This book places the study of public support for the arts and culture within the prism of public policy making. It is explicitly comparative in casting cultural policy within a broad sociopolitical and historical framework. Given the complexity of national communities, there has been an absence of comparative analyses that would explain the wide variability in modes of cultural policy as reflections of public cultures and cultural identity. The discussion is internationally focused and interdisciplinary. Mulcahy contextualizes a wide variety of cultural policies and their relation to politics and identity by asking a basic question: who gets their heritage valorized and by whom is this done? The fundamental assumption is that culture is at the heart of public policy as it defines national identity and personal value.

How have cultural policies created new occupations and shaped professions? This book explores an often unacknowledged dimension of cultural policy analysis: the professional identity of cultural agents. It analyses the relationship between cultural policy, identity and professionalism and draws from a variety of cultural policies around the world to provide insights on the identity construction processes that are at play in cultural institutions. This book reappraises the important question of professional identities in cultural policy studies, museum studies and heritage studies. The authors address the relationship between cultural policy, work and identity by focusing on three levels of analysis. The first considers the state, the creativity of the power relationship established in cultural policies and the power which structures the symbolic order of cultural work. The second presents community in the cultural policy process, society and collective action, whether it is through the creation of institutions for arts and heritage profession or through resistance to state cultural policies. The third examines the experience of cultural policy by the professional. It illustrates how cultural policy is both a set of contingencies that shape possibilities for professionals, as much as it is a basis for identification and identity construction. The eleven authors in this unique book draw on their experience as artists and researchers from a range of countries, including France, Canada, United Kingdom, United States, and Sweden.

In this significant intervention into the academic and institutional debate on European cultural identity, Monica Sassatelli examines the identity-building intentions and effects of the European Capital of Culture programme, and also looks at the work of the Council of Europe and the recent European Landscape Convention.

Why and how do contemporary questions of culture so readily become highly charged questions of identity? The question of cultural identity lies at the heart of current debates in cultural studies and social theory. At issue is whether those identities which defined the social and cultural world of modern societies for so long - distinctive identities of gender, sexuality, race, class and nationality - are in decline, giving rise to new forms of identification and fragmenting the modern individual as a unified subject. Questions of Cultural Identity offers a wide-ranging exploration of this issue. Stuart Hall firstly outlines the reasons why the question of identity is so compelling and yet so problematic. The cast of outstanding contributors then interrogate different dimensions of the crisis of identity; in so doing, they provide both theoretical and substantive insights into different approaches to understanding identity.

David Bell and Kate Oakley survey the major debates emerging in cultural policy research, adopting an approach based on spatial scale to explore cultural policy in cities, nations and internationally. They contextualise these discussions with an exploration of what both ‘culture’ and ‘policy’ mean when they are joined together as cultural policy. Drawing on topical examples and contemporary research, as well as their own experience in both academia and in consultancy, Bell and Oakley urge readers to think critically about the project of cultural policy as it is currently being played out around the world. Cultural Policy is a comprehensive and readable book that provides a lively, up-to-date overview of key debates in cultural policy, making it ideal for students of media and cultural studies, creative and cultural industries, and arts management.

This book provides a detailed snapshot of cultural policies in China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. In addition to an historical overview of the culture-state relationships in East Asia, it provides an analysis of contemporary developments occurring in the regions' cultural policies and the challenges they are facing.

This book captures ground-breaking attempts to utilise culture in territorial development and regeneration processes in the context of South Africa and our 'new normal' brought by COVID-19, the fourth industrial revolution, and climate change the world over. The importance of culture in rural-urban revitalisation has been underestimated in South Africa and the African continent at large. Despite some cultural initiatives that are still at developmental stages in big cities, such as Johannesburg, eThekwini and Cape Town, there is concern about the absence of sustainable policies and plans to support culture, creativity, and indigenous knowledge at national and municipal levels. Showcasing alternative strategies for making culture central to development, this book discusses opportunities to shift culture and indigenous knowledge from the peripheries and place them at the epicentre of sustainable development and the mainstream of cultural planning, which can then be applied in the contexts of Africa and the Global South. Governmental institutions, research councils, civil society organisations, private sector, and higher education institutions come together in a joint effort to explain the nexus between culture, economic development, rural-urban linkages, grassroots and technological innovations. Culture and Rural-Urban Revitalization in South Africa is an ideal read for those interested in rural and urban planning, cultural policy, indigenous knowledge and smart rural village model.