Policy-making as an emotionally-charged arena: the emotional geographies of urban cultural policy-making

Abstract

© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Analysis of the role emotions play in a range of social processes has increased significantly, but is neglected in the context of cultural policy-making. Recent literatures in feminist and emotional geographies draw attention to how emotions are emergent in, and play a role in shaping, a broad range of social contexts and processes, while other literatures stress the need to ‘personalise’ the expert and consider the emotional aspects of planning. Inspired by these literatures we deploy the notion of ‘affective urbanism’ to study how emotions are interwoven with cultural policy spaces in the city and explore the ‘emotional regimes’ that incorporate emotions with the multi-scalar politics that is shaping urban cultural policy-making. This is undertaken through an analysis of emotions in the working lives and political contexts of cultural policy-makers in Stockholm (Sweden), Gdańsk (Poland) and Manchester (UK). Overall the paper seeks to develop a research agenda that places emotions centrally in studies of cultural policy formation and implementation