A | The Role of the Arts and Culture in Delivering Prosperity

Summary

Our starting point is a familiarity with academic critiques of culturally-led ‘regeneration’ and economic development. The links between cultural investment, rising land prices and gentrification are very well demonstrated, while cultural economies themselves often develop labour markets that are marked by social stratification and patterns of exclusion as well as by exploitative or poorly paid work. We have chosen to work with arts and cultural organisations that are themselves challenging the narrow economically-focussed script of the ‘creative economy,’ in order to see if there is a role for cultural investments beyond this.

The outcomes from these smaller-scale investments may not fit the requirements for economic gains that public policy has focused upon but require us to rethink the notion of regeneration itself.’ This can take a variety of forms from the cultural activism associated with demonstrations and occupations; to discursive resistance to chain stores and the loss of independent businesses; to performance-based interventions that have been used in planning processes to reveal different conceptions of what citizens might want from development.

We work in three case study areas, though other place-based and other cases studies may also be included as further partnerships develop. These are 1) An urban high growth area (Islington, London): an area with the characteristics of hyper-gentrification and displacement, well-supplied with all manner of arts, cultural and leisure offerings. We are particularly working around the Finsbury Park area, 2) An urban low growth area (Stoke on Trent): an area that has suffered hugely from deindustrialisation seeking to re-invent its economy around craft manufacturing and lifestyle businesses; 3) A rural area (Hay-on-Wye, Wales): a town that is renowned for its literary festival and bookshops. Hay and the surrounding areas are attracting incomers who are seeking a particular version of the ‘good life’.

A1 | Culture in the Community

This project explores the role of arts and cultural activities as co-producers of a set of meanings about the good life, communicating and elaborating on visions for living better and more sustainably. The overall aim is to explore what role cultural activities pay in understanding of the good life and in sense of place and identity. The research involves focus groups and interviews and to investigate how cultural participation helps shaping people’s understanding of the ‘good life’ and particularly its relationship to sense of place. In particular we are focusing on the role of cultural activities in fostering inter-generational relationships. Alongside this, we are tracking the connection between localised cultural economies (number of cultural businesses, cultural institutions, cultural investment and consumption and so on) and wider socio-economic trends within these local areas to examine issues of gentrification, displacement and culturally-led economic development.

A2 | Culture as ‘good work’

One of the primary ways in which the arts contribute to sustainable prosperity is through the provision of meaningful work. Drawing on McIntyre’s work on practices (1981)—which understands various skilled, complex and collective activities as possessing their own ‘internal’ goods—and Hesmondhalgh and Baker’s (2011) work on culture as ‘good work,’ Project A.2 examines the non-material benefits that artists draw from their work and how they balance this against material and other needs. We also explore the various networks and organisational forms—such as co-ops, freelancing, portfolio working—which people adopt in order to negotiate the precarious nature of cultural work. The polarisation of the cultural workforce, and the increasing exclusion of working class, ethnic minority, female and disabled cultural workers is apparent in national statistics but we need to understand how these processes operate at the local level. In each of our case study areas, we have conducted focus groups with young people (16-19 year olds) with aspirations to become professional cultural producers to understand the opportunities for and barriers to working in the cultural industries. In addition we have conducted a series of depth interviews with a variety of cultural workers at different stages in their working lives to investigate the trade-off that people make between income and more meaningful work, the constraints on these choices and the rewards they expect and achieve.

A3 | Creativity in everyday life

Drawing on other recent academic research such as the AHRC’s Understanding Everyday Participation Project, this project explores the role of creativity in everyday life. Project A.3 draws data from the same case study areas as in A.1 and A.2, but it deepens and widens this focus. For example, we have a PHD project which looks in depth at everyday cultural participation the form of line-dancing and darts playing in Stoke-on-Tent. The meanings that people attribute to these activities and the role in plays in ageing, relationships and sense of places are the focus of this exploration. In addition, with wider geographical lens we have looked at the role nature writing and the graphic novel as forms of environmental activism. We are progressing our work on nature writing with a competition for new nature writing, which will focus on people and places often marginalised in current nature publishing and will result in an online book, due out 2020.

A4 | Drama and the good life

The dramatic form has a long pedigree in elaborating contested visions of the good life. From Plato’s Dialogues to 1970s TV sitcom The Good Life, drama has been used to explore both moral and pragmatic dimensions of our ideas about prosperity. One of our PhD projects looks at drama as a form of political speech through two case studies of recent productions. We are also developing a professional radio drama drawing inspiration from the work of CUSP, building on the PI’s own 25 year experience as a radio dramatist.