An Interdisciplinary Examination of the Interpretation and Delivery of Social Inclusion in the Arts

Britain's current Labour government has tied the arts to its broader agenda of promoting social inclusion (DCMS 1998; OCMS 2000). This thesis takes this policy shift as a starting point and critically interprets the nature of the collective and individual understandings of culture it makes evident. Informed by the work of Arnold (2003 [1867-69]) and Williams (1958), it considers how such apparently contradictory schools of thought are implied not only in Labour's cultural policy for inclusion, but also in its delivery within the arts, a field perceived to have its own inherent issues of exclusivity and inclusivity (Bourdieu and Oarbel 1991). Employing methodologies from art history and the social sciences, the thesis takes an interdisciplinary approach to contextualise the development and practice of the social inclusion agenda within the arts (Silver 1998; Hooper-Greenhill 2000a; Bevir and Rhodes 2003). In this way, the research aims to add two key areas of consideration to the debate on social inclusion and the arts: the community or the 'field' of the arts and the individual practices within that field (Bourdieu 2000). The thesis looks at case study projects in three art galleries in Liverpool: the Bluecoat, Tate Liverpool, and the Walker Art Gallery. By contextualising the historical developments of each organisation, the thesis examines how each gallery, its staff and its local public may be interpreting the policy of social inclusion in 'real' terms (Bevir and Rhodes 2(03). Through semi-structured interviews with both practitioners and participants involved in the interpretation and subsequent delivery of policy and through the participant observation of particular projects, this research examines the interpretation of social inclusion within practice. The provision of access to art galleries for individuals labeled 'socially excluded' is not necessarily deemed vital to practitioners or even all participants; rather it is provision of access for individuals who may not feel comfortable in an arts setting. The perception of art's exclusivity is seen to change via the different capacities in which both the arts organisations and the individuals working within them may allow perceived boundaries of exclusion to be negotiated. Opposed views on the value of culture are actually conjoined to promote forms of inclusion that are mediated and shaped by 'interpretive communities' (Hooper-Greenhill 2000a). By highlighting the negotiated nature of exclusion as a process of learning (Wenger 1998), this study aims to contribute to the construction of a more reflective practice in the arena of social inclusion and the arts

Arts councils, policy-making and "the local"

David Stevenson - ORCID 0000-0002-8977-1818 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8977-1818In the British Isles, national policies for the arts are primarily viewed as the responsibility of arts councils with statutory duties to distribute state funding that meet the requirements of both ’arms-length’ principles and national strategic frameworks. This paper explores the tensions between policy making for the nation-state and for ‘the local’ through comparative research on the arts councils (and equivalent bodies) in England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Drawing on policy analysis and in-depth qualitative interviews with senior representatives from these organisations, it explores their notions of, responsibilities to and affiliations with ‘the local’, particularly in relation to institutional partnerships and their perceived relevance to local strategies for the arts. Findings suggest that despite their different models and relationships to the nation-state, and the disparities in the scale of investment, these national policy bodies commonly rely on networked governance to facilitate their relationship to ‘the local’ thus reproducing national interests, limiting the localised agency of place-based approaches and contributing to a culture of competition within cultural policy (Mould, 2018).https://doi.org/10.1080/09548963.2019.164479528pubpub

Reflecting on Place and the Local

David Stevenson - ORCID: 0000-0002-8977-1818 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8977-1818Engaging with both place and ‘the local’ has become an important part of cultural policy rhetoric in many countries, from the resurgence of city-regional governance models to calls for new forms of ‘localism’ involving participatory governance approaches intended to engender more active citizenship and to help people feel more empowered regarding the decisions that affect them. Depending on their approach, national interventions can exacerbate existing socio-economic inequities between places and risk investing in infrastructure without due consideration to sustainability within locations or the movement of cultural workers and audiences across locations. This introduction makes the case that views of the ‘local’ have been limited in the fields of cultural policymaking and study. It summarises some of the ways both place and ‘the local’ have been conceptualised. It argues how conceptions of ‘the local’ in policy can vary significantly requiring an examination of the process of situating ‘the local’ as it occurs in policymaking as well as what happens in ‘the local’ as a result or even despite that positioning.aheadofprintaheadofprin

Situating the local in global cultural policy

David Stevenson - ORCID 0000-0002-8977-1818 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8977-1818From the growth of city regions to the calls for more localism, engaging with ‘the local’ has become an increasingly important part of cultural policy rhetoric in many countries (UNESCO, 2013; UCLG, 2019). Yet despite apparent recognition that the practices of culture are always situated (and hence local), contemporary cultural policy research tends to privilege the national or international as the primary site at which cultural policy is enacted and thus, can be reformed (Durrer, et al., 2018). For all of its increasing use ‘the local’ remains abstract, seemingly deployed to legitimate activity that is of debatable benefit to the places and practices imagined by its invocation.https://doi.org/10.1080/09548963.2019.164478028pubpub