HMKK03611U Cultural Policy – Theory, Method & Analysis

This course gives a comprehensive introduction to the field of cultural policy and serves as a mandatory first part of the cultural policy module. In this course students will gain insights into the different contours of ‘the culture of cultural policy’, ‘the policy of cultural policy’ and how these relate to the field of cultural production and consumption. Main theoretical approaches will be explained and particular attention will be given to the concept of public spheres and counter-publics, governmentality, power, discursive formations, control societies, nationalism, the cultural industries and the experience economy. Amongst scholars informing these concepts are Judith Butler, Jürgen Habermas, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Sara Ahmed, Kate Oakley, Anthony Smith, Evelyn Ruppert, Chantal Mouffe, Claire Bishop, Theodor Adorno, Jose van Dijck and David Hesmondhalgh.

The first part of the course will lay the theoretical foundations while the latter part will be dedicated to methods and case studies. The main methods introduced and applied will be critical discourse analysis, qualitative interviews, focus groups, qualitative content analysis and observations. In terms of cases, the course will apply a spatial approach focusing on how cultural policy shapes structures within micro-, meso-, and macro spheres exemplified with urban, local and municipality cultural policies; the cultural policies of different nation-states; as well as cultural policy in supra-national settings such as that of the European Union and the United Nations.

The goal of the course is to provide students with adequate tools to conduct research within the field of cultural policy. In this context the relations between theoretical framework, methodological design and analysis will be emphasised and applied on different cases of relevance to cultural policy. In order to pass this first part of the cultural policy module, students are therefore requested to do one mandatory assignment defined by the responsible teacher.

The course is further divided into three parts:

• The first and the second session will be focused on course introduction and general framing of the

field of cultural policy. This framing will occur through reading and discussing the first three chapters of David Bell’s and Kate Oakley’s book Cultural Policy, focusing particularly on the ‘culture of cultural policy’ and the ‘policy of cultural policy’. Additionally, key definitional texts will be read and related to Nordic characteristics of cultural policy, as well as texts on cultural politics, class, gender and race.

• The second part is composed of detailed theoretical orientations and aims to introduce relevant theoretical frameworks to the study of cultural policy. These sessions treat the conceptual frameworks of the public and public spheres, governmentality, radical democracy, control societies,

nationalism, the creative industries, the cultural industries, experience economy and the platform society. Concomitant to discussions of these theories national and international cultural policies and cases will be introduced and analysed.

• The third part consists of a whole-day theory and method workshop where students conduct their mandatory project. Participation in the workshop is therefore compulsory.