No Company for Old Men: Adventures in Unemployment in The Company Men

Cultural diversity is often attributed to groups in a society from a variety of cultural backgrounds. Assimilation then blends subcultures into a mainstream culture. However, history and circumstance give rise to new groups whose experiences and activities produce new diversity. Big events and big changes give rise to important differences between groups. Popular culture brings new subcultures to the attention of the mainstream. Examples are The Grapes of Wrath, The Best Years of Our Lives, and The Company Men, discussed as a step in bringing awareness of current unemployment issues.     

Local cultural strategies: a strategic review

The development of Local Cultural Strategies was recommended to all local authorities in England through the publication of a guidance document, Creating Opportunities, by the Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS, 2000). Although not a statutory duty, by the end of 2002 Local Cultural Strategy development was strongly encouraged by the government, and the adoption of a strategy became part of performance review for local authorities under Best Value Performance Indicator BVPI 114. This recommendation encouraged local authorities to formalize and publish plans for the strategic development of their cultural and culture-related services. These used a broad definition of culture and recognized of the value of partnership working within localities, regions and sub-regions in which local authorities were taking the ‘lead’. It also reflected the advocacy of a cultural planning approach by central government for local government.

Cultural planning encourages a culturally sensitive approach to local cultural development, focusing on a diverse range of ‘cultural resources’, including leisure and sports facilities, qualities of natural and built environment, youth and ethnic communities and communities of interest, as well as the need for different local authority service departments and private, voluntary and other public sector partners to be involved early on in strategic development. According to this approach, culture is broadly defined as a ‘way of life’, and DCMS's guidance states that Local Cultural Strategies should promote cultural well-being and the quality of life in their designated areas.

As a result, Local Cultural Strategies have been developed at all tiers of English local authorities, including district and borough, metropolitan and unitary authority, county and regional levels. This article discusses the development of Local Cultural Strategies in England and reviews information on those strategies that have been developed. It examines the different approaches local authorities have taken towards this task, the methodologies for consultation employed, the frameworks for monitoring and the evaluation of cultural provision they offer. It considers the benefits and problems associated with the production of Local Cultural Strategies as strategic development frameworks for local culture, and questions the future of this process following their ‘subsumption’ into Community Strategies as part of a broader package of reforms for local government. In doing so, it examines how these documents offer an opportunity to examine local approaches to cultural planning.     

Re-imagining the local in national cultural policy formulation – the case of the Anglophone Caribbean

ABSTRACT

The formulation of cultural policies in the Anglophone Caribbean constantly straddles the demands of global, regional and national imperatives as a function of its position as a region of post-colonial, small-island states. This paper will argue that the role these factors play in the art of policy making problematises conventions in the current global/local (glocal) debate circulating in the arena of Cultural Policy Studies. The paper shows that cultural policy making in the Caribbean constitutes a mélange of approaches that are in a constant state of contestation during the policy-making process. It employs content analysis of cultural policy texts from selected Caribbean states, as well as an analysis of stakeholder views from the national cultural policy consultations in Trinidad and Tobago to derive its findings. A Five Factor framework was developed to illustrate the range of responses that guide and shape local actors and activities in the national cultural policy domain. The research concludes that the relationship between the national and local (nocal) actors has to be re-imagined if cultural policy is to deliver on its promise of social transformation in the Caribbean.     

Cultural capital and the place of sport

It is not unusual now to talk about the culture of the body, or to see routine and organized physical activity, as well as sport, as part and parcel of cultural life. In recent decades body management techniques have become a very conspicuous aspect of self-presentation and have been served by the expansion of the supply of commercial services to deal with diet and health, physical training and cosmetic improvement to appearances. The professionalization and commercialization of sport have also accelerated. Bourdieu interpreted measures for body management and maintenance in terms of the accumulation and display of cultural capital. He distinguished three types of cultural capital: institutionalized, objectified and embodied. This article considers some of the elements of the very complex and extensive property, embodied cultural capital. The Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion (CCSE) survey included questions on sporting activity, sports spectatorship and physical exercise routines, important elements in the mosaic of contemporary cultural activities. This article teases out the patterns of participation and taste in this area, examining differentiation by class, gender, education, ethnic and age groups in particular. While showing that all these factors matter, gender is the most important source of differentiation, though this is more the case for sport than for exercise per se. In addition, it is shown that educational qualification is particularly important in predicting participation in exercise, whereas occupational class makes more difference to the choice of sport, whether playing or watching.     

Exploring the double-edged sword of cultural variability in interactions with family versus friends

Cultural variability (CV) refers to the tendency to vary/adjust the influence of a single cultural identity on one’s social interactions and behaviors from day to day. CV has different influences on interpersonal interactions, positive for some interactions but with adverse effects for others; hence, we aimed to further explore these associations by considering immigrant status and ethnic orientation as potential moderators. Hierarchical regression using daily diary self-reports of U.S. emerging adults (N = 242) revealed that cultural variability is a double-edged sword only for first- and second-generation immigrants rather than for nationals (3rd generation and later). That is, CV predicts positive family interactions for both groups, but negative interactions with close friends only for immigrants, especially those with strong ethnic orientation. Cultural variability adds a new dimension to our understanding of cultural identity as dynamic, domain-specific, and nuanced in its associations with adaptation.     

Same or different? The “cultural entrepreneurship” and “arts entrepreneurship” constructs in European and US higher education

“Arts entrepreneurship” is beginning to emerge from its infancy as a field of study in US higher education institutions. “Cultural Entrepreneurship”, especially as conceived of in European contexts, developed earlier and on a somewhat different but parallel track. As Kuhlke, Schramme, and Kooyman [(2015). Introduction. Creating cultural capital: Cultural entrepreneurship in theory, pedagogy and practice. Delft: Eburon] note, “In Europe, courses began to emerge in the late 1980s and early 1990s?…?primarily providing an established business school education with an industry-specific focus on the new and emerging creative economy.” Conversely, the development of “arts entrepreneurship” courses and programmes in the US have been driven as much or more from interest within arts disciplines or even from within the career services units of arts conservatories as a means toward supporting artist self-sufficiency and career self-management. This paper looks at the conceptual development of “arts entrepreneurship” in the US as differentiated from “cultural entrepreneurship” in Europe and elsewhere. Its intention is to uncover where the two strands of education (and research) are the same, and where they are different. In addition to a review of existing literature on European cultural entrepreneurship, US data is drawn from a new survey and inventory of US arts entrepreneurship programmes developed for the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities (a2ru).     

The politics of data collection: Gathering,analysing and using data about the subsidised cultural sector in England

The gathering of ‘evidence’ about the impact of the sector has assumed centre stage in the management of the subsidised cultural sector in England. It is closely associated with an extension of government control over the sector, and the tendency to value culture for its ‘impact’ rather than its intrinsic value.

This chapter of Cultural Trends considers what has been driving data collection, and how valuable its pursuit has actually been. While not disputing the importance of accountability within the public sector, the chapter observes that much of the data produced about the workings of thecultural sector have been criticised as methodologically flawed and that these say more about policy intentions than about actual impact. Until the collection and analysis of data is carried out more accurately and objectively, and until the evidence gathered is used more constructively, it could beargued that much data gathering in the cultural sector has been a spurious exercise.     

Review of The 2009 UNESCO framework for cultural statistics

The main goal of the 2009 UNESCO Framework for Cultural Statistics is to facilitate comparisons through a common understanding of culture and the use of standardized definitions and classifications. This review contains an in-depth analysis of the 2009 Framework's contribution to the existing literature on measuring the economic impact of culture, and it concludes by suggesting future avenues of research. By achieving international consensus on the concept of culture and its measurement, we will be able to progress in our studies of the competitive advantages that allow cultural firms to generate wealth nowadays.     

Capturing the Cultural Olympiad in Scotland: the case for multi-criteria analysis

This article examines the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad through the lens of a devolved Scotland, exploring how the Scottish cultural programmes and projects are being evaluated, and what this approach might offer for the wider UK and international context. Structurally, the article begins with a discussion of the relationship between sporting mega-events and culture, focusing specifically (although not exclusively) on the sport and cultural nexus around the Olympic Games. The discussion then moves to consider conceptual, policy and practice debates around cultural value, examining the extent to which existing research tools and techniques satisfactorily capture the contribution of culture to major events, public and social policy. Methodologically, the article draws on elite interviews with strategic stakeholders directly involved in the design, delivery and evaluation of Scotland's London 2012 Cultural Programme. The authors conclude that, when taken alongside other cultural evaluations conducted nationally and internationally, there is a need to develop a multi-criteria analysis (MCA) that can more effectively capture cultural value around major sporting events in the UK. This study has demonstrated a level of dissatisfaction within the Scottish cultural community about the limitations of existing mechanisms for measuring the value of culture within the mega-event platform. A robust, but nuanced, impact assessment is required because, unlike the UK as a whole, Scotland has a unique opportunity to undertake a longitudinal study assessing the conditions for legacy put in place as a result of the London 2012 Olympic Games for the subsequent 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. However, further research is required into the efficacy of the MCA for assessing cultural value generally and within the framework of major sports events, in particular.     

Culture's role in conflict and conflict management: Some suggestions, many questions

The contributions to this edition of the Journal are viewed as identifying two roles of culture in intergroup conflict. One is that culture separates people into an in-group and out-group based on the criterion of whether or not they share a common culture. According to social identity theory, this division creates the necessary condition for intergroup (intercultural) conflict. The second role is that culture shapes the individual's perception of conflict and how he or she will respond to the conflict. It is argued that embedded within the history and myths of a culture are stories that identify specific out-groups as likely protagonists. A model for achieving peaceful co-existence between cultural groups is presented. Peaceful co-existence has three components: cognition (acceptance of the right of the out-group to exist), emotion (low fear of the out-group), and behavior (willingness to engage in cooperative interaction with the out-group). It is argued that in order to achieve peaceful co-existence between cultural groups, intergroup contract must promote the security and identity of the ingroup, reduce the perceived threat of the out-group, and promote the perception of diversity within the out-group. The difficulties of achieving positive relations between cultural groups is recognized, and that a focus on intercultural relations should be prevention of hostility rather than reducing violent conflict after it has occurred.     

Asia in the edges: a narrative account of the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Summer School in Bangalore

Abstract

The Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Summer School is a Biennial event that invites Masters and PhD students from around Asia to participate in conversations around developing and building an Inter-Asia Cultural Studies thought process. Hosted by the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society along with the Consortium of universities and research centres that constitute it, the Summer School is committed to bringing together a wide discourse that spans geography, disciplines, political affiliations and cultural practices for and from researchers who are interested in developing Inter-Asia as a mode of developing local, contextual and relevant knowledge practices. This is the narrative account of the experiments and ideas that shaped the second Summer School, “The Asian Edge” which was hosted in Bangalore, India, in 2012.     

Cultural Dis/Continuity in African-American and Ghanaian Mothers’ Voices and Identities

With Cultural Continuity Theory as a framework, this study used quantitative (N?=?204) and qualitative (N?=?63) methods to explore how Ghanaian and African-American mothers communicate their motherhood perceptions and identities. Survey, interview, and focus group data obtained from this investigation suggest cultural discontinuity in the rhetoric the participants use to describe their motherhood experiences and identities. Though this multi-method study is meaningful in that it provides a space for the underrepresented voices of African-American and Ghanaian mothers to be heard, it challenges previously held notions of continuity within African-American and African societies. Based on the findings, this study also considers implications relative to the similarities and differences in African-American and Ghanaian motherhood philosophies, and it offers recommendations for future research.     

Convictions and skepticisms of an Indian feminist scholar: an interview with Tejaswini Niranjana

In this interview with the Guangzhou-based newspaper Southern Metropolis Daily, conducted in December 2010 during her participation of the ‘West Heavens: India-China Summit on Social Thought’, Tejaswini Niranjana questions accepted notions about women and development, explains the reasons for finding alternative reference points in each other for non-Western societies, which resulted in the historical emergence of Cultural Studies in India, and speaks for the need for substantive mutual cultural exposure between India and China.     

What's it like to be a Singaporean intellectual? An interview with Chua Beng Huat

Professor Chua Beng Huat is an internationally well-known and respected sociologist and cultural studies scholar from Singapore. In early 2015, his long-time collaborator and Inter-Asia Cultural Studies co-founder, Kuan-Hsing Chen, and his former student turned present colleague, Daniel Goh, interviewed Chua on the eve of his retirement as the Head of the Department of Sociology at the National University of Singapore. This wide-ranging interview tracks a colourful biographical trajectory that expresses both the contradictions of the illiberal capitalism underpinning Singapore's rapid development and the strategic dilemmas and tactical travails of an intellectual clinging on to the representations of truth.     

Live entertainment at the seaside

The UK's seaside resorts have had to adapt to a number of cultural, economic and social changes over the past 25 years, including a decline in the number of long‐stay visitors. Live entertainment provision at the seaside has also had to adapt, and this chapter of Cultural Trends explores both the current situation of live entertainment, and likely future trends.

The chapter begins with the background to the subject, describing the trends in tourist activity and cultural behaviour that have affected the seaside. It then gives the recent history of the live entertainment industry, with particular emphasis on the summer variety show. Section three provides an overview of the contemporary data available on the amount and type of live entertainment at today's seaside resorts. Section four concerns the provision and programming of live entertainment, and the capacity at resort venues. It focuses on the major role played by local authorities, and also considers the involvement of the private sector. The chapter concludes with some forecasts of the likely future form and provision of live entertainment at the seaside.     

Cultural History’s Absent Audience

ABSTRACT

This article reconsiders Peter Mandler’s essay ‘The Problem with Cultural History,’ and the complexities of locating evidence of culture’s impact upon ordinary people, or ‘throw.’ A brief examination of the history of market research and public opinion surveys in the 20th century offers important lessons for the cultural historian faced with locating and interpreting evidence of audience response that is either rarely there, or more disturbingly, rarely meaningful by our current standards of interpretation. Ultimately this paper asks of my fellow cultural historians: Does culture matter as much as we cultural historians want it to?     

The development of cultural indicators for Australia – policy-making in a federal system of government

The publication in 2010 of Vital signs: Cultural indicators for Australia was the culmination of a complex national policy development process, which exemplifies some of the challenges of making cultural policy in a federal system of government. This paper examines the policy imperatives which gave rise to the original proposal to develop a set of national indicators, the context which led to support for the proposal, the process of policy development which ensued, and some of the key issues which emerged, and which are relevant for future work. The paper was written from the perspective of a bureaucrat closely involved in the project: the author was, between 2006 and 2011, head of the Queensland state government arts agency, and chair of the Statistics Working Group, the multi-agency body which managed the cultural indicators project on behalf of the participating governments.     

Public library use and users: Statistical explorations

Library statistics are often criticised for their traditional format and narrow concentration on finance and resource provision. This chapter of Cultural Trends demonstrates how a new generation of library statistics has moved to assess the impact of services on users as well as features of broader interest. Diversity of offer and take‐up is an important and complicating factor in the public library service. The CIPFA PLUS survey, developed by UK librarians and now standard across the country, is powerful in linking service features to user characteristics. Such library statistics are essential to policy formulation and can be a valuable aid to expanding take‐up: first, in describing services available; second, in assessing market penetration and popularity; and, third, in providing feedback on particular initiatives and policies.

The question arises how far such services are already current in other cultural services. Given Resource's remit to cover the domains of museums and archives as well as libraries, the chapter closes by asking whether recent developments in library statistics might usefully be transferred.     

Capturing the vanishing point: Subjective experiences and cultural value

This article is prompted by the observation that many accounts of the value of the arts and culture have failed to engage first-order, empirical data and to take full account of the experiences of those directly involved in cultural activities and practices. This neglect is the result of a complex path dependency. The more obvious explanation is that the current situation is caused by too much humanism in the field of cultural studies, that is, the tendency to think of cultural value as an “‘ineffable’ human moment which somehow lies outside this purview of representational method” (Law, J., Rupert, E., & Savage, M. [2011 Law, J., Rupert, E., & Savage, M. (2011). The double social life of methods. Milton Keynes: CRESC. [Google Scholar]]. The double social life of methods. Milton Keynes: CRESC). This may well be true in some cases but it is not the main reason why empirical and experiential data have been lacking. The absence of the phenomenological dimension is, to the contrary, best explained by not enough humanism in cultural studies. The reluctance to embrace the first-person perspective was motivated by an anxiety that this would make cultural theorists and sociologists complicit with the “dubious” theories of subjecthood originating in idealism. The default outcome of this has been the preponderance of structuralism in cultural studies which led to anti-empiricism and “theoretical heavy breathing” (Thompson, E. P. [1995]. The poverty of theory: Or an orryery of errors. London: Merlin Press). I argue that to overcome the current impasse, cultural theorists and the theorists of cultural value specifically must revisit this self-incurred suspicion of first-order constructs and address their unease with the category of experience by actively engaging first-person data. In short, the remedy I prescribe is to embrace elements of empirical, phenomenological sociology as part of the methodological framework. Looking at three projects funded by the AHRC Cultural Value Project, I show how this can be practically achieved. I conclude with some reflections on how the considerations presented here might have broader implications for the future research into cultural value, sociological inquiry and cultural policy.     

Estimating audiences: sampling in television and radio audience research

Cultural consumption is problematic from a number of different perspectives, but certain responses from producers, regulators and commentators depend on the measurement of consumption according to quantitative and qualitative parameters. The reliability of the data can vary widely, not least because in certain areas consumption is invisible to those who would measure it, and so they must make estimates based on assumptions about methodology and sampling techniques. Whereas in auditoria, turnstiles may quite accurately quantify footfall through the premises, and sale or return inspires high levels of confidence in circulation figures for certain types of publication, broadcasters perform to intangible audiences who can be neither counted nor observed en masse. This article considers the appropriateness of sampling techniques used to produce audience research data for the broadcasting industries, for the programmers and advertisers who need detailed ‘knowledge’ about their audiences. It draws on the contextualization in Cultural Trends 45 (Starkey, 2003), which examined the debate around competing methodologies using either innovatory electronic devices for the measurement of consumption or more traditional human recall. The article raises important questions for those who use sampling techniques in the cultural sector and those who would interpret their data.