In 2007 the School of Sociology and Social Policy and the Management School at the University of Liverpool were awarded a three year Impact Fellowship jointly funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council. The aim of the fellowship has been to develop an academic programme of research on the impacts of cultural policy in the context of regeneration. This complements work currently being carried out around the main Impacts08 programme, offering an unprecedented opportunity to strengthen knowledge-transfer activities and inform decision-making at a critical moment in the history of Liverpool, as well as protect the integrity of academic research into the theory and practice of cultural policy, which can be used as a reference point for other cities throughout the UK and beyond.
Noting the broader debate currently going on regarding how best to capture 'cultural value', the research aims to establish the grounds upon which such judgments can be made. Arguing that the functional role of culture in terms of its economic and social outcomes only tells half the story, and that research has struggled to comprehend the value of culture in its own right, the fellowship has concentrated on the immediate contexts in which culture is played out.
The research has focused both on the interaction between the different local life styles in urban space and on the interaction of the local population with urban space. Based on the ethnographic method, it has analysed the process of social exchange and spatial engagement within urban space in order to find out how this interaction contributes to the construction of a local cultural identity. The objective was to find out what impact Liverpool 08 is having on local cultural habitus, and how the sustainability of this impact can be measured and monitored.
The Impact Fellowship has explored two key areas of concern.
- First, the value of space and place: the research has sought to understand the communication process between local residents and the City Council concerning the construction, the use and the recognition of cultural space. It focused on the interaction between users and the places of their choice to understand how local identity is imprinted in urban space and then reproduced. A map of the historic transformation of cultural space in the city of Liverpool gives an idea of what the local population identifies with as cultural activity and what qualities it expects from a cultural space. An in depth case study seeks to clarify the strategies a community is able to develop to get the recognition of a place considered important for local cultural life. Together both approaches permit a heuristic outlook on the sustainability of cultural policy.
- Second, the value of creative entrepreneurship: the research team has been examining how aspects of deprivation and social exclusion impinge on or provide new opportunities for creative industries entrepreneurs. Such an assessment is opening up new avenues of enquiry into how cultural investments and events stimulate local social and economic change and thus allowing us to investigate the cultural conditions that best support the emergence of the creative industries.
This research is generating additional data that will feed into national and international policy debates about the social and cultural impact of cultural policy through culture-led regeneration. A key concern here has been to use the research as a means of establishing a higher profile for cultural policy research grounded in the intrinsic value of the cultural and artistic experience which is currently excluded from the established regeneration research agenda.
Methodologies
- Case Study
In order to understand the daily construction process of a cultural place and how people adapt their cultural habitus to changing conditions in the urban space, an in depth case study of a community in Liverpool 8 has been undertaken. It seeks to clarify the capitals - symbolic, economic, cultural and social - that a community can set off to make its claim heard by the authorities. The case study case has allowed evaluation not only of the capacity of the community to impose its request, but also the functionality of the existing communication channels between the authorities and the community for these matters.
- Cognitive Maps
Cognitive maps have been used to illustrate the historic evolution of the cultural space up to the present. In workshops, members of three different generations as well as local cultural producers have represented what space they use(d) at present and in the past for cultural activities. Piling up these different maps onto the official map of cultural space visualises the variation between local and official perceptions of cultural space and also indicates the individual emotional attachment towards urban space.
Research Team
Tomke Lask, Research Fellow
: Born in Germany, Tomke got a BA in Social Sciences and a MA in social anthropology, both from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In 1995, Tomke finished her PhD in Anthropology of Communication at the University of Liege, Belgium. Her main research interests have been the social construction of national identities, public space and its culturally differentiated re-appropriation, as well as the impact of tourism on cultural diversity and as a means of poverty alleviation. Tomke has done research in Latin America (Brazil, Peru, Bolivia), in Asia (Japan, Vietnam) and in France and Germany.
Pete Campbell, PhD Studentship
: Pete got a BA in Sociology at the University of Liverpool and acted as programme assistant to Impacts 08 from 2006 to 2007. In this role, Pete contributed to a discussion paper interrogating and developing methodologies around the measurement of the Creative Industries. Some of the salient themes of the Impacts 08 work, such as the challenges surrounding (self-) definition in the creative/cultural sector, form the context for his current research.
The research is being co-directed by Beatriz Garcia, Director of Impacts 08; Steven Miles, Reader in Sociology, and Alan Southern, Senior Lecturer in Management.