Postindustrial Identities in the Cultural and Creative Industries: Exploring Newcastle upon Tyne and Hamburg.

This thesis explores the construction and practice of postindustrial identities of people working in cultural and creative industries in the cities of Newcastle, UK and Hamburg, Germany. Cultural and creative industries have become an important area of research in recent years, and are regarded by many commentators as archetypes of emerging patterns of work in the new postindustrial economy. In seeking to appeal to people who work in cultural and creative industries, cities have experienced, and continue to experience, significant cultural and spatial transformations in order to ‘rebrand’ themselves as ‘cultural’ or ‘creative’ cities with the right material, economic, and cultural landscapes to attract cultural and creative workers. Although it is argued people working in cultural and creative industries are drawn to particular urban environments because of the importance of place for practices of identity construction, very little research concerned with the cultural and creative industries has paid attention to issues of identity. Drawing on mixed-methods qualitative research comprising ethnographic work, narrative interviews, and a method of urban encounter inspired by Walter Benjamin, this thesis makes a case for understanding these ‘artistic identities’ as constructed through negotiations in relation to a social, cultural, and spatial landscape influenced by the dialectical relationship between art and economy, and the romantic image of the autonomous, independent artist. This thesis suggests that the artistic identities of people working in the cultural and creative industries are contradictory, ambivalent, and heterogeneous, and significantly influenced by material, social and cultural conditions of work related to the postindustrial economy and the transformations of urban space

Against Inclusivity: Boundaries, Bad Concepts, and why we should resist Universalization

The idea of inclusivity is everywhere. From myriad The idea of inclusivity is everywhere. From myriad sources and encompassing a range of more or less broadly understood definitions the concept of inclusivity and its general, implicit ideology that in some sense people are better understood by abstract ideas of ‘sameness’ than particular and material conditions and experiences, and consequently that boundaries, whether definitional, logical, social, or spatial, are things to be ignored, transgressed, or even abolished, is an increasingly pervasive part of social life. In this paper, I question the logic underpinning the concept of ‘inclusivity’, and suggest that it is a bad concept of which we ought to be wary. Drawing on Adorno’s negative dialectics (1973), I suggest that inclusivity, far from being a complement to diversity – with which it is frequently paired – can be seen as its opposite; and that the uncritical acceptance of inclusivity as a social desideratum not only lacks coherence, but can be read as a particularly insidious form of universalization, through which significant material and social inequalities can be rendered invisible, marginalized, or ignored. This paper invites a discussion on the importance of recognizing the value of particularity; on when (and where) boundaries may be sensible, valuable, and desirable, and how research and practice should resist the pressures of universalization

The geography of ambiguity: a reflection on agency and morality in urban negotiation

Geography, as a perspective, draws great strength from its ability to understand the multifaceted nature of people’s relationship to place. This is especially significant in the understanding of cities. Since urbanization was recognized as a key feature of modern industrial society, urban landscapes have been understood as fields quite unique in terms of their diversity, intensity, and potential for encounter. Concomitant with this potential, however, is a rather deep ambivalence – a degree of variability that makes urban landscapes in a sense unknowable, or unpredictable, and therefore as something never ‘settled’ but always requiring everyday negotiation. In this paper, I reflect on the everyday ambivalence of urban landscapes and suggest that while we often view this ambivalence in terms of constraint upon agency – what Simmel understood as the retreat of personality – it can be read as part of a broader issue concerning the importance of value in everyday life, and of the capacity, indeed, perhaps the necessity, of agency, and of everyday decision-making, in understanding urban landscapes. In particular, I suggest that this adds a moral dimension to everyday negotiations and, by extension, to the way in which urban landscapes themselves should be viewed. Drawing on de Beauvoir’s (2018) arguments about the moral responsibilities inherent in the notion of ‘freedom’, this paper suggests that the ambivalence and moral ambiguity of urban encounter and everyday negotiation can be seen to reinforce the necessity of choice and of morality in understanding urban landscapes. It consequently also has a bearing on how we view cities as sites of difference, and for urban community

The Quest for Economic and Social Inclusion: a response from culture and aesthetics

Although it is not new, the quest for economic and social inclusion has become a commonplace feature in political programmes in recent years. The language of inclusion has become ingrained in much political, civil, and everyday discourse, and the ideal of ‘inclusion’ and ‘inclusivity’ has been readily accepted by many public and private organizations and institutions. Particularly in recent years, much has been made of the important role of cities in realizing the ideal of economic and social inclusion. At the level of urban governance – and this can be seen reinforced in the UK government’s ‘levelling up agenda’ – urban (re)development as an engine of economic and social revitalization is seen to be especially significant in both promoting urban growth and pursuing economic and social inclusion. Much of this redevelopment has focused particularly on the role of culture – of cultural amenities, a cultural landscape, and a cultural ‘presence’ for cities – in urban revitalization projects, which promise, or, some have suggested, ought to promise, an economically and socially ‘inclusive’ future. This paper takes a critical look at the idea of economic and social inclusion from the perspective of culture and aesthetics. I argue that culture is a crucial, but often unacknowledged, companion of economic and social inclusion. I further suggest that this cultural perspective – or what I call here the ‘view from aesthetics’ – raises some important issues about the approach to economic and social inclusion and its potential, particularly in the context of urban regeneration

The Uncomfortable View from the Ivory Tower

The history of universities is a complicated story of challenges and crises through which their nature and character has often been called into question. As we proceed through the early decades of the 21st century, universities are perhaps once again in a precarious state. Have they lost their way? Considering arguments on higher education by the Prussian polymath Wilhelm von Humboldt and the British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, I argue that a central aspect of the character of universities is that they are home to uncomfortable ideas. In this regard universities – perhaps even more now than they were before – are a very particular kind of institution, and very particular places, in which uncomfortable, critical, and conflicting ideas, as well as the academic attitude with which such issues can be approached and appreciated, must be enshrined and protected. This, I suggest, is not just a matter of how universities operate. Rather, it is fundamental to the significance of universities as social institutions that not only produce knowledge and educate, and which are important centres of innovation, interdisciplinarity, and at times unorthodox ways of thinking, but which are also crucial symbols of the values of open and knowledge-driven societies

INTERIM REPORT: for distribution and discussion How can the Newcastle Diocese Safeguarding Team better support Incumbents, Parish Safeguarding Officers and Churchwardens in the effective implementation of Church of England safeguarding policy in practice?

The purpose of the report is to share initial findings from a mixed methods research study aimed at understanding the experiences of Incumbents, Parish Safeguarding Officers and Churchwardens in implementing safeguarding policy in practice, within the Diocese of Newcastle. A mixed methods self-completion electronic survey was distributed across the Diocese of Newcastle, containing a range of open and closed questions so that both quantitative (statistical) and qualitative (narratives) data could be generated. The survey was completed by Incumbents (n=18), Parish Safeguarding Officers (n=39) and Churchwardens (n=43)

Students’ help-seeking for experiences of interpersonal violence: how can universities respond?

The prevention of interpersonal violence and abuse for students in Higher Educational Institutions and the development of appropriate institutional responses to support those affected are at the core of the Universities UK’s (2016) Changing the Culture Report on Violence Against Women, Harassment and Hate Crime. Whilst the provision of robust reporting and monitoring systems on-campus are thought to be essential in helping to ensure the safety of Higher Education students, the findings of research discussed in this article suggest that more fundamental work is needed in order to encourage students to view the University as a source of help in the event that they experience interpersonal violence, particularly when this takes place ‘off-campus’. The research, which surveyed students attending Northfacing University in England, found that help-seeking practices seem to be shaped both by the location in which interpersonal violence occurs and by whom it is perpetrated

Anderson localization of walking droplets

Understanding the ability of particles to maneuver through disordered environments is a central problem in innumerable settings, from active matter and biology to electronics. Macroscopic particles ultimately exhibit diffusive motion when their energy exceeds the characteristic potential barrier of the random landscape. In stark contrast, wave-particle duality causes subatomic particles in disordered media to come to rest even when the potential is weak -- a remarkable phenomenon known as Anderson localization. Here, we present a hydrodynamic active system with wave-particle features, a millimetric droplet self-guided by its own wave field over a submerged random topography, whose dynamics exhibits localized statistics analogous to those of quantum systems. Consideration of an ensemble of particle trajectories reveals a suppression of diffusion when the guiding wave field extends over the disordered topography. We rationalize mechanistically the emergent statistics by virtue of the wave-mediated resonant coupling between the droplet and topography, which produces an attractive wave potential about the localization region. This hydrodynamic analog, which demonstrates how a classical particle may localize like a wave, suggests new directions for future research in various areas, including wave localization, many-body localization, and topological matter.Comment: Title changed, slight format change in figures, and text rewording, no changes to argument or result