Understanding Everyday Participation - Articulating Cultural Values

This project proposes a radical re-evaluation of the relationship between participation and cultural value. Bringing together evidence from in-depth historical analyses, the re-use of existing quantitative data and new qualitative research on the detail, dynamics and significance of 'everyday participation', it will create new understandings of community formation, connectivity and capacity through participation. Orthodox models of the creative economy and ensuing cultural policy are based on a narrow definition of cultural participation; one that captures formal engagement with traditional cultural institutions, such as museums and galleries, but overlooks other activities, for instance community festivals and hobbies. This frame, founded historically on deficit based assumptions of the logics for state cultural support, misses opportunities to understand the variety of forms of participation and their (positive and negative) consequences. We argue that by creating new understandings of the relationships between everyday participation, community and cultural value, we will reveal evidence of hidden assets and resources that can be mobilised to promote better identification and more equitable resourcing of cultural opportunities, generate well-being and contribute to the development of creative local economies.

The central research questions are:

- How, historically, did we arrive at the definitions, fields of knowledge and policy frames informing notions of cultural participation and value today?

- What are the forms and practices of everyday participation - where do they take place? How are they valued? And how do these practices relate to formal participation?

- How is participation shaped by space, place and locality?

- How are communities made, unmade, divided and connected through participation?

- How can broader understandings of value in and through participation be used to inform the development of vibrant communities and creative local economies?

- How do we reconnect cultural policy and institutions with everyday participation?

Using a variety of methodologies, including historical analysis, qualitative work with communities of practice and use, and the reanalysis of existing data on participation and time-use, this project focuses on six contrasting 'cultural ecosystems' to investigate the connections between multiple understandings of community (geographical, elective, identity based etc), cultural value, 'cultural economy' and everyday participation. The findings from the situated case studies will inform four partnership-operated trials of new policy interventions or of professional or community practices. Throughout the project research will be integrated with key partners, stakeholder cultural and community organisations in order to evolve better, shared understandings of everyday cultural participation and the implications of this for policy makers and cultural organisations at national, local and community levels.

1. Public benefit

The project will benefit the public as a whole and communities in the ecosystems where the case studies will be carried out. The research will give voice to people and practices that typically fall outside the scope of 'official' cultural models. It will recognise and legitimate the meaning and stakes that attach to ordinary, everyday participation and may reveal the existence of rich cultural lives among people who are often marked out as passive or excluded. Thus the project seeks to develop notions of culture that are more democratic and inclusive and that in turn lead to policies and organisational practices that are responsive to the needs and concerns of communities. By applying an arts and humanities approach to questions of value, the project creates the potential for new articulations and measures of value that more fully reflect how people live today and what is important to them.

In the case study locations, community and neighbourhood groups will have the opportunity to reflect on and revalue their participation practices through participatory practice-based research and to build their own capacity through collaborating on the design, delivery and evaluation of application projects. The experience of these groups will pave the way for the development of new approaches to devolving decision-making powers and responsibility for cultural provision to communities across the country.

2. Transforming national policy

The project will have major benefits for agencies working to develop national policy in relation to culture, participation and the creative economy including central government, Non-Departmental Public Bodies, funders and membership organisations such as the Museums Association. The project represents a shift in focus from the 'supply' of cultural facilities to the 'demand' for cultural experiences and an opportunity to reverse the current, primarily 'top-down' approach to cultural policy. It will generate new understandings of how cultural policy can be developed 'from the bottom up', based on in-depth knowledge of what people value about their own participation. In this way the research opens up the possibility of radical change in the nature of UK cultural policy over the next 5-10 years. National policy makers will also benefit from the project's holistic view of cultural ecosystems, which will help illuminate the specific contributions of and relationships between a diversity of participation practices - everyday, community-based, voluntary, professional and institutional. This all-encompassing lens will enable more richly informed decision-making about when to intervene and how best to target resources to maximise return on investment.

3.Informing local practice

The research will benefit organisations working at local level to promote the vibrancy of communities through cultural participation, including local authorities, local enterprise partnerships, regeneration and economic development agencies, cultural institutions and voluntary groups. By producing detailed knowledge of how local people participate in their everyday lives and what this participation means to them, the project will help organisations to better understand and articulate their purpose and role and stimulate new ideas and ways of working with communities to encourage and enrich participation. The research will reveal resources that local agencies can mobilise to build capacity within and connectivity between communities and to enhance initiatives focused on community wellbeing and the development of local economies. For example, local stakeholders in Peterborough hope the project will help them to understand and activate the 'seeds of a creative ecology' in the town and Manchester City Council hopes to better understand how to promote and connect communities to their services across local authority and neighbourhood boundaries.