This thesis explores the problematic relationship forged between the field of
practice known as Arts and Health and discourse of the ‘devolution
revolution’ (2016-2019). This was a period when key policy areas - pertaining to
health, creativity and place - were ‘aligned’ by local government in an ongoing
age of austerity. It examines the human geographies of Arts and Health through
four case studies sited across Greater Manchester and North Wales, a region cojoined
through the spatial imaginary of ‘The Northern Powerhouse’.
The research begins by considering the impetus for devolution in the 1990s,
before focussing attention on the English context of the first ever city and regional
devolution deal struck between Manchester City leaders and HM Treasury in
2016. This was made conditional on budget reductions. The ‘pre-histories’ of the
emergent category of Arts and Health are then examined across the post-war
decades. The category of Arts and Health is navigated across its varied
(re)imaginings, including those made recently which deny the field can be seen
as the ‘natural cousin’ of austerity.
The ways in which these diverse, often contradictory agendas, have come
together is examined through grounded accounts of neoliberal policy as it is
(re)produced in everyday situations. Reflexive, first person ethnographic
accounts of four local contexts, in Llandudno, Prestatyn, Wigan and Central
Manchester are presented to show how the field of Arts and Health is being
interpreted and produced through certain affective ambiences and ‘atmospheres’.
The research reveals that across this territory, similar values and common
cultures are taking hold. These include the belief that local communities offer
forums for collective action and decision-making (over and above those of
national institutions) and that additional resources are not needed, merely a new
mindset. The conclusion is drawn that, as much as the field of Arts and Health
aims to enact forms of progressive social change, it is a field of practice that is
also being shaped by forces exerted by a regressive political economy