpin it.","PeriodicalId":182739,"journal":{"name":"Cultural intermediaries connecting communities","volume":"97 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117318368","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Intervention: Balsall Heath legends","authors":"Saadia Kiyani","doi":"10.1332/policypress/9781447344995.003.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781447344995.003.0010","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter reflects on a photographic commission that emerged from the participatory budgeting exercise examined in Chapter 9. The author wanted to build on her existing artistic skills to celebrate the contributions of local residents to helping the community in Balsall Heath. The artistic freedom given by the commissioning process was unusual, as was the level of support made available to help the author to realise her vision. The outputs were a successful exhibition as well as some of the work appearing on local buses, sharing the work with the wider community.","PeriodicalId":182739,"journal":{"name":"Cultural intermediaries connecting communities","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131129290","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}