Value Construction in the Creative Economy: Negotiating Innovation and Transformation (Palgrave Studies in Business, Arts and Humanities) 3030370348, 9783030370343

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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN BUSINESS, ARTS AND HUMANITIES

Value Construction in the Creative Economy Negotiating Innovation and Transformation edited by rachel granger

Palgrave Studies in Business, Arts and Humanities Series Editors Samantha Warren Faculty of Business and Law University of Portsmouth Portsmouth, UK Steven S. Taylor WPI Foisie School of Business Worcester, MA, USA

Business has much to learn from the arts and humanities, and vice versa. Research on the links between the arts, humanities and business has been occurring for decades, but it is fragmented across various business topics, including: innovation, entrepreneurship, creative thinking, the creative industries, leadership and marketing. A variety of different academic streams have explored the links between the arts, humanities and business, including: organizational aesthetics, arts-based methods, creative industries, and arts-based research etc. The field is now a mature one but it remains fragmented. This series is the first of its kind to bring these streams together and provides a “go-to” resource on arts, humanities and business for emerging scholars and established academics alike. This series will include original monographs and edited collections to further our knowledge of topics across the field. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15463

Rachel Granger Editor

Value Construction in the Creative Economy Negotiating Innovation and Transformation

Editor Rachel Granger Faculty of Business and Law De Montfort University Leicester, UK

ISSN 2662-1266     ISSN 2662-1274 (electronic) Palgrave Studies in Business, Arts and Humanities ISBN 978-3-030-37034-3    ISBN 978-3-030-37035-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Leigh Drummond (MONO) https://www.graffwerk.org This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

Part I Defining the Creative Economy Through Value   1 1 Exploring Value in the Creative and Cultural Industries  3 Rachel Granger 2 Problematising Hidden Culture 19 Laura Parsons and Rachel Granger Part II The Creative Self  45 3 Defining Excellence: Value in Creative Degrees 47 Pinky Bazaz 4 Problematising Philanthropy in the UK Cultural Sector 67 Jennie Jordan and Ruth Jindal 5 Value Definition in Sustainable (Textiles) Production and Consumption 85 Claire Lerpiniere 6 A Cloth to Wear: Value Embodied in Ghanaian Textiles109 Malika Kraamer

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Contents

Part III Collective Creative Spaces and Processes 129 7 Intercultural Entrepreneurship in Creative Place-Making131 David Rae 8 Co-creative Third Space, Maker Space and Micro Industrial Districts151 Rachel Granger 9 Cultural and Creative Districts as Spaces for Value Change177 Jennifer Garcia-Carrizo and Rachel Granger 10 Silent Design and the Business Value of Creative Ideas199 David Heap and Caroline Coles 11 The Hidden Value of Underground Networks and Intermediaries in the Creative City217 Rachel Granger 12 Value Transformation: From Online Community to Business Benefit243 Tracy Harwood, Jason Boomer, and Tony Garry 13 Conclusion: Value Constructs for the Creative Economy265 Rachel Granger Index279

Notes on Contributors

Pinky  Bazaz is a senior lecturer in the School of Art and Design, Nottingham Trent University, where she specialises in fashion marketing and branding. Pinky has more than ten years of design experience in the creative sector, including as head designer for eyewear design in private practice and was previously creative lead in in the design industry for women’s wear and prior to that, a children’s wear designer. Jason  Boomer  is a researcher in Machinima, a form of film making, which uses computer games graphics. Jason works at Side-Fest, a Leicester-­ based social enterprise that works to promote STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) education for all. Caroline  Coles  is the senior teaching fellow and deputy head of Law School at Aston University. Caroline has extensive commercial and academic practice on copyright and trademarks, and is a trained solicitor in intellectual property. Her previous research includes work with Boots Opticians and Boots Foods, and current research focuses on teaching excellence in law. Jennifer Garcia-Carrizo  is a doctoral researcher at Madrid Complutense University and recipient of a European Scholarship for her work on creative industrial districts. Jennifer is a visiting researcher at the Local Governance Research Centre at De Montfort University where she is extending her research on creative cities in the UK, to examine the role of ‘cities of culture’ and identity.

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Tony  Garry is a senior lecturer in the Department of Marketing, University of Otago, New Zealand. Tony’s research interests include ­service and relational marketing, and emergent technologies within service contexts, including gamification as a customer engagement experience. Rachel  Granger  is Professor of Urban Economies in Leicester Castle Business School, and Director of the Creative and Cultural Industries Research Group at De Montfort University. Rachel is an urban and economic geographer with research interests in the creative city, smart city, urban hacking and disruption, and alternative economic spaces, as a means of social and economic growth. Her current research includes work on transforming urban spaces, smart city strategies, and urban innovation labs. Rachel is co-founder of Inno House, Director of FLOKK (an online economic analysis platform designed and used in Leicester) Lab, and holds several board membership positions in cultural and community organisations. Tracy  Harwood is Professor of Digital Culture in the Institute of Creative Technologies, Leicester Media School. Tracy’s research is transdisciplinary, working across computer science, arts, design, health and marketing subjects. Current projects relate to the application of emerging technologies to business and consumer contexts, including AI, Internet of Things, VR and AR.  She has a management background, with a PhD in negotiation behaviour, and is also manager of De Montfort University’s Usability Lab, and co-leader of the Art AI Festival in Leicester, a partnership between De Montfort University, Phoenix, High Cross and Luba Elliott. David Heap  is Associate Professor of Design Cultures in the School of Design at De Montfort University. As a trained furniture designer and Design Manager, David is interested in how design is used within manufacturing businesses; and was actively involved in UK manufacturing through the now defunct Furniture West Midlands Group which championed design and manufacturing in small firms. David’s current research includes auditing design maturity in small manufacturers and fabricators; a related strand of research involves investigating Silent Design in companies to establish ownership of ideas. Ruth  Jindal  is a senior lecturer in Arts, Design and Humanities, De Montfort University, specialising in arts and the cultural industries. Ruth

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teaches on critical and contextual studies on the Design Crafts, Product Design, and Furniture and Textile Design programmes at De Montfort University. Ruth’s research interests are in design writing and criticism, cultural labour, philanthropy and design in cities. Jennie Jordan  is an associate professor specialising in business management in the cultural and creative industries in Leicester Castle Business School, De Montfort University. Formerly senior lecturer on the BA Arts and Festivals Management and MSc Cultural Events Management courses, Jennie is interested in cultural leadership and cultural policy, marketing and audience engagement. Her current research is in festivalisation in regional cities. Malika Kraamer  is researcher and consultant curator on African, South Asian, Islamic and African heritage art and culture. Formerly Curator of World Cultures at New Walk Museum in Leicester, Malika is an international researcher on global art and curation, providing curatorial expertise to a Kente collection in Ghana. Malika’s current research includes work on eighteenth-century West-African Textiles, funded by St John’s College, University of Cambridge and Wisbech and Fenland Museum, and international consulting for the China National Silk Museum, Hangzhou, and UNESCO on the interactive atlas on the Silk Roads. Malika is currently affiliated to the University of Leicester and to the University of Cambridge. Claire Lerpiniere  is Senior Lecturer in Printed Textiles at De Montfort University, who specialises in the human and ecological impacts of textiles. Claire’s research focuses on how we use textile artefacts as social agents which are emotionally significant. Such an approach rejects clothes as static objects, embracing them instead as locations of meaning, memories and symbolism, and through her teaching and research Claire presents conceptual frameworks and technologies to advance the sustainable practice of textile design. Claire’s current research centres on slow fashion, as a viable model of production and consumption, and is a significant contributor to the Sustainable Development Goals. Laura  Parsons  is a doctoral researcher in the Department of Politics, People and Place at De Montfort University. Her research is on the Hidden Culture of Food in Leicester, and covers aspects of authenticity, community and commensality in cultural value production.

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

David Rae  is Professor of Enterprise at De Montfort University where he is Director of the Centre for Enterprise and Innovation. David has worked extensively in executive level business and enterprise roles in higher education. His current research is on the connections between creativity, learning and entrepreneurial behaviour, with a particular interest in social enterprise and innovation, and open research, innovation and data in entrepreneurial development.

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2 Fig. 3.3 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 6.1

Fig. 6.2

Fig. 6.3

Fig. 7.1 Fig. 8.1

Hidden culture Degree attainments, by ethnicity (2003–2014). (Source: Based on data from HEFCE 2015) Values attributed to degrees, student perspective vs. higher educational measures Value measure attributed to degrees. (Factors contributing to perceived degree value for BAME students adapted from Rokeach (1973) List of Terminal Values) Characteristic values inherent in cultural funding sources Two chiefs at the 1999 Kente Festival in Bonwire (Ashanti Region) in two different rayon textiles with weft-float designs typical of the late 1990s. (©Photograph by Malika Kraamer, Bonwire (Ghana), 1999) Weaver Andrus Sosu in his loom while speaking to a customer in Agortorme (upper part of the Keta lagoon in the coastal area of the Volta Region). (©Photograph by Malika Kraamer, Agortorme (Ghana), 2018) Women and men exchanging greetings at the 2018 Agbamevorza, the Kente Festival, in Agotime-Kpetoe (Volta Region). Some women wear two uncut wrappers; others are dressed in a Kente sawn into a kaba. Some men wear a batakari and others wear a Kente cloth wrapped around the body. (©Photograph by Malika Kraamer, Agotime-Kpetoe (Ghana), 2018) Value creation through intercultural entrepreneurship Copenhagen creative ecosystem, by units (2019)

38 52 59 61 75

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114 135 161

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List of Figures

Fig. 9.1

Map of the city centre of Newcastle Upon Tyne (rectangle), which includes the Ouseburn Valley (circle). (Source: Own elaboration from Google Maps 2018) 184 Fig. 9.2 Different industrial chimneys in the Toffee Factory at the Ouseburn186 Fig. 9.3 Local bollards and murals 187 Fig. 9.4 Local tours. (Source: Lesley Turner, Admin & Communications Officer, Ouseburn Trust) 190 Fig. 9.5 Logo from the Ouseburn Valley and its variation to ‘Made in the Ouseburn’ campaign. (Source: Ouseburn Trust 2018b) 193 Fig. 11.1 A sector-relational map of creative and digital sectors, Leicester (2018)225 Fig. 11.2 Key actors and interfaces in Leicester (2018) 236 Fig. 12.1 Two-step flow of communication. (Source: based on Katz and Lazarsfeld 1955; Robinson 1976) 248

List of Tables

Table 8.1 Table 8.2 Table 9.1 Table 9.2 Table 11.1 Table 11.2 Table 11.3 Table 12.1

Analytical, synthetic and symbolic knowledge systems (Asheim and Coenen 2005) Characteristics of creative capital, Underbroen (2016–2019) Cultural production and consumption in the Ouseburn Valley Activists in the Ouseburn Valley Sector interactions in Leicester ecosystem (817 organisations) Creative specialisation of Leicester’s HE Institutions (2018) Leicester creative city ecosystem (2018) Sample description

158 172 185 196 223 230 231 251

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PART I

Defining the Creative Economy Through Value

CHAPTER 1

Exploring Value in the Creative and Cultural Industries Rachel Granger

Introduction The creative and cultural industries as the primary focus of this book constitute the most distinct area of economic growth of the new Millennium, and are increasingly viewed as an emerging paradigm in their own right (see Lazzeretti and Vecco 2018). Recognising and exhorting their early economic potential, UK and Australia under the Blair and Keating governments began to commercialise the creative and cultural industries in earnest during the 1990s, and in so doing, invested heavily in public and private flagships, which were to become key international demonstrators, (for instance, London’s Tech City, Manchester’s Northern Quarter and Media City, Brisbane’s South Bank and Creative Precinct). These early demonstrators drove fascination and spawned creative projects throughout much of the western world, drawing on Florida’s (2001) assertions of the creative city and creative workers as an economic panacea, and producing a ‘serial replication’ of investment (McCarthy 2005) in creative infrastructure. As such, the first decade of the new Millennium could be R. Granger (*) De Montfort University, Leicester, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Granger (ed.), Value Construction in the Creative Economy, Palgrave Studies in Business, Arts and Humanities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_1

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characterised as a period of creative consolidation in the UK and Australia, with new international creative cities and clusters emerging in regional capitals such as Bristol, Birmingham, Sheffield, and Glasgow in the UK, and in Australia, Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth. Elsewhere, cities have invested in new creative bases to replicate these early successes in the UK and Australia, developing meandering creative quarters in metropolitan areas across both Europe and North America (e.g. New York, Portland, Austin, Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver). The resilience of the creative city form in the face of a global downturn has been especially notable, perhaps acting as one of the few truly expansionary areas of the global economy, and the most recent spatial fix under capitalist conditions (see Harvey 2001; Jessop 2006). In the Global South, especially in South East Asia, there has been a concerted effort over the last decade to develop internationally competitive creative cities to match those of the Global North, and as a result, considerable investment has been directed in recent years into the creative industries in world cities such as Seoul, Shanghai, Taipei, Bangkok, and, more recently, the Middle East. This globalisation of the creative and cultural industries has been underpinned especially in South East Asia by new digital technologies, and a landscape of mature multinationals and global investment. At the heart of this growing policy attention is the remarkable growth and economic potential of the creative economy, which in some countries has offered a route out of long-term structural decline of deindustrialisation. In these countries, creative industries now account for one in ten jobs in the economy, and one in four new jobs (DCMS 2018). For example, between 2011–2014 and 2015–2016, the creative industries in the UK grew on average by 11 per cent, twice as fast as in the rest of the economy (Nesta 2018a). In a climate of continued economic and political uncertainty, where the effects of the Global Financial Crisis are still being meted out a decade on, and the risk of a further downturn ever present, the potential for employment and income from new areas such as the creative economy acts as a centripetal pull on policymakers. In this sense, the value of the creative and cultural industries can be seen in terms of jobs and wealth, and this provides one view of value construction in the creative economy. This cursory view of what the creative and cultural industries are, and what value they have, is a recurring theme of this book. While more and more is known about the creative economy, in other respects our understanding of it has been constrained by prevailing narratives and a dogmatic orthodoxy tied to the economics of production.

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Despite the richness of data now available at a variety of spatial scales and places, and across sub-sectors (e.g. Florida et  al. 2012; Nesta 2018b; Nathan and Kemeny 2018; Gabe 2011; Lazzeretti 2014), our understanding of what it means to be creative (or cultural1), how this is constructed, and the wider impact of this remains dictated by the economic lens. Thus, while the last decade has seen advancements in defining creativity (e.g. Cunningham 2002; Landry 2011) and understanding the bifurcation of production and consumption (e.g. Potts et al. 2008a; Anand and Croidieu 2015), and of new genres of creativity (Capdevila et  al. 2015; Floriani and Amal 2018; Lorentzen 2013), the same cannot be said for our empirical constructions. We have expanded our conceptual understanding of the role of others in the creative economy through networks (Potts et al. 2008b), intermediaries (O’Connor 2015; Hracs 2015; Perry 2019), users (Di Maria and Finotto 2015; Flowers and Voss 2015), and co-producers (Potts et  al. 2008a; Hracs et  al. 2018), and we are more aware of the precarities of pay and access to creative work (Banks 2017; Oakley and O’Brien 2016), and yet in all of this, our view of value remains either conceptual or embedded firmly in industrial notions of success (measured by jobs, earnings, investment, and business), as universal values based on the use and functionality of creativity.

Deficits in the Creative Discourse The corollary of early efforts to commercialise and profit from creative and cultural activities is the primacy of the ‘creative product’ and of the productionist lens in creative discourse, which has reduced value to a narrow set of impacts shaped by the dogma of economic institutions. Framing the creative and cultural industries, and more precisely their products, as central to the expansionary potential of economies is to frame humans (creative workers) and projects as market actors, vying for capital, neoliberal at heart, and imbued with power relations (see discussion by Mould 2018). The overall effect is a deficit in our understanding about this important contemporary economic and social form. There are at least four deficits, pertinent to the discussion about the value of the creative economy, which 1  Following Jones et al. (2015, p. 5), the arts and cultural industries can be seen as a subset of creative industries because they depend on creativity and derive value from this creativity. See also Tose (2011), Caves (2000), Throsby (2001), Heilbrun and Gray (2001), Throsby and Withers (1979), and Vogel (2007) for commercial underpinnings of arts and culture.

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relate to: (1) the economic returns on creativity and the hegemonic economic lens; (2) the creative city form, premised on capitalist expansion; (3) the inequalities inherent in the creative paradigm; and (4) the dominance of prevailing narratives in the creative discourse. Within the creative and cultural industries, diverse communities, actors, and interests have voice, and the idea of value itself is multiplex. Much of the definitional basis of creativity and the way society ascribes value to it—or valorises—draw on economic and productionist terms of reference. This is reinforced by the views and practices of a small number of institutions, through and by which our perception of value has become institutionalised over time. The overall pattern has been one of reducing complex aspects of value into simple, often economic configurations, and restricting analysis to fewer and fewer mainstream activities. To qualify, the recent Cultural Value Scoping Project in the UK (Kaszynska 2018) conflates those who actively make, debate, and assess cultural value with ‘people working in arts and culture’ (ibid., p. 3) or those ‘making and influencing cultural policy’ (ibid., p. 5). Yet, a more expansive and discursive approach drawing on ancillary sectors and actions would provide a richer lens through which to conceptualise impact and worth. As we argue in this book, there is an imperative for policy and academia to prioritise new ways of thinking about what value means in the context of the creative and cultural industries, leading to new ways of working across sectors, drawing on the experiences and techniques of other disciplines, and adopting new ways of using the evidence base. Broadening the framework of creative and cultural activities as active production rather than products, and including behavioural change and intricate connections (Glaveanu et al. 2014) as part of ecologies, as well as interrogating how conversations around value are framed, have salience in addressing this current deficit in understanding. Conversations guide definitions, and conversations and techniques confined to established communities of understanding and practice limit new knowledge, as a result of lock-in of ideas and thinking. It could be argued that prevailing narratives on both the ‘creative city’ and ‘inequality’, which have come to dominate the creative landscape, refer to two sides of the same coin, and emerge from this productionist view of creative and cultural industries. The creative city as a spatial manifestation of the creative economy, neoliberal at its core, results in a homogenised socio-economic model, which Mould (2015) argues is paradoxically devoid of creativity. It is merely the most recent permutation of

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the neoliberal form, reflecting both cities’ transition to ‘entrepreneurial urbanism’ (Harvey 1989) and a ‘fast urban policy’ (Peck 2005) based on conspicuous consumption. As Mould (2015, p.  33) argues, ‘cultural industries soon became an arena, in which a tidy profit could be made’, and leading quickly to the ‘Porter effect’ (p.  67), in which every locale sought to become a creative city, quarter, or cluster. Inevitably, and following the logic of capitalism, creative cities lead to revanchist approaches as part of the entrepreneurial urbanist project in which they must now operate. Gentrification, precarious working, inequality of access, and poor social mobility are by-products of a system that disadvantages the most disenfranchised in society. And yet the current policy model of creative cities overlooks the original sentiment of the term, which Montgomery (2008) argues is a triumvirate of characteristics based on creative activity and the built environment, as well as meanings. He suggests that a cultural quarter, for example, which provides no new meaning (no new work, no new ideas, or new concepts) is likely to be merely a pastiche of another place and is not authentically creative (Montgomery 2008, p. 310). Meaning in this sense might connote the hidden signs and symbols of creative and cultural activities, or the semiocapitalism through which a place becomes unique and authentic—the spiritual, social, intrinsic, and symbolic. Lefebvre (1961) articulates these often hidden signals and symbols as the ‘background noise of the city’. On the one hand, we recognise that creative and cultural industries are a diverse set of activities with different product and consumption combinations, complex issues of power ingrained into access, and different semiotic values and material bases, which elicit aesthetic values (see Lash and Urry 1994; Jones et al. 2015). On the other hand, it seems inconceivable that one might frame the functionality of creative and cultural activities (as products) without considering the broader notion of signs and symbols that shape its materiality and consumptive appeal (see Baudrillard 1996). Moreover, the fact that some creative activity or cultural assets do not have a direct (or indirect) economic functionality is becoming acutely obvious (see Mould 2015, p. 69). Therefore, reducing creative cities and associated discourse to nothing more than economic returns oversimplifies what has already been established as a complex area. Against this backdrop, the primary purpose of this book is to provide a critical response to this definitional deficit, and to provide a framework for looking towards other disciplines and approaches, and investigating different creative forms. Our hope is to create a space for reconceptualising value and impact in the

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creative economy, which moves beyond the economy, and accordingly defining value in the creative economy is the first pillar of this book.

Values in the Creative Economy There have been numerous attempts to categorise values into universal value systems, which reflect values at the level of the individual (e.g. Rokeach 1973; Hitlin and Piliavin 2004) and those operating at the society level (e.g. Hofstede 2001). Both are seen as instrumental in shaping decision-making. As such, sociologists and anthropologists have been studying values for over a century, given their centrality in understanding human groups and societies, and differences between these. Values give direction to the way that individuals, organisations, and societies act, what they strive for, and what they deem important. For example, ‘Values shape people’s beliefs about what is desirable, important, or worthy of striving for in their lives … are of particular relevance to people’s social and environmental concern, [and] people’s motivations to express this concern … and feelings of social connectedness’ (CCF 2016, p. 6). As the Common Cause Foundation go on to note, public expression of value is shaped by the interplay of people’s own values (their personal value system), and people’s perception of values is reinforced by those held important by fellow citizens and shaped by our institutions (CCF 2016, p. 5). In a landscape dominated by economic institutions, individual and organisational values will influence wider perceptions and policies towards the kind of economic society they would like and how institutions should operate to reinforce the economic lens. People’s perceptions of fellow citizens’ values are likely to contribute to a deepening of their commitment to some values (e.g. economic) and a weakening of commitment to others (e.g. semiotic, intrinsic, aesthetic etc.), and people who have values that differ in importance to them may not be activated in particular contexts (Jaspers 2016) or be part of the mainstream. The issue of value, and more specifically, the dominance of economic value, is therefore very important in helping us to rebalance the creative and cultural industries, and in opening up new avenues of debate. Our starting point in this book is to recognise value in a variety of forms including—but not exclusively: (1) the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement leading to a need for more nuanced understanding and appreciation (valorisation) of culture and creativity; (2) the ideas and customs of a particular people or society, and the networks, spaces,

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and relations, as well as valued patterns of behaviour, which govern these, and which lead to value constructions; and (3) personal and social values, and behavioural activities, as well as institutions of society, which construct key value points. Our hope is that within this broader but also open framework, which covers different creative and cultural sectors and different research disciplines, a more convincing paradigm might emerge, which sets out new thinking for contemplating value in the creative economy, for the next decade and beyond.

Viewing Creative Value Through the Performing Lens Recognising that the critiques of existing research on creative and cultural industries constitute a set of methodological and critical deficits, the second pillar of the book relates to the need to look towards other disciplines and approaches. The starting point is a critique of existing discourse, which reinforces creative and cultural mindsets, and views the creative landscape as an amorphous economic term. By contrast, the contributors to this book view the same landscape differently, as a markedly diverse set of activities and values, each constituted with its own set of characteristics and preferences and narratives. In this vein, the book looks towards disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, geography, and law to attempt an alternative view of the creative economy. While the contributors come from the Midlands, UK, and draw on the experiences of Leicester, we have sought wherever possible to discuss value in an international context to draw meaningful comparisons for a wider readership. In many ways, Leicester’s experiences as a regional capital and middle-ranking creative city provide important insights in a literature dominated by world city narratives, with the book providing a richness that speaks to the multitude of ‘ordinary’ cities, which must compete with star creative cities and an overwhelming economic logic. We contend that there are limitations from the tendency and ability of economic narratives to be reduced to subsumptive accounts, which oversimplify (and overstate) causal factors and relations and build explanations upon all-encompassing logics, while ignoring the explanatory capacity of the other, expressed here as other paradigms, disciplines, and creative subsets. Moreover, we recognise that these interlocking deficits limit engagement with new and alternative lens and prevent the development of

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informative spaces of contestation. These deficits highlight the failures of the existing elite to grapple with the micro-criticisms of the prevailing economic framework, noted previously by O’Brien (2010) (acknowledged partially by Bakhshi et al. 2015) but which have nevertheless become part of the creative mainstream. In thinking about how to move forward the debate, it would be tempting to look towards Bourdieu’s (1986) work on capital, as a construct that lends itself to the creative and cultural industries, and has both currency and a wider reach. However, Bourdieu’s framing of embodied, objectified, and institutionalised cultural capital, as well as his work on social capital, is in many respects an overly simplistic framework that does not take us any further in exploring the other, for instance, the distinction between the individual and collective, the importance of place-based meanings, sub-­ narratives, emotions, and other hidden aspects. It does, however, highlight the importance of spatiality and power through the central role of habitus. Bourdieu’s work sheds light on the way activities—such as the creative and cultural industries—are shaped, owned, and used in society. Such a view shifts the focus away from simple cataloguing of differences between sectors, occupations, and places to a more subtle and complex inquiry into how resources are created and can be used to produce differentiation, and the role of the other in this. Bourdieu’s work has a further advantage in that it acknowledges implicitly, the variability of identities, behaviour, histories, and so on through and by which the economy, community, and workers perform, and through which assets are accumulated. Looking towards sociology, Butler’s (1990) Performative Model, which draws on ‘performative utterance’ to examine gender, has been invaluable in destabilising rigidly applied gender identities and categories, while enabling a richer unpicking of issues related to these same notions of power and precarity. Butler’s conclusion that gender is ultimately constructed through one’s own repetitive performance underpinned by symbols and signs (see also Cameron 1997) implies that people and communities are active producers (that enact and perform) rather than a product per se. In other words, gender is produced from actions, not applied from a label. In thinking about how these same ideas might be applied to the creative landscape, the notion of ‘performing’ moves the discussion away from the functionality of creativity as a product, towards materiality, eliciting a different view of value, which intersects with narratives in potentially illuminating ways. The overall effect is to frame the creative economy in a more nuanced way, from which new outlooks and

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models might advance. It therefore offers one way of resolving current criticisms of the creative discourse and the puzzle of how best to convey value. Building on the use of performativity used in other disciplines (e.g. Richardson’s (2019) use of performing in housing), this book interacts with ‘performance’ and ‘performing’ in six main ways: 1. Performance as Doing—reflecting a technical undertaking such as a task, constructing identity and so on 2. Performance as an Art Form—as an act, a manifestation of intellectual capability 3. Performance as an Expression—reflecting deeply held views or aspects of an identity 4. Performance as Power—exerting control and power in the construction of the creative economy 5. Performance as a Process (performing)—through which social acceptance or monetary value/success is ascribed 6. Performance as an Experience (visible, hidden, or private) In doing so, the use of performing as an underlying construct for this book enables the creative and cultural industries to be framed in potentially richer and occasionally, contradictory ways: • as a reflection of one’s own ideas and values (expressively) • as a set of relationships • as assets and conduits • as transformative processes • as an indicator of personal status and success (monetary and otherwise) • as a permanent or continuous (evolving) facet It is my contention that theorising creative and cultural industries as acts of performing provides a valuable way of viewing the creative economy otherwise. The contributors to this book agree that the creative economy is a significant part of our economy and society and is here to stay, and that more robust frameworks and methods are needed to overcome the challenges to it. We must go beyond old notions of money and business designed for an industrial era, in order to get a better sense of the meanings of creative and cultural industries and the intersection of value. The use of performing as a construct provides a potentially more valuable

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lens through which we might glean new patterns and theories. In Chap. 2, Laura Parsons builds on these same ideas to examine the value of culture to society and reflects on value that remains ostensibly hidden in society as a result of rigidly applied taxonomies and labels. In her work, Laura differentiates between value that is hidden by virtue of being unknown (unconscious acts), that which is unable to be conveyed through codified means (tacit, intrinsic, and symbolic values), that which is ephemeral, or in hard to see settings such as the household. These diverse views on cultural value serve to shed light on the limitations of mainstream categories and lenses, and open up ideas for alternative and more nuanced taxonomies. In Part II of the book, which deals with the Self, several contributors reflect on different areas of value—embodied, objectified, institutionalised—and which interact with different power dynamics, that shape performance of creativity and culture. In many of these cases, the creativity economy is framed in terms of a concerted action and manifestation of intellectual capital and artistic skills. In Chap. 3, Pinky Bazaz examines education and specifically degrees, as an objectified part of the creative economy, from which society ascribes different values. Pinky draws on Rokeach’s (1973) taxonomy of value to underscore the inherent conflict between the economic valorising of degrees in the market place, and the more subtle, soft returns of cultural degrees such as design, especially faced by BAME groups. Pinky uses the construct of ‘success’ to examine what cultural capital and performing in universities might mean as a process, through which economic value develops, but which for some groups, creates barriers of achievement in society and raises wider questions around voice, wealth, power, and race. In Chap. 4, the same dominant issues of power are brought to bear on an analysis of the visual and performing arts sector in the UK, and the way power and policy process militate what art means and how this is accessed, experienced, and shaped by the corporate other. In their work, Jennie Jordan and Ruth Jindal examine the notion of ‘philanthropy’ in the arts, the emergence of which can be viewed as a paradigmatic shift in arts policy and funding. As Jennie and Ruth argue, the mainstreaming of philanthropy into arts is to introduce significant power dynamics into the field, and fundamentally to alter the experience and value of arts by the self to a more commercial and collective experience. By shaping the location of, access to, and content of arts, philanthropy in effect changes art from an individual to a collective experience and process, shaped by commercial others.

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In Chap. 5, Claire Lerpiniere reflects on the consumption and production of fashion and textiles, which on the one hand could be viewed as an objectified form of capital (literally an expression of capital wealth) but which reveals wider views of the self, relating to personal values on the use of raw materials and environmental damage caused by the production of fashion. In Chap. 6, Malika Kraamer frames fashion and textiles more as an embodied and art form, which depicts historical and anthropological issues of how value is constructed in a society, and the use of a cloth to express self-identity within a community. Malika uses her work to reflect on different aspects of performing, which take place through Kente Cloth in Ghana—its use over the years to reflect both tradition (history) and modernity (innovation), and the individual choices to wear such cloth and perform in the cloth, to connote complex relations between occasion, self-­ identity, belonging, and political standing in a society. In Part III of the book, Collective Space and Processes, the creative economy is portrayed as a collective space and process through which value is constructed. In Chap. 7, David Rae reflects on the collective characteristics of two locales, one in Canada and the other in the UK, and the role micro cultures play. As David argues, micro cultures play out (or perform) at a community level and are critical in shaping value, in this case through micro cultural entrepreneurship. David draws on the collective power of a community, and the cultural signs that reside there to transform the area in which they live. In Chap. 8, I use the same ideas to reflect upon the unique signs and collective power of another space and locale in Denmark, which is argued to perform as a third space. What is revealed from the chapter and discussion of Danish culture and use of innovation incubators is the importance of social spaces, and the collective performativity of informal production spaces to produce economic benefits, as well as generating value from a wider sense of belonging and collective identity. In Chap. 9, Jennifer Garcia Carrizo and I examine the effects of culture as an art form in the North East of England, which performs as a transformative process, which has boosted morale and collective identity in the Ouseburn Valley. As we argue, while the arts activities themselves might be viewed as low economic value, their performative power can be seen in the way they drive social capital, their collective self-worth in the community, their collective voice outside of the community, and their inclusivity in bringing a range of economic, social, and third actors together. Many of these aspects go unnoticed, and to draw on Laura Parson’s work, are hidden day to day in the community.

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In Chap. 10, David Heap and Caroline Coles reflect further on the value of the hidden in collective terms, by investigating the notion (or value) or silent design in the commercial design sectors. David and Caroline draw on the examples of silent design in the furniture industry and the value of non-designers in the wider design process. Reflecting further on the legal and commercial dominance of value in design, David and Caroline raise some concerns about the degree to which the economic lens pervades many aspects of creative performance, effectively excluding some groups from commercial success, preventing some workers from performing as designers, and imposing significant risks on others through intellectual property. David and Caroline conclude by examining the role of creative commons in value construction, and whether this acts as a process through which other values are enabled. The same ideas are expressed in Chap. 11 on hidden networks, where I take a relational view of the creative economy and examine the degree to which some actors and sub-­ sectors perform different roles in producing economic value in creative products. While current taxonomies and measurement apparatus privilege the economic value of the end product, we seldom view products as a longer-term process and acknowledge the role of intermediaries, co-­ designers, and gatekeepers, or ancillary networks and platforms. Acknowledging platform in a different, virtual, sense, Tracy Harwood, Jason Boomer, and Tony Garry examine the different performances that play out through the ‘Let’s Play’ field, which has emerged from the practice of Machinima. Viewed ostensibly as a consumptive practice, Tracy, Jason, and Tony examine the wider values derived from the Let’s Play performance, which is viewed as a complex interplay between both consumption and production. This interplay between production and consumption, hidden and visible, and individual and collective raises a number of issues about how frameworks need to straddle and be flexible. Performing in this area produces considerable value and is leading to a rewriting of the creative economy taxonomy. These different contributions serve to remind us that the creative economy is not an amorphous term; rather a set of separate sub-sectors, actors, and areas of practice with very different characteristics, histories, and language. The book spans the areas of gaming, textiles and fashion, food, and art, but also thinks about the role and production of communities, processes, identities, and expressions. It provides a variegated menu that will have broad appeal and offer different policy ideas and contributions to the wider creative discourse. While Pinky Bazaz (Chap. 3) and Jennie Jordan

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and Ruth Jindal (Chap. 4) address power in a negative way, Jennifer Garcia Carrizo and I (Chap. 8) frame this as an empowering process. Equally, while David Rae (Chap. 7) and David Heap and Caroline Coles (Chap. 10), for example, frame power as a hidden asset and space through which value is constructed, Claire Lerpiniere (Chap. 4) and Malika Kraamer (Chap. 5) frame this more emphatically as an expressive event. In these seemingly disparate accounts, we have attempted to provide a variety of viewpoints on what is often conveyed as an exclusively economic area of activity. We believe that a desirable attribute of this book is that it accommodates a wide variety of viewpoints and sector analyses of the creative economy, and in doing so draws upon a diversity of conceptual frameworks and approaches that readers might use for further development. Value has been conveyed in a variety of ways and the goal of the book is not to provide a unified approach and ideological framework; rather to present a diverse framework with options that might stimulate future conversations, leading to more nuanced approaches and understanding of value capture.

References Anand, N., & Croidieu, G. (2015). Niches, Genres, and Classifications in the Creative Industries, in User Innovation in Creative Industries. In C.  Jones, M. Lorenzen, & J. Sapsed (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Creative Industries (pp. 327–349). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bakhshi, H., Fujiwara, D., Lawton, R., Mourato, S., & Dolan, P. (2015). Measuring Economic Value in Cultural Institutions. A Report Commissioned by the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Cultural Value Project. London: Nesta. Banks, M. (2017). Creative Justice: Cultural Industries, Work and Inequality. London: Rowman and Littlefield. Baudrillard, J. (1996) The System of Objects. London: Verso. Bourdieu, P. (1986). The Forms of Capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education (pp. 241–258). New York: Greenwood. Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. Cameron, D. (1997). Performing Gender Identity. Young Mend of the Construction of the Heterosexual Masculinity. The Discourse Reader, 26, 442–458. Capdevila, I., Cohendet, P., & Simon, L. (2015). Establishing New Codes for Creativity through Haute Cuisine: The Case of Ferran Adria and elBulli. Technology Innovation Management Review, 5(7), 25–33.

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Caves, R.  E. (2000). Creative Industries: Contracts between Art and Commerce. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University. CCF. (2016). Perceptions Matter. The Comms Cause UK Values Survey. London: Common Cause Foundation. Cunningham, S.  D. (2002). From Cultural to Creative Industries: Theory, Industry and Policy Implications. Journal of Media Research and Resources, 102(1), 54–65. DCMS. (2018). Creative Industries: Focus on Employment. Department for Culture, Media and Sport. London: ONS. (See also http://www.thecreativeindustries.co.uk/uk-creative-overview/facts-and-figures). Di Maria, E., & Finotto, V. (2015). User Innovation in Creative Industries. In C. Jones, M. Lorenzen, & J. Sapsed (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Creative Industries (pp. 301–319). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Florida, R. (2001). The Rise of the Creative Class. And How Its Transforming Work, Leisure, Community, and Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books. Floriani, D. E., & Amal, M. (2018). The Dynamics and Patterns of a Cultural and Creative Industry in Brazil from an International Business Picture: The Wine Industry as a Creative Industry. In L. Lazzeretti & M. Vecco (Eds.), Creative Industries and Entrepreneurship: Paradigms in Transition from a Global Perspective (pp. 239–260). Elgar. Florida, R., Mellander, C., Stolarick, K., & Ross, A. (2012). Cities, Skills and Wages. Journal of Economic Geography, 12(2), 355–377. Flowers, S., & Voss, G. (2015). User Innovation in the Music Software Industry: The Case of Sibelius. In C. Jones, M. Lorenzen, & J. Sapsed (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Creative Industries (pp.  320–326). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gabe, T. (2011). The Value of Creativity. In D. E. Andersson, A.-E. Andersson, & C. Mellander (Eds.), Handbook of Creative Cities (pp. 128–145). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Glaveanu, V., Gillespie, A., & Valsinar, J. (2014). Rethinking Creativity: Contributions from Social and Cultural Psychology. London: Routledge. Harvey, D. (1989). From Managerialism to Entrepreneurialism. Geografiska Annaler B, 7(1), 3–18. Harvey, D. (2001). Globalization and the ‘Spatial Fix’. Geografische Revu, 3(2), 23–30. Heilbrun, J., & Gray, C. M. (2001). The Economics of Art and Culture (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hitlin, S., & Piliavin, J. A. (2004). Values: Reviving a Dormant Concept. Annual Review of Sociology, 30, 359–393. Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Value, Behaviors, Institutions, and Organisations across Nations (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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Hracs, B.  J. (2015). Cultural Intermediaries in the Digital Age: The Case of Independent Musicians and Managers in Toronto. Regional Studies, 49(3), 461–475. Hracs, B.  J., Seman, M., & Virani, T. (Eds.). (2018). The Production and Consumption of Music in the Digital Age. London: Routledge. Jaspers, E. (2016). Values. Oxford Bibliographies in Sociology. https://doi. org/10.1093/OBO/9780199756384-0182. Jessop, B. (2006). Spatial Fixes, Temporal Fixes, and Spatio-Temporal Fixes. In N.  Castree & D.  Gregory (Eds.), David Harvey: A Critical Reader (pp. 142–166). Oxford: Blackwell. Jones, C., Lorenzen, M., & Sapsed, J. (Eds.). (2015). Creative Industries: A Typology of Change. In The Oxford Handbook of Creative Industries (pp. 3–28). Oxford University Press. Kaszynska, P. (2018). Cultural Value Scoping Project. Swindon: Arts and Humanities Research Council. Landry, C. (2011). A Roadmap for the Creative City. In D. E. Andersson, A. E. Andersson, & C. Mellander (Eds.), Handbook of Creative Cities (pp. 517–536). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Lash, S., & Urry, J. (1994). Economies of Signs and Space. London: Sage. Lazzeretti, L. (2014). Creative Industries and Innovation in Europe. London: Routledge. Lazzeretti, L., & Vecco, M. (2018). Creative Industries and Entrepreneurship. Paradigms in Transition from a Global Perspective. Edward Elgar. Lefebvre, H. (1961). Critique de la vie quotideienne (Everyday Life as a Critique). Paris: L’Arche. Lorentzen, A. (2013). Post-industrial Growth, Experience, Culture or Creative Economies? In J. Sundbo & F. Sorensen (Eds.), Handbook on the Experience Economy (pp. 45–64). Elgar. McCarthy, J. (2005). Cultural Quarters and Regeneration: The Case of Wolverhampton. Journal of Planning, Practice and Research, 20(3), 297–311. Montgomery, J. (2008). The New Wealth of Cities: City Dynamics and the Fifth Wave. Aldershot: Ashgate. Mould, O. (2015). Urban Subversion and the Creative City. London: Routledge. Mould, O. (2018) Against Creativity. Verso. Nathan, M., & Kemeny, T. (2018). Creative Differences? Measuring Creative Economy Employment in the US and UK Using Microdata. University of Birmingham. Retrieved from http://epapers.bham.ac.uk/3154/. Nesta. (2018a). Creative Nation. London: Nesta. Nesta. (2018b). Creative Nation: Local Profiles. Open Dataset with Roxanna Torre, Frontier Economics, and ONS Virtual Micro-Data Laboratory. London: Nesta. O’Brien, D. (2010). Measuring the Value of Culture. London: Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

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O’Connor, J. (2015). Intermediaries and Imaginaries in the Cultural and Creative Industries. Regional Studies, 49(3), 374–387. Oakley, K., & O’Brien, D. (2016). Learning to Labour Unequally: Understanding the Relationship between Cultural Production, Cultural Consumption and Inequality. Social Identities, 22(5), 471–486. Peck, J. (2005). Struggling with the Creative Class. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 29(4), 740—770. Perry, B. (2019). Governing the Creative City: The Practice, Value and Effectiveness of Cultural Intermediation. In P.  Jones, B.  Perry, & P.  Long (Eds.), Cultural Intermediaries Connecting Communities. Revisiting Approaches to Cultural Engagement (pp. 119–132). Bristol: Palgrave. Potts, J. D., Hartley, J., Banks, J. A., Burgess, J. E., Cobcroft, R. S., Cunningham, S., & Montgomery, L. (2008a). Consumer Co-creation and Situated Creativity. Industry and Innovation, 15(5), 459–474. Potts, J.  D., Cunningham, S.  D., Hartley, J., & Ormerod, P. (2008b). Social Network Markets: A New Definition of the Creative Industries. Journal of Cultural Economics, 32(3), 166–185. Richardson, J. (2019). Place and Identity: The Performance of Home. Abingdon: Routledge. Rokeach, M. (1973). The Nature of Human Values. New York: Free Press. Throsby, D. (2001). Economies and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Throsby, C. D., & Withers, G. A. (1979). The Economics of the Performing Arts. New York: St Martin’s Press. Tose, R. (2011). A Textbook of Cultural Economics. Cambridge University Press. Vogel, H.  L. (2007). Entertainment Industry Economics (7th ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

CHAPTER 2

Problematising Hidden Culture Laura Parsons and Rachel Granger

Introduction In the previous chapter, culture and the wider creative paradigm were argued to be one of the most notable areas of economic activity of the new millennium, and as Lazzeretti and Vecco (2018) note, have come to dominate policy and scholarly outputs over the last decade. In this chapter, the hidden aspects of that creative landscape are considered in full. The chapter examines what is meant by hidden culture, the value attached to this, as well as why culture becomes hidden. Culture is a contested notion, having been subject to frequent scrutiny and debate in cross-disciplinary scholarship (e.g. Crossick and Kaszynska 2016; Williams 1989; Belfiore and Bennett 2007). In the literature, culture is portrayed frequently as both a solution (an economic solution to locales), but is then problematised as a result of its neoliberalist tendencies (framed frequently as injustice and precarity), and a problematic economic asset and tool. For example, the cultural industries as one area of the creative economy are widely credited as a driver for economic growth and urban regeneration (e.g. Florida 2014; Landry 2000), but as Granger argues in the previous chapter, neoliberalist paradigms have given primacy L. Parsons • R. Granger (*) De Montfort University, Leicester, UK e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Granger (ed.), Value Construction in the Creative Economy, Palgrave Studies in Business, Arts and Humanities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_2

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to a financial lens through which use of public resources is scrutinised. The resulting imperative of ‘impact’ connotes value to the public but also raises wider issues about the financial impacts as a proxy of utility value or the collective benefit of products or institutions. For this reason, culture has been presented more as a lens for understanding societies (e.g. Hall 1997; Bourdieu 2010), communities (Belfiore 2018), and organisations (Hofstede 2011; Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner 1998), and yet there has been a narrowing of the lens through which one might consider culture. Siloed working practices also mean that sector-specific definitions of culture have flourished, and as a result, there is a multiplicity of approaches for how we interpret culture and the wider creative economy as action, experience, or asset. Moreover, it could be argued that the conflated use of terms such as popular culture, low culture, subculture, and counterculture obfuscates what is valued, what is consumed, and what is visible to society. As Raymond Williams notes, despite definitions which belie the true nature of culture, “we all want to be a part of culture and relate to it, and relate ourselves to it” (Williams 1971, p. 306). In other words, every discipline wants to claim culture as its own. Against this backdrop, this chapter examines and problematises the definitional basis of culture, noting in particular the problems associated with ‘hidden culture’. As is noted, these hidden cultures are manifest in a variety of forms: secret or invisible; unacknowledged by those in power; latent or repressed; non-visual, or non-economic or taking place in private. The chapter considers all of these forms while making a case for a more transparent taxonomy of hidden culture and a framework for capturing the value in tacit, intrinsic, and embodied cultural forms. The chapter starts by defining what we understand by culture, as a context for considering what is meant by hidden culture and why this is relevant to a broader discussion about value construction in the creative economy.

Defining Culture Despite the disparate use of ‘culture’ as a term, a common thread in discipline-­specific literatures is that the scope or terminology of culture is either too broad to be meaningful, or so narrow as to exclude certain cultural forms or societal elements (Eagleton 2000). This is especially evident in the work of Williams (1971), who extols a whole range of general skills in culture, from gardening, metalwork, and carpentry to active politics. That said, what can be gleaned from the wide range of literature devoted

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to culture and creative economy is a commonality in acknowledging one or more of three strands: 1. culture as a way of life, pertaining to the beliefs, values, behaviours, and activities of certain sections of society (activity, process) 2. culture as a utopian ideal, or the mark of a successful civilisa tion (output) 3. culture as an artistic activity or product representative of a specific way of life (performing identity, embodiment) There is evidence of these three embodiments of culture in different disciplines. Broadly, an anthropological view of culture denoting a way of life seems to underpin all definitions, but the scope of this varies and is especially marked in policy and sociological readings of the term. Culture as a civilising force is present in some policy literature, but mainly seems applicable to literary and art history fields. The privileging of the cultural object seems almost ubiquitous, yet the scope of what constitutes a cultural object varies across disciplines, as will be reviewed later in this chapter. Such flexible definitions mean that culture is relevant and of interest to a broad range of fields. Moreover, a review of these disciplinary approaches allows us to reach a comprehensive definition not yet apparent in current discourse. The literature within policy, languages, the arts, economics/ business, and sociology are particularly notable and warrant further discussion. Homogenous Policy Approaches to Culture The focus on the tangible, primarily economic benefits of culture in recent decades has placed the various policy definitions of culture under scrutiny. For example, while the 2016 UK government (DCMS 2016) describes culture as being created by “an extraordinary network of individuals and organisations, that together preserve, reflect and promote who we are as a nation, in all our rich diversity” and discusses the value of what is local and unique, this is contradicted by the primacy of cultural outputs; for instance, there is a clear reliance on Arts Council England (ACE) in providing the national policy framework. While this is not problematic in itself, its terminology “art and culture” (ACE n.d.) may be interpreted as legitimating cultural forms and the prioritisation of objects, over less visible or intrinsic cultural forms. In addition, ACE offers a toolkit to organisations to make

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the case for art and culture, which differentiates between traditionalist consumers, creative intellectuals, and aspiring parents. The rigidity of this approach leaves little room to reflect on the nuances of a community and demonstrates a view of culture only as a tool for societal improvement. It might also be argued that economic value is clearly prioritised over social or intrinsic value. While the white paper devotes pages to financial value of the creative economy, the intrinsic benefits receive just one paragraph: “Culture creates inspiration, enriches lives and improves our outlook on life. Evidence suggests that culture has an intrinsic value through the positive impact on personal wellbeing. Data shows that engaging with culture (visiting, attending and participation) significantly increases overall life satisfaction” (DCMS 2016, p. 15). This view of culture, in which the public are consumers rather than creators, seems to disregard the cultural forms which give groups collective identity, or that which cannot be reliably measured. Creative Scotland, the counterpart to Arts Council England, are careful within policy documents not to conflate the terms ‘art’ and ‘culture’. Culture is used more broadly, alongside heritage, to connote a specific set of defining national and regional characteristics, such as the “special local intimacy of local creativity in places like Helmsdale, Langholm and Ullapool”, while the “Arts, Screen and Creative Industries” are designated as having specific (and more circumspect) “cultural value” (Scottish Government 2019, p. 6). The culture strategy for Scotland was written after consultation with cultural organisations and creative individuals, and eschews the usual economic markers in favour of ambitions of transformation, empowerment, and sustainability. Similarly, Creative Australia takes the notion of defining national characteristics further, describing culture as “created by us and defines us. It is the embodiment of the distinctive values, traditions and beliefs that make being Australian in the 21st century unique”, placing emphasis on the grounding of the culture in indigenous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and acknowledging the cyclical nature of culture (Creative Australia 2013, p. 8). The document also stresses that “[c]ulture is more than the arts”, acknowledging indigenous languages and ceremonies, collective celebrations, craft, and design as valid cultural forms and “the substance to our identity” (ibid.). Looking across these different forms, only some of which have been presented here, there appears to be a common language of community and transformation in Western cultural policy, but a very different approach to defining what culture comprises. This may be due, in part, to the

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­ resence of indigenous populations, ancient languages, and historic strugp gles for power and agency leading to a more visible link to, and awareness of, embodied cultural forms. Languages Literary scholars Raymond Williams and Terry Eagleton utilise historical and theoretical perspectives on culture to make sense of culture, with both venturing—verbatim—that a “culture, while it is being lived, is always in part unknown, in part unrealised” (Williams 1971, p. 320; Eagleton 2000, p. 112). In his socialist reading of culture, Williams (1971, 1989) rejects elitist tropes and divisive boundaries in defining what may be defined as a cultural object or activity. In categorising an exclusive preference for ‘high’ art, he classifies almost all intellectual output, including trade union marches and political speeches, as cultural artefacts. In this sense, culture has been framed as an emancipatory political device and is elevated to become the measure of our future success. By contrast, Eagleton rejects the notion that culture can form a utopia, questioning Williams’ inclusion of institutions as culture and suggesting that this definition would render a public lavatory a cultural institution (2000, p. 38). However, in criticising postmodernist readings of culture which “privilege the minority” as a concession to “identity politics” (2000, p. 10), Eagleton also disregards feminist, post-colonial, and queer critiques of culture, thus silencing the voices which may effectively disrupt traditional and restrictive definitions of culture, and which have a stronger voice in contemporary spaces. Visual Arts Visual art scholars, by contrast, tend to define culture through a productionist lens, with the art object representing cultural norms and values, and acting as a signifier of symbolic meanings through inter alia class struggle and gender inequality (Hadjinicolaou 1978; Berger 2008). Debate by art scholars over the role of the artist as a uniquely creative force within society provides rich ground for the artist to be used as a proxy for the value of art. In The Social Production of Art, however, Wolff (1993) critiques the shibboleth of the artist as a creator and names the artist a producer, in part to democratise the role of artist; acknowledging creative agency among a greater range of individuals and communities. Acknowledging a broader

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category of ­producers also points to the multidirectional influence of wider societal values upon art itself. Economic-Led Considerations Despite the apparent dominance of the economic lens, policy makers and arts funding bodies, cultural economists have predominantly resisted the reliance on the restrictive boundaries of economic methods to value culture as a whole (Throsby 2001; Bakhshi and Cunningham 2016). In critiquing “the reification of the economy” (Throsby 2001, p. 2), Throsby acknowledges the twofold nature of culture as both a way of life of an identifiable group, and the cultural artefacts produced by such a way of life, utilising multiple lenses to ascribe value, including aesthetic, spiritual, historical, symbolic, and authentic value. This may be seen to consolidate the work of scholars in art and literature, by acknowledging the holistic value of various modes of culture. Throsby (2001, p. 4) offers a triumvirate framework to define culture, but in contradistinction to Williams (op. cit.) adopts an anthropological lens, emphasising culture as an object rather than process: • that activities concern some form of creativity in their production • that they generate and communicate symbolic meaning • that their output embodies some form of intellectual property Intellectual property in this context may be read as a cultural signifier: these processes and products are indicative of paths of thought shaped by lived experience and inherent philosophies. If we take culture to mean any activity or object which fits these provisos, we may begin to separate out cultural products, especially those which do not fit within the mainstream schema of, for instance, the preparation and cooking of food, and the production of certain fabrics. Culture in Sociology At the centre of Bourdieu’s (2010) influential work on the relationship between social order and cultural products is the idea that systems of education, language, judgements, values, methods of classification, and activities of everyday life unconsciously reinforce hierarchies and class structure. Within the concept of ‘habitus’, cultural practices derive significance not

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from intrinsic qualities, as in readings by art and literary scholars, but from their relationship to one another. Bourdieu uses ‘taste’, a preference for certain cultural forms, as a proxy for cultural value and a signifier of class. Hall’s (1997) work on the politics of representation draws similarities with Bourdieu insofar as the assertion that art, music, images, and even the food that we consume represent the material dimension of a wider system of beliefs and practices. As Hall notes: “social actors … use the conceptual systems of their culture and the linguistic and other representational systems to construct meaning, to make the world meaningful and to communicate about that world meaningfully to others” (Hall 1997, p. 25). However, whereas Bourdieu’s theory of ‘habitus’ incorporates generational evolutions of taste and social structure, tied irrevocably to notions of power, Hall posits that the symbolic meaning of cultural products changes continuously, propounding the notion of culture as a tool for radical social change. Bourdieu’s methods have come under scrutiny in the wake of societal transformations from the late twentieth century onwards (see Bennett et al. 2009; Warde et al. 2007). For example, Bennett et al. (2009) argue that the lack of empirical data does not support the distinctions in taste and subsequent relationships to class. Bourdieu’s model is predicated firstly upon distinct boundaries between legitimate and disinterested ‘lowbrow’ cultural forms, and Bennett et al. (2009, p. 257) find that disinterest was rare, suggesting that accessibility is a more significant factor in cultural forms (2009, p. 257), and that the overlap between what is considered legitimate and popular is at best unclear. Lash and Urry (1994) also depart from Bourdieu and Hall’s focus on the primacy of the cultural product as signifier, mirroring instead Wolff’s (1993) more tempered definition of the artist as producer, and noting transformation in its role: “cultural artefacts are no longer transcendent as representations … they have become immanent as objects amongst others circulating in information and communication structures; and that these become the reality of everyday life[.] More recently we have seen representations taking up the functional position of objects, objects which only differ from other objects of everyday life in their immaterial form and aesthetic character” (Lash and Urry 1994, p. 132). This focus on the symbiotic influence of social structure and cultural product is useful, as Bourdieu’s work is influential, but as noted here, it highlights the problem of classifying cultural forms and the limitations of poor data in illustrating value and values.

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Reaching a Cross-disciplinary Definition From these different viewpoints, it is possible to appreciate the differences between disciplinary lenses, while also identifying areas of commonality, which warrant further discussion. Firstly, the importance of semiotics is evident in several discourses—some explicitly, such as Throsby’s (2001) notion of symbolic value, and some implicitly. Semiotics in this context might be understood as a signifier or meaning behind a cultural object, or as Barthes (1977, p. 56) frames “The Third Meaning” or “The Obtuse Meaning”. As he argues, all social systems involve some element of signification, but not all of them are in the act of signifying (performing an action) or paying due attention to cultural systems. Secondly, it could be argued that culture should be defined in the context of wider society and its ideals, in order to fully understand these signifiers; both to illuminate the cultural object itself, and to allow insight into the societal fabric of which the object forms a part. Wolff (1993), for example, notes through a sociological lens that the influence of a singular art object is unidirectional, but culture feeds into, reinforces, and influences change in societies. As he notes, the existence of social structures enables artistic and cultural activity “in a mutual relation of interdependence” (ibid., p. 9). This consideration of context is not only helpful in explanations of form or object (e.g. the praxes of Islamic artists in pattern creation) but also in analysing power relations, such as instances in which art forms by marginalised communities are appropriated and expurgated for consumption by mainstream audiences, as noted later. Thirdly, it could be argued that any definition of culture must encapsulate the broadest possible activity to be inclusive, and to democratise the act of cultural production and participation, and to acknowledge and legitimise the cultural output of marginalised communities. As Raymond Williams asks “what kind of life can it be … to produce … this extraordinary decision to call certain things culture and then separate them, as with a park wall, from ordinary people and ordinary work?” (Williams 1989 [1958], p. 5), and advocates the value of domestic and working-class cultural forms. Eagleton argues that this viewpoint of culture is reminiscent of “the traditional aesthetic/instrumental dichotomy” (Eagleton 2000, p. 36), and that not all intellectual output may be deemed as culture, must be a signifier of wider social meaning to earn this distinction. This reinforces the first consideration of the importance of semiotics in defining culture.

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With this in mind, one might define culture as: ‘an object, activity or rite resulting from or in a transformative process, which conveys symbolic meaning to a community bound by shared experience, iterating a wider system of practices and values’. This definition moves away from the previous discussion on historical utopian ideals, instead focusing on the circumstance, location, and temporality of the creation of the cultural artefact. In an increasingly globalised society there can be no singular idea of utopia, arguably an outdated and colonialist notion (Hardy 2012). This definition instead focuses on plurality of beliefs, values, and experience which make the study of cultures so rich. It privileges the art object, the signifying act, and the long-held custom to democratise what we define as culture and broaden its scope (see Williams 1971). The necessity of a transformative process allows tacit and domestic activities and objects to become cultural signifiers, and the inclusion of community dispels this myth of the isolated creator, while the notion of an iterative system suggests the circular motion of culture influencing values and being influenced by them.

The Emergence of Hidden Culture While the term ‘hidden culture’ does not exist in the literature, there is considerable evidence that some culture remains in a hidden state. The literature notes the importance of subcultures, counter culture, participatory and community arts, and material and design cultures which may form part of a wider understanding of what here is termed hidden culture. For example, in the economics field (especially the New Economic Geography), useful distinctions are made between tacit and explicit knowledge, and drawing on the work of Polanyi (1958) tacit, symbolic, codified, and explicit knowledge. Johnson et  al. (2002, p.  250) refer to the Aristotelian distinction between “epistèmè: knowledge that is universal and theoretical”, and “technè: knowledge that is instrumental, context specific and practice related”. Tacit knowledge, or “knowledge that is difficult to transfer to another person by means of writing it down or verbalizing it” (Asheim et al. 2017) often defies conscious articulation, meaning that holders of such knowledge may not even be aware of it—being hidden from view or consciousness (see Gertler 2001). The participatory nature of acquiring such uncommunicable knowledge and skills means that tacit knowledge is heavily context-dependent. For example, Polanyi is criticised for not specifying the ­“common rules”

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which allow transfer of tacit knowledge, meaning that modes of transfer “remain primarily idiosyncratic and ‘cultural’ in origin” (ibid.). However, the transfer of tacit knowledge as a mode of cultural expression is read as a positive by Asheim et  al., resting in the socially constructed world of norms, values, and perceptions, and fundamentally an “expression of cultural meaning” (Asheim et al. 2017, p. 430). The notion of transmission through sensuous media may also inform a methodology and model for valuing hidden cultures. There are complementarities between explicit and tacit knowledge which can become a site for creativity or innovation. There are instances in culture, for example, where information may be codified in a way which is universal but this may not be universally transmitted due to form or accessibility; for example, notated music ostensibly conveys the same information wherever it is read, but relies on the need to read music, have access to an instrument, and have the sufficient skill to play the notated music on said instrument (or absorptive capacity). Asheim et al. (2017) define this equivocal area as “synthetic knowledge”, which is gained through the application or combination of existing knowledges, especially through interactive learning with users, and has a strong tacit and context-specific dimension. Symbolic knowledge is considered “essential for creating meaning, desire, and aesthetic qualities” (ibid., p.  432). In the case of culture, it is easy to see how symbolic and codified knowledge can combine to elicit creativity; for example, the oral tradition of West African music was uprooted to the USA and became bound in the practice of slavery, only to evolve into a legitimate cultural form in the 12 bar blues and become an identifier and a cultural symbol for the African American community. In this sense, tacit knowledge can be codified in a community-­ specific way and passed down through generations or across notional boundaries. This concept of both codified and tacit knowledge adds to our understanding of culture in two ways. First, we might better understand how power upholds and subjugates systems, therefore influencing what we perceive as ‘legitimate’ culture. A system that prioritises the economics of exploitable codifiable knowledge may privilege scientific tacit-symbolic knowledge. In culture, forms which are replicable, easily interpreted, and understood may be more readily acknowledged and funded more easily. Second, the literature underscores the spatial and relational elements of hidden culture. Gertler discusses the difficulty of exchanging tacit knowledge over long distances (Gertler 2001, p.  3), which gives primacy to

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face-to-face contact but also raises an issue about culture capture. It seems logical that in an increasingly migratory and digitised world, cultural space may not just be physical, a point made by Harwood et al. in Chap. 11. Digital spaces offer the possibility of such exchanges over greater distance, which Bathelt et al. (2004) acknowledge in their work on ‘Local Buzz and Global Pipelines’. This extended reach afforded by the digital and by migrant communities also creates opportunities for further innovation and creativity through synthetic knowledge. Thus one might conclude that networks are important in the transfer of tacit knowledge and, seemingly, in the perpetuation of hidden culture. Gertler describes communities of practice as groups “bound together by shared experience, expertise and commitment to a joint enterprise” who facilitate the identification, joint production, and sharing of tacit knowledge through collaborative problem-solving assisted by story-telling and other narrative devices for circulating tacit knowledge (Gertler 2001, p. 11). At the centre of these networks are ‘knowledge enablers’, who are small groups within larger communities who hold and transfer privileged symbolic knowledge. In cultural terms, these enablers could be storytellers relaying folklore, graffiti artists, documentary filmmakers, matriarchs teaching family how to cook, or online influencers. Identifying these knowledge enablers in a model for valuing hidden cultures would be useful in mapping networks and tracking the flow of symbolic meaning in communities. Finally, the problem of capturing and sharing tacit knowledge is acknowledged widely, whether this takes the form of unwillingness to codify certain knowledge or lack of capacity to do so. For example, the importance of techniques for ‘capture’, ‘harvest’, or ‘unlocking’ is considered. However, it is worth noting that Gertler’s work operates within the economics field and is explicitly based on market value and company growth, as part of new growth theory. It therefore suffers from being directly at odds with a model for capturing hidden culture and for culture that might pertain to other disciplines and fields. There is a sense that Gertler’s work does not take us much further in recognising and applying hidden culture in practice and is nothing more than a conceptual exegesis. While culture scholars may relate to the desire to create a recursive loop which allows the public to feed back to cultural producers to democratise the creation process, it is arguably at this point when knowledge management and culture literature diverge. Johnson, Lorenz, and Lundvall describe “epistemic communities” which form “local codes” to make communication inter-

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nally more efficient but keep outsiders at arm’s length (2002, p.  251). Cultural theorists must acknowledge that outside of the capitalist paradigm, some holders of knowledge do not want to reproduce or share their knowledge, for fear of it being appropriated, watered down, or lost, thus losing meaning. It is, therefore, useful now to look at some ‘hidden’ cultural forms, to consider what attributes they share in order to reach a more meaningful definition of hidden culture.

Conceptualising Hidden Culture It is evident that, despite efforts in some academic, community, and political circles, the notion of ‘high’ culture remains dominant, yet is only accessed by a small proportion of the population (Hewison 2014; Neelands et al. 2015). The literature identifies routes where hidden cultural forms begin to emerge. Power Relations and Value Allocation The primacy of value is a key factor in locating hidden cultures. It could be argued that central to the rise of the contemporary neoliberalist paradigm has been a campaign of “derision and contempt” (Skeggs and Loveday 2012) through media, political rhetoric, and policy targeted at the working class and marginalised communities. The logic of such a strategy materialised from an increasingly individualised society in which ‘the self’ holds value and legitimacy but is subject to “access to particular sources of value, such as cultural, social, economic and symbolic resources” (ibid., p. 475), which at once denotes inequalities in how dominant groups may prosper. This resonates with earlier accounts of Bourdieu’s view of power (Habitus) in society. Using power as a lens trough which to analyse questions of value in culture, Belfiore notes the “relational nature of processes of value allocation and cultural validation” (Belfiore 2018, p. 2), implying that ‘habitus’ shapes cultural value, and the subsequent entrenched inequalities make the question of who allocates value a pertinent one in recognising various cultural forms as legitimate. Symbolic power “shapes how different social groups enjoy not only different levels of access to different forms of artistic and cultural engagement, but also different access to the power to bestow

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value and legitimise aesthetic and cultural practices” (ibid.). This also relates to the ease of codification and transfer of knowledge between dominant groups and how certain tacit knowledge comes to be a tool for exclusion for marginalised groups who do not share the context necessary to understand. This may mean that the favour afforded to certain cultural forms may actively disempower, subjugate, or marginalise non-dominant groups and render them and their activities ‘hidden’. Current iterations of cultural policy have been criticised for a dominant discourse of celebration, failing to acknowledge dualities in which certain groups benefit from policy initiatives while others suffer, or areas in which community interests have not been served (Belfiore 2018; McGuigan 2006). Belfiore (2018) uses the example of the television programme My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding to demonstrate how a single cultural object can become a carrier of both positive and negative value, depending on power structures: a profitable export model and diversity awards allow the non-­ GRT producers to gain further social and economic capital. However, the effects on GRT businesses and wider perception of the community have diminished both material and symbolic power for the community. This raises the question of the authenticity of cultural products when they concern a marginalised group but are not produced by said group. Considering products further, Oakley and O’Brien (2016) observe that cultural products matter because they ‘shape how we understand ourselves and our society’ and thus the question of who gets to make cultural products is a profoundly relevant one. In this sense, products can be read to incorporate the object, activity, or rite of our definition of culture, but the word itself has broader notions of economic wealth. A pattern in which the privileged are almost exclusively able to allocate value in the cultural sphere means that programming and making may become a feedback loop, potentially excluding audiences from cultural activity, as reflected in the downturn of cultural participation referenced in the Warwick Commission report (Neelands et al. 2015), creating a recursive cycle of apathy. Cultural production from an unrepresentative group of producers may reinforce the disenfranchisement of certain groups. The appropriation by dominant groups of cultural production associated with minorities often changes or dilutes the meanings of important signifiers, becoming “part of an ideological process that designates non-white groups as inferior” (Hesmondhalgh and Saha 2013, p.  184). This is also a process through which cultural forms lose their ‘authentic value’ (Throsby 2001).

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Material Culture and Embodied Meaning The study of material culture expands on earlier readings about tacit and embodied symbols in objects, showing how the aesthetics of the everyday may be valuable in uncovering social structures and the knowledge transfer within them. Thorpe uses the notion of ‘indwelling’ to explain the difficulties of articulating tacit and embodied knowledge: “dwelling in a set of physical skills or theoretical presuppositions, one is through them aware of the external world and cannot at the same time be focally aware of these skills or assumptions. One assimilates one’s fundamental assumptions to the body in the same way that a tool or a probe can become an extension of the body” (Thorpe 2001, p.  24). This difficulty is further complicated when we consider the fluid nature of material culture; for example, Seremetakis describes material culture as a form which is neither stable nor fixed, but inherently transitive, demanding connection and completion by the perceiver (Seremetakis 1994, p. 7). An example of this nebulous nature of meaning within material culture may be illustrated by tacit forms of knowledge such as specific forms of dance being passed down between migrants and their second-generation children, whose perception of the embodied meaning of certain movement is altered by their removal from its contextual origin. Barthes (1977) also writes extensively on the identity of signifiers and takes an inclusive approach to objects having semiotic significance, variously discussing everyday decisions, including meal choices, furniture, and clothing as a language, using the example of a sweater representing “long autumn walks in the woods” (Barthes 1967, p. 43, cited in Layton 2006, p. 32). However, Layton (2006) argues that affording symbolism to such a range of objects is imprecise. He questions the reach and significance of certain associations: “But to whom does this sweater have association? Possibly just Barthes and his dog!” (Layton 2006, p. 32). In this sense, it is important that objects not only have personal meaning, but represent mutually intelligible systems, thus fulfilling the earlier definition of culture as having meaning to a community bound by shared experience. With this in mind, there may be power in material culture, whether this consists of personal objects or daily processes, to reveal patterns and commonalities in hidden cultures. These forms may include, but not limited to, cooking (Petridou 2001; Farquhar 2006), textiles (Lerpiniere 2013), domestic design (Drazin 2001; Miller 2001; Conkey 2006), or clothing (Schneider 2006). To capture the tacit and embodied meanings in such

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modes of culture, sensory and phenomenological methodologies frequently appear in literature. Lerpiniere (2013) cites Ashworth in using the ‘Fractions of the Lifeworld’ method, to attempt to build a holistic picture of human experience. These fractions—discourse, project, sociality, temporality, selfhood, embodiment, and spatiality—contribute to the articulation of the flow of tacit knowledge and invisible skills in social groups. The benefits of analysing material forms to better understand hidden culture are twofold. Firstly, we may reveal personal and emotional connections with the objects which allow producers to explain meaning that has previously been impossible to articulate, thus beginning to codify symbolic meanings for non-dominant communities and understand how individuals comprehend and engage their physical and social environments in everyday life, evoking interpretative techniques. Secondly, the study of material culture may begin to uncover and articulate structures of power which may explain why certain cultural forms remain hidden. Giard’s (1980) study of female practice in the domestic kitchen shows some evidence of how subjugation may affect the value placed on certain cultural forms. Despite frequently referring to the ‘creative ingenuity’ of the women in the study and the sensual nature of the cookery process, Giard also reveals the implied tension in routine without recognition: “yes, women’s work is slow and interminable” (Giard 1980, p. 159). Within this duality, Giard recognises that the language and knowledge of routine cookery is passed on almost through osmosis, reflecting the idea that tacit knowledge is only transferable through contact and demonstration (Gertler 2001; see also Highmore 2004; Asheim et  al. 2017), and thus becomes invisible to those not required or expected in the proximity of certain activity. By elucidating the value in these invisible yet transformative routines, the material can be a vehicle for beginning to challenge existing structures. Subculture and Low Culture In considering how power can obscure the view of cultural forms, one may consider how popular—mainstream or sometimes commercial—culture is located within power structures, and what signifiers exist within such modes of culture. Bourdieu posits that popular culture is “despised by the rich precisely because of its ‘easiness’” and describes the “refusal of … everything which offers pleasures that are too easily accessible” (Bourdieu

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2010, p. 486). While the rich intertextual readings of popular culture and subcultures in theory counter this stance (Hebdige 1991; Hall 1993; McRobbie 1994), certain areas of mainstream culture embrace their divisive nature. The term ‘low’ culture is problematic as perspective may vary along lines of education, class, race, and gender, amongst other factors. Hunt describes low culture as a product of “permissive populism”, which is characterised by its resistance to rehabilitation and deification of “the good-bad object” (Hunt 1998, p. 18). This category might include cultural objects which are considered kitsch, camp, or tasteless. These may remain hidden as their symbolic meaning is not easily codified in light of widely held values. Remaining hidden can become part of what gives subcultures legitimacy. In Notes on Camp (Sontag 1964), Susan Sontag discusses her conflicting feelings about camp culture: “I am strongly drawn to Camp, and almost as strongly offended by it”, while noting that this intrigue stems from the historical position of camp as hidden: “to talk about camp is to therefore betray it”. In this sense we see that some cultural forms benefit from their invisibility: in subsequent years, camp has been embraced, but early proponents of the culture needed to avoid prosecution and persecution to pass on the embodied meaning in its associated practices. On subcultures, Hebdige mirrors Seremetakis (1994) on material cultures in noting that the meaning of subculture is always in dispute, as “the tensions between dominant and subordinate groups can be found reflected in the surfaces of subculture” (Hebdige 1991, p. 2), showing how subcultures may shift between visibility and legitimacy depending on wider social contexts. Fiske, on the other hand, frames subcultures as a genuine protest movement, by which “the subordinate make their own culture out of the resources and commodities provided by the dominant system” (Fiske 1989, p. 15). However, while subcultures are deliberately transgressive, and characterised by signifiers of a dual or fragmented identity to escape various obligations and shed workaday identities (Chaney and Goulding 2016), to participate in subcultures often requires ‘extraordinary consumption’, such as attendance at costly festivals, purchase of specific items of dress, and other visual signifiers. Subcultural signifiers such as dress are signifiers of ‘extraordinary selves’ but also remain a culture of conformity and commonality and can bestow a certain anonymity. They can deceive, mislead, or, alternatively, reveal more than they hide as representations of a tran-

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scendent reality (ibid.). Materiality legitimises the subculture and its ­values, which may be seen to invalidate Marxist readings of the movement as in this respect the cultural form cannot be a site of protest, but merely of an alternative mode of consumption. Hebdige (1991) does, however, note that mundane objects, including safety pins (as a proxy for punk and anarchist tendencies), tubes of Vaseline (used by the queer community), may act as cultural signifiers with a symbolic dimension. Mainstream dismissal or disdain for these objects is part of what makes them sources of value and totemic items. This recalls Lash and Urry’s (1994) postmodernist reading of the cultural object as central to the circulation of information. This duality demonstrates the difficulty of codifying the tacit symbols which identify subcultures and other hidden cultural forms. Building on these useful conceptualisations of hidden culture, and drawing on the earlier definition of culture, hidden culture might begin to be defined as: a cultural entity within a community of practice, whose embodied meaning remains in some sense uncodified. • Entities may be invisible to dominant societal groups because power structures obscure the explicit meaning of their symbolism, or because the embodied meaning subverts mainstream values. • Entities may be unacknowledged by their producers as holding meaning, either because intrinsic knowledge has not been considered, or because dominant narrative excludes the cultural form. • Entities may be consciously hidden by their creators to preserve authenticity, avoid harm, or circumvent appropriation.

The notion of a cultural entity encompasses the ‘object, activity or rite resulting from or in a transformative process’ of the broader definition of culture, thus still incorporating semiotic and contextual meaning of a breadth of cultural products and processes. The word entity is used because it conveys something more than artefact (something which results from action) and implies the richness of quiddity while also being a recognisable and therefore usable term for research purposes. The inclusion of the term community of practice embodies the notion of hidden cultures as created by networks that hold tacit or symbolic knowledge, perpetuated through knowledge enablers, invoking the spatial and relational nature of hidden cultures.

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A Hidden Culture Approach to Value Capture In extending formerly held notions of culture to assume a wider conceptualisation which houses often marginalised or voiceless communities, we open up the possibility of finding cultural value in inherent practices, and in tacit cultural norms which may influence regional or national behaviours. Rather than enhancing the morals of the individual, cultural processes and products are fundamental in forming our values system, both on an individual level and collectively. This, however, should not discount the importance of individual experience, especially when analysing the impacts and influences of various modes of culture. The follow-up scoping project to the wider AHRC cultural value research project notes that accounts from individuals should be held “at the heart of our thinking” (Kaszynska 2018, p. 4). This implies the real need for more suitable qualitative models to effectively convey the value of cultural activity. To begin to conceptualise a model for capturing and valorising hidden culture, it seems imperative to find a way of documenting and valuing these activities and understanding as fully as possible authentic practices and interpretations. There are important insights here from public governance in understanding notions of ‘public value’. In public governance, ‘intangible value’ has formed the basis of a model for analysing the public value of cultural events in the Italian city of Ferrara, and given primacy to structural, human, relational, empathetic, and evolutionary values. However, in the empirical study of Ferrara, respondents felt that intangible value did not serve them, and preference was given to economic and social benefits of events. What may be taken from this research is not a rebuttal of non-economic approaches; rather that approaches need to look deeply into the meaning and symbolism attached to community events in shaping the identity of the city. The study nevertheless is useful in illustrating how power imbalances caused by removed policymaking can disguise embodied meaning and value, and also serves as a reminder to spatial elements and relationship networks in a model. The idea of evolutionary value may also be important in understanding how value builds and is shaped by a longer history of events and cultural values. Much of the public value literature focuses on a scorecard approach to measuring value (Smith 2004; Talbot 2011; Ćwiklicki 2016) and appears to detail ‘how to produce’ value (Smith 2004; Papi et al. 2018), providing what is arguably a toolkit for policy makers to make the case for a prescribed set of accepted cultural (or other public) forms. The premise

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behind a model for hidden culture, however, is quite the opposite: an acknowledgement that the value already exists, and needs to be uncovered and communicated, or more deeply unpicked and understood. In 2012, the Western Australian government commissioned a framework specifically for the arts, which acknowledged that process is a key element of cultural value, that authenticity is a factor in ascertaining the value of cultural entities, and that previous models of valuing cultural forms lacked transparency and may have perpetuated a hierarchy which privileged certain art forms over others (Chappell and Knell 2012). However, the subsequent model developed places value and reach in a closed loop with impact. The subjectivity of these terms and the emphasis on the abstract impact are what can be argued to hide many cultures in the first place. As such it seems sensible to argue that any model of hidden culture moves away from ‘making a case’ for certain cultural forms and towards a more open-ended value model. To suitably extract the parameters and to qualify the significance of hidden culture, one must shape a common language and currency, build a collective intention about the ways in which hidden cultures may create value, and shape an evidence base that includes tools and resources that will allow producers and participants in hidden cultures to better capture the value they create. The model below (Fig. 2.1) begins to frame these terms and may be applied to research design and case studies. The intention here is to use the model to open up new avenues of debate about suitable but nuanced measures and proxies of the model to inform new research design on the creative economy. The model evokes interpretative approaches and in particular phenomenological, sensory, visual and digital techniques, to elicit meaning previously difficult to articulate. It also emphasises the role of participatory methods in the creative economy to give an authentic voice to hidden communities who have never been given the opportunity to express themselves before. In this sense we may begin to understand the value of hereto tacit cultural forms which are strongly symbolic for communities and individuals. Looking to environmental sociology and drawing upon the Citizen Sense project (Gabrys 2014, 2017) in which the public evidence pollution to argue for improved infrastructures of care, a Hidden Culture approach might seek to allow participants to provide their own data independently, through digital media, to document their everyday cultural experience and begin to articulate the symbolic value in their communities.

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Fig. 2.1  Hidden culture

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The model also seeks to articulate cultural forms which are identifiers for communities and individuals. Methods might usefully foreground objects, which participants may not consider significant out of context, but are central to certain experiences, and by exploring the role of place in everyday practice. To elicit suitably rich case study data in uncovering both tacit knowledge and the spatial-relational aspects of hidden culture, research may then draw upon methods including sensory readings of the city (e.g. Degen and Rose 2012), phenomenological readings of material cultural forms (e.g. Lerpiniere 2013), walking methods (e.g. de Certeau 1984; Mould 2015), phenomenological walking methods (e.g. Kusenbach 2003), ethnography, interviews, and photo elicitation (e.g. Harper 2002).

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Hadjinicolaou, N. (1978). Art History and Class Struggle (L.  Asmal, trans.). London: Pluto Press. Hall, S. (1993). What Is This ‘Black’ in Black Popular Culture? Social Justice, 20(1–2), 104+. Hall, S. (1997). Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. The Open University. Hardy, K. (2012). Unsettling Hope: Settler-Colonialism and Utopianism. Spaces of Utopia: An Electronic Journal, 2(1), 123–136. Harper, D. (2002). Talking about Pictures: A Case for Photo Elicitation. Visual Studies, 17(1), 13–26. Hebdige, D. (1991). Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Routledge. Hesmondhalgh, D., & Saha, A. (2013). Race, Ethnicity, and Cultural Production. Popular Communication, 11(3), 179–195. https://doi.org/10.1080/154057 02.2013.810068. Hewison, R. (2014). Cultural Capital: The Rise and Fall of Creative Britain. London: Verso. Highmore, B. (2004). Homework: Routine, Social Aesthetics and the Ambiguity of Everyday Life. Cultural Studies, 18(2–3), 306–327. Hofstede, G. (2011). Dimensionalising Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(1). https://doi. org/10.9707/2307-0919.1014. Hunt, L. (1998). British Low Culture. London: Routledge. Johnson, B., Lorenz, E., & Lundvall, B. (2002). Why All This Fuss About Codified and Tacit Knowledge? Industrial and Corporate Change, 11(2), 245–262. https://doi.org/10.1093/icc/11.2.245. Kaszynska, P. (2018). Cultural Value Scoping Project. Arts and Humanities Research Council. Kusenbach, M. (2003). Street Phenomenology: The Go-Along as Ethnographic Research Tool. Ethnography, 4(3), 455–485. Landry, C. (2000). The Creative City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators. London: Earthscan. Lash, S., & Urry, J. (1994). Economies of Signs and Space. London: Sage. Layton, R. (2006). Structuralism and Semiotics. In C. Tilley, W. Keane, S. Kuchler, M. Rowlands, & P. Spyer (Eds.), Handbook of Material Culture. London: Sage. Lazzeretti, L., & Vecco, M. (2018). Creative Industries and Entrepreneurship. Paradigms in Transition from a Global Perspective. Edward Elgar. Lerpiniere, C. (2013). One Wedding, Two Cultures, Four Outfits: The Phenomenological Exploration of Fashion and Textiles. The Journal of Textile Design, Research and Practice, 1(1), 27–41. McGuigan, J. (2006). The Politics of Cultural Studies and Cool Capitalism. Cultural Politics: An International Journal, 2(2), 137–158. https://doi. org/10.2752/174321906778054574.

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McRobbie, A. (1994). Postmodernism and Popular Culture. London: Routledge. Miller, D. (Ed.). (2001). Home Possessions: Material Culture Behind Closed Doors. Oxford: Berg. Mould, O. (2015). Urban Subversion and the Creative City. London: Routledge. Neelands, J., Belfiore, E., Firth, C., Hart, N., Perrin, L., Brock, S., et al. (2015). Enriching Britain: Culture, Creativity and Growth: The 2015 Report by the Warwick Commission on the Future of Cultural Value. The University of Warwick. Oakley, K., & O’Brien, D. (2016). Learning to Labour Unequally: Understanding the Relationship Between Cultural Production, Cultural Consumption and Inequality. Social Identities, 22(5), 471–486. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350 4630.2015.1128800. Papi, L., Bigoni, M., Bracci, E., & Deidda Gagliardo, E. (2018). Measuring Public Value: A Conceptual and Applied Contribution to the Debate. Public Money & Management, 38(7), 503–510. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2 018.1439154. Petridou, E. (2001). The Taste of Home. In D.  Miller (Ed.), Home Possessions: Material Culture Behind Closed Doors. Oxford: Berg. Polanyi, M. (1958). Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. London: Routledge. Schneider, J. (2006). Cloth and Clothing. In C.  Tilley, W.  Keane, S.  Kuchler, M. Rowlands, & P. Spyer (Eds.), Handbook of Material Culture. London: Sage. Scottish Government. (2019). A Culture Strategy for Scotland [Online]. Retrieved from https://consult.gov.scot/culture-tourism-and-major-events/culturestrategy/. Seremetakis, C.  N. (1994). The Senses Still: Perception and Memory as Material Culture in Modernity. Boulder: Westview Press. Skeggs, B., & Loveday, V. (2012). Struggles for Value: Value Practices, Injustice, Judgment, Affect and the Idea of Class. The British Journal of Sociology, 63(3), 472–490. Smith, R. F. I. (2004). Focusing on Public Value: Something New and Something Old. Australian Journal of Public Administration, 63(4), 68–79. Sontag, S. (1964). Notes on Camp. Partisan Review [Online]. Retrieved from https://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Sontag-NotesOnCamp1964.html. Talbot, C. (2011). Paradoxes and Prospects of ‘Public Value’. Public Money & Management, 31(1), 27–34. Thorpe, C. (2001). Science Against Modernism: The Relevance of the Social Theory of Michael Polyani. British Journal of Sociology, 52(1), 19–35. Throsby, D. (2001). Economics and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Trompenaars, A., & Hampden-Turner, C. (1998). Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding Cultural Diversity in Global Business. New York: McGraw Hill. Warde, A., Wright, D., & Gayo-Cal, M. (2007). Understanding Cultural Omnivorousness: Or, the Myth of the Cultural Omnivore. Cultural Sociology, 1(2), 143–164. https://doi.org/10.1177/1749975507078185. Williams, R. (1971). Culture and Society 1780–1950. London: Pelican. Williams, R. (1989). Culture Is Ordinary. In Resources of Hope: Culture, Democracy, Socialism (pp. 3–14). London: Verso. Wolff, J. (1993). The Social Production of Art. London: Macmillan.

PART II

The Creative Self

CHAPTER 3

Defining Excellence: Value in Creative Degrees Pinky Bazaz

Introduction This chapter considers the value worth of skills/training in cultural and creative sectors. Specifically, it considers the personal and societal value of creative degrees, which have come under intense public scrutiny in recent years as part of a changing public attitude to higher education. In the UK, perceptions of value in higher education are also framed within a wider context of debate about value for money from public expenditure, returns on investment from personal financing of education, and the utility of degrees within the wider society and economy (Last 2017). Reviewing what value means in the context of creative degrees therefore comes at a time of wider transformation of higher education, continued paradigmatic shifts in central government policy and changing attitudes to widening participation from society, much of which have been shaped by the media. Within this operating context in the UK have come institutional changes in universities, most notably,

P. Bazaz (*) Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Granger (ed.), Value Construction in the Creative Economy, Palgrave Studies in Business, Arts and Humanities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_3

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the arrival of self-financing of student fees, and with it student loans, rises and caps in fees. More recently, there has been the introduction of the National Office for Students (OfS) in 2017 with a remit to develop greater transparency in how student fees are spent and how degrees are providing real value for money. The Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) in the UK, introduced as a measure of university performance, is also being promoted as a tool for student choice, with the consequence that universities are under mounting pressure to demonstrate their overall societal worth. As consumers, students now occupy a changing position in the education system with inevitable comparisons drawn between ‘worth’ of learning and economic ‘costs’, vis-à-vis potential salary (as measured by the LEO Survey). Drawing on Rokeach (1973), value in this chapter is considered as an integrated belief system or ‘terminal value’, which individuals maintain through social and personal interrelations and through ‘instrumental values’, and accordingly are inherently subjective. This contrasts with a more objective interpretation of value based on merit or monetary returns (see debate by Tuulik et al. 2016). As a result, the chapter draws extensively on the notion that value is a set of “standards, which guide and determine the actions and attitudes towards objects and situations, based one’s self to others” (Rokeach 1973, p.  23). This is especially pertinent in conducting a qualitative and interpretativistic research on creative degrees as is done here, which reflects on individual and differential performance and attainment, leading to discussion about outcomes of learning at higher education level between groups of different students. Within this vein, the chapter notes and examines the differential performance and attainment of White and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) students, and draws on the case study of De Montfort University to examine perceived differences in the value of (creative) education for BAME students. The chapter draws on the university’s empirical data collected through its ‘Freedom to Achieve’ project, charged with reducing the attainment gap for BAME students, which also examines how the relationship between the student and institution can be linked to attainment and therefore in turn degree value. The chapter begins by examining the growth and perceived societal value of the creative economy, and the role of creative education within that by drawing on the area of design teaching at De Montfort University.

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The Creative Economy As noted in Chap. 1, in monetary terms, the UK’s creative industries are worth circa £95bn annually, with design noted as being pivotal to £85.2bn of wealth, as measured by gross value added1 (Benton et al. 2018). Indeed, Landry (2011) notes how economies over the last 20–30  years have evolved around quality, design, innovation and creativity. It might be argued then that with the (monetary) value of the design economy so high, the value placed on creative and, for example, design training and design degrees is accordingly high. The introduction of the TEF in the UK has certainly underscored the importance of demonstrating value in creative education and as Hadida (2015) notes, there has been significant effort expended in recent years on defining and measuring value and performance in the creative industries, which includes a range of commercial, social and corporate values. And yet societal values remain mixed. The Creative Industries Federation report on Creative Diversity (CIF 2017) suggests that diversity in creative business, including design, correlates with economic success more than any other business area. Furthermore, it suggests diversity and success are linked inextricably through the positive impact diversity can have on organisational performance. As Lyaton argues ‘strongly diverse organisations attract talent, strengthen customer orientation, increase employee satisfaction and enhances decision making’ (ibid.), which resonates with wider thinking that diversity can be propulsive in: ‘crafting and capturing value’ and developing ‘new business models’ (see Svejenova et al. 2015), ‘developing new roles and routines’ leading to service innovation (Barthes 1990; DeFillippi 2015; DeFillippi et al. 2007), creating ‘new cultural landscapes’ through new symbolic codes (Jones et  al. 2005), and having spill over effects elsewhere in the economy (Potts and Cunningham 2010). As such, embracing diversity has been seen as a positive development that adds to organisational and monetary value. Howkins (2001) pushes the claim further in asserting that ‘creative traits’ unlock wealth, which he frames as ‘the economics of the imagination’ and the emergence of what had earlier been termed the ‘culturization’ of the whole economy (Lash and Urry 1994). Notwithstanding these arguments, there is also considerable evidence to question whether creative thinking and skills do indeed result in 1  GVA is the value of all goods and services produced in an economy less intermediate consumption.

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higher wages (Gabe 2011), and whether this can produce adverse ‘dynamics of stardom’ for some individuals in a company (Currid-Halkett 2015), profound labour market inequalities between demographic groups (Menger 2015) and diseconomies in companies through sunk costs (Bakker 2015), which create long-term impacts beyond the creative rhetoric. Lee (2014) makes the point that one of the key drivers of the growth of the UK creative industries is an educated population who place value on cultural goods. Through this, he argues, the creative sector can foster growth in ancillary sectors; effectively equating production with consumption and creating a Keynesian demand management approach to the burgeoning creative economy. Following this logic, there is an obvious interplay between educational levels of creative sector employees, diversity within the industry (including widening participation), and the growth trajectory of the economy. However, despite diversity often being cited as a key attributor to economic competitiveness within the creative industries, this is yet to reflect the socio-economic composition of the creative workforce (Granger 2017), university attainment or career development (Hunt et al. 2015; Cousin and Cureton 2012). Thinking specifically about design, it is interesting to note that whilst the design economy employs an above-average number of BAME individuals (13% compared to 11% for the UK—Benton et al. 2018), the statistics amount to a sad indictment of the creative and cultural economy of the UK. Commenting on differential degree attainment in the UK between BAME and white students, the vice chancellor of Kingston framed “the great hidden shame of the higher education system” (Ross et al. 2018, p. 104), whilst Arts Council England concede that a below national average representation of BAME employees in the arts was pivotal in the decision to link diversity of arts organisations to continued funding through the ACE portfolio (Balzagette 2014).

The Role of Creative Education To maintain its leading reputation, the creative industry must look to support the supply of creative individuals through the provision of effective and valuable design education. Benton et al. (2018) state that design employees often have a degree as their highest qualification, with 57% holding a degree (in 2016) compared to the UK average of 34%. And given that the definition of the creative industries is based on “individual

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creativity, skill and talent” who have the potential to “create wealth and jobs through developing intellectual property” (DCMS 2010, p. 1), the process and place of nurturing talent, in this case the higher educational institutions (HEIs) should take ownership for developing industry ready individuals. Comparably this supports the expectation that design and creative sector employees need to have a formal education at degree level or higher, demonstrating a formal degree stills hold value within the creative sector. There are unique skills developed during the higher educational experience alongside the awarded qualification, which often are intangible. The softer skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, social skills and interactions are some of the sought-after and derisible skills for the future of work (see Nesta 2017; Benton et al. 2018; Dean 2015). The report published by the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS 2016) also shows the combined DCMS sectors employ an equal amount of degree and non-degree holders; however, the employment of degree holders is above that of the UK average. Therefore, there is an implied value of holding a formal degree education within the creative sector. To which, one notes the (creative) Industry’s demand for ‘innovative thinkers’ who are able to problem-solve, which is a core skill in creative (higher) education. This further implies HEIs are fundamental to help shape the success of the BAME students within the creative industry. Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Students and Differential Degree Outcomes With the value of degrees heavily aligned to outcomes, students who attain good honours (either a first or 2:1 classification) are significantly more likely to find graduate employment (Broecke and Nicholls 2007; Miller 2016). However, this is not always the case for BAME students where it is still widely known that domiciled BAME students are less likely to achieve a degree, gain a first or upper second or move on to graduate employment or study, or obtain employment in comparison to their white counterparts (see HEFCE 2015). Statistics from the Equality Challenge Unit (ECU) (ECU 2017) show that in 2015/2016, the gap was largest in England, where four-fifths (78.8%) of white qualifiers received a first/2:1 compared with three fifths (63.2%) of BAME qualifiers. In other words, this is a 15.6  percentage point gap. In contrast, the BAME attainment gaps in Scotland and Wales were 8.6 and 8.5 percentage points, respectively (ECU 2017). The report further highlights a larger attainment gap for BAME

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students studying non-science, engineering and technology (SET) subjects, such as creative, art and design degrees. However, to dissect the idea of degree value the complexity of differential degree outcomes and the attainment gap must be acknowledged. Figure 3.1 shows the differential outcomes for BAME students and the fluctuation of the gap over a ten-­year period. Whilst it shows an overall increase in levels of attainment for both white and BAME students there is no significant reduction in the ethnic gap. Broecke and Nicholls (2007) further explain in their seminal report that, “being from a minority ethic community (was) still statistically significant in explaining final attainment” (p. 3). The study surveyed 65,000 students and controlled for prior attainment subject of study, age, gender, disability, deprivation index (as a proxy of socio-economic background), type of HE institution attended, type of level 3 qualifications mode of study, term time accommodation and ethnicity. A report conducted by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE 2015) supported these findings with their own study of more than 280,000 graduating students across the UK in 2013–2014, noting an attainment gap of 16% (reduced to 15% when controlling for entry qualifications, age, disability, gender, subject studied, previous school type and the institution). Critically, ­however, neither study provided explanation why students from % of Good Honours 100.0 90.0 80.0 70.0 60.0 50.0 40.0 30.0 20.0 10.0 0.0

UK Domiciled First Degree Qualifiers

2003/0 2004/0 2005/0 2006/0 2007/0 2008/0 2009/1 2010/1 2011/1 2012/1 2013/1 1 2 3 4 4 5 6 7 8 9 0

white % 63.1

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18.8

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18.0

18.6

18.4

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Fig. 3.1  Degree attainments, by ethnicity (2003–2014). (Source: Based on data from HEFCE 2015)

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different backgrounds who are receiving the same education at a higher education institution fail to achieve similar attainment in terms of degree honours. Although a complex area with multiple factors impacting on degree outcomes, the two pieces of work from Broecke and Nicholls in 2007 and HEFCE in 2015 suggested differential outcomes could be explained partially by the relationship between the student and the institution. If true, this would suggest a critical need for higher education institutions to take responsibility for fostering an environment, which nurtures change. As highlighted in both studies, relationships are a method to change and remove opportunities of disadvantage. It seems apparent then that institutions need to take active measures to remove barriers (visible, hidden, perceived), which impact BAME student success and prevent them from developing to their full potential (Berry and Loke 2011). The Educational Experience: Understanding the Contemporary Creative Student To understand the perceptions around degree value it is important to consider current student values and how well current pedagogical practices align to the burgeoning ‘Generation Z’. This is a generation qualitatively different from earlier generations; they are those who have been born within the technology revolution or the fourth industrial revolution (Seemiller and Grace 2017; Hope 2016). These are students who are born into the information age with information beyond imagination accessible at their fingertips and often just a click away (ibid.), and who, as a result, display creative self-sufficiency and a global outlook, and have unique demands and expectations about the university experience (Bhopal and Pitkin 2018; Hussain et al. 2008). Some of these students may never have known any different yet we often expect them to respond to education and pedagogical practices designed by the previous generation, with outmoded tools and mentalities. As educators we need to adapt and evolve with the subtle and in some cases not so subtle generation changes. For example, Generation Z are a collective community who look to do better and are motivated through social good. As stated by Seemiller and Grace (2017), the ‘we’ centred mentality is what underpins their societal expectations, behaviours and values. This is a generation who has been exposed to the hard reality of global warming; an unstable economy and the impact of climate change and yet through the digital medium come together to make a difference.

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Movements such as ‘#MeToo’ and ‘#BlackLivesMatter’ are evidence that this is a generation who are intolerant of injustice; they believe in equality and fairness for all. Considering these driving factors, it is a must that the educational system must reflect on current teaching behaviours and prepare to teach collective community who strive for results. To contextualise the differences in learning requirements it is important to understand the development of the key terms; digital natives and digital immigrants. Digital natives sit under the wider umbrella of Generation Z and Y. Generation Z are those born after the millennium (Palfrey and Gasser 2008) and Generation Y are essentially young people and children born between 1980 to 2000. These are now the students within the higher Educational systems. Digital immigrants are often those born prior to 1980 and can be referred to as Generation X and have accepted digital technology. They are able to use it even though they may not be as confident as the natives (Prensky 2001). The term digital natives was coined by Marc Prensky, a US technologist leading research into the impact of digital culture within education and who has been writing about the digital natives since 2001. He believes digital natives have “an innate confidence in using new technologies” (Selwyn 2009, p. 365). This is a generation who are plugged into digital devices, confident users of the Internet and have immersed themselves into a digital social world: which they are dependent on so understand it to be the norm. Generation Z are defined by the technology surrounding them and as digital natives are accustomed to ‘digitally juggling’ their daily lives. They are immersed in the digital social world which is integrated into their lives seamlessly, engaging across multiple platforms. This generation of digital learners surpasses the previous cohort due to their digital experience and technological-­ enriched upbringing. Many of the traits of Generation Z are also shown to be common traits found in creative sectors; for example, Rittner (2017) argues creative collaborations happen outside of the classroom, therefore creating spaces where software, design skills and innovative ideas are actualised. This stands in marked contrast to so-called millennials and poses the question ‘if this generation can learn from one another, acquire new skills or improve existing ones through a digital environment in real time, do they need a creative degree?’ Active learning does not necessarily need to take place in real time or on physical campuses, but rather digtail spaces create an active global community where problems can be addressed and solutions found. So simply Generation Z learn, both individually and collectively. This is a generation that learns from hands-on application and applies principles

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in real-life scenarios. As described by Seemiller and Grace, they “need to be actively doing the learning to obtain the most information” (2017, p. 22). Their capability to access and consume information through the touch of a button or a click is exemplified by Richtel, who states “in one recent year (2008), the average person consumed three times as much information each day as he/she did in 1960” (see Helding 2011), and this has changed the way they think. However, for BAME students the creative and digital heuristic is even more complex. It could be argued that the learning community needed to support learners in learning something for themselves is hindered for BAME students through impeded reflections of themselves, a sense of belonging and fair representation within the creative environment (Hunt et  al. 2015; Bhopal and Pitkin 2018; Grace and Gravestock 2009). The Learning GAP: How We Are Taught and Who We Are Taught By To discuss the opportunities to reduce the challenges faced by BAME students in the creative sector, typical art and design pedagogy must be understood. Traditional teaching of art and design has its origins in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (Souleles 2013) when artisan crafts such as blacksmith and carpentry were taught by a master to an apprentice. This teaching practice remains at the heart of design teaching today. In contemporary forms it is seen through individual tutorials with ‘expert’ tutors or lecturers who advise and teach students fundamental design skills to become experts within their desired fields. Design skills are often taught through repetitive practice following the guidance of expert tutors and individual tutorials are designed to “demonstrate skills to improve aspects of the learners’ work” (Souleles 2013, p. 250). This method of learning is often compared to the ‘sitting-by-Nellie’ method and has been criticised by academics such as Swann (in Souleles 2013, p. 250), who believes it does not challenge the intellectual development of the learner. To qualify, the design process typically takes place in a controlled studio-type environment, where projects are developed through a series of inquiry-based activities to encourage creativity. This reinforces the ‘sitting-by-Nellie’ approach, where mimicking of the expert opinion and expectation is encouraged rather than nurturing of independent authority. Souleles (2013) continues to highlight Swann’s judgement that the “quality of critical inquiry is more valuable than the quantity of the repetitive ­performance orientated projects” (2013, p.  250). It is this method of

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critical inquiry which is now highly attractive to employers who are looking for graduates who are prepared “to be agile and adaptable, with the right mind-set of lifelong learning” (Fearn 2008, p. 17). The master and apprentice approach still has significance for Generation Z learners who as previously noted by Seemiller and Grace prefer to be taught through observation and application. However, it also draws attention to who the ‘master’ or teacher is and emphasises the issue of fair representation of the staff within HEIs. According to the ECU in 2015–2016 only 8.9% of UK staff and 28.3% of non-UK staff were from a BAME background (ECU 2017). In contrast the report published by the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS 2016) showed in 2016, BAME employees made up 11% of the 32,422 people working in the creative industries, which is an increase of 5.8 percentage points from the position in 2015. Cautiously, one might surmise that the creative sector has made progress in terms of BAME representation. The lack of representation within Higher Education is further perpetuated by the fact that only 0.6% of UK professors are black (ECU 2017) and although as the literature suggests the ‘diversity deficit’ does not have direct causal link to student outcomes (HEFCE 2015) the lack of prominent role models or in some cases the invisible BAME role models further highlights the challenges faced within the academic sector. In an environment of white leadership, higher educational environments can look to building a representative curriculum as an intrinsic way of adding/creating value for students of both white and minority backgrounds. In fact, it is imperative to create an inclusive teaching environment, which fosters key skills of collaboration, understanding difference and designing beyond one’s self. This is supported by Singh’s (2009) research, which explains that learning through methods that are comfortable and reflective of self contribute to student attainment and a sense of belonging. He found that academics have a considerable amount of influence in creating a truly reflective and diverse curriculum. This then further accentuates that if design environment is culturally inclusive through staff representation and reflective contents it enables students from BAME backgrounds to feel represented, to see visible role models and aspire to be part of the creative industries. As Fearn (2008) explains students expect to learn through methods they are comfortable with, such as those familiar to self. This presents a huge barrier for academic staff, who are not necessarily r­ eflective of the student body or trained to a level where BAME individuals are fully understood.

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Hard and Soft Creative Skills Whilst it has previously been stated that individual creativity is the human contribution to the creative industries, the skills required to facilitate creative thought and innovative concepts, the skills taught must be appreciated. The key skills of idea generation are often linked to creative thinking and/or innovative concepts which are difficult to quantify as often the product or outcome is the measure of success. As outlined in Benton et al. (2018), design graduates are equipped with highly desirable skills needed in the creative sector such as critical thinking and the independent critical voice, which are a fundamental aspect of higher education teaching (Dean 2015). Furthermore, McWilliam and Haukka (2008) state developing the creative workforce is not based solely on inherent creativity, but also on the capabilities of the learning environment and skills such as intuition, insight and problem-solving which can be taught; however, Guile (2006) is adamant that these are not occurring with higher education. Simply teaching students how to mimic their tutors has not evolved to reflect the new way learners think or the changes of the digital age, which is creating graduates who are often unable to act as independent creative thinkers. This is supported by industry professionals who also believe “higher education for not preparing students adequately for the current labour market, and thus continuously highlighting students’ lack of transferable skills” and increasing the disparity between industry and HE (Succi and Canovi 2019, p. 1). These skills are not taught through isolation but rather through collaboration and this itself is a method of ‘soft’ added value. As Burt (in McWilliam and Haukka 2008, p.  653) explains, “people are connected to groups beyond their own can expect to find themselves delivering valuable ideas seeming to be gifted with creativity”. He likens creativity to an importexport business where concepts which may seem mundane to one group are perceived as highly valuable to another. Simply put, this highlights that working with people different to yourself can help to produce more creative skill sets and ultimately, outcomes. In other words, diversity equates to a highly creative environment where diverse ideas are invaluable and have the opportunity to be interpreted differently and reapplied to produce value. However, understanding the tangible and intangible value of an idea is difficult, and as Burt (ibid.) explains, the value of ideas is not always immediately seen and the value may only be identified once the idea has been transported to another location. This concept of ‘delayed value’ can

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be applied to a creative degree, as often the value of ideas or creative thinking grows with experience and application. Therefore, the tangible measure is delayed to later stages of career progression. Now if considered for BAME individuals where they are less likely to progress into senior positions, the value of the education or degree is not delayed but rather devalued.

Student Identity and Voice (Value of Identity and Knowledge Diversity) To unravel the complexity of the BAME student experience, it seems reasonable to highlight the need for student learning styles and subsequent expectations to be openly discussed. De Montfort University through the Freedom to Achieve project are co-creating with students to understand the wider contributing factors that the student body feel could be areas of improvement to help students’ attainment grow and subsequently increase the perceived value. At a co-creation event held in February 2018 and attended by 117 individuals (students and staff) across all 4 faculties of the university,2 60 students were able come together to develop ideas and actions to BAME learning and attainment. Two areas were noted as being critical to De Montfort University: the importance of relationships, and a need for increased visibility and access to BAME role models, both of which supported Singh’s (2009) findings that although the ‘diversity deficit’ cannot be quantified as a direct causal factor to differential outcomes it is nevertheless a contributing factor to a different student experience. As one delegate noted “role models offer relatable inspiration” whilst another noted “having role models can provide critical motivation to strive, to achieve, and to believe”. Several delegates also noted ‘the power of negative portrayals of BAME, which could lead to feelings (perceptions) of exclusion’. Five key areas of work were highlighted through the event and through research with staff and students: • Relationships with staff and peers • Teaching and learning • Development opportunities • Community • Exclusion 2  Faculties of Business and Law, Health and Life Sciences, Arts, Design and Humanities and Faculty of Technology.

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These five themes might also be viewed as softer aspects of the educational experience and potentially where the intangible value is created. As shown in Fig. 3.2, elements which BAME students highlighted as action points are arguably different to degree measures. The importance of these themes highlights measured metric of the educational experience, such as the TEF or league tables are not the key motivators or the most influential for a BAME individual’s higher educational experience. In this case 45% of all references throughout the event related to BAME students’ relationships on campus. In particular students called for greater representation in the role models available. But as can be seen from the findings and ­literature, making positive changes in these areas to create a more inclusive university experience could become a method to change the perceived value of degrees.

Fig. 3.2  Values attributed to degrees, student perspective vs. higher educational measures

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Conclusion: Value for All In bringing together these disparate parts, one might conclude that the value of a creative degree is difficult to measure as the value of the degree is multiplex, shaped by a variety of factors and social spaces, is longitudinal, and cannot be measured in the same way across different disciplines. Nevertheless, there is some evidence to support the notion that the university experience and the relationships formed during the journey are significant factors contributing to the worth or value of a degree, whilst also noting that the notion of value can be interpreted differently for minority groups. As noted earlier, and drawing from Rokeach (1973), terminal values are inherently individual and therefore subjective (e.g. one person’s sense of accomplishment may differ to another’s) and whilst the chapter has not attempted to map these, there is a sense that perceptions and value bases for BAME groups may differ from other demographic groups by virtue of the learning and employment experience—in both creative industries and other parts of the economy. Whilst it has been noted that the situation within the creative industries has improved for BAME groups in recent years and is now on the political agenda, the position starts from a low performance base. From this point of view, BAME students experience both a risk of an attainment gap in learning and a diversity gap in career development, creating complex perceptions of value of learning and degrees and a double negative connotation. As Fig. 3.3 denotes, it is the role of the educational institutions to recognise differences in value, the factors that contribute to personal value and dispel myths around the value of creative degrees. They must alongside the creative industries actively take ownership of the political debate and promote their successes to the BAME community. This can be achieved through a series of small steps. For some institutions it must begin by taking action to increase the equality of opportunity, understanding the differences of a diverse student body, and creating a curriculum which is representative of and builds positive relationships with BAME individuals. This will help to promote positive role models from diverse backgrounds, which are seen in the academic and professional environments. The creative potential of a student is the real value of a degree and the value of creative t­hinking cannot be measured by metrics and salary potential alone. As stated earlier (Benton et al. 2018) the value of creative thinkers across industries outside of the creative sector is increasing. Rather than marketing the cost of a higher education we should be promoting the

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Fig. 3.3  Value measure attributed to degrees. (Factors contributing to perceived degree value for BAME students adapted from Rokeach (1973) List of Terminal Values)

value of lifelong learning and the key skills developed. These are the skills which are developed during education and demanded from the creative industry and beyond. In turn this creates a closed value loop, which celebrates diversity and sits as the base of an interchangeable world which has flexibility to respond to the needs of a changing student body and requirements of a progressive digital world.

References Bakker, G. (2015). Sunk Costs and the Dynamics of Creative Industries. In C.  Jones, M.  Lorenzen, & J.  Sapsed (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Creative Industries (pp. 351–385). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Balzagette, P. (2014, December 8). Diversity in Leadership. Speech by Sir Peter Balzagette, Chair of Arts Council England. Arts Council England.

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Barthes, R. (1990). The Fashion System. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Benton, S., Miller, S., & Reid, S. (2018). The Design Economy: The State of Design in the UK. Design Council. Retrieved from https://www.designcouncil.org. uk/sites/default/files/asset/document/Design_Economy_2018_exec_ summary.pdf. Berry, J., & Loke, G. (2011). Improving the Degree Attainment of Black and Minority Ethnic Students. Higher Education Academy and Equality Challenge Unit. Retrieved from http://www.ecu.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/external/ improving-degree-attainment-bme.pdf. Bhopal, K., & Pitkin, C. (2018). Investigating Higher Education Institutions and Their Views on the Race Equality Charter. University and College Union. Retrieved from https://www.ucu.org.uk/HEIs-and-the-Race-Equality-Charter. Broecke, S., & Nicholls, T. (2007). Ethnicity and Degree Attainment. DfES Research Report No RW92. London: DIUS.  Retrieved from http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130401151715/; http://www.education. gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/RW92.pdf. CIF. (2017). Creative Diversity. London: Creative Industries Federation. Cousin, G., & Cureton, D. (2012). Disparities in Student Attainment. HEA. Retrieved from https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/projects/ Worlverhampton%202010%20DISA%20Final%20Report.pdf. Currid-Halkett, E. (2015). Trading Places: Auctions and the Rise of the Chinese Art Market. In C. Jones, M. Lorenzen, & J. Sapsed (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Creative Industries (pp. 171–183). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DCMS. (2016). Creative Industries: Focus on Employment. London. Retrieved from https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/ uploads/attachment_data/file/534305/Focus_on_Employment_ revised_040716.pdf. Dean, C. (2015). Developing the Next Generation of Creative Leaders. Design Management Institute (DMI), 26(3), 44–49. DeFillippi, R. (2015). Managing Project-Based Organization in Creative Industries. In C. Jones, M. Lorenzen, & J. Sapsed (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Creative Industries (pp. 268–283). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DeFillippi, R., Grabher, G., & Jones, C. (2007). Introduction to Paradoxes of Creativity: Managerial and Organizational Challenges in the Cultural Economy. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 28, 511–521. ECU. (2017). Equality in Higher Education: Statistical Report 2017. Equality Challenge Unit. Fearn, H. (2008a, August 14). Grappling with the Digital Divide. Times Higher Education. Retrieved December 29, 2018, from https://www.timeshighereducation.com/. Fearn, H. (2008b, November 27). The Class of 2020. Times Higher Education, pp. 32–37.

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Gabe, T. M. (2011). The Value of Creativity. In D. E. Andersson, A. E. Andersson, & C.  Mellander (Eds.), Handbook of Creative Cities (pp.  128–145). Edward Elgar. Grace, S., & Gravestock, P. (2009). Inclusion and Diversity: Meeting the Needs of All Students. New York: Routledge. Granger, R. C. (2017). The Sustainability of Creative Cities: Lessons from Leicester and London. Leicester: DMU. Guile, D. (2006). Access, Learning and Development in the Creative and Cultural Sectors: From ‘Creative Apprenticeship’ to ‘Being Apprenticed’. Journal of Education and Work, 19(5), 433–453. Hadida, A. (2015). Performance in the Creative Industries. In C.  Jones, M.  Lorenzen, & J.  Sapseed (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Creative Industries (pp. 219–249). Oxford: Oxford University Press. HEFCE. (2015). Differences in Degree Outcomes: The Effect of Subject and Student Characteristics. Issues Paper 2015/21. Bristol: HEFCE. Retrieved from http:// www.hefce.ac.uk/media/HEFCE,2014/Content/Pubs/2015/201521/ HEFCE2015_21.pdf. Helding, L. (2011). Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants: Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age. Journal of Singing, 68(2), 199–206. Hope, J. (2016). Get Your Campus Ready for Generation Z. Student Affairs Today, 19(7), 1–7. Howkins, J. (2001). The Creative Economy: How People Make Money from Ideas. London: Penguin. Hunt, V., Layton, D., & Prince, S. (2015). Diversity Matters Report. McKinsey & Company. Retrieved from https://assets.mckinsey.com/~/media/857F4401 09AA4D13A54D9C496D86ED58.ashx. Hussain, J.  G., Scott, J.  M., & Hannon, P.  D. (2008). The New Generation: Characteristics and Motivations of BME Graduate Entrepreneurs. Education + Training, 50(7), 582–596. Jones, C., Anand, N., & Alverez, J.-L. (2005). Manufactured Authenticity and Creative Voice in Cultural Industries. Journal of Management Studies, 42(5), 893–899. Landry, C. (2011). A Roadmap for the Creative City. In D. E. Andersson, A. E. Andersson, & C. Mellander (Eds.), Handbook of Creative Cities (pp. 517–536). Edward Elgar. Lash, S. M., & Urry, J. (1994). Economies of Signs and Space. London: Sage. Last, J. (2017, October 3). It’s Time to Dispel the Myth That Creative Arts Degrees Are Cheap to Run. The Guardian. Retrieved July 6, 2018, from https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2017/oct/03/ dispel-myth-creative-arts-degrees-are-cheap-to-run. Lee, N. (2014). The Creative Industries and Urban Economic Growth in the UK. Environment and Planning A, 46(2), 455–470.

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McWilliam, E., & Haukka, S. (2008). Educating the Creative Workforce: New Directions for Twenty-First Century Schooling. British Educational Research Journal, 34(5), 651–666. Menger, P.-M. (2015). The Market for Creative Labour: Talent and Inequalities. In C. Jones, M. Lorenzen, & J. Sapsed (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Creative Industries. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Miller, M. (2016). The Ethnicity Attainment Gap: Literature Review. Widening Participation Research & Evaluation Unit. The University of Sheffield. Retrieved from https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.661523!/file/ BME_Attainment_Gap_Literature_Review_EXTERNAL_-_Miriam_ Miller.pdf. Nesta. (2017). Nesta’s Work in the Creative Economy, Arts and Culture. London. Retrieved from https://media.nesta.org.uk/documents/nestas_work_in_the_ creative_economy_arts_and_culture-2017.pdf. Palfrey, J.  G., & Gasser, U. (2008). Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives. New York: Basic Books. Potts, J., & Cunningham, S. (2010). Four Models of the Creative Industries. Journal of Cultural Science. Brisbane: QUT. Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon. MCB University Press, Vol. 9, No. 5. Rittner, J. (2017). Teaching Diversity in Design. Design Management Review, 28(2), 16–18. Rokeach, M. (1973). The Nature of Human Values. London/New York: Free Press. Ross, F., Tatum, J., Livingstone, J., Livingstone, A., Beacock, O., & McDuff, N. (2018). The Great Unspoken Shame of UK Higher Education: Addressing Inequalities of Attainment. African Journal of Business Ethics, 12(1), 104–115. Seemiller, C., & Grace, M. (2017). Generation Z: Educating and Engaging the Next Generation of Students. About Campus: Enriching the Student Learning Experience, 22(3), 21–26. Selwyn, N. (2009). The Digital Native—The Myth and Reality. Aslib Proceedings, Institute of Education, University of London, London, UK, Vol. 61(4), 364–379. Singh, G. (2009). Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Students’ Participation in Higher Education: Improving Retention and Success: A Synthesis of Research Evidence. York: HEA.  Retrieved from https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/sites/ default/files/BME_synthesis_FINAL.pdf. Souleles, N. (2013). The Evolution of Art and Design Pedagogies in England: Influences of the Past, Challenges for the Future. International Journal of Art & Design Education, 32(2), 243–255. Succi, C., & Canovi, M. (2019). Soft Skills to Enhance Graduate Employability: Comparing Students and Employers’ Perceptions. Studies in Higher Education, pp. 1–14.

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Svejenova, S., Slavich, B., & Abdelgawad, S. (2015). Creative Entrepreneurs: The Business Models of Haute Cuisine Chefs. In C.  Jones, M.  Lorenzen, & J.  Sapsed (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Creative Industries (pp.  184–199). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Swann, C., & Young, E. (Eds.). (2002). Re-inventing Design Education in the University, Proceedings of the Perth International Conference. Perth: School of Design, Curtin University of Technology. Tuulik, K., Õunapuu, T., Kuimet, K., & Titov, E. (2016). Rokeach’s Instrumental and Terminal Values as Descriptors of Modern Organisation Values. International Journal of Organizational Leadership, 5(2), 151–162.

CHAPTER 4

Problematising Philanthropy in the UK Cultural Sector Jennie Jordan and Ruth Jindal

Introduction Value in the arts world is a complex area. This chapter raises the question of value in the context of culture, cultural policy and cultural democracy. It is a pertinent question in the UK as, since the financial crisis of 2007–2008, governmental funding policies have acted to narrow and reduce direct state subsidy for the arts, introducing policies to promote private philanthropy as an alternative. This paradigm shift reimagined cultural services, previously conceived as merit goods similar to educational provision, as private and market services (Wu 2003). Definitions of merit depend on non-financial value judgements, or ‘taste’ in the case of culture. Bourdieu (1984 [1979]) argued taste was socially constructed and used to reinforce social hierarchies. Who decides whether opera is worth more than graffiti art? Throsby (2001) distinguished between economic definitions of value, which he considered individualised, and cultural conceptions of value, which he argued were inherently social. This dichotomy points to a tension at the heart of a public cultural policy that aims to J. Jordan (*) • R. Jindal De Montfort University, Leicester, UK e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Granger (ed.), Value Construction in the Creative Economy, Palgrave Studies in Business, Arts and Humanities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_4

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create a greater reliance on funding from private individuals. Does shifting resource dependency from the state to individuals or corporations reduce culture’s social role? If it does, what are the values prioritised in public funding of culture that are being replaced, in this case in the UK, and what are the values prioritised by philanthropic donors? Assuming these are different, what are the consequences for cultural producers, and the culture they produce? Hadley and Belfiore (2018) identify debates around cultural value: who has access, participates and is represented by public arts provision, as the defining cultural policy crisis of the times? This crisis has resulted in tensions between the paternalistic cultural subsidy model institutionalised within the Arts Council and geographically biased towards London, fluctuating political ideologies and a generational turn demonstrating a renewed interest in equity and democratic participation. These are succinctly summed up in the Movement for Cultural Democracy’s manifesto: Culture, as it has been, can be the preserve of the privileged few or instead, it can be the building block that strengthens our democracy, celebrated as a basic human right, helping to create a world where all people are free to enjoy the benefits of self-expression, access to resources and community. (Movement for Cultural Democracy 2018)

The argument here is for culture as a democratic right rather than a privilege for those who can afford it. For not-for-profit arts organisations this febrile political context, played out against a backdrop of declining public funding and concurrent reduction in the number of public funding bodies, has raised significant managerial and ethical questions about how best to fulfil their charitable missions. Although their business models had for many years been a hybrid mixture of public funding, sales, and sponsorship, austerity combined with the new philanthropy policy moved the balance further away from public sources, raising the question: does a greater dependence on commercial or philanthropic resources necessarily imply a concomitant change in underpinning values? While there is a growing cultural policy literature relating to cultural value in cultural policy (e.g. Arts and Humanities Research Council 2014; e.g. Wood 2017), there is little research into the lived experiences of arts managers attempting to navigate the shifting sands caused by the drive towards an American style of cultural funding based on individual giving rather than public subsidy. This chapter seeks to fill that gap. It is based on

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research undertaken by the authors as participant observers of Leadership for the Future (LftF), a two-year capacity-building programme across the East Midlands of England aimed at promoting philanthropic fundraising in the charitable arts sector (2014–2016). It explores cultural organisations’ responses to an American-style not-for-profit business model and asks to what extent private giving was incorporated or resisted, and whether there is evidence the new approach to cultural funding has changed the nature of organisations’ approaches to questions of taste, access or participation. A range of responses was identified amongst cultural managers and board members from those who welcomed of the idea of diversifying income streams to outright opposition, and these discrepancies illuminated shifting patterns in how the arts are valued in the UK. The study starts with an outline of the policy context in the UK and the values incorporated within it, then introduces Leadership for the Future. The authors were both involved in this programme, one as an administrator and one as a member of a participating company’s board. The research combines this participant observation with analysis of the programme’s published outcomes. It highlights cultural differences in attitudes to the arts as charities between the UK and US, discusses the implications of these different values for implementing philanthropy policies across England, identifies and considers the repercussions of narrowing and reducing public funding at the same time as increasing private funding on questions of taste and cultural democracy.

Policy and Social Context As both culture and policy are spatially and temporally localised, it is necessary to start with a brief history of cultural funding policies and paradigms in England in order to understand the underpinning value systems that inform policy implementation. Between 1949 and 1979 the arts in the UK were considered merit goods which citizens should be able to access whatever their financial circumstances or wherever they lived in the country. Consequently, arts organisations received governmental funding to ensure they could tour and offer free or reduced price tickets. These funds were administered by the Arts Council of Great Britain (and its decedents Arts Council England [ACE], Wales, Northern Ireland and Creative Scotland) and local government. Hall and Back (2009) identified a shift in UK society during the 1980s, which he attributed to the Thatcher government’s (1979–1990) desire to reduce the size of the state’s

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r­esponsibilities. Privatisation of services meant taxes could be reduced, fulfilling a small government, pro-market, individual choice agenda. A 1977 report by conservative think tank the Bow Group argued hybridfunding models, including a limited amount of public subsidy supplemented by commercial sponsorship and entrepreneurial trading, would reduce bureaucracy and “help to develop an independence of style in artists, curators, directors and authors” (Brough 1977, p.  2), making arts organisations more financially stable and increasing cultural choice. The policy sought to liberate artists from the social constraints implied by public funding, with its focus on collectivised social, spiritual or historical values. In contrast the market would provide a variety of investment sources to support a multiplicity of artistic tastes. Three direct policy initiatives were introduced: tax breaks for commercial sponsors; development of the Association for Business Sponsorship of the Arts (ABSA, later Arts and Business), a sponsorship ‘dating agency’; and a Business Sponsorship Incentive Scheme to match business donations (Quinn 1998). The tax breaks (tax forgone) and match funding (subsidy) effectively took choice about which art forms and organisations were supported out of public hands and gave it to private corporations. Combined with cuts to the Arts Council and local government during the 1980s, this had a distorting effect on arts funding as cultural policies are highly situated. The chief executive of Arts and Business (1983–2012) pointed out London-based arts organisations received 80 per cent of all business sponsorship (Warwick Commission on Cultural Value 2015, 8:48–11:35) so the effects of the policy were felt differently in different places. In the UK most businesses have their head offices in the South East of England and most ‘national’ arts organisations, those with the highest profiles to loan to sponsors, are based in London. Nevertheless the policy persisted and soliciting sponsorship became a normalised, if inequitably distributed, part of cultural fundraising practices throughout the 1990s and 2000s alongside bidding for Arts Council and National Lottery grants (Gilmore 2013). In 2010 David Cameron’s Coalition Government came to power and implemented its austerity agenda. For the arts world this meant three things: immediate cuts to the Arts Council’s grant-in-aid, which was partially absorbed by reducing the Arts Council’s own costs through cutting staff and reducing its regional offices; amalgamation of public bodies responsible for different areas of cultural administration and funding, known as the ‘bonfire of the QUANGOs’; and partially by direct cuts to

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arts organisations themselves. Jeremy Hunt, then Culture Secretary, announced public arts subsidies would have to be supplemented by greater private donation. He introduced a policy to encourage cultural philanthropy, quoting Winston Churchill’s distinction between economic and social values: “we make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give”. It was, Hunt said, an “ambitious aim for this country to combine the best of US-style philanthropic support with the best of European-style public support” (2010). Philanthropy was presented as less marketised than commercial sponsorship, as the value of donation lies in personal aesthetics, spiritual beliefs, social responsibility or a desire to connect artistic authenticity rather than financial return. However, unlike democratic public policies funded through taxation, it is, in the end, an individual’s personal choice that determines whether they donate or not. In America philanthropy, rather than public subsidy, has formed the main basis of funding for most local and national arts organisations. This model of giving developed over a long period and is widely understood within society. There, the arts are considered a suitable recipient of charity as part of a well-developed culture of civic responsibility that includes ‘giving back’ to your community and philanthropic fundraising is highly professionalised (Silber 1998). In the UK, although arts organisations have professional marketing and sponsorship departments, individual giving has remained a small proportion of cultural funding. Indeed, research by the Charities Aid Foundation (2018) found the arts received only 2 per cent of charitable donations in the UK 2017, indicating few donors perceived the sector as a suitable beneficiary. In addition, austerity measures had impacted on public services more readily perceived as worthy causes such as health and education, so arts organisations were in competition for philanthropic income with organisations in those sectors. Despite these historical differences in attitudes to the arts as merit goods rather than charitable causes in the UK, the DCMS rolled arts philanthropy out as a core part of its cultural policy. It implemented changes to the tax system to encourage private donation. Gift aid was used to give an extra 25 per cent to beneficiary charities from tax foregone and donors who paid higher rates of income tax were able to reduce their own bills at the same time. This was an attempt to change donor attitudes. Alongside this ACE launched Catalyst, a £70 million scheme to help build professional fundraising capacity in the sector by match funding charitable donations to arts organisations. This carrot was backed up by a stick. In its annual assessment of its core National Portfolio group of clients the Arts

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Council introduced a measure that assessed reliance on just one source of funding, however secure and whether or not it enabled the company to fulfil its aims, as a high risk factor and reason for disinvestment. So a failure to find additional donors would also lead to a loss of public funding. This policy took place against a background of declining public funding. The Arts Council imposed a 6.9 per cent funding cut in 2010, and there was a 17 per cent decline in local authority investment in arts and culture between 2010 and 2016 (Harvey 2016). There was also a reduction in the number of funding bodies they could apply to as the Arts Council, which already ran the National Lottery funds aimed at the cultural sector, merged with the Museums and Libraries Association in 2011. So arts managers’ choices were limited: increase income from trading, find commercial sponsors or develop more charitable donations. None of these were easy options, particularly outside London and the South East. The East Midlands, the site of this chapter’s case study, was particularly vulnerable. In addition to a relative lack of high-net-worth individuals living in or connected to the region, it had historically received a low ratio of arts funding from both the Arts Council and the National Lottery’s arts fund (Stark et al. 2013). This led Cultivate, an ACE-funded cultural and business development organisation in the East Midlands, to develop a strategy to try and develop fundraising skills in the region.

Leadership for the Future Cultivate’s first action was to host a conference, Please Give Generously: the art of philanthropy, in April 2011 focused on fundraising and philanthropy. The keynote speaker was Dame Stephanie Shirley, the UK’s founding Ambassador for Philanthropy and a philanthropist committed to giving away her personal fortune during her lifetime. Arts managers heard about the way philanthropists want to be approached and how organisations could align their core activities to be more attractive to individual givers. Dame Stephanie was adamant: ‘philanthropy in the area of arts and culture is to complement government funding, not act as a substitute for it’ and that ‘giving is a social and cultural activity not merely a financial transaction’. However, she also commented, to audible gasps in the room, “I’m the same as most philanthropists in that I give, and only give, to projects and organisations on a reciprocal basis. By which I mean that my satisfaction exactly repays my gift”. So, while philanthropic donation was not a direct financial investment in the way sponsorship is, there was an

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e­ xpectation of reciprocated value: donation for personal satisfaction, however the individual donor defines it. Rather than merit goods valued for their long-­run social benefits and therefore state-funded, philanthropic donation required arts organisations to understand their value for individual potential donors, as well as their commercial value for sponsors. This shift raised some important issues that have been little considered. Although there is evidence it had not been effective at broadening audiences in terms of class or ethnicity (Brook et al. 2018), the state, through the Arts Council, had prioritised social values of equitable access and participation, cultural education and talent development, alongside artistic excellence. These issues may or may not be areas of value for an individual sponsor or donor who would, under the new policy, be calling the tune. It was clear from the conference there would be practical and cultural difficulties implementing the model. In spite of Jeremy Hunt’s comments that he did not advocate ‘importing a US model wholesale into the UK’ (Hunt 2010), the appeal of the American cultural philanthropy model was evident. Cultural giving per capita in the US was £37 a year compared to £6 in the UK (Hunt 2010). It was argued changing attitudes to giving to the arts, as with the development of the sponsorship policies in the 1980s had shown, required arts organisations to lead the way by professionalising their fundraising. Consequently, Cultivate proposed a skills development programme to support 20 organisations of varying size in the East Midlands as they attempted to implement the new policy. Leadership for the Future ran from 2014 to 2016. It provided one-on-­ one, in-depth support to participating organisations relating to fundraising, marketing, artistic planning, strategic business planning, company and charity law, intellectual property and board development. The fundraising element of the programme, and the focus of discussion in this chapter, was based on The Cycle (Kaiser and Egan 2013), a strategic planning model for not-for-profit arts organisation in the US founded on fundraising and governance techniques used by American cultural organisations. The emphasis was on enabling managers and their trustees to support their organisations to identify the resources necessary to create cultural opportunities. This included fundraising from trusts and foundations as well as sponsorship, developing trading opportunities and maximising existing resources such as intellectual property or buildings. Kaiser was known in the UK cultural sector as the executive who turned around the Royal Opera House in the 1990s, reversing its historic deficit and growing support from public and private sectors. He then ran the Kennedy

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Center in Washington for a decade before launching the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the University of Maryland in 2010. The Institute had translated its approach successfully across international boundaries previously and Kaiser had himself worked in London, so no difficulties were anticipated in applying The Cycle approach in the UK. Twenty organisations were recruited, each with a turnover over £40,000. There was a competitive recruitment process which sought organisations at a point of change, and consequently open to new ideas and ways of working. Participating companies were urban, rural and coastal; ticketed venues and touring companies; they included a small press, festivals, galleries, major venues and consortia. Each organisation brought up to five members of staff or board members but the programme aimed for consistent participation from the CEO, chair of trustees (or equivalent) and key marketing and fundraising personnel as The Cycle aimed to change the relationship between boards and professional arts managers within the organisations. Participating organisation was asked to develop one-year and two-year objectives for strategic business planning, fundraising, marketing and audience development plus one additional area of importance to the organisation (e.g. information technology management, financial planning or capital campaign planning). One-to-one support from a mentor provided the opportunity to tailor the programme to the needs of each organisation. Success was judged by the satisfactory completion of these agreed benchmarks, and progress throughout the programme was captured using the DeVos Institute’s Cycle Audit, a self-assessment survey for organisations to reflect on growth in key areas: longer term artistic planning; institutional strategic marketing (rather than short-term campaign marketing); strategic planning; board development and engagement; fundraising and management. The Cycle advised organisations planned ahead for 3–5 years, with fundraising being taken for the organisation’s institutional charitable mission rather than campaigns for specific shows or projects. The idea was to encourage donors to value the organisation’s charitable aims, rather than the instrumentalised relationships sponsorship policies had encouraged, or the focus on cultural democracy intrinsic to public subsidy. Although each of these was addressed, board development and fundraising were found to be those where most tension emerged between DeVos’ approach and some Leadership for the Future’s participants. It became clear that cultural differences between The Cycle’s perception of the role of charity trustees

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and the value system institutionalised in the UK’s charitable sector were fundamentally different. Figure 4.1 summarises the British values assimilated within each funding stream. While Hunt (2010) may not have advocated wholesale US models, these were the cognate examples available and the LftF programme aimed—among other leadership training—to develop capacity for philanthropic giving in a UK context. The Cycle model conceived of arts organisations as part of communities of place or interest with board membership being awarded to community members who donated or sourced the most income. Although Kaiser felt the phrase misrepresented a relationship between boards and cultural organisations which should be about the art not money, a model commonly known as ‘give, get or get off’, and this conception appeared to have more traction than the programme organisers anticipated. Charity governance in the UK had traditionally seen trustees’ role as combining the voice of the beneficiary community and custodianship of the organisation’s values, making a contribution though their expertise rather than financially. Fundraising was a function of the executive rather than trustees. Private giving as a means of maintaining funding, therefore, required fundamental shifts in the way arts organisations conceived of their value. Rather than socialised merit goods to

Philanthropic donation • Individual satisfaction of donor • Belief in charitable aims • 'Giving back'

Earned income (trading) • Maximising physical and IP assets in the market • Economic/individual

• Individual/social

Public funding

Commercial sponsorship

• Cultural democracy • Equitable access and participation • Cultural/social

Arts organisation aesthetic, social, historical, symbolic, spiritual and/or authenticity values

• Commercial investment in brand strategies • Activating consumer relationships • Economic/individual

Fig. 4.1  Characteristic values inherent in cultural funding sources

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c­ompare with education, philanthropists valued art with a personal or symbolic connection. This might be a connection to a place, such as where they grew up, or a beneficiary community they particularly associated with. DeVos recommended building these connections by gradually developing deeper relationships. First perhaps seeing a show, workshop or exhibition, then becoming a ‘friend’ or ‘member’, later being invited to join the board. At each point, the financial contribution expected increased. Board membership was predicated on a board member’s ability to ‘give, get or get off’. In the UK charity trustees have historically and legally been viewed as volunteers who use their skills and experience to ensure the charity carries out its charitable purposes (The Charity Commission 2018). In the arts sector trustees have not traditionally been expected to directly donate money and there was evident discomfort expressed. One LftF board member, an experienced charity manager, expressed frustration with the programme’s identification of board members as donors: I haven’t got any money. No one I know has got any money. If that’s what the board is for, then I don’t know why I’m here…

This idea of trustees as primarily financial investors is at odds with the governance duties expressed by the Charity Commission, and the implied contract this trustee had signed up for. Another trustee explained she was going to leave the board she had been a member of after more than 10 years’ service because the pressure to donate was so great: I was asked to join the board because I had some experience in charity management. I was asked to commit time and expertise, there was no expectation of giving money. I do give money to charity—but I give to charities I can’t help in other ways. Now every board meeting I feel pressured to either donate myself or start hassling my friends and family. I feel my skills and experience are no longer valued, so have decided to resign. I am worried, though, that boards will soon be full of people who are there because they’ve bought their place, not people who know about the art form, or can speak for the beneficiary community.

This trustee clearly felt personally uncomfortable about the new role for trustees advocated by the programme. She also expressed concern about the potential narrowing of representation if board membership was predicated on a trustee’s financial commitment rather than a sense of

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social responsibility and the relevant skills necessary to guide a charitable organisation. Some organisations, including trustees, were more open to the concept. At least two of LftF’s 20 participating organisations implemented policies where board members have to make an annual donation. Junction Arts’ website, for example, states: We are delighted to announce that we have an all-giving board. Our trustees are totally committed and supportive of delivering the core vision of Junction Arts and have individually donated towards achieving our aims. (2018)

Financial donation is a signal of commitment to the organisation’s charitable aims, and is used to reassure others of their shared belief in the charity’s vision. These two examples aside, the majority of participants showed some level of reservation about the approach. Some felt it would lead to less culturally and socially diverse, less democratically accountable boards. Others were less ideologically concerned, but felt they lacked the skills and capacity to overcome the region’s disadvantages and the wider lack of awareness that arts organisations were charities. Whatever their reservations, as the philanthropy policy had been initiated at a time of severe cuts to public funding, there was an urgent need to find alternative sources of income. As one board member commented: Where before when we were discussing our plans, it was all about the artistic ideas and what audiences the shows were for, now the first thing we talk about is whether or not the show is commercial or if anyone can think of a sponsor or donor who might be interested. If we don’t think a show will break even and we can’t get it funded in advance, we have to cut it from the programme. It’s too risky now.

Where public funding had allowed some artistic experimentation, the cuts experienced left many of the smaller organisations, already operating to full capacity and without resources to fall back on in the shape of a back catalogue or building, struggling to adapt. Some argued diverting resources into fundraising activities that required new staff and entirely new skill sets was not the best use of their assets in an environment where the arts were not widely perceived as suitable cases for charitable giving. Others recognised that diversifying income and developing private giving, as a means of maintaining (at least) a status quo in funding, required

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fundamental shifts in leadership and governance. According to one participant: This is the area in which the programme has had the most transformational effect […] I think we have changed the culture at [the organisation] to ensure all staff feel that individual giving is part of the future and that we cannot rely on the campaign office to do this for us. (DeVos Institute of Arts Management, November 2016, p. 36)

In this organisation, philanthropy was discussed at senior management team meetings at least once a month and believed there had been a change in organisational culture so that all staff members understood “it is about cultivating family and potential donors across all our visitors” (ibid.). This was a relatively large organisation with an established campaigns office, so had some in-house expertise to draw on. Similarly, another large organisation noted: We have always operated a mixed funding model in our six years as a charity, but more acutely than ever we need to be proactive in an approach that sees the sources of that funding change dramatically. One thing that is really clear now to me and my team is that we have to change the platform upon which we communicate our value to our place and people.

This was not the case for smaller, less well-resourced participants. When asked at the end of the two-year programme about how their plans for fundraising from individuals were, three replied: “The short answer to this is that we are still formulating our approach.” “We are still in the research phase.” “This area is still in development.” For the majority, there had been some change in attitudes and attempts to cultivate philanthropic donors. However, if judged on actual money raised, Leadership for the Future could claim little success. Progress throughout the programme was captured using a self-­ assessment survey for organisations to reflect on growth in artistic planning, marketing, strategic planning, board development and engagement, fundraising and management. Data from 16 participants who completed

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these audits formed the basis of the programme’s evaluation for Arts Council (DeVos Institute of Arts Management, November 2016). The programme claimed to have contributed to an aggregate increase of 10 per cent from individual donors and corporate sponsors and earned income. Individual giving increased by £30,777 and corporate sponsorship by £79,243. At the same time, public funding decreased by £387,442, leaving a fundraising gap of £277,422 across the 16 organisations that completed the audit. In fact, eight organisations reported no contributions from individuals, indicating disparities between those with resources such as customer databases or venues to invite potential donors to and capacity such as staffing or fundraising expertise, and those without. Earned income such as selling tickets and corporate hires of venues increased by a lower percentage, just 7 per cent, but this amounted to £287,545, filling the funding gap caused by the reduction in public subsidy and leaving a net gain of £10,123 (ibid.). The relative effectiveness of trading points to arts organisations’ comparative comfort with entrepreneurial approaches, evidence perhaps of the success of policies of the 1980s in embedding market values within the sector. The evaluation highlighted board development, which it defined as shifting the culture of boards from advisory governance to philanthropic ownership as the “greatest remaining challenge” (ibid., p. 2). Only two of the participating organisations had received donations from board members, despite the focus on this throughout the programme. The organisations themselves identified lack of financial and human resources to implement fundraising strategies and the East Midlands region’s relative lack of philanthropic donors as their primary barriers.

Problematising Philanthropy in Cultural Policy The post 2010 roll out of philanthropy programmes was, like the sponsorship policies of the 1980s, a political attempt to create a shift in relations between the state and social goods. Rather than direct funding from taxes, the objective was for corporations or individuals to choose which arts organisations to support. This required a fundamental change in the ways in which artists and cultural managers conceived of their organisations and, as importantly, a shift in attitudes to charitable giving within to the arts. On both occasions, the policy implantation was accompanied by carrots and sticks; cuts in government subsidies; tax breaks for sponsors and donors and match-funding incentives for arts organisations.

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Cultivate’s Arts Council–supported capacity-building programme was an acknowledgement of the need for organisational change and skills development within cultural organisations to balance the wider cultural change the Government hoped its incentives would catalyse. Three groups of barriers to the philanthropy policy emerged during LftF: geographical inequalities in wealth distribution and structural inequalities in the arts sector in the UK, and cultural differences in attitudes to charitable donation between the US and the UK. The UK’s economy is heavily skewed towards London and the South East, a fact mirrored in arts funding generally (Stark et  al. 2014; Clark 2013). According to the Arts Council’s own figures for 2014/2015 London-based organisations accounted for two-thirds of total private investment, leaving just £120 million for the other regions. About half of this private investment was from individual donations (MTM 2016). The national survey found a median change in earned income of 30 per cent or £18,568. In contrast, while LftF’s respondents reported a similar increase in contributions from individuals (31 per cent), this was the aggregate amount across the programme’s participants. It was skewed by one donation of £25,000, and the median increase was, in fact, just £76.00. This in no way made up for the nine per cent overall decrease in income from trusts, foundations and public funds, amounting to over £0.5 million lost. Over half of the participants said they felt the regional ecology was a significant barrier to them increasing donations (DeVos Institute of Arts Management, November 2016). As equitable access was identified as a key element of public subsidy, the decline in governmental funding streams points to the potential of further growth in regional inequality unless policies or programmes are put in place to ensure philanthropic donors are directed outside London. Similarly, structural issues within the arts sector were an additional factor. Not all organisations are as well situated to implement individual giving campaigns as others. Large organisations and venues found it much easier to attract donors. Thirty-one per cent of LftF’s respondents reported an increase in the total number of new individual donors. Among these organisations, increases ranged from 2 donors to 688 donors, resulting in an aggregate increase of 889 new donors. This increase was primarily attributed to just 2 of the 20 organisations. The first organisation ran a new online giving campaign. The second organisation launched a donation system that allowed them to track donations received. Most of the

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other arts organisations did not have the luxury of a sales force or computerised customer relationship management system. Some were community arts organisations working with disadvantaged groups; others were touring companies so might visit a town only once every couple of years making it difficult to build relationships. Venues, by contrast, had historically received more investment and had box office systems they could mine to find potential donors. The Arts Council itself emerged as a structural problem. One LftF participant manager said the first thing potential donors asked was, “have you asked the Arts Council?” Similarly, some potential donors who wanted to support the arts did not have the relevant connections or felt unsure how to assess quality so approached the Arts Council for advice. As the sole democratic body with primary responsibility for culture between 1946 and 1992 when the Department for National Heritage was established, the Arts Council is well known even outside the sector. Its role was perceived as part of the welfare state and it was, therefore, the first point of call for arts considered merit goods. Sponsorship and philanthropy were both sold as policies to diversify funding so should, in theory, have weakened the Arts Council’s hegemonic role. However, its influence proved stronger than Arts and Business, which was closed as an independent organisation in 2011. There was no attempt to set up a similar dating agency for philanthropists, leaving the task of changing societal attitudes as to whether the arts are a suitable recipient for charitable giving to individual arts organisations themselves. As the first Catalyst match-funding programme had a £12 million underspend and was consequently significantly scaled back in 2015, it appears cultural differences between the US and the UK were too embedded to be overcome in this way, certainly so far (Richens 2015).

Conclusions This chapter opened by asking if shifting resource dependency from the state to individuals or corporations reduced culture’s social role and what the consequences for cultural democracy might be if it did. Evidence from the Leadership for the Future programme indicated there is a significant, if largely unstated, difference in how the arts are perceived between the UK and the US. In the UK, the arts have traditionally been publically funded as merit goods and have developed values aligned with public policies such as promotion of equitable access. In America a culture has developed

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where there is an expectation of individual giving to local and regional charities perceived as benefiting civic pride and communal bonding as well as health, education and economic need. What was clear during the Leadership for the Future programme was, despite democratic accountability, there were significant inequalities evident between the East Midlands and other regions, particularly London and the South East and within the East Midlands itself. In addition to its historically low share of arts funding, the East Midlands is also amongst the poorest regions in the country, so has few head offices or high-net-­ worth potential donors. These inequalities were exacerbated by the philanthropy programme as it is highly profitable companies and richer individuals who benefit most from tax breaks, and larger arts organisations which have the capacity to hire fundraisers. The policy of match funding lacked the necessary flexibility to account for local difference as well as the national differences between the UK and US. An additional area of concern highlighted was philanthropy as privatisation of cultural policy. Tax breaks are tax foregone and, as Stephanie Shirley so eloquently put it, she donated to projects because they gave her personal satisfaction. If those happened to all be in London, so be it. The question then arises, where is democratic accountability in the spending of public money. Who chooses whose culture to support? Replacing funding allocated by democratic public bodies with tax breaks and match-funding incentives is a policy of cultural privatisation. Rich individuals or company directors can enforce their taste by picking and choosing the arts organisations they want to fund. At the same time, austerity meant philanthropists were themselves under pressure to plug funding gaps caused by cuts across public services while the Arts Council and local authorities had their grant-­ in-­aid from national government severely reduced. As the organisation tasked with making and delivering arts and culture to audiences and communities, LftF’s participants were in the frontline; less money meant fewer shows or workshops, less touring or smaller exhibitions. But even if the policy had been rolled out without the cuts, it would have caused some displacement of activity. Fundraising required time to build and maintain relationships and LftF companies generally had little spare staff capacity. There is an irony that the least well-resourced institutions involved in the policy implementation were the ones being asked to drive changes to attitudes to charitable giving within wider society. And it was the question of charitable values that emerged as the thorniest problem during the programme. With two organisations as exceptions,

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trustees expressed significant unease at the ‘give, get, get off’ model. One interviewee had, in fact, decided to get off, feeling her expertise was no longer valued by an organisation she had been involved with for a decade. Another was concerned about the narrowing effect such expectations would have on who could participate as board members, while a third discussed the pressure to evaluate the organisation’s programme in terms of financial risk rather than artistic quality. This policy was implemented quickly at a time of economic crisis and consequently has been subject to little public debate. Seven years in, some consequences are becoming visible. However, the impact of rebalancing public, private and corporate funding for the arts on geographical and social equity, and the relative importance of individual economic and socialised cultural values, are significant areas ripe for further research.

References ARHC. (2014). The Cultural Value Project: Exploring How We Think About the Value of Arts and Culture to Individuals And Society. London: Arts and Humanities Research Council. Bourdieu, P. (1984 [1979]). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. London: Routledge. Brook, O., O’Brien, D., & Taylor, M. (2018). Panic! Social Class, Taste and Inequalities in the Creative Industries. Retrieved May 17, 2018, from http:// createlondon.org/event/panic2018/. Arts Emergency. Brough, C. (1977). As You Like It: Private Support for the Arts. London: Bow. CAF. (2018). UK Giving 2018: An Overview of Charitable Giving in the UK. Retrieved May 7, 2018, from https://www.cafonline.org/docs/defaultsource/about-us-publications/caf-uk-giving-2018-report.pdf. Charities Aid Foundation (CAF). Clark, N. (2013). Regional Arts Left with London’s Crumbs as Spending Cuts Bite, Warns Harriet Harman. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/ arts-entertainment/art/news/regional-arts-left-with-londons-crumbs-asspending-cuts-bite%2D%2Dwarns-harriet-harman-8684010.html. Devos. (2016, November). Leadership for the Future Cycle Audit Aggregate Results. Washington, DC: DeVos Institute of Arts Management. Gilmore, A. (2013). Cold Spots, Crap Towns and Cultural Deserts: The Role of Place and Geography in Cultural Participation and Creative Place-Making. Cultural Trends, 22(2), 86–96. Hadley, S., & Belfiore, E. (2018). Cultural Democracy and Cultural Policy. Cultural Trends, 27(3), 218–223.

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Hall, S., & Back, L. (2009). At Home and Not at Home: Stuart Hall in Conversation with Les Back. Cultural Studies, 23(4), 658–687. Harvey, A. (2016). Funding Arts and Culture in a Time of Austerity. London: New Local Government Network (NLGN). Hunt, J. (2010, December 8). Philanthropy Keynote Speech. European Association for Philanthropy and Giving Conference, London. Full Text, Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Junction Arts. (2018). About Us. Retrieved from https://junctionarts.org/ about/. Kaiser, M. M., & Egan, B. E. (2013). The Cycle: A Practical Approach to Managing Arts Organizations. Brandeis: University Press. Movement for Cultural Democracy. (2018). Manifesto for Cultural Democracy. Retrieved from http://culturaldemocracy.uk/. MTM. (2016). Private Investment in Culture Survey 2012/13, 2013/14, 2014/15. Retrieved from https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/download-file/Private_investment_culture_report_Nov_2016.pdf. Quinn, R. M. (1998). Public Policy and the Arts: A Comparative Study of Great Britain and Ireland. Ashgate Publishing Ltd. Richens, F. (2015). Mixed Success for Catalyst as Scheme Is Scaled Back. Retrieved from https://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/news/mixed-success-catalystscheme-scaled-back. Silber, I. (1998). Modern Philanthropy: Reassessing the Viability of a Maussian Perspective. In W.  James & N.  J. Allen (Eds.), Marcel Mauss: A Centenary Tribute (pp. 134–150). New York: Berghahn. Stark, P., Gordon, C., & Powell, D. (2013). Rebalancing Our Cultural Capital—A Contribution to the Debate on National Policy for the Arts and Culture in England. Retrieved from www.theroccreport.co.uk. GPS Culture. Stark, P., Gordon, C., & Powell, D. (2014). The PLACE Report; Policy for the Lottery, the Arts and Community in England. Retrieved from http://www. gpsculture.co.uk/place.php. GPS Culture. The Charity Commission. (2018). Charity Trustee: What’s Involved (CC3a). Retrieved from https://www.gov.uk/guidance/charity-trustee-whats-involved. Throsby, D. (2001). Economics and Culture. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Warwick Commission. (2015). Enriching Britain: Culture, Creativity and Growth. University of Warwick. ISBN 978-0-9570404-8-9. Retrieved from https:// warwick.ac.uk/research/warwickcommission/futureculture/finalreport/warwick_commission_final_report.pdf. Wood, E. (2017). The Value of Events and Festivals in the Age of Austerity. In K. Lindberg et al. (Eds.), The Value of Events (pp. 10–35). Oxford: Routledge. Wu, C. (2003). Privatising Culture: Corporate Art Intervention Since the 1980s. Verso.

CHAPTER 5

Value Definition in Sustainable (Textiles) Production and Consumption Claire Lerpiniere

Introduction This chapter explores the notion of value within the context of the process and products of textile design, and to some extent the transformative process implied through production. This provides an invaluable lens for exploring the unique qualities and types of value that textile designers engage with, especially where pure designs are militated by the need to develop solutions for tackling industrial and societal issues such as environmental sustainability. These values are framed here as forms of capital which are conceptual, cultural and material, forms which a textile designer draws upon and imbues with their own expertise to create intellectual capital in terms of ideas, qualities and design. In the context of sustainability, the future economic, ecological and human sustainability of the global textiles industry requires the full utilisation of the textile designer’s intellectual capital. The term ‘textile’ is used throughout this chapter, rather than ‘fabric’ or ‘cloth’, as both ‘textile design’ and ‘textiles’ can not only represent the C. Lerpiniere (*) De Montfort University, Leicester, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Granger (ed.), Value Construction in the Creative Economy, Palgrave Studies in Business, Arts and Humanities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_5

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actions of creating a material through knitting, weaving and fusing fibres, but also reference the processes, techniques and finishes that constitute its production. Without textiles, the creative industries of fashion, architecture, interior design, automotive and transport design would be unrecognisable. Textile design is practised within specific cultural and industrial contexts, and is described through a specific terminology developed over centuries of tradition and practices (see Denton and Daniels 2002; The Textile Institute 2018). ‘Textiles’ also makes reference to the technologies and industries of printing, embroidery, finishing, embellishment and surface manipulation which are applied to fabrics for decoration or improved performance. In this way the term ‘textiles’ is positioned as a material, as an industry and as a unique set of interlinking cultures and traditions of practice. The value a textile designer brings to the creative and cultural industries is typically tacit (Polanyi 1966) and embodied, but these skills are a key part in the research and development, design, production and supply chains of many industries (see Kane and Philpott 2013, 2016), and thus this chapter has broader resonance for wider issues of production and the creative and cultural economy. The chapter is organised as follows. Beginning with an exploration of sustainability in textiles, the chapter then examines what value means in the context of textiles, and how this shapes textiles design and production under a broader imperative of environmental sustainability.

Sustainability Sustainability in the textile design context relates to an emerging and urgent awareness of the effect of human activities on the human and ecological environment, and is discussed within this chapter in relation to the fashion industry. De Montfort University’s sustained approach to impact is key to the university’s work as articulated in its commitment to public good and its selection as a designated ‘hub’ for achieving (SDG 16) the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—the first university to be chosen as such.1 In the context of textiles, sustainability relates to the use of environmentally sustainable materials and processes, as well as disrupting current models of manufacturing towards more 1  De Montfort University is a hub for Goal 16, ‘Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions’, and has been asked to take the lead in engaging universities across the globe in its work to support refugees.

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socially and economically responsible (as well as ethical) production methods, which speak to wider goals of carbon neutral production, peace and justice. Challenges include: waste creation and disposal, resource depletion, climate change and emissions, air, earth, or water borne pollution and effluents, water and land availability and security, and the challenges and opportunities of globalisation, which can either alleviate human poverty through gainful employment or enforce exploitative business models which oppress individuals and lock people into destitution (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2017; Fletcher 2008; Remy et al. 2016). These challenges are addressed within the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, a set of global goals to improve both human experience and the natural environment (UN 2018). Each goal in turn can be seen as relating to aspects of textile design practice and production. Of particular relevance to textiles are SDG 5 (Gender Equality), SDG 8 (Good Jobs and Economic Growth), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), SDG 13 (Climate Action), SDG 14 (Life Below Water) and SDG 15 (Life on Land) (UN 2018). As global cultures are increasingly built around consumption as a defining characteristic, textile design researchers can help mediate the pace and focus of this consumption, moving it from unsustainable practices toward circular or regenerative economies (Ellen MacArthur Foundation Website 2017), and from mass fast-paced consumption, to slow, thoughtful consumption (Fletcher 2018). Such challenges will increasingly require interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary (Piaget 1972) approaches in order to develop transitions toward sustainable futures within the textiles industry, and textile designers have an increasingly important role to play within this, due to their specific competencies and skills. In this context, sustainable growth and innovation will need to develop upon the textile designer’s ability to direct their practice within the context of environmental resources and human sustainable development, through employing and developing on their embodied, tacit knowledge bases. One potential approach to this is through engaging with research and practice within the emerging field of ‘Transition Design’, which is practised by transdisciplinary teams who focus on solving particular problems in order to transition towards sustainable futures. In this chapter, this approach will be discussed in relation to the development of sustainable models of textile design, particularly for the fashion industry. To develop strategies which address these issues, textile designers must bring their knowledge capital to such teams and embed sustainable development and production approaches within industry and

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consumer practices (Andersen and Earley 2014; Sherburne 2009; Fletcher 2008; Blackburn 2009; Fletcher and Tham 2014).

Cultural Capital and Value Textiles are globally ubiquitous, and their development and use transcend cultural, historical and geographical boundaries, particularly when made into fashion garments (Harper 2012b; Schneider and Weiner 1989; Schoeser and Boydell 2002). Textiles and textile designers contribute value through multiple layers of processes and activities, developed over time through the cultures of textile design education and design for manufacture (Entwistle 2000, p. 1; Gale and Kaur 2004). The textile design process requires the designer to draw upon their cultural, material and conceptual capital, which enables them to design technically or aesthetically relevant and marketable textiles. Such capital arises through a layered and nuanced set of skills: the manual dexterity acquired through crafts practice; the ability to draw upon honed critical judgement skills to direct colour, proportion, motif and layout choices; and the ability to understand consumer desires and markets. Textile designers not only need to be able to draw, repeat and create designs for development into fabrics, wallpapers and accessories, but to understand the ‘technical and business worlds of textile processing, marketing, communications and distribution’ (Thackara 2015, p. 89). Established research subjects and paradigms which intersect with textile design investigate and advance the aesthetic, industrial and scientific development of textiles (Braddock Clarke and O’Mahony 2005), or focus on textiles as objects in material culture (Candy 2005; Banerjee and Miller 2003). Research within scientific or industrial domains has focused on value creation through innovation via the qualities, structures and functions of textiles, or new applications or adaptations of existing processes and techniques within the field. These develop textiles which problem-­ solve or enhance performances, particularly within the domains of fibre, yarn, colouration and fabric production, and result in knitted, woven and non-woven textiles for development into products. The focus of these textiles includes the innovations created through interdisciplinary or research, or fusing techniques. Examples include pairing digital approaches with traditional crafts (Bowles and Isaac 2009; Kane et al. 2016; Akiwowo 2016), developing fabrics which use nanotechnology (Braddock Clarke and O’Mahony 2005, p. 6), or using enzymes as coloration agents (Shen

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et al. 2018). These textile design approaches are inherently imbued with tacit cultural or conceptual value, which the designer selects or capitalises upon in order to create a relevant and useful textile for product development and product enhancement, thus creating market capital and value. The cachet of a luxury woven cashmere or couture embroidery on lightweight silk enhances the appearance and enjoyment a garment conveys and adds value through material and conceptual value, and aesthetic values, to both an individual garment and the fashion brand as a whole. Material Capital and Value Material capital is measurable, but much of the value a textile designer brings to society is tacitly embedded within the processes and concept development of the design. As textile design occurs for fast-paced and rapidly evolving or market-responsive industries (as seen in fashion design), understanding of both value and values in relation to design has become more than an optional extra for textile designers, and should form a key part of the education of textile designers. In particular, value and values function as drivers for understanding the ways consumer behave when making purchasing and consumption priorities or activities, in many different ways. For instance, the use value versus the exchange value of a textile when converted into a garment can be measured against its market or sale value, as an individual unit which contributes towards the £28 billion the fashion industry directly contributes to the UK economy annually (British Fashion Council 2016). The values which a textile can facilitate and come to embody include enhanced social relationships, a change to a sense of identity, a link with a memory or occasion, or an affiliation or loyalty to a brand, and the brand values it represents. This is particularly the case with evocative brands with a distinctive set of brand values associated with them, such as People Tree, Levi’s, Gucci or Chanel. The established fields of branding and marketing in relation to fashion understand the consumer as adopting the ‘brand values’ when making purchasing decisions (Posner 2015). This is particularly key at the luxury end of the textiles market, where provenance, geographical links and artisanal craftsmanship intersect to differentiate from the lower market sectors, and provide perceptions of quality and heritage (Collins and Weiss 2015). Increasingly, consumers express not only their sense of identity through conspicuous consumption or brands, but in wearing clothing which aligns with their own identity or

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position (as discussed in Chap. 6), their ethical values or principles they wish to communicate via their clothing through an alignment with a brand, such as People Tree or Birdsong. Large corporations now realise that sustainable and responsible production form part of the ethical and brand values they must communicate, and that engaging with sustainable practices ‘protect and augment’ their reputations, particularly with younger consumers (Fletcher 2014, p. xv). The material value embodied within the textile designer arises through varied steps, gained through a lengthy process of education in design research, development and manufacturing techniques. However, much of this knowledge remains tacit. This is partly due to a historical bias towards the view that other forms of design and material culture are viewed as rigorous and befitting academic study, but fashion and textiles have had an ‘image problem’, which has not been acknowledged widely within the discourse (Tseelon 2001, p. 435) but is slowly improving. The global challenges posed by the need to redesign the fashion and textiles industry will require not only technical and design knowledge but an understanding of how to situate fashion and textiles within theoretically informed positions. Firstly, through the textile designer’s understanding of the structures, processes and properties of fibres and fabrics, and their surface decorative or performance treatments, but also through their awareness of the potential for manipulation and creation into products and outcomes. This expertise will become increasingly key as a type of tacit knowledge required in order develop marketable solutions to pressing environmental issues in relation to textiles; such as the finite nature of resources, issues around energy consumption and climate change, and the human or social impacts of fashion production on its workers. The textile designer’s power is in their sourcing and development of fibres into materials for industry, particularly fashion, and their selection of processing techniques, such as dye classes or the materials used in embellishments. Textile designers are loci for key selection points and sourcing of materials within the fashion supply chain, and as such, they are a ‘starting point for change’ (Fletcher 2014, p.  7). How fibres and fabrics are created and sourced will become an increasing area of focus for brands, manufacturers and consumers expressing their ethical positions, and this requires textile designers who can use their particular skill sets and competencies to respond to this.

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Circular Textiles and Value Creation One proposed scenario for balancing clothing production with finite resource management is a closed loop, or the adoption of ‘circular design’, in which the end of the life of the garment or product is considered at the point of its conceptualisation, without loss of resources through waste sent to landfill. This is conceptualised as a new framework for production, the Circular Economy. This approach, championed by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation Website (2017), is becoming increasingly recognised within the industry as an ideal, but provides huge challenges for industry as it will disrupt and change current economic models and chains of production, which can be complicated and hidden from view. The challenge to embed circular design principles in the textile and fashion design supply chains extends beyond simplistic, unilateral or isolated solutions to making fashion sustainable. Simplistic approaches, such as an emphasis on ‘natural fibres’ over ‘synthetic fibres, can result in one problem being substituted by another, or in focusing consumers on an area of production which is less problematic, and green-washing over a far more pressing issue. Developing truly sustainable fashion and textile production and supply chains requires an awareness of the impacts of entire product lifecycles, including, ‘cultivation, production, manufacturing, distribution, consumer laundering, reuse and final disposal’ (Fletcher 2014, p.  9). This approach requires the specialist knowledge of fibre and fabric which textile designers possess, for example, on whether to design fabrics which should be recycled, upcycled or composted at their end of life, and this must be built into the design process at the start of the design cycle, not worked around at the end, where fabric and fibre shredding and recovery end in poor-quality textiles mostly destined to landfill (see Remy et al. 2016). Responsible production is also dependent upon an appreciation of the context of the manufacturing of these fibres into fabrics, and then garments, and an understanding of the effects of a particular process in a particular location. For example, whereas polyester production from oil to final fabric is energy-intensive, it uses minimal water in its production, so could potentially suit production in countries with high sunlight but low water, as an alternative to cotton production. Or other alternatives to oil-­ based synthetic fibres could be sourced, such as ‘Ingeo’, which uses a corn-derivative to create a fibre which uses between 62% and 68% less fossil fuel in its production, and wind power–generated electricity, resulting in 80–90% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than traditional polyester

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­production (Burke 2008, p. 58). However, responsible production would look at the opportunity costs of corn growth, and whether the land it is grown upon is needed for local food production, or if its growing creates water scarcity affecting local people. Innovative approaches and fibre developments are implicitly linked with not only corporate social responsibility in relation to production, but with understanding the values a brand expresses to the consumer. However, until they are developed into desirable textiles for use in manufacturing, such innovations cannot attend to pressing industrial economic sustainability issues, and require the interpretation, aesthetic and developmental skills of the textile designer to create covetable, desirable textiles with longevity. There is also a growing awareness that the combination of finite global resources and a huge increase in the numbers of garments people own will necessitate a restructuring of the entire fashion and textiles industry, including all of the different value and supply chains. For example, the explosion of the fast fashion industry in the early 2000s produced an increase in the number of garments individuals were buying, with a third as many garments purchased in 2006 than in 2002, and women owning four times as many clothes as in 1980 (Allwood et  al. 2006). A reasonable supposition is that current models of production and consumption must be disrupted to achieve this.

Design as a Professional and Tacit Value The design methods and practices of textile design are largely acknowledged as underexplored in the literature (Kane and Philpott 2013; Tseelon 2001; Hodges et al. 2007; Igoe 2010; Harper 2012a; Hemmings 2015), yet are ever more relevant given the urgency to disrupt the industry as a result of environmental and sustainable imperatives. Textile designers are often characterised as providing an unacknowledged or ‘hidden’ service within the design process, whose work is obscured by the wider brands or products their designs and fabrics produce (Briggs-Goode and Townsend 2011, p. xxiii). There is also the hidden element of textile design within the wider creative industries—whereby design methods and practices of textile design are tacit and to some extent unacknowledged and undervalued in shaping other creative sectors. I would argue here that textiles designers require resituating in a broader economic and societal context, as now, more than ever, the value of the textile designer is in their ability to develop models and concepts of consumption, to design new solutions

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and approaches in the industry. As Goett (2016) notes, textile knowledge engages all the senses, and this sense of the hand processes and craft of the textile designer, combined with conceptual thinking, contributes to what has been conceptualised as ‘textiles thinking’, a distinct subset of design methods research (Kane and Philpott 2013). In this way, the activities of textile design are “distinctive” and ‘guided by emotive, haptic, sensorial and tactile qualities’ (Valentine et al. 2017, S966). While it is seemingly difficult to conceptualise such knowledge, the value a textile designer brings to the design industry is increasingly dependent on explicitly setting out to capitalise on these qualities and create a marketable, commercial product that uses ethical and sustainable principles of manufacturing. Emerging sustainability contexts which a textile designer must be aware of will require textile designers to pull together disparate approaches, competencies and skills, in order to address some of the most pressing requirements of industries, particularly for problem-­ solving and considering the entire production and consumption cycle of a garment, from growing or polymerising a fibre, through to where a garment ends up after its owner discards it, most often landfill at this point (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2017). The unwritten physical and embodied application of textiles processes and techniques is key to textile design practice. The weight to put on a squeegee as it pulls through a screen, the tension a warp yarn requires when threading up a loom and the force with which to attach a bead to a fabric when embroidering are difficult to interpret via the written or pictorial form. As Conroy notes: The craftsperson becomes tranced by sensual physical processes, getting lost in making, in repetitive but varying techniques of twisting thread, knitting, looping, twining crocheting, almost entering that infant world of sensation and iteration. (2016, p. 361)

This ‘world of sensation and iteration’ is part of the tacit, embodied knowledge of learning a crafts process, whereby an instructor will physically demonstrate a technique, encouraging the student to adjust the direction or application of force, in order to develop sensitivity to the limitations of their crafts medium for themselves. In this way, the knowledge of making transfers from one maker to the next generation. This embodied world of sensorial experience is reflected in the experience by consumers of textiles and is often the key driver in the selection of one garment

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over another, particularly with regard to the tactile, sensory feeling of the textiles within a garment (DeLong et al. 2012). Research within the aesthetic or design historical domains of textiles explores the context which arises through understanding a textile’s history or use, including decoding and articulating their social, cultural, political and geographic origins that textile can embody. Both approaches, scientific or design historical, can research and discuss key discourses around textiles as artefacts of material culture, whereby the materiality of the textile is articulated through varied conceptual frameworks which are part of the vocabulary of textile design. Though these values attributed to textiles describe the social agency their use creates for anthropologists and design historians researching materiality and the ways in which textiles and dress create a sense of identity across global cultures, understanding this fundamentally human approach to textiles is key to tackling the huge disruption and social impacts of fast fashion and the unsustainable nature of the industry as it is currently constructed. Key to this is understanding textiles as an embodied ‘situated bodily experience’ (Entwistle 2000, p. 5). This is the case whether wearing soft pyjamas at the end of a day or dressing in a formal gown for a public event. Through the experience of wearing clothing, sitting on upholstered furniture, or lying under a soft blanket, textiles create a sense of space through their function as a ‘second skin, which prodigiously enhances our pleasure in the first’ (Graves 2002, p.  49). This embodied, interactive experience can lead to the creation of a personal relationship between a textile experience and an individual. This relationship first arises through the processes of making, which arise through what has been described as ‘textile thinking’, a distinct subset of ‘design thinking’ (Kane and Philpott 2013). Such thinking, which is an emerging body of knowledge within the field, slowly following hundreds of years of practice, creates ‘an embodied relationship with materials, characteristic of making, has the effect of activating specific kinds of thinking’ (Pajaczkowska 2016, p. 79). This type of tacit knowledge has been proposed as occurring through nine forms within the cultures of textiles, creating a ‘challenge for the traditional distinctions between the technical skills of making and the intellectual skills of understanding, knowing and authoring’. These forms, ‘felting, spinning, stitching, knotting/knitting, weaving, plaiting, draping, cutting and styling’ (Pajaczkowska 2016, p. 80) are phrased in such a way to focus on the ‘verbs’ of textile design, rather than the ‘artefacts’ or ‘nouns’ created by the processes and techniques, and therefore imply value

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construction through a transformative process. Textile design is the middle step in a creation process, as textile designers produce objects that are often in the process of becoming something else: clothing, airplanes, upholstered furniture. This conceptualisation of textiles as a part of a process is reflected in Pajaczkowska’s (2016) ‘textiles toolbox’ of 9 ‘processes of the body’ which marry doing with thinking, in order to bridge the gap between theory and practice. Pajaczkowska calls upon the knowledge and experience of practitioners to be used to throw light on theoretical and historical critical positions of textiles, in order to enable the ‘agency’ of textiles to be clearer. This agency occurs not only through the interaction with a textile, but through the curatorial processes of owning, consuming and caring for a textile or garment, in the ‘post-consumption’ phase. Lury (1996) describes ‘post-consumption’ rituals in terms of the personalisation of an artefact, as a means of reassigning its meaning from that of the manufacturer or retailer, to that of an individual’s own world. These rituals are the means by which an anonymous object—often the product of a distant, impersonal process of mass manufacture—is turned into a possession that belongs to someone and speaks to them, ‘Possession, in this view, is not a static state, but an activity’ (Lury 1996, p. 12). In this sense, the human relationship with a textile, particularly in the form of a garment, produces an understanding of the performance of wearing or caring for a garment as engaging the emotional and experiential domains. Understanding and appreciating these affective domains is key to encouraging a sense of a relationship between an individual and a garment, so it is cherished, cared for, mended and kept. This ‘agency’ in the textile will become ever more urgent in the growing awareness of the impossibility of maintaining the status quo in current design and manufacturing practices.

Fast Fashion in the Anthropocene Though not explicitly anthropological in their disciplinary self-­ identification, the current generation of textile designers who are developing processes and concepts in order to nudge or develop consumption approaches towards more sustainable models is in effect using ethnographic approaches to explicitly record tacit and embodied knowledge. For example, Kate Fletcher’s concept of the ‘Craft of Use’, part of the ‘Local Wisdom’ (2018) project, encourages users to curate and connect with their clothing, through recording and emphasising the nature of the

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processes of washing, mending, and caring for clothing. This is intended to create a sense of the value of each garment, opposite the model of fast fashion, with its ‘take, make, dispose’ approach to production, whereby natural resources are taken, made into garments, then destined for landfill (Ellen MacArthur Foundation Website 2017). To set this into context, a recent study by Barnardos has indicated that a garment is considered ‘old’ by the consumer when it has been worn three times, and on average, a garment is discarded after seven wears (Barnardo’s 2015). A report for the management consultancy McKinsey has this to add about the current, very recent, state of the fashion industry in the US alone: Thanks to falling costs, streamlined operations, and rising consumer spending, clothing production doubled from 2000 to 2014, and the number of garments purchased each year by the average consumer increased by 60%. (Remy et al. 2016, p. 2)

The concept of a new era of human intervention on the planet has been proposed, as a means to consider how humans have entered planetary and geological timeframes. As commonly known, geological time is divided into epochs which measure shifts in structures and shapes, such as the Jurassic or Cetaceous periods. The current era, the Holocene, has been suggested as being superseded by another, more human-centric epoch, which has been proposed as the ‘Anthropocene’. Though this remains a concept which is still under current debate by geologists, its use has entered common parlance around sustainable futures, and several dates which mark the beginning of this new era have been proposed, most in alignment of the date with the ‘Great Acceleration’ in human resource use, and corresponding increases in pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, which puts the date within the second half of the twentieth century (Lewis and Maslin 2015a, b; Steffen et al. 2011). The Anthropocene is defined as a period whereby humans are having an unparalleled effect on the planet’s environment, geology and biological systems, whereby ‘humankind has become a global geological force in its own right’ (Steffen et al. 2011, p. 843). The concept of Anthropocene has the potential to galvanise and direct thought towards the potentially catastrophic consequences of reaching the limits of the earth’s finite resources. As Lewis and Maslin note:

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To a large extent the future of the only place where life is known to exist is being determined by the actions of humans. Yet, the power that humans wield is unlike any other force of nature, because it is reflexive and therefore can be used, withdrawn or modified. More wide-spread recognition that human actions are driving far-reaching changes to the life-supporting infrastructure of Earth may well have increasing philosophical, social, economic and political implications over the coming decades. (Lewis and Maslin 2015a, p. 178)

The role of the design industry, particularly its traditional position as persuading people to buy more and discard their objects before they are worn or finished in order to replace them with new things, is at odds with the increasing awareness of the earth’s resources as rapidly depleting and finite. Such an understanding requires a new model of design, as has been widely discussed in the examination of creating sustainable design systems for fashion and textiles, such as the circular economy (op cit). A rejection of business as usual is increasingly prevalent in the fashion and textiles research subjects, with the literature increasingly looking at a disruption of the status quo in order to shift industry practices towards ‘systemic change’ (Delong and Black 2018). Such systematic change will require a shift in fibre selection, fabric development, textile design practices, fashion design practices, buying and supply chain transparency, care of garments, and models of consumption and models of ownership, and such disruption requires team efforts to push it through. Transition Design Technology and innovation have been discussed in the context of the value they contribute to textile design, and how a technological focus strives to produce novelty and innovative solutions to design problems. In sociological and ethnographic approaches to textiles, an artefact is positioned as a meme of global culture, whereby the textile enables people to socially engage and develop ‘domains of meaning’ through the exchange and consumption of a textile, displaying and enforcing social hierarchies and affiliations through dress and adornment (Schneider and Weiner 1989, p.  3). These domains of meaning increasingly also relate to the domains of value, particularly brand values, which a fashion brand demonstrates, and which consumers align themselves with. The creative thinking and skills which textile designers specifically possess have been proposed as

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more of an ‘opportunity for innovation’ in terms of disruption of manufacturing towards sustainable models (Padovani and Whittaker 2017, p. 2). In particular, artisanal skills or creating sustainable pilot programmes within SMEs (ibid.) or within small teams in larger multinationals such as H&M (Andersen and Earley 2014) are noted as having the flexibility of scale and the swiftness of response required to be innovative drivers for sustainability. As Jefferies notes (2016, p. 9), 25 years ago textile theorists were concerned with gendered and textile arts readings of textiles, 10  years ago textiles began to be conceptualised as bodies of practice, and the current paradigm shift concerns the ‘artist-as-researcher’, the ‘theorist as artist’ and ‘performing as curator’. As noted, one of the issues that textile design researchers must overcome is the often fractured or disaggregated nature of research on the subject, due to the inherent differences between the knowledge base of process and technique and the knowledge base of concept and design necessary for undertaking the subject (Hodges et al. 2007, p.  324). Therefore, exploring the subject requires researchers to situate themselves within the ‘limitless’ (Hodges et al. 2007, p. 324) possibilities for design which could occur within the varied contexts of the industrial, scientific, design and cultural sectors which intersect with fashion and textile design. Hodges et  al. propose that these can be overcome through three objectives for the future development of the subject’s research. These are: situating the subject within the philosophical domain, reviewing and identifying approaches to inquiry that are anticipated to be essential for the future exploration of the field, and becoming transdisciplinary, through adopting methods and epistemologies from other disciplines, but simultaneously ‘sharing’ subject expertise as part of ‘give and take of being openly transdisciplinary’ (Hodges et al. 2007, p. 343). Transdisciplinarity in terms of design research enables interdisciplinary teams of researchers, such as fashion designers, textile designers, product designers, anthropologists, psychologists and material scientists, to work together with experts outside of academia, to draw upon varied cultures and bodies of knowledge, harnessing varied expertise to explore and solve the issues of ­sustainability and textiles. Such value identification and creation in relation to textiles are essential for the future survival of the industry within the context of finite resource depletion. ‘This knowledge and the new skillsets transition designers will inform must be integrated from areas such as science, philosophy, psychology, social science, anthropology and the ­

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humanities and will therefore challenge existing design paradigms’ (Irwin et al. 2015a, p. 12). This approach draws from many different theories and paradigms, many of which are of relevance and increasing interest within the fashion and textiles and sustainable futures. In particular, ‘Everyday Life Discourse’ (Irwin et  al. 2015a, p.  3) relates to the need to observe and consider everyday, ordinary life and interactions as a means to develop new models and paradigms for sustainability. The quotidian experience of wearing a garment, such as a favourite T-shirt, would be one example which could be drawn from textile design, particularly with regard to laundry behaviours, care and mending activities, as the application of these renders the garment long-lasting or not. Transition design draws on the concept of ‘transition’ from ecology, in order to explain how ‘complex ecosystems sustain themselves over long periods of time’. Under external stressors, ecological systems transition towards other forms or structures in order to survive (Irwin et al. 2015a, p. 4). This model of behaviour adeptly describes how textiles and fashion are undergoing a sudden realisation that resources are finite and uses a ‘heuristic model to characterise four different but interrelated and mutually influencing areas: (1) vision, (2) theories of change, (3) mindset/ posture and (4) new ways of designing’ (see Irwin et  al. 2015a). This echoes current, disparate approaches to the field, in terms of developing sustainable solutions to the problem of current models of fashion and textile production, particularly that of fast fashion. Lindstrom and Stahl (2016) note that in common with other design fields, ‘new ways of knowing’ are required within textile design as a subject—they use the metaphor of ‘patchworking’ to describe a ‘collective making of a patchwork of different kinds of knowledge, experiences, histories and anticipations in relation to ways of living with technologies’ (p. 5). This approach takes concepts from actor-network theory and material semiotics relating to the material turn within cultural studies, whereby artefacts are seen as co-existing with humans, and influencing behaviours and attitudes, and concepts of feminist materialism. Transition design provides a model which reflects how textile designers can take a key role in the disruption to the established orders and industries of fashion and textiles created by global environmental challenges. As such, transition design transcends not only individual disciplines, but extends beyond the academy to situate problems, and solutions, to sustainable futures in different

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communities of expertise, including social groups, political movements and biological or natural systems, to find solutions to complex global, ecological and social problems. The objective of such teams is to ‘provide designers with new tools and methodologies to initiate and catalyse transitions towards more sustainable futures’ (Irwin et al. 2015a, p. 6). Emotional Design As Donald Norman suggests in his seminal work (2004), feeding user experience back into the design process is key not only for improving the design and function of pieces but also for eliciting an emotional response to designed objects and understanding how brand loyalty arises. A common view in emotional design research is that success in design practice is limited within paradigms of design research in which the world of objects is viewed as separate to the world of people, rather than as an interconnected mode of existence (Norman 2004; Aldrich 2004, p. 368). Within this field, holistic design tools that generate and measure experiential and sensory data have been developed, as a means for understanding the processes within the cycle of consumption: ‘buying, using and owning products’ (Desmet et al. 2009, p. 1). Within textile and fashion design, emotional design methods are less common, though increasingly used within smart textiles applications and industrial textile design (see Bang 2009; Baurley et al. 2007). Textiles can become ‘repositories of deeply valued personal memories’ (Taylor 2002), and many emotional designers situate design theories within phenomenological philosophy in order to describe processes of design and design evaluation via embodied, affective frameworks. Transition design teams can capitalise on such knowledge, particularly with regard to textiles and fashion, to encourage a ‘slow fashion’ consumption of garments, new models of ownership, such as renting and returning garments and design activist events, which stage ‘sewing circles’ of repair and exchange of garments, rather than buy and discard models (Fletcher 2018) for value creation and intellectual capital exchange. Phenomenology Another transition design concept, ‘Goethean Science and Phenomenology’ (Irwin et al. 2015a, p. 4), understands the part in relation to its whole, in common with phenomenological theory and practice, looking at growth,

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maturation and demise as part of a holistic system in its entirety. It could be argued that ‘fast fashion’ is such a holistic, phenomenological system, whereby the experience of fast fashion, at first exciting and innovative, has already begun to pale, as consumers turn away from the quick fix of fast fashion towards other models of consumption and better-quality, ‘slower’ fashion. This turn away from fast fashion cannot come quickly enough, as current models for dealing with fast fashion garments when no longer required by consumers, through disposal or recycling, are not sufficient and result in three-fifths of all clothing being sent to landfill or incinerators globally (Remy et al. 2016, p. 5). The concept of phenomenology is also relevant for exploring the individual’s user experience of a garment. The phenomenological and existential understanding of a garment as an embodied user experience is something the vocabulary of textiles addresses: drape, handle, flexibility, wear, hue and thickness are all key experiential descriptors which have quantitative and qualitative measures, which collectively contribute to the experience of a textile (Blanco 2014; Franklin 2014; Lerpiniere 2013). Phenomenology is a field which, though not often explicitly connected to textile design, is at the core of what textile designers do: add value to a garment, interior or product through the qualities that are embodied within and experiences created by the fabric or textile. Textiles are a nexus for thoughts, processes, feeling and end products, and require research and design methods which are sympathetic to this in order to be successful. Such existential readings and theoretical perspectives on textiles will also become increasingly important to understanding the longevity of a garment, as a means of moving away from a fast consumption and disposal model of fashion. Transition design produces results which embed a designed object within a wider societal influence or behaviour. Textile designers, through their training, are ideally equipped for engaging with societal problems from the micro (the performance of a fibre) to the macro (global supply chains and sourcing) and must increasingly use this knowledge to influence and direct sustainable and responsible choices across the entire textile sourcing, design development and supply chain.

Conclusion As has been discussed in this chapter, textile design is going through a period of disruption and transition, which it is argued will need to change further to address wider issues of sustainability. Within this context,

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e­ mergent research in ‘textiles thinking’, as a distinct but discrete subject area aligned with ‘design thinking’, has produced many striking new approaches to teaching, pedagogy, research and scholarship. In terms of societal value, if textile design researchers and practitioners are to direct and develop changes from within, they must be proactive within their discipline to develop existing thinking or techniques, which have the capacity to address key issues around sustainability. The skills a textile designer has at their disposal include understanding of fibres and fabrics, of craft and design principles, of methodologies for successful team work within interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary teams, for concept and idea generation, and of resilience when faced with difficulties. For example, a textile designer must work with and interpret the needs of fashion, medical, interior, automotive and industrial designers and architects, drawing upon a sophisticated range of qualities and attributes in order to be successful. The textile designer must engage with other professionals within the creative and cultural industries, and learn not only the technical and aesthetic competencies required to design a textile for a particular sector or manufacturer, but also work within teams. In this way, most textile designers in industry develop communicative skills, as they have to successfully collaborate with fabric technologists, chemists, colourists, garment technologists, fabric sourcers, licensing designers, fashion buyers, colour forecasters and production technologists and machinists. They must interpret and transcend not only the needs of the customer and their lifestyles, but also the technical constraints of budgets, dyes, seasons and fast output times, and stay within the critical paths of their manufacturing. Increasingly, this complex web of activities must take place within the context of making sustainable choices in terms of fibres and fabrics, consideration of design contexts and consumer preferences, such as ethical considerations, and ensuring manufacturing processes are environmentally and humanly sustainable. In view of these complex skill needs, in this chapter the designer, as one area of creative work, is conveyed as a professional value but one in which there is potential for wider societal value, by addressing larger social issues such as sustainability. In this chapter then, the issue of sustainability has provided an invaluable lens through which to view and ascribe value to textile designers as one subset of the creative industries with complex professional competences, and a higher (social) value as a connector (and nexus) of skills to tackle wider societal issues. In this way, the chapter emphasises the societal worth inherent in a professional means of working.

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Harper, C. (2012a). Introduction: Patch One. In C.  Harper (Ed.), Textiles: Critical and Primary Sources: Volume 1 History and Curation (pp. vi–xxi). London: Berg. Harper, C. (2012b). Introduction: Patch 2. In C. Harper (Ed.), Textiles: Critical and Primary Sources: Vol 2. Production (Including Sustainability) (pp. viii– vxxi). London: Berg. History/Curation. London: Berg, pp. xiii–xxvi. Hemmings, J. (2015). Introduction. In J.  Hemmings (Ed.), Cultural Threads: Transnational Textiles Today. London: Bloomsbury. Hodges, N., Delong, M., Hegland, J., & Thompson, M. (2007). Constructing Knowledge for the Future: Exploring Alternative Modes of Inquiry from a Philosophical Perspective. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 25(4), 323–348. Igoe, E. (2010). The Tacit-turn: Textile Design in Design Research. Duck Journal for Research in Textiles and Textile Design, 1(1), 1–11. Irwin, T., Kossoff, G., Tonkinwise, C., & Scupelli, P. (2015a). Transition Design: A New Area of Design Research, Practice and Study That Proposes Design-Led Societal Transition Toward More Sustainable Futures. Retrieved August 20, 2018, from http://design.cmu.edu/sites/default/files/Transition_Design_ Monograph_final.pdf. Irwin, T., Kossoff, G., & Tonkinwise, C. (2015b). Transition Design Provocation. Design Philosophy Papers, 13(1), 3–11. Retrieved September 20, 2018, from https://doi.org/10.1080/14487136.2015.1085688. Jefferies, J. (2016). Editorial Introduction. In J.  Jefferies, D.  Wood Conroy, & H.  Clark (Eds.), The Handbook of Textile Culture (pp.  3–17). London: Bloomsbury Academic. Kane, F., & Philpott, R. (2013). Textile Thinking for Sustainable Materials. Presented at Making Futures 2013, 26th–27th September 2013, Plymouth. Kane, F., & Philpott, R. (2016). Textile Thinking: A Flexible, Connective Strategy for Concept Generation and Problem Solving in Inter-disciplinary Contexts. In T.  Marchand (Ed.), Craft Work as Problem Solving  – Ethnographic Studies of Design and Making (pp. 235–256). Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate. Kane, F., Nimkulrat, N., & Walton, K. (2016). Introduction. In F.  Kane, N.  Nimkulrat, & K.  Walton (Eds.), Crafting Textiles in the Digital Age (pp. 1–14). London: Bloomsbury. Lerpiniere, C. (2013). One Wedding, Two Cultures, Four Outfits: The Phenomenological Exploration of Fashion and Textiles. Journal of Textile Design Research and Practice, 1(1), 27–41. Lewis, S., & Maslin, M. (2015a). Defining the Anthropocene. Nature, 519, 171–180. Lewis, S., & Maslin, M. (2015b). A Transparent Framework for Defining the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene Review, 2(2), 128–146.

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Lindstrom, K., & Stahl, A. (2016). ‘Patchworking Ways of Knowing and Making. In J. Jefferies, D. Wood Conroy, & H. Clark (Eds.), The Handbook of Textile Culture (pp. 65–78). London: Bloomsbury Academic. Lury, C. (1996). Consumer Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press. Norman, D. (2004). Emotional Design: Why We Love (Or Hate) Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books. Padovani, C., & Whittaker, P. (2017). Sustainability and the Social Fabric: Europe’s New Textile Industries. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Pajaczkowska, C. (2016). Making Known: The Textiles Toolbox – Psychoanalysis of Nine Types of Textile Thinking. In J. Jefferies, D. Wood Conroy, & H. Clark (Eds.), The Handbook of Textile Culture (pp.  79–96). London: Bloomsbury Academic. Piaget, J. (1972). The Epistemology of Interdisciplinary Relationships. In Interdisciplinarity: Problems of teaching and reserach in universities, Centre of Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) (pp. 127–139). OECD. Polanyi, M. (1966). The Tacit Dimension. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Posner, H. (2015). Marketing Fashion: Strategy, Branding, and Promotion (2nd ed.). London: Laurence King. Remy, N., Speelman, E., & Swarz, S. (2016). Style That’s Sustainable: A New Fast Fashion Formula. Retrieved from https://www.textilepact.net/pdf/publications/reports-and-award/style_thats_sustainable_a_new_fast-fashion_formula_mckinsey_and_company_october_2016.pdf. Schneider, J., & Weiner, A. (1989). Cloth and Human Experience. London: Smithsonian Institute Press. Schoeser, M., & Boydell, C. (2002). Introduction. In M. Schoeser & C. Boydell (Eds.), Disentangling Textiles: Techniques for the Study of Designed Objects (pp. 2–8). London: Middlesex University Press. Shen, J., Prajapati, C., Smith, E., & Kane, F. (2018). Enzyme-Based Biotechnology for Textile Coloration and Surface Pattern. Proceedings of the 91st Textile Institute World Conference, 23–26 July 2018, Leeds, UK. Sherburne, A. (2009). Achieving Sustainable Textiles: A designer’s perspective. In R. S. Blackburn (ed) Sustainable Textiles (pp. 3–32). https://doi.org/ 10.1533/9781845696948.1.3. Steffen, W., Grinevald, J., Crutzen, P., & McNeill, J. (2011). The Anthropocene: Conceptual and Historical Perspectives. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 369, 842–867. Taylor, L. (2002). Decoding the Hierarchy of Fashion and Textiles. In M. Schoeser & C. Boydell (Eds.), Disentangling Textiles: Techniques for the Study of Designed Objects (pp. 67–80). London: Middlesex University Press. Textile Terms and Definitions. (2018). The Textile Institute. Online.Retrieved October 20, 2018, from wwww.ttandd.org. Last Updated August 13, 2018.

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Thackara, J. (2015). How to Thrive in the Next Economy: Designing Tomorrow’s World Today. London: Thames and Hudson. ‘The Economic Value of the UK’s Fashion Industry in 2015’. (2016). The British Fashion Council. Online. Retrieved October 31, 2018, from http://www.britishfashioncouncil.co.uk/uploads/files/1/J2089%20Economic%20Value%20 Report_V04.pdf. Tseelon, E. (2001). Masquerade and Identities: Essays on Gender, Sexuality and Marginality. London: Routledge. UN. (2018). What Are the UN Sustainable Development Goals?. United Nations. Online. Retrieved September 10, 2018, from https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/. Valentine, L., Ballie, J., Bletcher, J., Robertson, S., & Stevenson, F. (2017). Design Thinking for Textiles: Let’s Make It Meaningful. Design for Next 12th EAD Conference Sapienza University of Rome 12–14 April 2017, pp. S964– S976. https://doi.org/10.1080/14606925.2017.1353041.

CHAPTER 6

A Cloth to Wear: Value Embodied in Ghanaian Textiles Malika Kraamer

Introduction Today the majority of the Ghanaian economic, political and aristocratic elites wear the latest fashion in colourful Kente, the hand-woven rayon or cotton cloth often full of motifs. When the Asantehene, king of the Asante made a historical visit and met the Okyehene, king of the Akyem on 23 August 2018, it was done so with one of the most lavish displays of Kente. Kente, as the most valuable cloth from Ghana, is the primary focus of this chapter, which examines the embodiment of cultural value in a particular kind of textiles and the way in which the societal worth is expressed and imbued within the cloths. The chapter considers in particular the historical and, to some extent, fashion significance of these cloths, as well as the complexity of their role as an indicator of national, regional West African and black diaspora identities and (competing) ethnicities. Economic and cultural value is a socially constructed phenomenon. For example, prices of cultural goods are not a direct measure of value; at best M. Kraamer (*) Research and Collection, MARKK (Museum am Rothenbaum), Rothenbaumchaussee, Hamburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Granger (ed.), Value Construction in the Creative Economy, Palgrave Studies in Business, Arts and Humanities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_6

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they are an indicator (Throsby 2001). Furthermore, belief in the value of an artistic work is part of the reality of the production and consumption of that artwork (Bourdieu 1993, p. 36), and cultural value is multiple and shifting. In this vein, the chapter will look at the cultural consumption of Kente as an exclusive good over the last two centuries in Ghana (known as ‘Gold Coast’ and ‘Upper Slave Coast’ during colonial times). Cultural consumption can ‘be interpreted as a process contributing both to the present satisfaction and to the accumulation of knowledge and experience leading to future consumption’ (Throsby 2001, p. 24). I argue that the economic, cultural and social value embodied in these prestige textiles has changed not only over time but also in different (adjoining) areas. In analysing the multiple and shifting cultural value of Kente, both in a temporal and a geographical sense, and following loosely some of the constituent elements as proposed by Throsby (2001, pp. 28–29), particular attention will be given to the intertwined social, historical and aesthetic value given to Kente. For example, the value of Kente partly stems from its cultural references to the past and it belongs in the domain of fashion with innovation in Kente design laying at the heart of its perceived aesthetic value, therefore surpassing Eurocentric binary concepts of tradition versus modernity. This produces apparently conflicting spaces in which cloth is embedded in a sense of continuity and identity with the past (historical and social value) whilst creative expectations of customers and supply chains connote complex relationships between occasion, identity, self-­ representation, and fashion trends as aspects of cultural value.

Production, Customers and Cloth Use To understand the value of Kente cloth, one needs to understand how it is produced in specific locations and how it has moved ‘through generations of history—a history that has changed their features and composition and seen an array of competing and contested claims around them’ (Boateng 2014). These textiles also carry embedded stories of wealth, prestige and family ties. Production of Kente Cloth Kente is made in southern Ghana and Togo, comprising of narrow hand-­ woven strips sewn together to form a cloth. This way of constructing a textile can be found throughout West Africa, but the specific design constellations in Kente makes it one of the best-known textiles and dress from

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this part of the world. It is a high-status cloth that gives work to hundreds of weavers, plays a large role in regional, national and pan-African identities, and is exported in large quantities to other parts of (West) Africa, Europe and especially to the United States where African Americans have been using Kente in growing numbers in the last fifty years. Kente is often divided between Asante and Ewe textiles, dividing the cloth along ethnic categories. However, two of the three main weaving centres are in the Ewe-speaking region, but the aesthetic and social interrelationships between all three centres are both independent and interdependent and historically co-evolved. The main three weaving centres are found in (1) several villages around Kumasi, the capital of the former Asante Kingdom, including Bonwire and Adanwomase in the Ashanti Region, in the middle of Ghana1; (2) villages in the Agotime area, including Agotime-Kpetoe, Agotime-Abenyirase and Agotime-Akpokofe, forming part of the Volta Region in Ghana; and (3) many villages in the southern Volta Region, especially along the Keta lagoon, including Agbozume and Anlo-Afiadenyigba, along the eastern coast of Ghana. Customers and Cloth Use We know little about the way people dressed in the former Gold and Slave Coasts before the 1500s, but the use of cotton increased in the 1600s. Textiles were probably reserved for elite groups at first but gradually developed into everyday dress of common people until the widespread use of machine-manufactured clothes (along the coast since the 1800s but not prevalent in some parts of modern-day Ghana until the 1900s). Dress for economic and political elites became more elaborate with the introduction of new materials  and techniques. This included the use of red thread unravelled of European and Indian cloth, obtained in exchange for enslaved people and gold, and more complicated techniques opened up new design possibilities (Rømer 2000 [1760], p.  36; Bowdich 1966 [1819]; Isert 1992 [1788], p. 92). Reflecting on the production and wearing of Kente in the 1700s, Rømer notes: Some … subjects were able to spin cotton, and they wove bands of it, three fingers wide. When twelve strips long were sewn together it became a ‘Pantjes’ or sash. One strip might be white, the other one blue or sometimes there were red ones among them. Opoku bought silk taffeta and materials  I use Asante to refer to the Asante State and the Asante ethnic group, a subgroup of the Akan, and Ashanti to refer to the administrative Ashanti Region in contemporary Ghana. 1

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of all colours. The artists unravelled them so that they obtained large quantities of woollen and silk threads which they mixed with their cotton and got many colours. (Rømer 1760 [2000], p. 36)

In the twentieth century, especially post-independence, new users of colourful Kente, in particular rayon textiles with non-figurative motifs, were rising throughout Ghanaian middle classes in the capital and other large cities. Europeans and Americans, particularly collectors and African Americans, also began to acquire them. Cloth Use At many civic, personal and ceremonial occasions, Kente is worn by many people, with festivals being notable occasions (see Fig. 6.1). Whilst some festivals are historical, dating back to at least the seventeenth century, others are newly established like the late twentieth century initiated Kente Fig. 6.1  Two chiefs at the 1999 Kente Festival in Bonwire (Ashanti Region) in two different rayon textiles with weft-float designs typical of the late 1990s. (©Photograph by Malika Kraamer, Bonwire (Ghana), 1999)

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Fig. 6.2  Weaver Andrus Sosu in his loom while speaking to a customer in Agortorme (upper part of the Keta lagoon in the coastal area of the Volta Region). (©Photograph by Malika Kraamer, Agortorme (Ghana), 2018)

festivals in Bonwire and Agotime-Kpetoe, two of the three main weaving places in southern Ghana. A man generally uses an uncut hand-woven textile wrapped around the body, and a woman wears an upper and lower wrapper. Since independence in 1957, it has also been sewn as a skirt and top for women, locally known as a kaba, and it has been used for many dress accessories (see Kraamer 2005, p. 188; Richards 2016, p. 19). Walking in these colourful textiles wrapped around the body is always eye-catching, such as can be seen in the procession of chiefs, queen mothers and other court officials to a festival ground. Since the second half of the twentieth century, Kente

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Fig. 6.3  Women and men exchanging greetings at the 2018 Agbamevorza, the Kente Festival, in Agotime-Kpetoe (Volta Region). Some women wear two uncut wrappers; others are dressed in a Kente sawn into a kaba. Some men wear a batakari and others wear a Kente cloth wrapped around the body. (©Photograph by Malika Kraamer, Agotime-Kpetoe (Ghana), 2018)

also figures prominently in the worlds of politics, fashion and design (see Kraamer 1996; Ross 1998). The wearing of Kente by African Americans grew exponentially in the 1990s, only to decline in the twenty-first century (Rabine 2002, p.  11).  Using the wrappers as daily dress has been uncommon since the late twentieth century. The only exceptions are some women who may use an (old) wrapper in the village as a skirt or to carry a child and many people in southern Ghana, wearing gowns made from hand-woven strips, called batakari which originated from northern Ghana (see Fig.  6.3), which has been fashionable from the 1990s onwards for daily and occasional wear (Quarcoopome 1993, pp.  193–202; Kraamer 2005, p. 191).2

2

 A batakari or fugu is the historical dress form of the north of Ghana.

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Geographical Differences and Economic Value Patronage and restrictions on the use of Kente differed significantly between the Asante Empire (1701–1898) and the large number of ‘states’, sometimes comprising just a few villages, in the Ewe-speaking region. The Asante Empire stimulated the weaving of more expensive textiles, including the extensive use of silk, for the king and aristocracy. It played a vital role in sustaining and supporting the strong hierarchical organisation of this most powerful political and military state in the region. Weavers stood under royal patronage and control. Only the Asantehene, the Asante King, and his nobility were allowed to wear colourful Kente, and some cloth could not be worn with the same design as the Asantehene when he was present at an occasion (Rattray 1927, p. 234; Johnson 1979, pp. 60–63). These restrictions had a direct consequence for the creative production of the cloth as it limited production and the variety of cloth woven, raising the social worth of the cloth and what it denoted. Thus, Kente was associated in this area strongly with royalty, and the value of Kente was directly connected to the wearer of the cloth. With the exile of the Asantehene in 1897 by the British to the Seychelles and the rise of new economic elites, these restrictions dwindled. In contrast, Kente woven in the Ewe-speaking region of Ghana and Togo had no limitations in place on its use as there was no single, large royal court (Johnson 1978; Kraamer 2009), but their cost restricted use to economic and political elites in the area and throughout West Africa as many textiles were exported through the wholesale Kente market in Keta. Weavers mainly explored design possibilities in cotton. Partly due to the different weaving centres and the lack of restrictions on what to produce for whom, the variety of textiles woven has been greater than in the Asante Empire, a situation that continues until today. Thinking specifically about the cloth, those with the most complicated techniques and newest designs are also the most expensive with high monetary value. This can be understood to some extent by the production methods of Kente. The process of unravelling (cotton and silk) yarns in all weaving centres and reincorporated in locally woven textiles means that the value of the cloth reflects not only the importance of labour cost, as complicated techniques greatly increases production time, but also the value of the import, of scarcity, as well as wider cultural values of conspicuous display and a premium given to innovation in design. Furthermore, in the case of Asante, the restrictions placed on Kente, to wear specific Kente on specific occasions, by specific people conspired to construct a contrived

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value. One might argue therefore that the cultural value of Kente in this period and region was constructed from both a production and consumption viewpoint; highly complex and entangled with royalty in one region, while design innovations and conspicuous display in the entire area can only be understood in the context of acquiring surplus wealth and new goods facilitated by the slave trade and labour by enslaved people.

Constructing and Problematising Value in Kente In the context of Ghana, the division of arts/crafts has no real value in the (recent) past, and today only in an urban context that took-in a (European-­ arrived) framework of crafts versus arts. In analysing and deconstructing the long value history of Kente cloth, as an example of an African creative industry in situ, it is important to note that the Asante Empire in which some of the Kente developed was one of the wealthiest kingdoms in West Africa. In more recent times, as Rabine demonstrates (2002, p.  25), Kente production forms part of transnational African fashion networks, characterised by small-scale production, in which creative energy operates within a framework of economic oppression. It therefore offers another way to understand value creation away from constructs that shape ideas of value in a contemporary European context. Economic Value Economic value certainly played a pivotal role in historical wearing of cloths, beyond the obvious royal exclusions, but the notion of economic and monetary transactions needs to be contextualised by the characteristics of time and place. When one speaks of ‘economic value’, it is not only the issue of finding suitable proxies but of understanding the basis of trade in Ghana until recently. Barter has been pervasive for several centuries and has been the basis of paying for tributes in crops and goods, including cloth. Cowries have been the main currency, but in many places of West Africa, cloth strips were used as currency, as was the case north of the Asante, which to some extent reflects the prestigious value of the cloth. Johnson (1970) notes the use of ‘cowries3 as a currency, capable of adapta3  Cowries in use came either from the Maldive Islands or the East African Coast (Johnson 1970, pp. 17–18).

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tion to the specific needs of the West African trade’ (p. 17). They functioned for centuries as currency before they lost their value with the introduction of European currency and during subsequent periods of inflation. In contrast to the West, where textiles played a major role in industrial transformation and in propelling the industrial revolution when production moved from handloom to machine-powered loom (Zack-Williams 2002, p. 135), in West Africa, including Ghana, the colonial powers tried not only to marginalise local manufacturing but also to subvert local cultivation of cotton (Picton and Mack 1989, p.  31; Zack-Williams 2002, p. 136). According to Zack-Williams, the production of raw materials in West Africa in the colonial era ‘resulted in the stultified growth of manufacturing’ (2002, p. 136). In post-colonial time, the production of local textiles continues to have a relatively high labour input in the production process, in which most of the technological innovations (continue) to take place in the absence of power devices (Zack-Williams 2002, pp. 136–137). In the last few decades, mainly European and North American merchants purchase items of cultural specificity, including Kente, to sell to ethnically conscious consumers. These new merchant capitalists, by entering the process after production, have no impact on the development of production techniques, so that ‘the value of these items is premised precisely on … the fact that they are handmade’ (Zack-Williams 2002, p. 143). Changing Value The value of Kente alters over time and in different social contexts. The weaving of Kente is continuously changing, with many types of textiles produced at any point in time. It is a practice handed down over centuries and developing constantly as weavers incorporate, re-configure, adapt and further develop elements of Kente and other textile traditions. Furthermore, weavers continuously experiment with leftover materials, producing an astonishing diversity of patterns and types of cloth. This continuously changing tradition, which, as many African fashion systems, redefine the tradition/modernity binary as ‘it was used by missionaries, colonialists and anthropologists to oppose an Africa deemed traditional in the sense of primitive and static to a modern Europe as transmitter of enlightened values’ (Rabine 2002, p. 10), is as much part of dress-as-fashion, with processes of self-referential change, as dress to mark gender, class, status or role in complex ways.

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Everyday Value Whilst Kente thus far has been positioned as an exclusive cloth, others might use plain-weave Kente, with the cloth providing intrinsic value for special occasions, for example, a wedding, ‘the outdooring’ of a child or the visit of an important person.4 The cutting of Kente to saw into a kaba, a trend that only took off on a much wider scale in the twenty-first century, is a clear demonstration of wealth. It means it adheres not only to the last fashion in designs, although using older types of Kente is acceptable, but also in the latest fashion in a kaba outfit as well as making a statement that one can afford to cut into a Kente, even when that means it is not possible to wear it anymore in the future, due to change in body shape. Kente has also been used as wall hangings, tablecloths, placemats or pieces of cloth on which to lay a corpse in state. Since the 1960s they have also been transformed into many accessories, such as hats, shoes, jewellery and ties, initially outside Ghana and Togo, but since the 1980s within Ghana and, to a lesser extent Togo among the urban middle classes (Kraamer 1996). In the United States individual Kente strips have become especially popular as part of academic and liturgical robes, for example, as part of a gown at graduation ceremonies (Kraamer 1996, p.  112; Ross 1998). The bulk of textiles remain, however, intended as wrappers for men and women for the local and West African market. In thinking about the implications of local patronage for the nature of these textile traditions, one might ask about aesthetic and historical value. As Picton (1992) notes: “Each tradition has its history, a history that must take account of the nature of the tradition itself. Traditions vary enormously in their creative expectations. Some are certainly conservative in that the replication of existing forms is expected. Other traditions permit and perhaps encourage exploration in form and medium; it is within such traditions that we can expect to find innovative development. Even the most conservative tradition is rarely static, however, and some paradoxically enable change by denying its existence” (p. 39). Local patronage, through its tradition of expectations, is often stronger as a controller of quality, yet at the same time it allows more for innovation within a tradition than would foreign demand. Foreign demand is often contaminated by ideas of authenticity, hence fixing it ethnographically, in a recent past. 4  An ‘outdooring’ is the ceremony when a person, for instance a child, new initiate or new chief, appears in public. It is often the end of a ritual and the most festive time of a ceremony. It is an occasion that continues to be a common practice throughout southern Ghana.

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Local patronage therefore often stabilises the survival and development of an art tradition. Local patronage’s influence on quality is also exemplified in the southern Ewe distinction between ‘home cloth’, cloth produced on commission, and ‘market cloth’, cloth woven for the wholesale Kente market catering to traders from further afield, denoting high and lower quality textiles, respectively.

Dress, Fashion and Identity The choice of a particular cloth is often related to a complex mix of identity, tradition, aesthetics, available sources, occasion, status, fashion trends and wealth. One way to study the relationship between social identity and textiles is to look in detail at the use of these fabrics in relation to the way that particular identities are achieved in wearing these cloths. An individual hardly ever uses an Asante or Ewe Kente just to make a particular statement about his or her social identity. This is a simplistic statement still often found in the literature (e.g. Eicher 1995; Rabine 2002, p. 12). First of all, there is the general expectation that the body should be covered. Second, there can be many factors determining why someone buys or wears a certain kind of cloth, including availability of disposable income, taste, fashion, status, and the links between generations, families or larger identity groups. Lastly, the wearer could make allusions associated with status, identity, gender and ethnicity at various times. Particular colours, shapes and certain (combinations of) motifs may have a value that associates the wearer with the possession of great wealth, with status and/or with a certain kind of group. Textiles can have a political or ritual significance: to clothe the dead, to mark an event of significance or as a gift to help forge and maintain social relationships (Picton and Mack 1989). Wearing a particular textile can also be simply idiosyncratic. The relation between textile use and social identity is complex. Different kinds of identities co-exist in any individual and community. Ethnicity, town, village, royal and chiefly status, age, kinship, gender, occupation, education, religion and marriage may each provide particular sources of identity. Different identities are manifested in different occasions and are not therefore static. In West Africa, ethnic identity as articulated today has often been related to the experience of colonial rule, a newly defined identity used as a means of contesting that rule or an identity inspired by missionaries and/or colonial officials. The emergence of an Ewe identity is a good example. Out of political motivation, the stress on Ewe ethnicity was espe-

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cially strong in the middle of the twentieth century, but it seems that since then, there has been more of a process of fragmentation. There is no one single textile that has been used by the whole Ewe group to portray an Ewe identity, which belies a complex ethnic and linguistic history. Thus, the boundaries of linguistic or ethnic groups are not coterminous with the kinds of textile used on particular occasions. Wearers are more concerned with enacting a certain social position and fashion statement within their community than an ethnic identity through the use of these fabrics. This is especially apparent during festivals. Most of the Ewe chiefs and queen mothers put on bright, strongly colour-contrasting cloths preferably in a newly woven non-figurative design. To further support this, nineteenthand twentieth-century photographic collections indicate that coastal ­people on the Ivory, Gold and Slave Coast were using textiles produced in southern Ghana and Togo (Kraamer 2005). Although the production centres of the distinct traditions were (and to some extent still are) localised, the use of these textiles was, and is, not confined to one particular group. For example, since the 1800s, Ga and Baule chiefs have been using both Asante and Ewe textiles, Krobo and Akan people also have been using Ewe textiles, and textiles woven by Ewe and Asante weavers have been used further away, including different groups in the Niger Delta of Nigeria (Eicher and Erekosima 1987; Aronson 1982). The newest fashion today among the urban and chiefly elite throughout southern Ghana is for Kente influenced directly by cloth from western Nigeria. When Ewe weavers moved back and forth between Ghana and Nigeria, since the early 1990s, they not only influenced Nigerian textiles but introduced new techniques and designs into Kente when re-adapting to the Ghanaian market on their return. Therefore, whilst it can be said that proximity of a textile-producing centre has resulted in a predominant use of textiles from that centre, the examples cited show that the distribution of cloth produced in a particular weaving centre is not confined by weavers’ and consumers’ perceptions of ethnic identities. Cloth has sometimes played a more direct role in marking a socio-­ ethnic identity, as is the case in late nineteenth-century Yoruba dress, but it can be argued that in the struggle for and emergence of new independent African states, it played a greater role in nationalistic tendencies and therefore marking a socio-political identity. At the end of the nineteenth century Yoruba dress was a point of discussion amongst the Lagos intelli-

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gentsia in the context of colonial rule (Echeruo 1977) and this intellectual activity ‘helped to constitute the early stages of “cultural work”’ (Peel 1989) in ‘realising a novel sense of collective identity as Yoruba’, which at once expressed a possible relationship between dress and a collective identity expressed around an idea of a Yoruba nation (see Clarke 1999). In Ghana, however, Kente was not used specifically in developing an ethnicity, but it was configured in nationalistic discourses. Nationalists before independence and the political elite afterwards wore Kente to align with influential groups whilst also to demonstrate cultural esteem of their own heritage (Kraamer 2005; Ross 1998). Early nationalistic intellectuals in the coastal area, like John Mensah Sarbah, an influential lawyer, consciously wore Kente on important occasions, as did Kwame Nkrumah when he came to power in 1957. Nkrumah made the wearing of Kente part of his philosophy of African personality at the beginning of the 1940s (see Ross 1998). After becoming Prime Minister in 1957, Kente became the official dress for ambassadors and was widely used by other politicians, creating a boom in the production of Kente. Fosu (1993) notes the possible wearing of such cloth as an emphatic expression of decolonisation with ‘stress placed on the intrinsic value of local traditions over the inferiority of African races supposed through colonisation’. His pan-African activities also influenced the use of Kente by other African leaders and African Americans (Kraamer 2005). After the coup in 1966, the leaders of subsequent military regimes used military outfits in public, but the use of Kente by politicians under civil governments has remained popular until today. Even through changes of government and military regime, Kente has kept its status of political dress with the connotation, among many others, of the cultural richness of Ghana (Kraamer 1996). Since the 1990s, the origin of Kente became highly debated in Ghana framed in ethnic terms, even when in practice many continued to wear cloth based on fashion choices rather than presumed ethnic ‘authenticity’. The Nkrumah era favoured a style of Kente which in the 1950s was mainly associated with Asante cloth, rayon textiles in contrasting colours with non-figurative motifs. Since then, this style developed and changed in all three weaving centres, and one could argue that today it has become a true Ghanaian Kente style (see Kraamer 2006, 2012, 2020; Kraamer and Barnes 2018).

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Dress Versus Cloth in Social Identity and Value Dress and Fashion Another approach to the relation of textile use and social identity, followed by several authors on African textiles, is to focus on dress, rather than textiles, as a marker of identity (e.g. Eicher 1995; Hendrickson 1996) and, more recently, the use of a fashion lens to study dress ensembles (e.g. Rabine 2002; Rovine 2015). Joanne Eicher (1995) defines ‘ethnic dress’ as ‘the body modifications and supplements that mark the ethnic identity on an individual are ethnic dress’ (1995, p. 1). As she argues, ethnic dress is never static; sometimes just details of dress become critical points of distinction between two ethnic groups and ranks within a group, and makes the point that gender issues are also always present (Eicher 1995). As much as these last statements can be taken for granted, her presumptions are somewhat problematic. When people dress for a specific occasion, even when that dress configuration is specific to a particular group, this should not be taken necessarily as a people ‘marking their ethnicity’. Moreover, discourse on West African dress assumes too often that the relationship between dress and ethnicity is unproblematic (e.g. Sumberg 1995, pp. 165–181; Eicher and Erekosima 1995, pp. 162–164; and Renne 1995, pp. 117–137), and yet there are multiple reasons why people dress up. In the literature, stress is laid on the wearing of certain textiles to forge a link with previous generations. Yet, as noted earlier, differences in dress between neighbouring groups are sometimes determined by economic history—for example, the coastal Kalabari managed to gather more wealth over time than their inland neighbours, the Nembe (Sumberg 1995). As further support, consider the way chiefs all over southern Ghana, Togo and the Ivory Coast use a whole set of regalia that does not differ greatly from one area to another, except in the richness of the material used. Although it has been argued that these regalia have an Asante origin, they were already in use by many other groups during the nineteenth century, as noted earlier (Quarcoopome 1993). Even when ethnicity seems to be relevant, such as the use of a T-shirt worn under a male Kente cloth by the coastal Akan (e.g. Fanti), but no shirt worn by the inland Akan (e.g. Asante), this difference may have emerged for climatic reasons rather than traditions. Therefore, to assume ethnicity as the dominant or sole paradigm is highly problematic. It seems more credible to argue that the wearing of textiles is more a matter of taste, status and social position. The

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choice is also informed by a person’s sense of propriety for a specific event in relation to his or her available resources. Members of the elite in the Ewe-speaking region, and throughout southern Ghana, desire textiles that they consider to be ‘modern’, frequently requesting this from weavers as such. Modern in this context denotes that which is in some way new, that is, cloth incorporating new designs, new colour combinations, new kinds of materials or even completely new types of textiles. As a response, weavers have taken up this general appreciation for new textiles in different ways, looking to repeat details of specific designs and experiment with new colour combinations. They also augment the design possibilities made available by the wide range of existing techniques and through the use of an increasing range of threads, such as rayon, ‘lurex’ and polyester. Innovation and Patronage Hand-woven textiles are used at many social events in Ghana. They are often used alongside African printed cloth. The local patronage for these textiles is strong. Customs have changed, some have diminished and new demands have developed. Hand-woven textiles continue to be used, however, to demonstrate wealth, enact social identity, forge a link with the past and exhibit personal taste and sense of fashion, within a context of competitive display. Kente cloths are used particularly in events that mark different stages of the life cycle and also figure at festivals and in some religious services. The use of cloth is, however, rarely more specific than needing to be hand-woven, being a relatively individual choice. This choice is the outcome of a complex set of factors according to the wealth, status, esteem, taste and fashion of the person involved. The decision may also depend simply on what textiles somebody owns. Sometimes a new cloth is ordered, a decision that depends not only on money, but also on the perceived importance of the occasion, and the respect a person wishes to pay it. Then there is the individual evaluation of what is appropriate for a specific occasion. Even textiles whose name would seem to direct a person to wear the cloth on a certain occasion, such as Easter Sunday, are used on other occasions. There are a few exceptions to this free choice, such as the wearing of a particular cloth by young Agotime women in front of festival procession and (in the past) puberty rites. The only restriction that customers have in their choice of textile is in colour preference for certain occasions: white as one of the many possible colours in a (printed or hand-­

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woven) textile on joyful occasions such as the birth of a child, bright colours on celebrations and dark colours on funerals. Wearing a textile with a new design is highly valued and status can be acquired through the demonstration of wealth. A cloth commission is often phrased in terms of asking for a modern textile. Customers, though receptive to new developments, leave the initiative to the weavers. This lack of specificity regarding patterns therefore leaves weavers free to explore their medium. Replication of textiles in fashion at a particular time is therefore the norm in the daily life of most weavers. Still the general premium placed on novelty stimulates weavers to experiment. It allows Kente traditions to develop in many directions. The creativity of weavers, even within very limited means of experimentation, is facilitated by the wide range of techniques known to weavers, the training of weavers in copying any kind of cloth sample and the lack of concern for ‘authenticity’ in relation to textiles.

Conclusion This chapter has analysed the changing values associated overtly and implicitly in the use of Kente in all its complexities. Whilst often argued to be a strong indicator of ethnicity, and even discussed in these terms in recent times, in this chapter it is shown that Kente in past and present underscores in much more complex ways social identities and a sense of fashion, rather than ethnicity. In this chapter, it is argued that the use of Kente across ethnic groups and different interrelated weaving centres weakens the argument in the literature about ethnic dress. Rather, the use of Kente as formal dress at key occasions, such as a festival, church service or wedding, serves to reinforce the role of dress-as-fashion as well as dress in cementing complex and changing combinations of social identities in this part of the world. This is clearly pronounced when wearing cloth during times of post-colonial re-assertion such as in the ­aftermath of national independence, the visiting of foreign dignitaries or the election of new political leaders. The second area of discussion in the chapter focused on problematising value when drawing on mainstream constructs such as economic value or cost, in social spaces where monetary transactions are imbued with wider power and class dynamics. Monetary value related to production cost plays only some role in the take-up of Kente, apart from indicating of disposable income by the growing middle classes in urban areas. Rather, the use of

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‘intrinsic value’, drawing on Throsby (2001) and considering actual value as opposed to market value, allows for wider consideration of a mixture of aesthetic, historical, economic and cultural value of the cloth. These aspects play a role not just in contemporary, but also in historical use, and allow for understanding the wider international take-up of these textiles as well as the shifting temporal and geographic values embedded in Kente. The tendency towards continuous innovation in designs, techniques and materials used, reveals the wider importance of artistic value and creates new dynamics for weavers, which suggests longevity of this ongoing fashion tradition.

References Aronson, L. (1982). Popo Weaving: The Dynamics of Trade in Southeastern Nigeria. African Arts, 15(3), 43–47, 90–91. Boateng, B. (2014). Adinkra and Kente Cloth in History, Law, and Life. Textile Society of America 2014 Biennial Symposium Proceedings: New Directions: Examining the Past, Creating the Future, Los Angeles, California, September 10–14, 2014. Retrieved October 15, 2018, from http://digitalcommons.unl. edu/tsaconf/932. Bourdieu, P. (1993). The Field of Cultural Production. Edited and Introduced by Randal Johnson. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bowdich, T.  E. (1966 [1819]). Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee. London: Frank Cass. Clarke, D. (1999). Aso Oke: The Evolving Tradition of Hand-Woven Textile Design Among the Yoruba of South-Western Nigeria. Ph.D. Thesis, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, London. Echeruo, M. J. C. (1977). Victorian Lagos: Aspects of Nineteenth Century Lagos Life. London; New York: Macmillan; Holmes and Meier. Eicher, J. B. (1995). Introduction: Dress as Expression of Ethnic Identity. In J. B. Eicher (Ed.), Dress and Ethnicity: Change Across Space and Time. Oxford: Berg. Eicher, J.  B., & Erekosima, T.  V. (1987). Kalabari Funerals: Celebration and Display. African Arts, 21(1), 38–45. 87–88. Eicher, J. B., & Erekosima, T. V. (1995). Why Do They Call It Kalabari?: Cultural Authentication and the Demarcation of Ethnic Identity. In J. B. Eicher (Ed.), Dress and Ethnicity: Change Across Space and Time. Berg: Oxford. Fosu, K. (1993 [1986]). 20th Century Art of Africa (2nd rev. ed.). Accra: Artists Alliance. Hendrickson, H. (Ed.). (1996). Clothing and Difference. Embodied Identities in Colonial and Post-colonial Africa, Body, Commodity, Text. Studies of Objectifying Practices. Durham; London: Duke University Press.

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Isert, P.  E. (1992 [1788]). Letters on West Africa and the Slave Trade. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Johnson, M. (1970). The Cowrie Currencies of West Africa. Part I. The Journal of African History, 11(1), 17–49. Johnson, M. (1978). Technology, Competition and African Crafts. In C. Dewey & A. G. Hopkins (Eds.), The Imperial Impact. Studies in the Economic History of Africa and India. London: Athlone Press for the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. Johnson, M. (1979). Ashanti Craft Organisation. African Arts, 13(1), 60–63, 78–82. Kraamer, M. (1996). KleurrijkeVeranderingen. De Dynamiek van de Kentekunstwereld in Ghana. M.A.  Thesis, Kunst- en Cultuurwetenschappen, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Rotterdam. Kraamer, M. (2005). Colourful Changes: Two Hundred Years of Social and Design History in the Hand-Woven Textiles of the Ewe-Speaking Regions of Ghana and Togo (1800–2000). Ph.D.  Thesis School of Oriental and African Studies. London: University of London. Kraamer, M. (2006). Origin Disputed. The Making, Use and Evaluation of Ghanaian Textiles. Afrique: Archéologie & Arts, 4, 53–76. Kraamer, M. (2009). A Textile to Wear: Kente Cloth from Ghana. In B.  Gardi (Ed.), Woven Beauty. The Art of West African Textiles. Basel: Christoph Merian Verlag. Kraamer, M. (2012). Challenged Past and the Museum: The Case of Ghanaian Kente. In S.  Dudley et  al. (Eds.), The Thing About Museums: Objects and Experience, Representation and Contestation (pp.  282–296). Abingdon: Routledge. Kraamer, M. (2020). Politics of Kente Cloth. In L. Taylor, et al. (Eds.), Creating African Fashion Histories. Indiana University Press [forthcoming]. Kraamer, M. & Barnes, A.J. (2018). Unplaced Heritage: Making Identity through Fashion. In S.  Watson, J.A Barnes & K.  Bunning (Eds.) A Museum Studies Approach to Heritage (Leicester Readers in Museum Studies) (pp.  598–618). Abingdon: Routledge. Peel, J. D. Y. (1989). The Cultural Work of Yoruba Ethnogenesis. In E. Tonkin, M. McDonald, & M. Chapman (Eds.), History and Ethnicity (pp. 198–215). London; New York: Routledge. Picton, J. (1992). Tradition, Technology, and Lurex: Some Comments on Textile History and Design in West Africa. In History, Design, and Craft in West African Strip-Woven Cloth. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. Picton, J., & Mack, J. (1989). African Textiles (2nd ed.). London: British Museum Press. Quarcoopome, N.  O. (1993). Rituals and Regalia of Power: Art and Politics Among the Dangme and Ewe, 1800 to Present. Ph.D. Thesis, UCLA Art History, University College Los Angeles, Los Angeles.

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Rabine, L.  W. (2002). The Global Circulation of African Fashion. Oxford; New York: Berg. Rattray, R. S. (1927). Religion and Art in Ashanti. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. Renne, E. P. (1995). Becoming a Bunu Bride: Bunu Ethnic Identity and Traditional Marriage Dress. In Dress and Ethnicity: Change Across Space and Time (pp. 117–137). Oxford: Berg. Richards, C. (2016). “The Models for Africa”: Accra’s Independence-Era Fashion Culture and the Creations of Chez Julie. African Arts, 49(3), 8–21. Rømer, L. F. (2000 [1760]). The Coast of Guinea. (K. Bertelsen, Trans.). Legon: Institute of African Studies. Ross, D.  H. (Ed.). (1998). Wrapped in Pride. Ghanaian Kente and African American Heritage, UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History Textiles Series. No. 2. Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History. Rovine, V.  L. (2015). African Fashion, Global Style: Histories, Innovations, and Ideas You Can Wear. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Sumberg, B. (1995). Dress and Ethnic Differentiation in the Niger Delta. In J. B. Eicher (Ed.), Dress and Ethnicity: Change Across Space and Time (pp. 165–181). Oxford; Washington DC: Berg. Throsby, D. (2001). Economics and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zack-Williams, A.  B. (2002). Merchant Capitalists and Textile Consumption in West Africa. In M.  Schoeser & C.  Boydell (Eds.), Disentangling Textiles. Techniques for the Study of Designed Objects (pp. 135–143). London: Middlesex University Press.

PART III

Collective Creative Spaces and Processes

CHAPTER 7

Intercultural Entrepreneurship in Creative Place-Making David Rae

Introduction This chapter explores microcultural and intercultural entrepreneurship in relation to the creative economy and place-making. Framing small groups of people who share common values, beliefs, behaviours, heritage and linguistic resources as ‘microcultures’, the chapter develops a conceptual framework that illustrates how cultural value is created through entrepreneurial activities within microcultures (termed as intracultural), between microcultures (intercultural) and in relation to the macroculture. This is used to explore inter- and intracultural innovation and value creation in two case studies: Leicester in the UK and Cape Breton in Canada. The chapter argues that processes of learning, interaction and cultural exchange can enhance intercultural understanding and shape entrepreneurial behaviours across cultural boundaries, leading to enhanced cultural and economic value and innovation. It explores the role of microcultures and intercultural entrepreneurship beyond the generalised

D. Rae (*) De Montfort University, Leicester, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Granger (ed.), Value Construction in the Creative Economy, Palgrave Studies in Business, Arts and Humanities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_7

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term of the cultural economy, by recognising the diversity of cultural ­relations and activities, embedded in and produced by and through a myriad of ethnic groups, communities, organisations and other social collectives. It concludes that the application of a microcultural framework provides useful insights in understanding cultural entrepreneurship (CE) and, specifically, that intercultural innovation has significant potential for enhancing cultural value in the context of creative place-making.

Culture and Its Role in Entrepreneurship Whilst DiMaggio (1997) describes the movement from thinking of a ‘seamless web’ of culture to recognise its complexity, fragmentation and multiculturality, there remains a tendency to take culture as a unified theoretical concept or construct, rather than acknowledging the distinct contributions of many diverse, highly differentiated, competing and complementary communities, discourses and languages. The terms ‘cultures’ or ‘cultural diversity’ more accurately express the pluralism of these activities. In support, Hofstede (2001, p. 9) views culture as ‘collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from those of another’. In cultural theory, there are established discourses debating the roles of cognition, causation and cultural toolkits (DiMaggio 1997; Swidler 1986); practice-based theory (Bourdieu 1990; Swidler 2001); and cultural framing (Cornelissen and Werner 2014), for example. These overlap wider discourses on organisational culture, including the use of organisational narratives of identity and explanation (Czarniawska 1998, 2004), and the contributions of narratives and storytelling (Polkinghorne 1988; Hjorth and Steyaert 2004) deployed to understand community-level histories and organisations. The intersection between culture, creativity and entrepreneurship is highly pertinent to this study (Gehman and Soublière 2017). Culture is used to describe the characteristics and production of activities in the cultural economy and related industries, in which economic, policy and different ideological contributions are expected (Hesmondhalgh 2002; Henry and de Bruin 2011). Gehman and Soublière (2017) have suggested the emergence of a ‘third wave’ of cultural entrepreneurship, as cultural making, which refers to processes of value creation across multiple repertoires and registers of meaning, supplementing antecedents of making and deploying culture.

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Introducing Microcultures The significance of small cultural groups has been researched in relation to cultural organisational literature (e.g. Fine and Hallett 2014; Leonardi 2011; Bolon and Bolon 1994). Recognising this, related terms such as ‘subculture’, ‘co-culture’ and ‘microculture’ are used to define small and recognisably distinct groups who share a common set of values, beliefs and behaviours, who possess a common history, and use a common verbal and nonverbal symbol system, similar to, but varying subtly from, the dominant culture (Banks 1994; Nieuliep 2017). This may describe an ethnic, linguistic, geographic, faith or place-based group, or a combination of these, which expresses the distinctive characteristics of a definable group of people, possibly within a limited geographical area or within an organisation, belief or identity system, and which may share cultural characteristics with one or more macrocultures. However, microculture is not synonymous with ethnic identity, since ethnicity is a given, albeit important aspect of cultural identity, whilst other aspects are more mutable. The many finer distinctions of, for example, faith, gender, sexual orientation, locus, membership and other aspects of sectionality are relevant in defining microcultural identity. As ethnic categories are relatively broad, a microculture can exist both within or across ethnic groups. For example, people of Indian ethnic origin in Britain may come from a Gujarati or other background; from East Africa; may be of Hindu, Sikh, Moslem, Jain or Christian faith; and may have a caste group. These, and other variables, would affect their microcultural identity (Jivraj and Finney 2013). As a result, whilst the term ethnic minority entrepreneurship has been widely used (e.g. Ram and Jones 2008), the term ‘minority’ is, arguably, becoming less applicable in cities where there is no longer a majority ­ethnic group, and all groups are in effect minorities, whilst also belonging to a microculture. In this sense, the concept of idioculture has also been used to develop understanding of small-group cultures (see Fine 1979; Fine and Hallett 2014; Bolon and Bolon 1994). Fine, for example, defines an idio (from Greek for ‘own’) as ‘a system of knowledge, beliefs, behaviours, and customs shared by members of an interacting group to which members can refer and employ as the basis of further interaction’ (Fine 1979, p.  734), which emerges from effective interaction by a group to address a problem or shared interest. Fine identifies five criteria to be met, which explain how a ‘cultural item’ is selected to form part of a group’s

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i­dioculture: that it be ‘perceived as Known, Usable, Functional, and Appropriate in terms of the group’s status system and Triggered by some experienced event’ (Fine 1979, p. 738). Fine’s idiocultural categories can be used as a tool for analysing cultural groups and activity, whilst the cultural creation process can assist in understanding how products reach a wider audience (Fine 1979, p. 738). The idiocultural approach reconceptualised ‘subculture’ within a symbolic interactionist framework, showing subcultural variations, cultural changes and the diffusion of cultural elements. By clarifying ‘subculture’ as a process involving the creation, negotiation and diffusion of cultural items, it provided a framework for research on subcultures (Bolon and Bolon 1994), whilst ‘Interlocking’ group memberships through weak social structures (Granovetter 1985) provides a conceptual basis for understanding how cultural content can be defined and transformed through inter-group negotiation. This conceptual basis has obvious applications for thinking further about place-making in large, multicultural cities (see e.g. Markusen and Gadwa 2010) whilst also providing a rich framework for considering the role of culture in value creation for cultural entrepreneurship. Microcultural and Intercultural Enterprise DiMaggio (1997, p. 283) argued for cultural studies which enable understanding of the complex relationships between culture and social structure, integration between micro and macro, and cognitive and material perspectives. In studying organisations, culture has been widely problematised and investigated from the perspective of understanding the prevailing systems of identity, meaning, behaviour and discourse in workplaces as organisations (e.g. Czarniawska 1998, 2004; Watson and Harris 1999). In relation to cultural value creation, innovation has moved from a concern simply with the ‘bright shiny things’ of technology-led novelty production, to reflect much wider processes of open and social innovation, introducing aspects of co-creation involving different actors and audiences, and diverse forms of diffusion (e.g. Chesbrough and Bogers 2014). The contributions of learning; responsible, social and ethical entrepreneurship; female and network perspectives have developed a conception of entrepreneurship which is collective and societal as well as individualistic. Contributions such as effectual entrepreneurship (Sarasvathy 2001) and as an educational philosophy of shared value creation which includes multiple types of value (Lackéus 2016, 2018) indicate a shift in emphasis from

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economic to social, which has strengthened since the financial crisis of 2008 (Rae 2015). Attention to microculture in creative entrepreneurship is useful, where novelty and innovation are increasingly derived from small, local, hitherto-­ undiscovered ‘new voices’ (of artists, writers and performers), as well as introducing those traditions to a wider audience. A micro-level perspective can assist in understanding both how activities of learning, innovation, entrepreneurship and cultural activity occur, and their relationships with meso- and macro-level organisations. To illustrate how this ecology works, a multi-level perspective is proposed in Fig. 7.1. The existence of microcultures as a structuring method presupposes there being a macroculture of recognisable national, political, institutional and normative symbols, practices, processes and governance. Connecting the macro- and micro-levels there is generally a recognisable meso-level, or shared culture, through which ideas are diffused, discourses, norms and practices evolved, negotiated and distributed. This may manifest itself at a regional or city level, for example, as in the cases later described. Introducing the conceptual map for intercultural entrepreneurship in Fig.  7.1, microculture is framed by a set of categories (Cornelissen and Werner 2014), including identity and heritage, locus, discourse and cultural practices, each of which can be subdivided. Identity is likely to be

Fig. 7.1  Value creation through intercultural entrepreneurship

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both self and socially applied, and may reflect not only a shared familial name, but also aspects of the heritable traditions and beliefs which produced the shared identity (Tajfel and Turner 1979; Weber and Dacin 2011). None of these relationships are static, even where parts of the cultural map are declining, such as in depleted communities. Social and other forms of digital media enable sharing of cultural discourses and resources, leading to both innovation and synthesis into the mainstream. The locus is the group’s identification with a geographic location as ‘home’. This may simply be a specific area or place; however migrant groups, for example, may well see their country or place of ethnic origin as ‘home’ through extended family groups as well as their current location or ‘place’. Locus is a powerful anchoring concept in cultural identity and clearly offers a connection with creative place-making. The microcultural discourse is composed of the shared linguistic resources, signs, symbols and meaning-making which are used within the group in everyday exchanges to form and maintain their culture. The cultural practices of the group are ways in which the discourse is used, for example in events with symbolic and social meaning, performances and production of cultural works. Social and other forms of digital media enable sharing and diffusion of cultural discourses and resources, leading to both innovation and synthesis into the mainstream. These four broad categories are used in description, analysis and comparison of microcultural groups and their cultural production. Also, the five idiocultural categories from Fine (1979) may be used at an even more specific level to define how a cultural item (such as a project, product or event) forms part of the microculture, and how it may be diffused beyond it. So, for example, value-creating cultural activities such as events and performances, innovative products and business ventures may be analysed in this way. Intracultural entrepreneurship describes a business activity targeted within its own cultural group. Intercultural entrepreneurship takes place when a business extends its market, employees, staff, investors, suppliers or distributors beyond a single microculture or community, working with two or more cultural groups. This is often necessary for growth ‘into the mainstream’ or meso-culture. Understanding what is valued, and why, is necessary to attract and create value. Intercultural entrepreneurship spans boundaries between cultural groups to create wider value than is possible in one culture. The concepts of the intercultural enterprise as a business,

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and intercultural entrepreneurship as an activity, are important in human economic and social development, because they create cultural links through business exchange, which generate deeper cultural understanding and trust over time. An organisation with founders from different cultural groups can be an intercultural enterprise. In some cosmopolitan cities, such as New York or London, this is normal and unremarkable, but is not yet so globally. An intercultural enterprise, to be sustainable and effective, must be acceptable in the cultures within which it operates, and its own norms, values, discourse and practices must therefore be accepted, even comfortable, for all its stakeholders. This requires cultural leadership, fluency and sensitivity, both to create trust and to avoid unintentional offence to different groups. Intercultural entrepreneurship requires higher levels of such skills than those operating in just one culture, though to be competitive, the latter increasingly need to appeal and work effectively across cultural boundaries. Entrepreneurship is concerned with creating and marketising value from opportunities, by stimulating demand, organising resources to meet this and capturing the value produced. In intercultural entrepreneurship, value propositions of what is valued, why and how, often differ, even subtly, between cultures. Understanding and translating these shifts in meaning is an essential skill. Value creation and sharing have multiple modes: social, cultural, aesthetic and environmental as well as financial and economic (Rae 2015; Lackéus 2016, 2018). The model includes a simple value-creation cycle, attracting and creating multiple forms of value; sharing these by means of diffusion; and retaining and distributing value within the community and other stakeholders. There is an increasing recognition that value is co-created, blurring distinctions between producers and consumers, and that value created should be shared between those involved. Institutional entrepreneurs may play roles in leading cultural groups, or in boundary-scanning innovations which can strengthen, or indeed weaken, intercultural and inter-level activities (Thornton and Ocasio 2008). Cultural leadership, community organisation and institutional agency are enablers of intercultural entrepreneurship, where they are well developed and supportive, but can be inhibitors if they are not. Using digital media to diffuse news and user or community responses to the innovation helps to reinforce and extend value creation.

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Microcultural Enterprise Leading to Value Creation The two mini-cases represent places in which entrepreneurial initiatives within microcultural groups have extended across community boundaries to result in intercultural value creation, which has also shifted the identity of the place to become known for its intercultural enterprise. The cases are framed through structuring the four categories of microculture in Fig.  7.1, of: identity, locus, discourse, cultural practices and intercultural value creation. This aids comparison and interpretation of the cases in relation to the model. The two cases are Leicester as a multicultural city in the UK, and the second, Cape Breton, a rural district on Canada’s eastern province of Nova Scotia. Case 1: Leicester as a City of Intercultural Enterprise Leicester is one of the most culturally diverse cities in Britain. According to the 2011 Census, no single ethnic group has an overall majority. White British (45%) and Indian (28%) are the largest ethnic groups, the wider population comprising a diverse mix of ethnicities, including White Other (5%), Asian Other (4%), African (4%) and Pakistani (2%) (Jivraj and Finney 2013). The figures mask the impact of migration and settlement in Leicester, which has transformed the city socially, culturally and economically from the 1970s onwards. A major contribution was from East African Asians, over 20,000 of whom settled in Leicester. Many who arrived as children went on to establish their own enterprises, creating what became a network of successful, mature and intercultural businesses. Other significant migrant groups came from other African countries including Somalia, Nigeria and Kenya and from India, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe (Runnymede Trust 2012). Leicester has two universities, the University of Leicester and De Montfort University (DMU). Both have a strong international outlook, but DMU was adopted by many migrant families as a study choice, with the University’s outreach strategy to recruit students from families without a background of higher education attracting a diverse mix of students. Combined with an ambitious international recruitment strategy, this has resulted in a very diverse student population from over 130 countries and including many ethnic and cultural groups.

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One of DMU’s strategic themes is to create and apply knowledge to further global societal and economic development. Its International Strategic Framework (2016) described ‘an international community where students and staff from diverse backgrounds and cultures learn from and enrich each other’s experiences’. This is supported by a range of international initiatives, branded #DMUglobal, which has supported a global student mobility programme of international study experiences for over 7000 students in more than 60 countries since 2014 including Brazil, India, China and the USA. Square Mile India supports student projects in India working on development with highly disadvantaged communities. The strategy aims to embed international experiences at all levels of teaching and learning. Intercultural and language learning, international students and staff mobility, project and technology-based learning, and a global outlook on transnational education partnerships and research networks, student competencies and case-based learning materials are all features of the strategy, together with an institutional commitment to the United Nations’ Strategic Development Goals. DMU itself has transformed its city campus into a dramatic space, dominated by the Vijay Patel building for the creative arts and humanities. Access to higher education provides a channel to social and professional mobility. First-generation Indian migrants, from Uganda, for example, often took whatever economic opportunities they could find after arriving in the UK, but many left behind successful business or professional lives and encouraged their own children to study for higher qualifications and to build their own careers. This has been a factor behind the growth of an intercultural professional and business middle class which is manifested in both entrepreneurial and large organisations. Students come to a university from their native microcultures, whether these be an English rural farm or an Indian or Chinese city, bringing their identities, discourses and cultural preferences and practices. People worldwide have deeply rooted habits, likes and dislikes. Food culture is an example, there being a few things more upsetting than being unable to obtain and consume one’s preferred foods in a strange environment. This can create tensions (university restaurants not providing rice for Chinese students, for instance) as well as opportunities for food entrepreneurs to open specialist shops and cafes to cater for them. Food culture is one of the great sources of innovation, introducing new choices and exposure of ‘native’ and other cultures to the new tastes.

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There is always an appetite to sample new tastes, ingredients and styles of cooking from different traditions, which are then shared, copied and fused. The specialist microcultural market alone may be too small, so the business needs to attract a wider customer group. So, for example, as Vietnamese, Thai and Sri Lankan curry restaurants start up and attract wider customer groups, they become part of the city’s meso-culture. Leicester has experienced a growing and changing small business economy for many years, characterised by small independent retailers, food outlets, textile, garment and manufacturing and service businesses. Initially, ethnic minority-founded micro- and small businesses met the distinctive needs of concentrated groups of ‘co-ethnic’, mainly South Asian populations, in sectors such as food and retailing. Ram and Jones (2008) commented on the ‘breakout’ practices of ethnic small and medium-sized enterprises to reduce dependence on ethnic markets and to establish mainstream market-oriented businesses, for example, through curry houses serving an ethnic product to a non-local market. Whilst many businesses were stuck in declining market sectors, such as textiles and convenience retailing, some were able to innovate and break into new areas of the economy, such as technology, food packaging, printing, property, legal and financial services. The ambition of such businesses was to enter the ‘mainstream’ market and a number have been successful in doing so. This involves bridging cultural boundaries to ‘mainstream’ markets as any other business. As one family-owned printing business explains: ‘by moving beyond a local market of other ethnic minority small firms, we can build up a base of customer prepared to pay higher margins for higherquality and larger volumes of work, enabling the firm to reinvest in new digital technology printers’ (see Rae 2005). Other minority firms with an international orientation, such as those in the Somali community, used their diasporic networks at transnational levels to access valuable resources and markets for entrepreneurial activities, an approach described by Jones et  al. (2010) as ‘superdiversity’. The strong diasporic networks of other communities in South Asian, African and Central/Eastern European countries have made this an increasingly adopted approach to both international and intercultural development of such businesses. The Leicestershire region has over 10,300 creative sector businesses located in the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership (LLEP) area with 33,000 workers, representing one of the largest creative agglomerations nationally (Granger 2017) but with an above national-average representation of micro-businesses (96.8%). It is increasingly evident that

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the growth of Leicester’s business diversity from different communities, combined with the development of the creative industries district and the development of rich, cultural amenities such as the Curve theatre and Phoenix arts cinema has contributed to a change in Leicester’s cultural identity and by extension, cultural value production  (CREATE 2016). Uniquely for its size in the UK, it has developed an internationalised and intercultural creative city. Enterprises such as Indian culture festival organiser Darbar and a range of fashion and textile designers exemplify the intercultural creative enterprises. An exploration of Leicester as a creative city (Granger 2017) expressed concerns about the inclusivity of the creative economy for aspirant entrepreneurs from all ethnic minorities, and its prospects for economic impact from its concentration in low-rewarding sectors such as apparel. However, there is a growing demand from students and graduates from diverse cultural groups to start creative ventures. Case 2: Celtic Colours, Cape Breton, Canada In Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, a ceilidh is not generally a barn dance requiring a piper, caller, jigs and reels. The Scots settlers fleeing the eighteenth century forced clearances of their homes in the Highlands and Islands brought their simpler tradition of a social gathering in a home—a kitchen party. The ceilidh exemplifies the interculturality of this challenged little island, located at the remote Northern tip of Nova Scotia, on the Canadian Atlantic coast, and utterly peripheral to the Federation. Its brief history was that Unama’ki (‘The land of fog’) was inhabited from time out of mind by the Aboriginal Mi’Kmaq people, whose deep understanding of the land and waters enables them to live by fishing from the birchbark canoes they built, to make tepees to live in, clothes to wear and to share rich oral traditions of culture, storytelling, community rituals and order, based on the wisdom of their elders. European fishermen discovered the island in the 1500s which was contested in subsequent centuries by Scots, English and French colonisers. The French entreatied the Mi’Kmaq people, introducing them to Catholicism, but after the island fell to British colonialism, the French were permitted to resettle under British rule. The Mi’Kmaq were less fortunate, later being deprived of their lands, ways of life, heritage and language, mainly by Scots settlers and English laws. The draconian goals of Canadian Aboriginal policy were to ‘cause Aboriginal peoples to cease to exist as distinct legal, social,

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cultural, religious, and racial entities in Canada’ (Truth & Reconciliation Commission 2015). The island under British dominion became a naval and later industrial centre as deep coal reserves were mined. Iron and steelworks were built in a bid to become ‘the Pittsburgh of Canada’. Yet the growing industrial population of Scots, Irish and later middle-European settlers were subject to brutal exploitation and repression, before the industrial economy collapsed in the latter twentieth century. The island then struggled to reinvent itself in a context of economic and social decline, depopulation and erosion of its national role and identity. Its principal means of creating a new identity and meaning has been cultural, building on enduring qualities of stoic persistence, community, hard work and creative expression. The island provides a locus to explore intercultural innovation and entrepreneurship. There is a ‘Caper’ meso-culture formed of interactions between numerous diverse microcultures, which is constantly affected by its interactions with the macroculture of federal Canada and the dominant North American influences of US corporations, economic and political actions. The microcultures are framed by their ethnic and linguistic identities; faith group memberships; economic activities; cultural participation and production; and leadership. The microcultures can be explored at village or community level through their ethnic heritage. The Mi’Kmaq Band communities are on tribal reserves, the largest being Membertou in the urban region and Eskasoni on the inland sea. After centuries of oppression, they were granted and increasingly assert rights of self-­determination. Membertou has become the third largest employer and the fastest growing community in the urban region. Its leadership is enabled by their economic model of community entrepreneurship, providing new employment, housing, health care and education for the growing, young population (Membertou 2016). Yet Membertou is at heart a community of inter-­ related expanded families, using recurrent patronyms such as Christmas, Marshall, Paul and Googoo. The renaissance of Mi’Kmaq culture is a remarkable story of growing confidence from great adversity. Family and locus are also essential aspects of the numerous ‘settler’ communities. The French Acadians live in coastal settlements such as Cheticamp and Arichat, where fishing, farming and tourism are the prime industries. These are cheerfully and culturally distinct from the Scotian settlements, with their architecture, business, cultural norms and music recalling Atlantic French villages and forming part of the Francophone family of Maritime Canada. The Scots-Irish ‘Capers’ became the d ­ ominant

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cultural group, arising from diverse roots. Many of the original Scots were Gaelic-speaking migrants from the Highland clearances and even now patronyms of MacDonald, Macleod and MacNeil are ubiquitous. They were joined by later Scots and Irish settlers as adversity led to migration. The first settlers claimed the best waterfront lands with later settlers scrabbling for the poor backwoods. Today, the cultural distinctions between the rural and farm-based communities and the former industrial and mining settlements in the urban region are as pronounced as serenity and squalor. Smaller numbers of later twentieth-century settlers brought their own cultures, including workers from Poland, Ukraine, Italy, Lebanon; and Dutch farmers. Faith and church membership is significant, Catholicism being the largest group, formed from diverse affiliations. When the Polish Catholic church burnt down in 2014, the small community worked fiercely to raise funds and rebuild it. There are Protestant, Orthodox, Jewish and Muslim faith groups, progressively smaller than the Catholic communities, but symbolically and socially important forms of cultural identity. Cultural participation and production are economically vital in relation to innovation and entrepreneurship for the island to offer more than its physical resources and geographical location on the shortest Atlantic crossing. There are cultural institutions and factors which can either enable or constrain entrepreneurial development. These include the roles of government and education institutions, leadership, community action and technology. These are largely formal and institutionally sanctioned at the meso- and macrocultural levels. However, the role of informal activism through community organisation, or agency, is significant at microcultural levels, especially where institutional policies fail to resolve the effects of economic and demographic decline in depleted communities (Johnstone and Lionais 2004). The philosophy of collective action, exemplified by the New Dawn approach of ‘gathering together smart people to look at problems and come up with new solutions’ (MacSween 2015) addresses and challenges institutional constraints by creating new institutions and logics. Where this activism spans cultural boundaries to become intercultural, it can have much greater multiplier effects than within one community. The case explores an example of intercultural innovation which responded to the discourse of economic and demographic decline and limited institutional ability to respond to these challenges (One Nova Scotia Commission 2014).

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The Celtic culture of music, dance and hospitality became recognised as one of the Island’s most distinctive features. In 1997 a voluntary group, led by Joella Foulds, promoted the first ‘Celtic Colours’ festival, promoting folk culture events at venues across the Island during the colourful Fall season. The mission of the Festival Society is ‘To promote, celebrate and develop Cape Breton’s living Celtic culture and hospitality by producing an international festival during the fall colours that builds relationships across Cape Breton Island and beyond’. The festival grew in popularity, attracting visitors internationally and engaging artists and communities across the Island in staging concerts, dinners, craft and market events (Scott and Pelley 2004). By the 22nd festival in 2018, the festival lasted 9 days with 315 events across the Island, organised by over 110 community organisations. These had expanded far beyond the ‘Celtic’ and included a growing number of Mi’Kmaq and Acadian cultural and hospitality events which embodied intercultural performances and organisations. This attracted support from institutions in the Province and island-wide to organise and promote the Festival. The public and businesses’ support enabled the Festival to include a paid staff base and Board of Directors, becoming a significant cultural institution in its own right. This required great persistence by the Festival founder in enabling the transition from informal to formal organisation. The economic contribution, estimated at well over CA$11 million in direct spending per year, and more in additional income, triggered the federal government to invest over $1 million in a project to expand the reach of the event. Celtic Colours illustrates the movement from an informally organised intercultural event at micro-level, to one which grew in its reach and scale to achieve meso- and macro-level institutional significance in symbolic, organisational and economic terms. By embracing events and communities from across all the Island’s cultures, especially the indigenous people, it repositioned the whole Island’s identity of place as an international destination for intercultural tourism and experiences.

Discussion: Towards Intercultural Entrepreneurship This chapter has examined what microcultural entrepreneurship is, and how microcultural activity can create greater value and become sustainable through intercultural entrepreneurship. Secondary to this, the chapter also posed the question about how intercultural entrepreneurship might contribute to creative place-making.

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Microcultural and intercultural entrepreneurship are new terms but they express long-present phenomena in human development and civilisation. Microcultural entrepreneurship describes how creative expression within a small community or group is translated into ‘value’, in the multiple forms of aesthetic expression through performance or artefact, traded financial or economic value, and social collectivity. But if restricted to the audience or market within its own community, the level of interest is likely to be limited and may not be sustainable as an enterprise, as distinct from simply being a performer or maker. However, creative expression within a microculture is a wellspring for the flow of new ideas which can reach their potential by being shared with other cultures, for example, through a performance or festival such as Celtic Colours. These acts of cultural exchange, in which audiences, artists and organisers mingle and share experiences and ideas, are a manifestation of interculturality. Once the creative production is shared across more than one culture, attracting a wider audience and generating greater value, it becomes intercultural entrepreneurship. This may be simple to describe, but when we view the sharing and deepening of cultural exchanges in this way, it can help to make sense of how cultural production from one community can ultimately become a ‘world’ cuisine, style of music, drama, art or costume. The theoretical roots of this approach are quite diverse, including DiMaggio (1997), Fine and Hallett (2014) and Hesmondhalgh (2002). Gehman and Soublière (2017) introduced a helpful conceptualisation of three perspectives on CE, of making culture (1.0), deploying culture (2.0) and cultural making (3.0). Microcultural entrepreneurship can be equated with CE 1.0, whilst the process of deploying across more than one cultural group reflects 2.0, and seeing intercultural entrepreneurship as a distributed and intertemporal or continuing process, is clearly related to the ‘cultural making’ in relation to wider market opportunities of 3.0. Enabling cultural production to reach an increasing and sustainable audience or market, potentially worldwide, requires mediation across cultures, alignment with institutional structures, such as media and distributive industries, intellectual property protection and licensing, financing and so on. The dynamics of value creation and sharing and the enablers of leadership, organisation and agency are all required in creating sustainability and scale for the enterprise. This chapter has also explored intercultural entrepreneurship in the context of (creative) place-making. Even in the digital world, place ­matters.

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Cultural production has a belonging to its roots and locus, which invest it with symbolic and shared social value. Place also provides the locus for people to meet and share cultural experiences. The two cases describe very different loci in which intercultural entrepreneurship has become a significant source of value for the communities. In both cases, it has attracted new creative producers, entrepreneurs, organisers and sources of finance and institutional support. In this process, the identity of the place itself has been reshaped. The Leicester of 2018 is very different from the Leicester of thirty years before. Leicester has become a unique city in the UK for its cultural diversity, its international connections and the growing interaction between its intercultural business community and its creative industries. In comparison, Cape Breton, a little-known and remote island in Atlantic Canada, has been able to extend its Celtic Colours festival to include the diverse island cultures, notably the indigenous Mi’Kmaq people with their own cultural heritage and entrepreneurial resources. This co-created interculturality has enabled the festival to become a signature attraction for the island and an act of creative place-making which has repositioned it as an international cultural destination. The cases are examples, and others could equally have been selected, because the phenomenon of intercultural entrepreneurship contributing to creative place-making is more widespread than might be imagined. Even from Markusen and Gadwa’s initial work (2010), communities as diverse as Arnaudville, Louisiana and San José, California, exemplify the contribution of interculturality to creative place-making. As town and city centres are increasingly challenged by trends such as online retailing, the interaction of intercultural entrepreneurship and creative place-making may offer a means of regenerating urban centres and districts for new activities of cultural making which draw on the diversity of local and migrant communities. As indicated in the cases and discussion, intercultural entrepreneurship can offer a valid and relevant direction for entrepreneurship. It is socially inclusive, reflecting and valuing participation from all ethnic, sectional and cultural groups, whether from within a host country or who are attracted to it. It recognises that greater value can be created by working across cultural boundaries than within just one. It promotes intercultural appreciation and sensitivity, behaviours which are increasingly required in business, public and personal lives. It enables people and groups to move from positions of geographical or cultural peripherality to offer innovation in mainstream markets (Rae 2017). Intercultural entrepreneurship seeks to

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understand, appreciate and compare differing methods and models of entrepreneurship at the micro-level, through which people from differing cultural backgrounds can learn, innovate and trade between microcultures. Intercultural entrepreneurship can therefore be viewed as a process of social enquiry, which aims to appreciate the entrepreneurial values and practices of different groups, to develop bridging skills to facilitate working together, and as an area for new (economic) value generation.

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CHAPTER 8

Co-creative Third Space, Maker Space and Micro Industrial Districts Rachel Granger

Introduction In this chapter, hidden value, which is embedded in co-produced and socio-industrial work settings, is outlined and discussed. While the chapter draws on the tacit aspects of creativity that are hidden from public view, as one dimension of Parsons’ hidden culture model discussed in Chap. 2, here it is drawn upon to depict the valuable way creativity emerges from informal and collegial interactions and settings. Bourdieu (1977) notes that individual actions and relations are never entirely contained since they are influenced by context and experiences, which ultimately drive wealth. This is particularly pertinent in this chapter, which explores the way in which creative workers operate and the intensification of co-creative sensibilities, which might be framed as creating new socio-economic forms, something that is only beginning to be acknowledged as changing in the literature and in policy, but is very much in evidence in creative practice. The chapter argues that the way in which creative work takes place w ­ arrants particular

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attention, given that potentially, it alters the way in which we conceive of the micro scale of the creative economy, and of creative spaces, cities and work, as well as challenging conventional thinking on economic value. Drawing on the empirical cases of co-creative design in Copenhagen, this chapter begins to frame co-creation, and new ways of working, as significant for harnessing value in the creative economy. In recent years, Copenhagen has become something of an international exemplar for co-­ creation, and indeed the very principles of working together, sharing and socialising are arguably at the heart of Danish way of life—espoused in Hygge and Janteloven. In Denmark, collaboration and co-creation have become a favourable way of working in creative, design, art and digital media fields, as they align with wider aspirations to democratise institutional settings and also acknowledge audiences as more than just passive recipients, allowing the production of valuable (experiential) knowledge and ideas. Drawing on the example of Underbroen, one of Copenhagen’s most notable maker spaces, the chapter examines whether value in the creative economy is more a product of the setting in which it occurs and its governance structure, than the physical combination of factor inputs. In thinking about ways of producing in creative disciplines and acknowledging from the outset the importance of knowledge and skills, the chapter starts by considering the structural and spatial dimensions of the creative economy, which gives primacy to social interaction as a primary factor input. Having established social interactions as a fundamental part of creative work, the chapter then considers the role of innovation systems and localisation economies in driving creative activities and spaces. Through this, people and settings are positioned as key contributing factors to value creation in the creative economy. Rejecting the more popular ‘Helix’ model as a suitable framework, the chapter draws on social capital as a significant driver of localisation economies in the creative economy. The chapter frames the informality and governance structures of Underbroen in Copenhagen, as leading to the creation of a ‘third space’ and also a micro ‘industrial district’, which are argued to have broader resonance to the creative economy. The flexibility and informality of work that take place at Underbroen are cited as highly valuable to the production and exchange of creativity, supporting the thesis that the value of creative practice is less about the outputs produced by practitioners and more, the social space through and by which creativity occurs.

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Structural and Spatial View of the Creative Economy Understanding the role that places and settings can play as creative ecosystems is marked out by structural and spatial praxis. Creative cities, for example, can be conceived of as the most recent permutation of the post-­ industrial form, and as such are framed as structural and spatial manifestations of advanced capitalism. Bell’s (1973) vision of a post-industrial society as a hub of knowledge-driven services tied to universities/learning, offers a prescient view of the creative economy as a productive socio-­ structural and socio-spatial economic force. The creative city discourse in particular notes the wider forces at play in a creative ecosystem (see e.g. Florida 2001; Landry 1999; and Howkins 2001) as well as place attributes such as a cityscape and the social spaces located there, which collectively positions people, networks and social capital central to wealth creation. A more recent expression of the dialectic between social, economic and space in the context of creative discourse can be found in the New Economic Geography around spatial economic impact (NEG1) and the role of agglomeration externalities (NEG2). One might conclude therefore that the creative economy is a socio-economic and socio-spatial economy since it relies on factors of production constructed through and by unique socio-spatial relations and networks, leading to the proposition that creative value is tied irrevocably to networks and (social) space. Given that active creative spaces are primarily those through which creative value is constructed, a reasonable supposition is that a successful creative ecosystem could also be viewed as an innovation system. An innovation system has been defined variously as ‘the network of institutions whose activities and interactions initiate, import, modify and diffuse new technologies and new economically useful knowledge’ (Freeman 1987; Lundvall 1992; Nelson 1993; Metcalfe 1995) and which determines the rate and direction of technological learning (Patel and Pavitt 1994a). Implicit is the role of different actors and institutions and the trilateral relationship between universities, businesses and government (OECD 1997). The OECD notes, in particular, the role of tacit knowledge or know-how exchanged through informal channels, and the codified knowledge found in publications, patents and other sources (OECD 1997, p.  7) in enabling an innovation system. The key mechanisms for knowledge flows include joint industry research, public/private sector partnerships, technology diffusion and movement of personnel.

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The Triple Helix Model The explicit transfer of knowledge from a university to industry found in a Triple Helix has been noted as being especially useful in accelerating learning in innovation systems more generally (Viale and Camposall’Orto 2002). Helix models are predicated on a university’s technology-learning-­ innovation nexus and the trilateral relationship between a university, industry and government as the three key agents (Etzkowitz 1994; Leydesdorff and Etzkowitz 1998). Helixes carve out a specific role for universities given the primacy of knowledge and research as capital for economic growth. Businesses (industry) provide the entrepreneurial drive to exploit this, while government provides the regulatory framework and financial support to enable new knowledge to be brought to the market. As society has become more interactive, the role of other partners and the scope of spheres to be included in the innovation-generating process of a Helix have been increasing over time (Cavallini et  al. 2016). The more recent conception of a Quadruple Helix and Quintuple Helix connotes the number of institutional partners and functions. Quadruple Helixes include the role of civil society and media as a key intermediary (see Arnkil et  al. 2010; Carayannis and Campbell 2010), while a Quintuple Helix incorporates aspects of sustainability (Grundel and Dahlström 2016) or investment (Granger 2017). Collectively, these different interests enable the type of ‘discursive knowledge enabling’ (Leyesdorff 2018) in sectors, which combined with push and pull factors drive territorial innovation and industry specialisation. Although the notion of Helixes is now well accepted in research and policy circles, the Helix model poses several problems in the context of the creative economy. The dichotomy between a Helix’s trilateral partnership stands in contradistinction to the empirical behaviour and characteristics of creative practitioners. Unlike in scientific disciplines, creativity is rich in tacit and symbolic knowledge and requires very specific (face-to-face) transaction spaces (Asheim and Coenen 2005), and the formal knowledge transfer presupposed in a science-based Helix is simply unable to navigate a creative landscape where actors perform multiple roles (as producers, consumers, intermediaries). The clear and often formal demarcation between spheres and actors found in Helix models is also incompatible with the more fluid structure and organisation of creative industries, where social spaces are more intertwined and knowledge transfer can be more informal and multiplex (see Hesmondhalgh 2018; Banks and Hesmondhalgh 2009).

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In addition, the idea of research-intensive universities engaging in novelty production in creative spheres is incongruous with the very essence of creative activity, which can evolve over time, often in unexpected ways, and in which innovation is highly consumer- and style-orientated. In other words, value in the creative economy is often tied to quality rather than quantity (Baudrillard 1968), such that creative activities that favour heterogeneity rather than exploiting scientific discovery through economies of scale, tend to drive new market value and behaviour. As a result, the distinction between the main players (university, industry, customer, producer) and what is and isn’t creativity and knowledge in context becomes more unclear. Localisation Economies While the notion of a Triple Helix then can be argued to sit uncomfortably with the creative practices of a creative economy, there are some aspects of the Helix model such as interoperability of people and institutions that resonate more generally. A Helix model infers place-based advantages of an industry as a result of institutional interactions, the conferred advantages of which—the agglomeration externalities—have become the cornerstone of contemporary thinking on economic growth. Drawing on Hoover (1948), it is argued that economies of scale produce place-based advantages in cities (urbanisation economies), which derive from the location of specialist institutions, suppliers, office space and a ready supply of labour and other factor inputs. In other words, that the critical mass of resources or economies of scale found in cities produce inherent benefits. Localisation economies by contrast, represent the intangible benefits that arise when companies and practitioners gather together and interact, and where advantages accrue from shared resources, including suppliers, and exchange of ideas. In this sense, localisation economies refer to the advantages of socio-space in general and emerge from the ‘traded and untraded interdependencies’ between companies and actors (see Storper 1997), which build to create powerful places and have explained differences in industrial growth patterns (see also Cismas et al. 2010). Johnston et al. (2000) assert the key localising forces of agglomeration economies as deriving principally from the ‘socialness’ of human activities, facilitated in part by geography but fundamentally sociocultural. Thus the value of geographical localisation appears to lie in the face-to-­ face contact, the social and cultural spaces, which underpin alliances,

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f­ orging trust and reciprocity, and in developing norms and rules of behaviour, which lead to distinct patterns of knowledge exchange and innovation—in other words, a combination of proximity and propinquity. Elsewhere these same ideas have been conveyed in the notion of local ‘buzz’ (Bathelt et al. 2004), ‘sticky’ interrelationships (Markusen 1996) and as discussed later, social capital. As such, localisation economies represent a ‘nexus of untraded interdependencies’ and while it is true that ‘localisation is dynamic and not a static process’ (Johnston et  al. 2000, p. 459) and that places can develop histories of localised cultures, which create path-­ dependent behaviour, they nevertheless provide a useful framework for depicting spatially uneven development, using a vocabulary that speaks to the social and proprietary nature of the creative economy. In short, it provides a more nuanced framework for analysing the creative economy rather than the more formal and economic Helix models.

The Working-Learning-Social Nexus of Creative Spaces In the remainder of this chapter, sociocultural attributes of place, as a driver of localisation economies, are framed as a micro nexus of socio-­ learning and working that shapes different trajectories of creative performance. In previous studies, interdependencies and localisation economies have been used to denote differences in performance at a macro regional level (see Storper 1995) but here are applied to the micro scale of workers, projects and small work settings. Untraded interdependencies imply reliance, trust, reciprocity, and, ultimately, forged relationships. Interdependency is therefore tied manifestly to human behaviour. However, in innovation systems dealing with highly artistic forms such as arts, design, graphic media, music and so on, which Asheim and Coenen (2005) term ‘symbolic knowledge systems’ and Cooke (Cooke and Schwartz 2012, Cooke et al. 2014) terms a ‘creative innovation system’, the emphasis is on the aesthetics of the setting as well as the people who occupy it. This is because, the aesthetics and atmosphere of a place, and the presence of certain people and their behaviours, dictate the way in which signs and symbols are conveyed and interpreted, in a way that gives meaning and value. Asheim notes the need both for essential creative and interpretative skills to access and make sense of these  signs (know-how), as well as the process of socialisation to access ‘potential collaborators with complementary specialisation’ (know-who)

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(Christopherson 2002; in Asheim and Coenen 2005, p. 9), which, when combined with broader aspects of status, authenticity, power, atmospheres, cultural connotations and so on, create highly complex spaces for cultural and creative work to develop as an innovation system. Baudrillard (1968) notes, for example, the added dimension of the status of people—and the inclusion of some people with certain status— which infers value and also offers a code of decipherable signs, which allows knowledge to become universal, and which fundamentally constitutes a socialisation (p. 194). The mere fact that an object has belonged to a famous or powerful individual or group can infer value. Similarly, the fact that an idea has emerged—or more precisely, been created—through a group of people with status is likely to infer a greater sense of value in terms of credibility. As such there is fascination by what has been created, its uniqueness, how the creativity occurred, and that it is inimitable. These matters appear to hold greater fascination than those of economic utility, for example, who owns the idea, and its immediate financial worth. In other parts of the literature, some of these same ideas and connections between people and settings, have been considered within the context of absorptive capacity (Cohen and Levinthal 1990; Zahra and George 2002), denoting largely organisational spaces with prior related knowledge and the way they assimilate and use new knowledge.1 This is also true of intermediaries (Bourdieu 1984; O’Connor 2015; Perry 2019) in the sense of key individuals, organisations and, increasingly, communities with status that mediate and dictate the direction of new knowledge. Thus untraded interdependencies in several of the creative industries could be argued to be heavily dependent upon, not only the presence of key people, but also a social setting that facilitates absorption, assimilation and transfer of creative capital through the presence of certain people and certain prior knowledge. Asheim’s Synthetic-Analytical-Symbolic knowledge classification (Table  8.1) draws similarities with Cooke’s wider observations about learning by doing and feedback loops, in so far as they both imply a central role for social interaction, and particularly in Cooke’s (2012) work on creative regions, underscores the importance of a territorial competence/ skills base, which reinforces the idea of people and settings. In thinking 1  Research on memory development suggests that accumulated prior knowledge increases the ability to put new knowledge into memory (the acquisition of knowledge) as well as the ability to recall and use it.

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Table 8.1  Analytical, synthetic and symbolic knowledge systems (Asheim and Coenen 2005) System

Location and nature of knowledge base

Analytical Scientific knowledge produced in formal R&D units such as universities or research institutions. Knowledge codified into papers and patents to feed radical innovations and new scientific discoveries (Asheim and Coenen 2005; Asheim 2007; Moodyson et al. 2008) Synthetic Scientific knowledge assumed in an analytical system—Local engineering knowledge rather than internationally novel/prestigious R&D. New knowledge emerges form ‘learning by doing’, where companies solve problems by drawing on existing knowledge/discoveries, with new clients (Asheim 2007; Asheim and Hansen 2009). Symbolic New knowledge from recombining knowledge in new ways. Heavily dependent on tacit knowledge, crafts, and youth/street culture and border community skills, with knowledge located in, and developed through, face-to-face interactions. Highly dependent on aesthetic attributes (cf. cognitive abilities) such as design and images with a shift towards ‘sign value’ of ideas (Lash and Urry 1994). Requires face-to-face presence and absorptive capacity of ‘embeddedness’ (p. 8) to access, interpret, absorb and transmit certain images, designs, artefacts, sounds, style and so on (Asheim and Coenen 2005).

through the merits of combining knowledge and skills to create heterogeneity in a symbolic knowledge base, a locality must display both a diverse competence base and also extensive social capital (proximity, or embeddedness), especially in a relational and cognitive form (Nahapiet and Ghoshal 1998; Granovetter 1985; Boschma 2005). Socialisation and Social Capital Social capital has been defined as ‘the networks together with shared norms, values and understandings that facilitate co-operation within or among groups’ (OECD 2007; Putnam 2001), which can represent actual and potential resources to bring to bear on a situation or locality (Bourdieu 1986; Coleman 1988; Nahapiet and Ghoshal 1998). Thus social capital resides in relationships, and as argued earlier, relationships are constructed through socialisation and exchange, in certain settings, such that the pattern of linkages and wider notions of trust, reciprocity and cooperation built through them, are the very foundations for social capital. Nahapiet and Ghoshal note ‘what we observe is a complex and dialectical process in

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which social capital is created and sustained through exchange and … in turn, social capital facilitates exchange’ (1998, p. 250). However, as they go on to argue, ‘social capital facilitates the development of intellectual capital by affecting the conditions necessary for exchange and combination to occur’. This point is especially important in any consideration about creative practice and value, as if true, the value of creative practice is located not merely in the practitioners and their outputs but by the very presence of key individuals, the setting in which this takes place, and the conditions needed to create these. The involvement of certain individuals then, is decisive in shaping the unique knowledge offered and created through a social setting (the delivery), as well as providing the primary vehicle for assimilation and exchange of knowledge to take place. In other words, key individuals provide both a mechanism for knowledge development and exchange (as an input), and also shape the actual knowledge outputs of social capital. The idea, however, that social capital is a universalism or more specifically a universally beneficial resource is not borne out by the literature or practice, for example, ‘social capital that is useful for facilitating certain actions may be useless or harmful for others’ (Coleman 1990, p.  302). Building on Moran and Ghoshal (1996), Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) identify four conditions needed for exchange and combination of capital/ resources in the pursuit of new knowledge. These comprise: (1) opportunity for exchanging resources; (2) parties anticipating value from combining resources; (3) motivation to exchange resources; and (4) capability to combine resources. They go on to outline three different dimensions of social capital that work in different ways to produce and feed into different conditions for combination and exchange of intellectual capital: Structural social capital provides the physical means and opportunity for knowledge to be shared and combined through, for example, the availability of networks, ties, organisational links. The cognitive dimension, provides the shared codes (e.g. language) and narratives necessary to combine knowledge from different sources, and might be understood as the technical context and skills (or absorptive capacity) for knowledge exchange to occur. Finally, the relational dimension provides the soft institutions such as trust, norms of behaviour, obligations and identification that are necessary for opportunities to be realised, by providing the means and motivation for social exchange. Drawing on Bourdieu (1986), relational social capital appears to be shaped in particular by other social attributes, which Bourdieu works into his theory of Habitus. In his work,

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Bourdieu argues sociopolitical contexts or ‘dispositions’ as structures of a particular environment, such as class, family, tribe or even educational or political allegiance, as well as economic capital can restrict or extend possibilities for structural and relational social capital, and may even shape cognitive social capital by producing different languages and shared narratives. As Bourdieu (1977, p. 83) notes, capital is contextual and can ‘create different translations of the same sentence’, which affects social and economic trajectory. While Nahapiet and Ghoshal’s (1998) work as well as Bourdieu’s provides a useful explanatory framework for understanding organisations as knowledge systems, and highlights the importance of relationships in knowledge development, further empirical exploration would be constructive in applying these ideas more generally in the creative economy, and also in thinking how this affects the micro scale of creative work.

Structural, Cognitive and Relational Dimensions of Social Capital Copenhagen Creative Economy Drawing on social capital theory, the chapter now considers the conditions needed for knowledge development and exchange using the case study area of Copenhagen. Copenhagen is the capital city of Denmark (pop. 778,000), and a significant metropolitan area in the Øresund Region (including Skåne in Sweden), which acts as a leading economic hub in Europe. Copenhagen’s size—a large city by international standards— belies what is regarded as a leading international economy, characterised by high growth, and a high degree of equality and welfare. Greater Copenhagen (pop. 1.83m) has one of the highest wage rates in the world, owing to its concentration of research and development activities, high growth business clusters and higher level skills. Greater Copenhagen is home to multiple financial institutions and international headquarters, as well as clusters in IT, Life Sciences/ Biotechnology, Pharmaceuticals, Design, and Clean Technology and Smart Cities. Copenhagen’s industrial structure explains demand trends for skilled workers. In marked contrast to the position 20 years ago, its current mix of high growth sectors and clusters have boosted the rate of tertiary education to around 50 per cent of the local population, compared to 40 per cent

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for Denmark as a whole (Statistics Denmark 2018), and 55 per cent for research and technology sectors (Eurostat 2018). There is also a noticeably good framework for entrepreneurship in Copenhagen, which is ranked second in the EU’s regional entrepreneurship and development index (REDI = 78), and investment in research and development is higher in Copenhagen than elsewhere in Northern Europe (R&D accounting for 4.7 per cent of GDP) (Copenhagen Task Force 2018). The combination of skills, entrepreneurship and investment in R&D are important factors, which when coupled with a design mindset, provide context to Copenhagen’s creative growth in recent years. The city’s creative economy has acted as a pull on European graduates, and as a result, the city looks set to establish itself as one of Europe’s leading metropolitan areas, economically and socially. The city’s prevalence of ‘labs’, alluding to its multiple technology and living lab spaces, its co-working spaces, and its culture of open problem-solving and co-design, as well as experimental and innovative behaviour are a product of both the current economic strengths of the city and key contributing factors to its growth and reputation. There are currently 33 labs, 2 science parks, and 17 maker spaces that are located in Copenhagen, but more than 100 organisations that provide dedicated space for co-working, co-design of new ideas, hacking, prototyping and incubating. While the functions and precise characteristics of these organisations vary markedly, and in some cases overlap (Fig. 8.1), there is a sense of an experimental and alternative ecosystem in Copenhagen that is supporting knowledge development and innovation in the city, much of which operates in the creative economy.

Fig. 8.1  Copenhagen creative ecosystem, by units (2019)

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Copenhagen’s Lab Movement Labs are research entities, user-centred, open and innovative, and often referred to as user research labs. Operating both in specific sectors or territorial contexts, they integrate research and innovation processes, with public-private-people partnerships. Labs draw on the expertise of diverse stakeholders and users to test out ideas, problem-solve and co-design projects. Maker spaces, on the other hand, allow people to gather to co-create, share resources, learn and network. They provide a physical space, often a workshop, for making objects using an array of shared tools and machines, and are aligned closely with Fab Labs, which provide facilities for industrial grade fabrication, and bring together the ideals of making and open source. Hacker spaces feed a more social demand for makers by bringing together people with shared interests (such as design, machining, digital art, gaming, electronics) to meet, socialise and collaborate. Over time the different characteristics of fab labs, maker spaces and hacker spaces (also DIY Bio Spaces) have converged, and more recently cut into the growing ‘lab movement’ to create diverse spaces for learning, making, sharing, researching and experimenting, often producing a set of open source designs and shared ideas. The concept of ‘maker culture’ brings together these diverse interests and functions in an umbrella term, which denotes open, experimental and highly skilled spaces, which drive learning and innovation in a territorial context. Davies (2017) is at pains to stress that the maker movement is not just about technologies, start-ups and innovation but about the kind of citizens we are expected (and need) to be. As she notes: the movement is timely and is a necessary part of ‘this particular socio-economic moment’ (p. 11), implying that maker spaces and labs are a key constituent of a new socio-economic form. Maker spaces and innovation labs are a common feature of the industrial landscape in Copenhagen, which supports its high growth and innovation image. There are some organisations such as Space 10, which operate exclusively as labs, producing programmes that explore macro issues such as food sustainability and design of cities, and work to problem-­solve and co-design new ideas, sometimes using high-profile international partners. Labs such as Space 10 bring together researchers, stakeholders, communities and industrial partners in a strategic way to raise and address macro concerns. In contrast, there are some organisations such as Rainmaking Loft that combine co-working spaces with

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incubation activities, to support a range of commercial interests around enterprise, and graduate start-ups, and are especially popular in the creative sectors. Operating in between, are a plethora of organisations and activities that combine different making, learning, sharing, researching and co-working functions. One of these, Underbroen, established in 2016 as a maker space and local production lab combines all of these different functions. It therefore provides an interesting lens on knowledge development in action; providing an insight into the role of social capital, and identifying the conditions needed for knowledge development and exchange to occur. Underbroen Maker Space and Production Lab Over the course of 35–48 months, the author met with Underbroen on six occasions, during which time a series of semi-structured, unstructured and non-participant observations were made with key staff and members. In 2015–16, the city of Copenhagen conducted a study on the ‘maker movement’ and noted three sub-movements in operation: • Zero-to-Maker Movement—providing introductory technical know-­ how for the general population to use new technologies and design methods. • Maker-to-Maker Movement—sharing ideas within spaces. • Maker-to-Market Movement—for those with existing skillsets looking to commercialise new ideas and skills. In a landscape dominated by several maker spaces, Underbroen was established with the specific remit to grow the ‘maker-to-market’ movement in Copenhagen, under the banner of an ‘Urban Production Lab’. The premise was to combine craftsmanship in the city, with broader design skills and processes, and new technologies, to grow local small-scale production. Localised production has an important role to play environmentally, feeding into the circular economy and the Fab City agenda. As the city of Copenhagen noted, Underbroen was ‘a new way of trying to develop collaboration between companies, organisations, and the maker space movement…[with] a huge potential for value creation for all partners’ (Holst 2016). Start-Up Incubation—Collaborating with Beta Factory from 2018, Underbroen has been able to develop in multiple areas of fabrication,

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including wood, metal, plastics, lasers, 3D printing and CNCs,2 with industrial-­level machinery and tools, which bring together an array of stakeholders (freelancers, businesses, education, hobbyists). Collaboration has provided the opportunity and machinery to provide ‘tomorrow’s manufacturing workshop’ in the city (Rasmussen 2018) with a range of technical facilities for prototyping work and small-scale manufacturing, but drawing on the community-level maker space model (which is open, learning, sociable and affordable), to enable entrepreneurs and businesses to stay agile. With flexible monthly membership rates between £100 and £400, Underbroen serves a diverse membership that supports small-scale production, offers informal incubation (freelancers, microbusinesses) as well as providing ongoing learning. Diverse Membership—Underbroen’s membership is diverse and also constantly changing. There are currently 38 members, with 26 makers with business activities and around five to six ‘Gurus’, who act as in-house experts in certain areas or on certain machines. A programme of community activities during 2016–17 (e.g. plastics recycling, kayak building) raised awareness and support of Underbroen, and as a result, initial membership included hobbyists, members of the public with environmental goals, students wanting to learn new skills and aspiring graduate businesses needing incubation support. By 2018 however, Underbroen had reached a critical mass of membership, and Beta Factory moved to new premises to concentrate on wood manufacturing, with a larger floor space for machines, and space for start-ups to undertake small-scale manufacturing. Beta Factory is also able to source industrial grade machinery at low cost, to support those members who wish to transition to larger-scale production. While Underbroen’s membership was initially affected by Beta Factory vacating the Underbroen workshop, its current membership has recovered and now attracts a following of carpenters, CNC specialists, artists, designers, as well as being home to ‘Chip Chop’, a popular Danish SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) designing bespoke shelving. Underbroen’s membership base brings together a range of technical skills and experience, so that new members receive in-kind training in a manner that resembles ‘on-the-job’ training in large organisations or ‘learning by doing’ (Polanyi 1966, 1974; Cooke and Schwartz 2012). The diversity of 2  Computer numerical control (CNC) refers to the automated control of machine tools and 3D printers through computers. A CNC machine processes metal, wood, plastic, and so on by following the instructions set out in a computer program.

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its membership provides a wealth of knowledge both for internal (member) benefit, as well as external problem-­solving in a manner described by Asheim and Coenen (2005) as a synthetic knowledge base. Innovation—Underbroen’s reputation for problem-solving, which arises from this diverse knowledge base, has been key to attracting an increasing number of commercial members, including large and ­multinational companies, in what could be viewed as a new phase of its development. Unlike many community-level maker spaces, Underbroen has an impressive array of strategic links, including Blox Hub (home to 300 companies and research institutes), Space 10 (the IKEA-funded urban lab), Bang & Olufsen, Delta, the Danish Architecture Centre (DAC), national music and film festivals, museums and the international Fab City movement. In other words, Underbroen is embedded as a key stakeholder in an array of music, hardware, electronics, design, creative/cultural and environmental fields, and positioned as a space for product and service innovation. Examining why Bang & Olufsen’s own research unit ‘Create’ would take out long-term residencies at Underbroen for its researchers, one interviewee states: There is a palpable fizz of ideas at Underbroen, which arises from play and from nerds enjoying solving technical problems. It is difficult to replicate this in a dedicated research environment in the commercial sector, where there are different pressures and targets to perform. The different skills that can be sourced at Underbroen from different disciplines, in addition to members’ different experiences offers a more refreshing approach to solving a problem. I mean, it is different…exciting…not necessarily technically superior. And this can be powerful for spurring innovation by getting a fresh perspective. Another interviewee comments: We play in the fields we work in. It is not a typical office or factory job; it’s more like a vocation and way of life. Like a gamer, we are at the very edge of our field, and interested in, if not already operating, on the very latest ideas in our areas. We love to experiment. We love to have fun. Everyone knows that. We have a reputation for it. Commercially, that’s very attractive. What we have here is a pool of skills accessible to any of our members and for a business wanting to tackle a technical problem or bottleneck in their operations, which is preventing growth, this is a hyper appealing characteristic. From this view, it is clear that Underbroen’s diverse membership, and setting of diverse skills, enables ‘Doing, Using, Interacting’ or the DUI mode of innovation (Lundvall 1992; Jensen et al. 2007), which is viewed as open innovation when the user perspective is embedded. While Bang & Olufsen could be positioned as the archetypical Science Technology Innovation (STI)-mode

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knowledge base, given its extensive resources for scientific development through its Create Team, Underbroen could be viewed as a DUI base, with considerable resources devoted to doing (making), using and interacting between members. Play—The idea of socialising and Underbroen as a playful space emerges through several interviews with members and visitors. During interviews, the words ‘fun’, ‘enjoy’, ‘relaxed’ and ‘satisfying’ have been used ­frequently alongside ‘learning’, ‘making’, ‘working’. Eleven interviewees explicitly describe Underbroen as a ‘community’ and three as a ‘family’. Although no attempt was made to introduce facial expression analysis into the interviews, the researcher nevertheless found strong similarities in facial expression between people interviewed, regardless of their role at Underbroen, their craft or discipline, and other biographic features. Drawing on Ekman and Froesen (1982), the interviewees reveal a strong sense of ‘happiness’ in their connection with the space, with additional positive emotions expressed, suggesting ‘amusement’, ‘contentment’ and ‘excitement’. Several interviewees laughed or smiled during discussion, and when observed, several gave ‘felt smiles’ (real laughing), reinforced by direct eye contact between each other, mirroring, physical proximity, and the types of non-verbal movements (back slapping, hugging, touching), all of which communicated close social interest and enthusiasm. Socialisation and Shared Narratives—Looking at the semi-fixed material in the kitchen area at Underbroen and the back room, as well as the informal discussions that take place there, and some of the project work, there is a clear sense of shared interest around music. Several of the member ‘makers’ met at music festivals, and had a social relationship based on gigs that predate the maker space relationship. Their clothes imply a current interest in rock music, and ties to the music and festival scene. In addition, several of the early shared projects at Underbroen emerged from contracts with Roskilde Rock Festival (building wooden sets and gateways), with the staff and prominent makers making references to the annual festival at Roskilde. Several individuals also made reference to the ‘maker festival’ in Copenhagen, an annual maker and craft festival, with one member of staff also working part time as the festival manager for ‘Maker Copenhagen’. These strands of music and maker interests weave through work projects at Underbroen, through informal discussions that take place there, and by underpinning patterns of socialisation among its members. For example, although Roskilde Festival is a major music festival covering several genres of music (rock, pop, electronic, reggae, hip hop,

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world), Underbroen members reference it frequently in the context of ‘Danish Rock’ and ‘Cowpunk’.3 At several points, members have all discussed the design qualities of the new ‘Ragnarock’ Museum at Roskilde, bringing together shared interests in music and design, with architecturally informed discussions about its iconic gold-studded design. During interviews and also through observation, Underbroen’s members have made explicit reference to its ‘Maker Mindset’, which is an individual rather than collective attribute but has been used to distinguish Underbroen from other co-working, craft and design spaces in the city. Rasmussen (2018) argues that the most important feature of a maker mindset at Underbroen, is that when ‘members have an idea, they act on it and bring it to life, and perhaps use it to change the world’. In that sense, he sees the key characteristics of experimenting with also being fearless, risk aversion and social innovation. He also emphasises the collective characteristics of the maker mindset, which could be viewed more in terms of the responsibilities of the community in which makers are based. Makers actively want to know what others think to aid their learning and refinement process and to accept mistakes. Embracing mistakes provides a basis for moving forward and growing, and also for self-reflection. Thus the maker mindset encourages feedback loops by bringing together curiosity, contribution (of self and others), with reflection for creating value. As Rasmussen (2018) argues ‘it is more than a desire for a member to tinker and play with an idea, or to improvise; it is an open approach and shared responsibility which is more a way of doing things’. ‘Having this mindset opens doors but it also allows makers to connect easily and quickly with each other in a deep way, without needing years to establish a solid friendship bases’ (ibid.). In this sense, a maker mindset provides a unifying thread that connects members, acts as an unspoken code, and as a community of practice, which some members refer to with pride. Its open and collective attributes provide the basis for socialisation, and therefore acts as a key platform for knowledge combination and exchange. As one interviewee notes: ‘What attracted me here was the maker mindset, which is verbalised explicitly. What I’ve noticed is that there’s a critical link between maker mentality and the effort-driven rewards circuit. Makers are committed to, but also get a buzz from engaging with others, sharing actions, con3  For example, discussing the music of ‘Queens of the Stone Age’ and ‘D-A-D’, against the recent festival line-ups ‘Bring me the Horizon’, ‘Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever’, ‘Rebecca Lou’, ‘Crack Cloud’.

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tributing an idea or solution. They are generally hands-on. When all of the parts are linked, there’s a flow of energy so that we all feel engaged by our actions, and feel alive. When actions produce a result for one member, that others can see and touch, there is a collective sense of well-being that results in effort-driven rewards.’ As an observer, the music connections provide a thread that pulls together the varied interests of the Underbroen community; effectively bringing together disparate interests in the arts (graffiti), architecture, laser cutting, electronics and CNCs, 3D printing, plastics, metal and wood. The music and festival scene provides a shared narrative and language, creating its own social spaces between these different crafts that serve to distinguish between insiders and outsiders. The maker mindset by definition is inherently open and receptive, provides relational proximity, which when combined with music metaphors and codes provides a socially charged and open environment for learning, and for knowledge combination and exchange. These same shared narratives also extend outside of the organisation, connecting Underbroen to the City of Copenhagen (through Mikkel C.K.  Holst, the Head of Creative Growth) and Copenhagen Maker (through Stine Broen Christensen the Manager of Copenhagen Maker) who both share interests in music and making. Both have acted as key supporters of Underbroen. One might observe how these relational ties that provide structure and unification to the membership of a maker space also facilitate ties with other individuals, which begin to explain strategic links across the city, and arguably significant in understanding Underbroen’s strategic and elevated role in the city’s creative economy. A reasonable supposition is that the inclusion of key people with status in a community, facilitated by shared narratives and beliefs, can be powerful in raising the status of an organisation and its work. Flexible Production—While the maker mindset at Underbroen could be argued to enhance performance by linking member motivation with product innovation and feedback loops, the organisation’s informal and flexible governance provides for wider efficiency savings. Members use Underbroen in markedly different ways, at different times. Students might use the space for quick access to machines, to complete assignments or to learn new techniques, reflected in short-term membership. Hobbyists might use workshop space and machines in the evenings or at weekends, depending on their free time, while freelancers or micro businesses use the space on a regular basis. While students and hobbyists might use the space as more of a learning resource, freelancers can use the space to secure short-­

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term work, and micro businesses to produce work at affordable commercial rates. The  membership arrangements are sufficiently flexible to accommodate all of these needs, and the resulting membership base serves the maker space well in terms of providing for diversity and crossover. It has become commonplace for individual makers to draw on the diverse membership at Underbroen as a ready supply of skilled labour to fulfil contracts, and to access advice and crafts for more complex projects. When used in this way, Underbroen provides a useful resource, which could be described as a localisation economy. Denmark’s culture of ‘Flexicurity’ lends itself to this short-term hiring, which is supported by the trust built up through the maker space environment. More recently, members have begun to work together to use the diverse skills base of the maker space more proactively, and implying more of an (un/traded) interdependency. Rasmussen (2018) cites examples of groups of makers coming together to bid for local work as an informal ‘collective’, which allows individual freelancers or micro businesses to compete with the same commercial advantages as SMEs with larger workforces, while retaining freelancer agility and lower costs by operating from the maker space. Where different skillsets can be introduced at different stages of the order/process, Underbroen has been able to facilitate individual makers to come together for short periods of time, to create a vertical disintegration of production reminiscent of industrial districts. In this way, Underbroen is able to provide an overarching structure for diverse skillsets and practitioners to come together to work on shared projects, which allows for economies of scope, and replicates the flexibility and advantages found in industrial districts but without formal economic ties. As Rasmussen (2018) argues: ‘This is a key element of encouraging localised production. The more we can work together to provide flexible and responsive solutions to local business, the more the maker space can create value in the local economy.’

Analysis and Discussion In the case study of Underbroen, there are multiple examples of social capital in operation. The building itself and its membership arrangements, provides a structural mechanism for knowledge to be shared and combined in a small workshop area. Shared projects provide a supplementary space for members to come together to combine knowledge and skills, and as Underbroen develops more strategic links in the city, there are greater opportunities for members to make use of structural ties with

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other organisations. The Space’s close ties with the Blox Hub offer obvious opportunities for accessing the very latest technology. Cognitive proximity is achieved through shared narratives and language emanating from their common maker mindset, shared interests in music, and also from socialising in bars and at festivals. This provides a unifying force for bringing together disparate interests, crafts, and for bringing together actors with markedly different socio-economic circumstances. Relational ­proximity is achieved predominantly through members’ maker mindset and their shared values, particularly in terms of social innovation. While the maker mindset provides a hidden code or culture for working, which acts out as an obligation to help fellow members with new ideas and projects (e.g. testing prototypes, offering advice), one finds examples of members borrowing resources (materials, personal equipment), and asking for feedback, sourcing technical skills from others, and which over time builds into a reciprocal and interdependent relationship between members, which can spur ongoing knowledge exchange. In thinking further about Nahapiet and Ghoshal’s (1998) conditions for knowledge exchange and combination, Underbroen provides a unique environment for working, which to some extent addresses all of the conditions for social capital. The informal and community nature of Underbroen, which is shaped in part by its founder members and the Space’s manager, provides a structure for exchanging resources. The design of the shared workshop and the open kitchen area provide a physical opportunity for knowledge exchange and combination to occur, but opportunities are also created from the softer spaces and rules of engagement, for example, the mandatory training for new members, which allow for introductions with different experts and machines, the visual references to members from the member polaroids framed on one wall of the main workshop area, and the information board, which details social outings. Soft rules of engagement help to create a sense of community at Underbroen, which lays out an environment for further exchange of resources. The limitations on space at Underbroen mean that larger projects are placed on the main workshop floor, and this also encourages advice and input from other members, given that they are constant visual reminders. In conventional commercial settings, Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) assume actors consider the potential value from combining resources such as skills, before being motivated to do so. This is because combinations of resources can produce new products and services that have unique intellectual property and therefore market value. In Underbroen, the embed-

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ded maker mindset acts implicitly, as the modus operandi so that members are actively motivated to support each other by providing additional craft skills and experiences, by offering input on designs, and feedback to support problem solving. Underbroen’s open source values also encourage co-design of new products and joint problem solving. Given the mandatory training then, there is a sense that all members have at least a basic foundation of skills and therefore capability to absorb and make use of different permutations of knowledge exchange there. Through the case study, the different dimensions of social capital as well as the conditions needed for social capital are seen to be facilitated by social space and the sociocultural attributes that create that space. Drawing on Lefebvre (1974/1992), one might argue that Underbroen’s social space or community is a (social) product, which is constructed and shaped by the people (or members) that use it, and which also serves as a ‘tool of thought and action’ and a mode of production. Underbroen’s space is also a means of control (see Lefebvre 1992, p. 26), dictating which organisations it has strategic links with, which arises from its members, their shared narratives and codes and their status. The case study also highlights the way in which Underbroen as a maker space continues to evolve as a new socio-economic form. Underbroen operates as a lab that experiments by combining skills and knowledge; as a maker space that produces new products; as a co-working space that provides affordable and open spaces as well as machinery; and as a learning space that encourages new skill and knowledge development. Underbroen’s informal governance and strong sense of socialisation, which is reinforced by shared interests around music, and making, provide the conditions needed for social capital (the opportunity, the motivation, the capability) while also offering a ‘third’ space (Lefebvre 1991; Soja 1996). That is, it offers a space that is both real (work) and imagined (intellectualised), where members work, learn and socialise (live), and which is a social, informal, hybrid, which Soja (1996, p. 70) argues ‘challenges all conventional modes of thought and taken-for-granted epistemologies’. Critically, this ‘thirding’ of space provides a different way of conceiving of space and its relationship with capitalist production, which challenges conventional thinking of where and how creative value is produced. In a similar way, the manner in which member makers at Underbroen (i.e. microbusinesses) have come together to organise work draws parallels with an ‘Industrial District’ and draws on agglomeration economies. The concept of a district was first used by Alfred Marshall to describe

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aspects of industrial organisation in a location where specialised workers and companies live and work, and are actively involved in the production of a distinctive product, and has been used to denote the advantages of, for example, the Third Italy and Spain (Becattini et al. 2009). According to Pyke and Sengenberger (1992), industrial districts can be divided into three main categories: (1) production of a final product; (2) implementation of several phases towards a final product; (3) businesses that operate in other sub-sectors but contribute work to a vertically integrated product. Here it conveys a micro space containing a number of practitioners producing similar products, and working in different fields but coming together on a product through a series of specialised phases, for example, the different stages of wood production, laser cutting, electronics, CNC and 3D printing required to produce a commercial speaker system. On one level, this type of collective working could be viewed as Underbroen evolving and adapting to the commercial landscape in which it operates, and in a way that supports its members. Another view might imply a new creative space where practitioners create value in hyper flexible spaces, sometimes interdependently and sometimes independently, but which allows for different economies of scope. At a time when academic and policy focus on the creative economy remains dogmatically fixed on economic value and in understanding how to remove barriers to access and growth, this chapter offers something new, in starting to conceive of changing creative forms and of the inherent benefits of informal social creative settings (Table 8.2).

Table 8.2  Characteristics of creative capital, Underbroen (2016–2019)

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CHAPTER 9

Cultural and Creative Districts as Spaces for Value Change Jennifer Garcia-Carrizo and Rachel Granger

Introduction This chapter considers the notion of value appropriation embodied in physical space, as well as the process through which value is constructed through space. Drawing on the case study of the Ouseburn Valley in the North East of England, this chapter examines the value that comes from the development of a place, as well as the value embodied in a place as site of activism, and the notoriety of a locale’s brand. The chapter positions the Ouseburn Valley as a cultural and creative district in the North East of England and a primary space for local activism. The chapter is organised in three parts. The first part looks at the role of activism in conceptual terms and provides a backdrop to the examination of the Ouseburn Trust in the second section, which details how a group of

J. Garcia-Carrizo Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain e-mail: [email protected] R. Granger (*) De Montfort University, Leicester, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Granger (ed.), Value Construction in the Creative Economy, Palgrave Studies in Business, Arts and Humanities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_9

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volunteers have transferred the Ouseburn Valley in Newcastle from a site of industrial dereliction to a vibrant creative and cultural district within 30 years. The chapter then considers what activism means in conceptual and practical terms. In the third section, the chapter considers whether the creative and cultural activities of the district and the redevelopment of the Valley have value socially and whether this amounts to activism or urban revitalisation, with a potential risk of cultural-led gentrification. The chapter therefore considers: • The meaning of value as a spatially and community-embodied form • The process of value appropriation through redevelopment • Spaces of activism • Areas as sites of aesthetic meaning and notoriety branding, and a primary conduit for value creation

Activism Activism has traditionally been understood as a set of efforts aimed at promoting, preventing or directing social, political, economic or environmental reforms. Activism entails writing letters to newspapers, and concerted political campaigns, boycotts, street marches or strikes. In fact, forms of activism are so broad that any activity that has the purpose of ‘making a change at a political, economic, social or spatial level, and tied to the concerted actions of people’, can be considered as such (Brain 2004, p.  6) touching on aspects of identity, democracy, social movements and campaigns, to stronger aspects of defiance, rebellion, disobedience and violent acts. There is now broad consensus that in the second half of the twentieth century, electoral turnout and political party membership in the developed world, as traditional indicators of activism, have encountered a steady secular erosion, whilst rising education and literacy, as well as wealth in developing countries, have been associated with wider political turnout. In that sense, activism aligned to democracy and democratic actions implies a reduced activism in many parts of the world at the same time as rising activism in other areas. Here Norris (2002) makes the point that other forms of activism have grown during this time and need to be taken into account: ‘demonstrations, signing petitions, and consumer boycotts have become more common since the mid-1970s and engagement in new social movements have flowered in affluent nations, suggesting an

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e­volution, transformation and reinvention of civic engagement’, whilst political democracy has been in decline (p. 4). In turbulent times, activism increases and people experiment with other forms of action, and the digital revolution has introduced even more opportunities for cyber-political activism (Hill and Hughes 1998) and transnational activism (Tarrow 2005). Whilst people have become disengaged from traditional channels of participation, there is stronger evidence of ‘everyday acts of defiance’, which relate more to identity and social movements (Baumgardner and Richards 2000, p. 283) and to the use of the internet and social media as a primary route of political communication and action, as for example feminism and the #MeToo Campaign during 2018. In this sense, it seems a reasonable supposition to argue that the collective cause in some parts of the world is now within easier reach, which here we relate to Boebel’s (2007) assertion that the distinction between ‘being an activist’ and ‘doing activism’ has been weakened in recent years. This idea of a new era or type of citizen activism forms the basis of the discussion in this chapter about the Ouseburn Valley’s creative and cultural district as a space for activism and value appropriation. Within the debate about activism it is clear that non-violent forms of activism can manifest through different forms and here we give consideration to ‘artivism’, literally art-based activism (see Schuler 2008) as a valuable form of activity, and which includes, inter alia, murals, storytelling within campaigns, theatre, (struggle) songs and other spoken word and literature. As previous research has shown (Zoran 2011; Nossel 2016), ‘artivism’ is an especially rich transformative method for changing our minds or inspiring us, with a view to taking on new perspectives or to reimagine the world in which we live. For this reason, artivism has been presented typically as arts-based activities that work with individuals to educate, to inspire or to transform. In this chapter, we introduce arts-­ based spatial change as another type of artivism. Whilst artivism is a well-­ established area of discourse, tied implicitly to spaces of democracy, which actively assume change—in other words, as a tool for incurring a change in a spatial area—artivism has never been considered before as a spatially embodied tool in its own right. In other words, we outline artivism as a creative reuse of space, which can be conceptualised as a process of organised activity. To do so, we draw on Martin’s (2007) assertion that to count as (non-violent) activism, an action ‘needs to go beyond conventional behaviour’. As such, the chapter considers the value appropriation possible through arts-based activism in a locale, which leads to the creative reuse

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and urban conversion of the landscape in a city, and acts as a principal catalyst and conduit for broader economic, political and social change in the environment in which it is integrated. The chapter considers whether such action is conventional in form and to what extent this captures unconventional demographic groups. Cultural and creative districts as the primary spaces discussed in this chapter can be understood as places of ‘high culture’ where a set of economic (companies), non-economic (non-governmental organisations, foundations) and institutional (municipalities, councils, etc.) actors make an active decision to use shared resources (artistic, cultural, social, environmental) for collective and creative action (see Lazzeretti 2008). In general terms, cultural and creative districts are recognisable as small and localised spaces in a city, which act as catalysts for marginalised areas through an active process of revitalisation, making them both liveable and valuable (Roselló and Wright 2010; UNESCO 2016). In this chapter, the importance of cultural and creative districts as spaces for activist movements is examined, with the Ouseburn Valley drawn upon as a case study through which activism is implemented. Adopting a grounded theory approach, fieldwork was conducted in the North East of England between August 2017 and August 2018, entailing face-to-face interviews with nine key contacts in creative and cultural institutions. In the field, brochures and corporate information related to the cultural district of the Ouseburn Valley have also been analysed (along with semi-fixed data collected in situ) using a range of qualitative techniques. This data was collected through different observation episodes developed between August 2017 and February 2018  in the Ouseburn Valley and by taking photographs of the different spaces that confirm its surroundings.

The Ouseburn Valley Area Taking the Ouseburn Valley—the cultural and creative district of Newcastle Upon Tyne—as the central axis of this chapter, the following sections detail first its fundamental characteristics, including historical position, as a basis for analysing it as a site of activism. It then situates recent and current developments within the broader value context of the city and wider community, in which economic, social and political changes are occurring, and as a basis for considering the unconventional nature of activism in the area.

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The Ouseburn Valley area refers to the Ouseburn River Valley, a small tributary of the main river of the city of Newcastle Upon Tyne, the river Tyne. Newcastle Upon Tyne is situated some 280 miles north of London, and 100 miles south of Edinburgh, in Scotland. The issue of geographical, political and economic peripherality is, therefore, key to understanding the context of the area and the rationale for community-led activism. The Ouseburn Valley is a 20 minutes’ walk from Newcastle city centre. The Tyne tributary is located in the eastern part of the city and is crossed by three impressive bridges. The name of Ouseburn Valley makes special reference to the southern part of the Valley, the ‘Lower Ouseburn’, which is currently the main space for culture and creative industries within Newcastle. However, it has taken more than 30 years of work in the area to revitalise and rehabilitate it. At the end of the twentieth century, the decline of heavy industry in the area (glass, coal mining and ceramics) as part of a wider process of deindustrialisation in England resulted in mass unemployment and redundant industrial workplaces in the Ouseburn Valley. By the early 1980s, the valley showed signs of abandonment with former factories and warehouses falling into widespread disuse, and as a result, the local area gained a reputation as being both poor and dangerous. Unemployment at this time stood at 34 per cent for the city (1987) compared to 9.7 per cent for the UK (Nomis 2018), with male unemployment only second nationally to the most deprived neighbourhoods of Liverpool. The valley area and socalled East and West Ends of the city had the highest crime rates in the country and chronic problems of poverty and disorder, which reached crisis levels during the 1980s, and whose notoriety culminated in the 1991 Meadow Well and Benwell riots in Newcastle. The large-scale disorder and criminal damage of the riots highlighted the severe social and economic situation of communities throughout Newcastle, and the prevalent community disaffection. In this sense, the onset of new funding throughout the 1990s, starting with the City Challenge and several rounds of the Single Regeneration Budget, was seen as a government response to the urgent needs being faced by Newcastle residents, which had been to some extent failed by the £140  m investment through the Tyne and Wear Development Corporation (TWDC) from 1987 onwards. Historically, the onset of heritage-led regeneration and the establishment of key sites of cultural and leisure activity as a basis for creating dynamic and competitive locations can be traced to a series of early activities in the Ouseburn in the early 1980s. It is notable because of the level

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of local community engagement and activism, which underpinned the work, and in marked contrast to the top-down experience of other areas of Newcastle and other cities at that time. In 1982, Mike Mold bought the 36th building of Lime Street, which has now become the backbone of the Ouseburn Valley Cultural and Creative District. Mold, in collaboration with other third sector agents, occupied the upper part of this building, establishing it as the headquarters of the Bruvvers Theatre Company, and renting the rest of the building to local artists at competitive below-market prices (Ouseburn Trust 2012). Thanks in part to the geographical location of the Ouseburn Valley, near the centre of the city, his idea was well received by the public. Five years later, in 1987, the newly established Ouseburn Working Group (now the Ouseburn Trust and the Ouseburn Futures), led by Rick Anderson, Norman Povey and George Allison, played a pivotal role in developing and gaining strategic support for an economic and social plan for the area which set out priorities for the ‘transformation and rehabilitation’ of the Ouseburn Valley within a wider city context (Ouseburn Trust 2012). This ten-year revitalisation plan prioritised the restoration of the former Toffee Factory and the demolition of local damaged and contaminated spaces (Ouseburn Trust 2018a). Whilst work began modestly, the process of transformation in the area was catalysed with the formation of the Ouseburn Trust, a third sector organisation charged with ‘caring and monitoring the cultural and economic development of the Ouseburn area’. This organisation, initially under the name The Ouseburn Partnership, received £2.5 m of funding in 1997 from a combination of public sources, led by Newcastle City Council.1 In this same year, the first Ouseburn Festival took place in order to encourage and support the development of the area (Ouseburn Trust 2012), and had a transformative effect on the process of change and management in the area, as well as galvanising local support and volunteering. The working team was transferred to number 53 of Lime Street between 2002 and 2005 (now 53–55), and this played a key role in the establishment of the Ouseburn Trust by providing a key site for directing local activism. The responsibility for the management of the Victoria Tunnel was also passed to the de facto Trust in 2011. The Victoria Tunnel, the 1  Under a series of regeneration schemes, funded by government sources including English partnerships (latterly One North East), Single Regeneration Budget and SRB Challenge Fund, English Heritage, TWDC, and Newcastle City Council.

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nineteenth-century Grade II listed colliery waggon way, is the most important historical and industrial heritage site in the Valley and arguably one of the most important heritage sites in the city of Newcastle. Through these early activities, the Ouseburn Valley is recognisable today as a vibrant cultural and creative district, now home to several key cultural sites, including Seven Stories, the National Children’s Library, the Victoria Tunnel, Glasshouse Bridge, the Old Flax Chimney, Star and Shadow Cinema, Holy Biscuit Gallery and creative industries housed in the old Toffee Factory, Northern Print, Digilab and Hoults Yard. We argue that this festival and the early work of the Trust and Bruvvers Theatre Company were a key step in securing activism from unconventional groups in the local area.

Cultural and Creative Districts and the Ouseburn Valley Whilst it is true that Lazzeretti (2008) defines cultural and creative districts as those spaces of a high cultural and creative level where a set of actors use shared resources in order to develop a common project, it is important to note other characteristics highlighted by others authors. Of notable importance are Wansborough and Mageean (2000) who indicate that cultural and creative districts are spaces that usually appear in the centre of urban areas, meaning that they are easily integrated into the urban environment and that their actions have an important impact on their local city through local presence and visibility of activities. This is certainly true of the Ouseburn Valley, whose cultural and creative district is 10–15 minutes’ walking from the city centre of Newcastle (Fig. 9.1). Wansborough and Mageean (2000) go on to note that such districts are typically multi-use environments in which spaces for cultural and leisure consumption appear, alongside sites of cultural production and work environments. As shown in Table  9.1, the Ouseburn Valley is home to both cultural consumption (e.g. local heritage, art gallery and library, restaurant and pub), which fits seamlessly into sites of cultural and creative production (e.g. Northern Print, Toffee Factory creative start-ups). Districts such as the Ouseburn are therefore attractive for diverse audiences and demographic groups with different interests and needs, which we argue has been pivotal in securing local activism from unconventional demographics in the area (see Table 9.1).

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Fig. 9.1  Map of the city centre of Newcastle Upon Tyne (rectangle), which includes the Ouseburn Valley (circle). (Source: Own elaboration from Google Maps 2018)

The characteristics of such spaces also contribute actively to local identity (see Montgomery 2003) through the incorporation of local works or locally produced elements that can reinforce heritage, local values and community roots. There are three notable examples of this in the Ouseburn. Firstly, some projects in the Ouseburn such as ‘The Toffee Factory’ (housing creative industries), the trio of biscuit-based art establishments (The Holy Biscuit, The Biscuit Tin Studios and The Biscuit Factory, the largest independent contemporary art and craft gallery in the UK), The Kiln and Arch2 have used traditional names as a nod to the former industrial use of space in the area. The unconventional retention of industrial names that link with the area’s industrial heritage such as Maynards sweet factory (‘Toffee Factory’) and the Victorian biscuit factory and warehouse (‘Biscuit Factory’ and ‘Biscuit Tin Studios’) are important actions that reinforce heritage and local pride in an area and bring in new groups and actions into artivism. That said, it is interesting to note the practice of selective industrial naming, and the use of more positive aspects of industrial heritage—there are no references, for example, to the area’s links with lard production, animal slaughter and so on. Secondly, there have been concerted efforts to retain elements of industrial activity in the built environment such as sympathetic constructions

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Table 9.1  Cultural production and consumption in the Ouseburn Valley Primary purpose

Organisations

Bar & restaurant

Arch 2 Artisan Cook House Cumberland Arms Pub Ernest Hotel de Vin

Art

Business

Hybrid

Third sector

Target audience

Young, middle-aged Food lovers Food lovers, older demographic Visitors, younger demographic Younger demographic, students Food lovers, executives, luxury demographic The Bake—Lebanese Younger demographic, food lovers The Cluny Pub Younger demographic, students The Free Trade Younger demographic The Kiln Younger demographic The Ship Inn Younger demographic The Tanners Arms Younger demographic The Tyne Bar Younger and middle-aged demographic Biscuit Factory Art lovers, visitors Seven Stories Library & Museum Children, visitors Star & Shadow Cinema Cinema-goers, live music lovers, art lovers The Holy Biscuit—Art Gallery Art lovers, artists, schools, cross-section of public Construct—Bandstand, Music space Proposed Biscuit Tin Studios Art Studios Artists, freelancers Chilli Studios Musicians, mental health groups Cobalt Studios Young artists, crafts, middle-aged Digilab Photography Freelancers, start-ups Hoults Yard Creative workspace, freelancers Toffee Factory Creative workspace, freelancers Chilli Bizarre—Art Café, Gallery Art lovers, visitors, middle-aged Northern Print—Print Studio, Gallery SMEs, art lovers, visitors The Ouseburn Farm—education, café, Children, disability groups, volunteering centre elderly groups, visitors Ouseburn Parks Cross-section local population Blackfriars Church—sports, culture Immigrants, disadvantaged people, families Recycle Your Furniture Crafts and arts groups, green population St Dominic’s Church Religious groups Stepney Bank Stables Younger demographic, visitors The Cycle Hub Younger demographics, sport lovers Victoria Tunnel Cross-section, visitors

Source: Own elaboration

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using former industrial sites and warehouses as, for example, The Kiln, Arch2, The Toffee Factory and The Biscuit Factory. In fact, several interviewees alluded to the ‘huge local effort’ to conserve industrial elements in the landscape, such as the famous chimneys (Fig. 9.2), traditional floor surfaces in Leighton Street and street furniture, at greater local cost. Such attempts have also been noted by the Heritage Lottery Fund and through regional architectural awards, which have been important factors in the continued designation of the area as the Lower Ouseburn Conservation Area and bringing in new people. As two interviewees noted, the Ouseburn Trust has become a key local agent which reports on historical, industrial and heritage value and works with the City Council to defend the conservation area, some of which also sits in a designated wildlife corridor and the Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage Site. The work of Ouseburn Futures and the Ouseburn Trust in developing a CD of oral history (‘Sound bites’) and a photographic archive for wider educational and community use has also been an important activity for

Fig. 9.2  Different industrial chimneys in the Toffee Factory at the Ouseburn

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preserving local activities and history, reinforcing local identity and roots whilst also tied to local value-creation. This is reflected, for example, in the highly successful crowdfunding campaigning and local support for the ‘Construct’ project, which will reinsert a bandstand into the local area and revitalise the space between the arches of the viaduct; bringing the viaduct into the centre of activities in the area. The project also entails a reinterpretation of a Victorian musical kiosk (involving the two universities in the city: Newcastle University and Northumbria University). Thus, it is an indication of the extent of local support and value being created through local conservation and activism in the Valley. Thirdly, there have been several attempts to use local artists and businesses in local activities, which have heightened the visibility of local works in the community whilst also reinforcing local ownership. For example, local artists (Hannah Scully, Luke Sellars, Danny McConway, Ernie Paxto) have been active in painting local street furniture and bollards, whilst other projects have created murals on local buildings (Fig.  9.3), which have ­provided the Valley with its own identity, whilst also becoming a local features in their own right.

Fig. 9.3  Local bollards and murals

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Cultural and Creative Districts as Spaces for Activism Citizen engagement is key to the development of activism (Schwartz 2017) and, in this sense, cultural and creative districts are environments in which diverse and, to some extent, unconventional agents can develop local activities to strengthen their local commitment. These activities developed at a local level can scale their effects at national and supranational levels, meaning that local effects can be mainstreamed to have a wider impact (see Schuler 2008). However, it should be noted that activism does not always stand for the activists’ actions (Permanent Culture Now 2018). Participation in cultural districts such as the Ouseburn Valley—whether as local resident, as consumer, as producer—can create unintentional activists, that transform the local environment unconsciously. Geddes (1915) makes the point that activism is concerted, with an emphasis on doing, with the notion that actions exerted at the local level will have effects at a global level. As such, activism is about concerted action to improve the political and economic situation of the district in which they are developed, and also help to build local identity and a sense of belonging to the local community (Brain 2004). In other words, whilst local action might contribute to local activism, it cannot be considered as activism unless preconceived as a concerted politically motivated action and raises the issue of when grassroots action becomes ‘doing activism’ (Boebel 2007). Whilst the Ouseburn Valley is often cited as an exemplar of local activism, there are many activist actors that play a role, both consciously and unconsciously. These range from companies, to institutions, foundations and other types of charities made up of volunteers. Whilst diverse, all of them, have developed a series of activities that in the long term, have managed to revitalise the previously deteriorating and decaying urban area of the Valley, and in doing so improved levels of satisfaction in employment, social inclusion, cultural diversity and sustainability. The cultural and creative district of the Ouseburn Valley stands as a space in which the voice of each citizen has a place and in which each of them can develop their projects equally, thus making the cultural economic level of the city to grow. This district has managed to involve those sections of the population that have often been seen as less visible or out-of-reach such as the elderly, immigrants and disabled people, and this according to Matarasso (1997)

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will help to foster an increase in social cohesion. There are three types of actors or activists in the Ouseburn Valley that warrant further discussion, and are framed as mini case studies or unconventional activists. Actor 1: Ouseburn Trust and the Involvement of Older Volunteers The Ouseburn Trust is a charity formed by locals and based at the centre of the Ouseburn Valley. It is in charge of ensuring diversity, social inclusion and sustainability in the district and connecting all those actors who work in it. The Ouseburn Trust was first mooted in 1993 from the concern of a group of citizens for the care and development of the Ouseburn Valley and was consolidated in 1996 as a limited company and later as a registered charity (Cross 2016). The Trust has pursued the mixed-use regeneration of the Valley as an urban village and the preservation of its heritage. Besides, it has the main objective of making the City Council take decisions which would take into account the citizens’ needs. It stands as a system of cultural governance that promotes and adopts inclusive, participatory and representative decisions. Also, it fosters a participatory planning approach, which as UNESCO notes is critical in the sustainable development of a cultural district (UNESCO 2005). This was reinforced in an interview in which one of the interviewees indicated that ‘the greatest attributes of the Trust was in its ability to “manage” culturally and creatively the sustainable development of the district’, and through these actions could be rightly seen as an activist (Interviewee 1). In addition, the Trust develops a wide variety of activities, some of which are seen as less conventional community or arts activities. These range from the responsible and sustainable management of a large part of the Ouseburn Valley’s spaces, to the administration of the Victoria Tunnel, one of the City’s significant attractions. Likewise, the Ouseburn Trust is responsible for the development of a fund and a historical archive that collects, gathers and researches the local history of the district, and which is disclosed through talks, tours and publications. In order to ensure the cultural and social diversity of the district, the Ouseburn Trust offers a wide range of activities, which involve different demographic groups. For example, visits to the Victoria Tunnel are designed for families, schools and the adult public, making the same heritage element attractive to different audiences by offering different activity programmes. The Ouseburn Trust has also prioritised intra-generational equality, and made the unusual

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Fig. 9.4  Local tours. (Source: Lesley Turner, Admin & Communications Officer, Ouseburn Trust)

step of prioritising older demographics in leading the association; allowing them to express and narrate their experiences and memories in the area through the organisation of conferences and tours offered weekly. In them, the oldest local public and retirees can regain enthusiasm and feel useful by leading a group of different visitors willing to learn from them (Fig. 9.4). Actor 2: The Ouseburn Farm The Ouseburn Farm was established in 1976 by a group of locals in the heart of the Ouseburn Valley district as a charitable foundation supported by anonymous donations from local citizens and companies. It is a space where animals are raised but also stands as a farm school where children can learn about nature and animal husbandry. The farm has a cafeteria-­ restaurant, which develops programmes to support a wide range of disability groups, including sheltered work opportunities for those with learning disabilities. As one interviewee who works at the farm notes, ‘the

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farm provides a fantastic opportunity to integrate and support local people, who might otherwise be excluded from a typical cultural and creative district’ (Interviewee 2). In this way, the farm space and wider valley offer a clear example of a sustainable micro-environment in which all actors are involved in a win-win situation. Disability groups receive additional support from the farm and valley, whilst the visibility of disabilities in the district creates an inclusive environment, which serves to educate and transform perceptions of disability with other groups accessing other cultural attractions, especially younger demographics. The positioning of a farm in the heart of a thriving cultural and creative district is unconventional in many respects. Activist 3: Chilli Studios and Chilli Bizarre Chilli Studios, formerly known as Newcastle and Gateshead Art Studio (NAGAS), provides a number of creative services and opportunities for people who are experiencing mental health issues or other factors that may lead to social exclusion. In this sense, its team of creative professionals and support workers aim to engage people creatively through different art forms, to promote their inclusion, develop their skills and help them build resilience and well-being. Chilli Bizarre, as a spin-out, is an ethical art café where artists from Chilli Studios can display and sell their work. All profits are fed back into Chilli Studios to support their charitable mission in offering a safe artistic space for their community of artists, musicians and makers. As with the Ouseburn Farm, Chilli Studios and Chilli Bizarre promote the social inclusion of hard-to-reach groups by using arts to develop skills and well-­ being and to promote social dialogue between these groups and the wider community, and in this way play an active role in securing unconventional groups and activities into a mainstream cultural district.

The Value in the District Brand and Its Brand Notoriety Looking now at the Valley’s image, it is possible to interpret recent activities in the district as a type of brand-refresh and place marketing activity. In business, a brand image generates a unique set of ideas and feelings in people it is aimed at. To retain a competitive edge, larger companies ­periodically modify or completely replace (refresh) their brand through

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changes to images, relaunch and so on. In urban areas, the same processes are used as part of wider place marketing campaigns and city rebranding exercises. Glasgow’s ‘Miles Better’ campaign in 1982 was used as a deliberate rebranding exercise by Struthers Advertising to re-imagineer Glasgow as a destination for tourism, visitors and investment, and was arguably one of the world’s earliest and most successful city rebranding exercises, which changed the public’s consciousness of Glasgow away from football hooliganism and alcohol abuse to an appealing cosmopolitan city. District rebranding can have a number of benefits on the ground. Firstly, competition between urban places to attract new investment, visitors and even residents has led to a mainstreaming of branding and place marketing as part of regeneration strategies, and is a critical response to the emergence of ‘identikit’ cities, visitor destinations and even cultural districts, as a hegemonic urban renewal model. In these cases, additional branding activities are used to highlight unique selling points of a locality to an aspirational group. They are also an acknowledgement of the role of ‘civic boosterism’ (Logan and Molotch 1987) and the role of investing in the aesthetics of an area to rebrand and to draw in further interest and investment. In many ways, rebranding acts as a means of refreshing the public’s feeling about a locality and to reinvent itself as a viable proposition—a safe and welcoming place. For example, Barcelona’s place marketing ahead of the 1992 Summer Olympics focused on the perception of the beach area of the city as safe and appealing places of interest, which were used also to open up new products to locals as much as they were visitors, for example, beaches. In that sense and again drawing on Barcelona, careful rebranding can play a role in engendering civic pride and in uniting a city or group of people around a public project or locality and engendering a sense of local ownership and pride. Barcelona’s place marketing activities around the introduction of a new (local) verb ‘Ravalejar’ (Ravalear in Spanish) to highlight changes in the character of the once notorious and seedy Raval District speaks of attempts to reassert pride in an area without losing any of its identity and personality, whilst at the same time, opening it up to a new demographic cohort. In other words, it is being used as an unconventional activity to bring in new users. District rebranding in this sense is used as part of the repertoire of actions in urban regeneration to help discard negative imagery of a specific locale or industrial past. Whereas industrial areas were once framed as outputs of the past and seen as sites of ‘wicked problems’ (Rittel and Webber 1973) connected to severe economic and social deprivation, high levels of

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crime and unrest, vandalism and public disorder, pollution and a lack of civic amenities, they are now branded as resources for the future—for residents, for visitors, for investors. In the Ouseburn, rebranding and revitalisation are framed as the primary routes for enabling social change and fostering pride and activism in an area, which have brought in new, often unconventional, demographics into grassroots action. In the Ouseburn Valley, there are some clear uses of rebranding and place marketing in recent developments of the cultural and creative district, some of which could be cited as unconventional cultural activities ties to community activism. The use of industrial names, retention of industrial features in local architecture and reuse of spaces, and even the use of historical and industrial activities in new events and spectacles (e.g. festivals, Victorian kiosks, bandstands), and archiving activities (e.g. oral histories and photographic archives) serve to transform the perception of a once-dangerous area. On the one hand, these examples have been cited as exemplars of community activity, with wider engagement of the local people but on the other have acted as the main tool for securing activism, including local volunteering and financing. As one interviewee at Chilli Studios, the redeveloped business space in the Valley remarks ‘this kind of place gives me a sense of meaning and value in life … it makes me proud of living in a city like this’ (Interviewee 4). It is interesting to note that since April 2018, the Ouseburn Trust has focused on the revival of the use of the ‘Ouseburn brand’, in part spurred by the marketing activities of the City Council, but also to denote a sense of local ownership. The logo (Fig. 9.5), comprising an ‘O’, has been inter-

Fig. 9.5  Logo from the Ouseburn Valley and its variation to ‘Made in the Ouseburn’ campaign. (Source: Ouseburn Trust 2018b)

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preted differently by local people, and resonates with different perceptions of the area—from a paintbrush stroke for artists, a coffee ring (or beer) for those who use local pubs and cafés or denoting the sound of delight when people discover the Valley. As the Trust states, ‘it brings us all together and we invite you to use it to declare your allegiance to the Valley’ (Ouseburn Trust 2018b, p. 1). The Ouseburn Trust’s campaign, ‘Made in Ouseburn’, is as much about selling local activism to the local population as it is about celebrating local successes: Ouseburn has a long history of making things—starting with glass then pottery, canvas, lead, engines, toffee… The evidence is still all around us in the buildings and the names, even if re-used for other purposes now. And it is still in many ways a working valley making an amazing variety of things—all sorts of art, beer, websites, furniture, music, bread … but often not easily visible to visitors and passers-by. Over the summer we’d like to showcase as many of the things currently being Made in Ouseburn as we can fit into our Victoria Tunnel Visitor Centre (55 Lime Street) as a free exhibition. (Ouseburn Trust 2018b)

In some cities, place re/branding has created sites of contestation because marketing essentially changes the character and feel (in some cases transmorphs the geography) of a place, leading to cultural-led gentrification and a new incoming population. It can be difficult to create a brand that convinces every stakeholder—residents, locals, tourists, companies, foundations, institutions, investors, and so on—each with different perceptions and aspirations of an area, and yet in Ouseburn, the logo is being adopted by cross-sections of the local population. The logo and place marketing of the area has brought with it a unity of approach and a legitimation of local redevelopment and activism. Meanwhile, other parts of renewal in the city, for example, Grange Town, have resulted in local developers being at odds with the local population. From the interviews with local people, the redevelopment of the Ouseburn into a creative and cultural district is reigniting a sense of local pride in the local area. Thus, this activity is enhancing and enriching, rather than removing value from the local area. That said the redevelopment of the Ouseburn as a site of investment by external agencies represents the next stage in the process, which may incur different value sets.

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Conclusions Several aspects of the Ouseburn Valley have been highlighted as being untypical of creative and cultural districts found in other parts of the creative economy and discussed in the mainstream policy and academic literature. The location of a farm and the inclusion of unconventional demographic groups such as older volunteers, individuals with learning and physical disabilities, and those with mental health issues are seldom positioned at the centre of a thriving creative and cultural district as has been done in the Ouseburn Valley. Local ownership and financing of unconventional cultural activities, such as murals, local street furniture, archives, bandstands and Victorian kiosks, speak of local pride and identity in the area, but also a sense of collective action, found in local activism literature. Drawing on Martin (2007), we argue here that what is being presented in the Ouseburn amounts to (non-violent) form of activism that ‘goes beyond conventional behaviour’ as much as it does local revitalisation and brings with it inherent local value. As such, we argue that arts-­ based activism in the Ouseburn not only has led to creative reuse and urban conversion of a former industrial landscape, but also has acted as a principal catalyst and conduit for broader economic, political and social changes by local activists, which draws on Brain’s (2004) understanding of activism as an ‘everyday act of defiance’ tied to local identity and social progress (see Baumgardner and Richards 2000). As such, we argue that these sorts of activities taking place in the Ouseburn represent both cultural-­led regeneration and also represent legitimate forms of ‘being an activist’ and ‘doing activism’ in a contemporary context. Both provide inherent value to local people. Supporting cultural and creative districts as spaces for the development of activism helps to transform cultural policies, defend the rights of artists, give a voice to civil society, stimulate the exportation of cultural goods and services, promote digital arts and even formulate a national culture plan (UNESCO 2005, p. 5). We identify three prominent forms of activism in the Ouseburn Valley: 1. Many activities in the Ouseburn can be identified as being ‘non-­ violent activism’ because they are designed to change society without violent means. Several activities prioritised by the Ouseburn Trust target marginalised groups and seek to provide support and central involvement in the district by these groups, using a variety of public and private funding channels.

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2. As outlined in Table 9.2, several activities developed in the Ouseburn Valley can be recognised as taking the form of social activism (based on inclusion of marginalised groups), health activism (based on inclusion of people with mental or physical issues), ‘artivism’ (based on promoting art, culture and young artists) and environmental activism (related to green spaces and their promotion). 3. Several activities found in the Valley have effects, which can be scaled up or have ‘repercussions’ in the city in which it is inserted by generating wider economic, social and environmental benefits for Newcastle Upon Tyne (see McCarthy 2005). What has been presented in the Ouseburn Valley is a space with direct cultural and creative value, primarily economic and social in nature, and typical of former industrial spaces with a new creative and cultural use. What is also presented in the Ouseburn case study is a creative and cultural district with wider social value, used as a site for local activism, enabling local change and bringing together unconventional activities and groups. In this sense, the Ouseburn Valley is as a space in which integration and Table 9.2  Activists in the Ouseburn Valley Entity

Main activity developed

Kind of activism developed

Chilli Studios

Art and music studio space

Cobalt Studios

Studio space

Northern Print

Print working studio workshop and not-for-profit gallery Farm school and cafeteria-restaurant. Activities of work insertion, volunteering and work with disabled people. Green area Volunteering and cultural and environmental activities Craft & Arts. Green area

Social activism Health activism Social activism ‘Artivism’ ‘Artivism’

The Ouseburn Farm The Ouseburn Trust Recycle Your Furniture Seven Stories

Library and museum

St. Dominic’s Religious space, church Church The Holy Biscuit Art Gallery

Social activism Health activism Environmental activism Social activism Environmental activism Environmental activism Social activism Health activism Social activism Social activism

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social cohesion, equality and the dissemination of democratic and social values ​​are supported (Larrañaga Rubio 2016, p.  126). Different actors, whether local businesses, marginalised groups or stakeholders, are being transformed into activists who coordinate a range of health and social activism through everyday acts of defiance, creating new social and economic value and change in a community (UNESCO 2014, p. 30).

References Baumgardner, J., & Richards, A. (2000). Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future. New York: Farror, Strauss and Giroux. Boebel, C. (2007). I’m Not an Activist, through I’ve Done a Lot of It. Doing Activism, Being Activist and No ‘Perfect Standard’ in a Contemporary Movement. Social Movement Studies, 6(2), 147–159. Brain, D. (2004). Placemaking and Community Building [Oral Presentation]. University of Miami School of Architecture. Florida, March, 2014. Cross, D. (2016). Ouseburn Trust. A Short Story. Retrieved from www.ouseburntrust.org.uk/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=ab2b173c-724e-472a-8ff1a422cacfe297. Geddes, P. (1915). Cities in Evolution. New York: Harper. Hill, K. A., & Hughes, J. E. (1998). Cyberpolitics: Citizen Activism in the Age of the Internet. London: Rowman and Littlefield. Larrañaga Rubio, J. (2016). Las industrias creativas en los Países Nórdicos y en España. In K. Baggethun, J. Larrañaga Rubio, & J. J. Fernández-Sanz (Eds.), Crisis Económica e implantación de la Sociedad de la Información (pp. 124–144). Salamanca: Comunicación Social. Lazzeretti, L. (2008). El distrito cultural. In V. Soler (Coord.), Los distritos industriales (pp. 327–351). Almería: Fundación Caja Mar. Logan, J. R., & Molotch, H. L. (1987). Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place. London: The University of California Press. Martin, B. (2007). Activism, Social and Political. In G. L. Anderson & K. G. Herr (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Justice (pp.  19–27). Thousand Oaks: Sage. Matarasso, F. (1997). Use or Ornament? The Social Impact of Participation in the Arts. Stroud: Comedia. McCarthy, J. (2005). Promoting Image and Identity in ‘Cultural Quarters’: The Case of Dundee. Local Economy, 20(3), 280–293. Montgomery, J. (2003). Cultural Quarters as Mechanisms for Urban Regeneration. Planning Institute of Australia National Congress, 31 March–2 April. NOMIS. (2018). Official Labour Market Statistics of 1987. Retrieved from www. nomisweb.co.uk.

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Norris, A. (2002). Democratic Phoenix. Reinventing Political Activism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nossel, S. (2016). Artivism or Arts Utility in Activism. Social Research: An International Quarterly, 83(1), 103–105. Ouseburn Trust. (2012). A Celebration of 30 Years of Ouseburn Regeneration. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Northern Design. Ouseburn Trust. (2018a). Our Story. Retrieved from www.ouseburntrust.org.uk/ our-story. Ouseburn Trust. (2018b). Ouseburn Valley News. The Newsletter of the Ouseburn Trust | April 2018. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Ouseburn Trust. Permanent Culture Now. (2018). Introduction to Activism. Retrieved from www. permanentculturenow.com/what-is-activism. Rittel, H.  W. J., & Webber, M.  M. (1973). Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning. Policy Sciences, 4, 155–169. Roselló, P., & Wright, S. (Eds.). (2010). Guía práctica para mapear las Industrias Creativas. London: British Council: Unidad de Economía Creativa. Schuler, D. (2008). Liberating Voices: A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Schwartz, J. (2017). Politically Active? 4 Tips for Incorporating Self-Care. U.S.  News. Retrieved from www.health.usnews.com/health-care/for-better/ articles/2017-02-27/politically-active-4-tips-for-incorporating-self-care. Tarrow, S. (2005). The New Transnational Activism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. UNESCO. (2005). Invertir en creatividad. Tranformar las sociedades. Programa de Desarrollo de Capacidades de la Convención de 2005. Paris: Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD). UNESCO. (2014). Informe sobre la economía creativa. Edición Especial 2013. Ampliar los caunces de Desarrollo Local. Paris: PNUD. UNESCO. (2016). Cultura, futuro urbano. Informe Mundial sobre la Cultura para el Desarrollo Sostenible. Paris: PNUD. Wansborough, M., & Mageean, A. (2000). The Role of Urban Design in Cultural Regeneration. Journal of Urban Design, 5(2), 181–197. Zoran, P. (2011). Spaces of Democracy: Art, Politics and Artivism in Post-Socialist City. Romanian Political Science Review, 11(4), 1551–1582.

CHAPTER 10

Silent Design and the Business Value of Creative Ideas David Heap and Caroline Coles

Introduction In Chap. 3, the value of the design industry was noted as being especially valuable in an economic context in the UK. Generating £85.2 bn in wealth in 2016, growing around 5 per cent per year and accounting for 99.6 per cent of all new jobs (Design Council 2018), design has become synonymous with value creation in the cultural and creative economy. Benton et al. (2018) make the point that the influence of ‘design’ goes well beyond the creative industries into, for example, the aerospace and automotive industries, banking and other professional services, implying that design is integral to the future economy (see Design Council 2017), as well as being integral to value creation more broadly across the economy, in which it now accounts for seven per cent of all wealth as measured by Gross Value Added (GVA). To some extent, this is reflected in the per capita wealth of designD. Heap (*) De Montfort University, Leicester, UK e-mail: [email protected] C. Coles Aston University, Birmingham, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Granger (ed.), Value Construction in the Creative Economy, Palgrave Studies in Business, Arts and Humanities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_10

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ers—an average of £50,328 in 2017—which exceeds other areas of accountancy and finance, and which typically dominate sector analyses in the UK (see Design Council 2018, p. 6). In this chapter, we reflect on why design is so valuable to the creative economy and indeed most economic sectors, as well as problematising the dilemmas that are presented by the design industry where idiosyncratic behaviour of design processes and design working jar with mainstream schema for valorising creativity or design in the work place. In this chapter and drawing on the case example of (furniture) design, the tensions between the notion of ‘Silent Design’ and that of the more commercially orientated ‘intellectual property’ are exposed and discussed. The chapter begins by exploring the historical evolution of the design industry in the UK before examining the economic imperatives of design processes. The case example of furniture design is drawn upon to underscore the tacit, subtle and often multiplex characteristics of design functions and design working, which are framed as pivotal to the success of design in the UK, but in more commercial respects sit uncomfortably within a mainstream value framework presented through price and intellectual property. As we conclude, the dominance of design-led value creation in a contemporary context calls for more suitable proxies of value creation and more nuanced apparatus and research techniques.

The UK Design Industry The UK has a long history of design, which stretches back over centuries, but its formal recognition and value has been more recent through the formalisation of the National Council for Industrial Design, established by Churchill in 1944. The Council became an important source of public pride in UK cultural design, and in the post-war period, as an important stimulant for national investment. By the 1970s and early 1980s, there was a renewed economic interest in British design as a key factor driving innovation in businesses, and by extension in building commercial competitiveness at a time of national manufacturing decline (see Corfield 1979), drawing remarkable similarities with the celebration of design by both Churchill in 1944 and later Tony Blair’s ‘Cool Britannia’ (1997). Amongst other things, Corfield’s report emphasised the importance of design to adding value to products, which he defined in terms of technical performance, styling, reliability, durability, safety and ease of use/maintenance (see Walsh et al. 1992). Corfield framed these added value elements of design as ‘quality issues’, arguing that companies who concentrated on

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quality (cf. ­ quantity/mass production) would meet customer requirements more successfully and thus be more competitive in the long run. Corfield’s statements draw similarities with the Finniston Report (UK, 1980; see also Williams 2007) which although concerned primarily with the state of the British engineering profession (in transition) also highlighted the positive economic impacts of design-led innovation leading to a seminar held by Margaret Thatcher, the then prime minister at Downing Street in 1982. Under the banner of ‘Product Design and Market Success’, a wide range of successful British designers, captains of industry, educationalists and government ministers considered and promoted British design, with Thatcher (1982a, b) arguing ‘British competitiveness would never extend globally if it forgot the importance of good design’: By ‘design’ I do not just mean ‘appearance’. I mean all the engineering and industrial design which goes into a product from the idea stage to the production stage, and which is so important in ensuring that it works, that it is reliable, that it is good value, and that it looks good. In short, it is good design which makes people buy products and which gives products a good name. It is essential to the future of our industry. (Thatcher 1982b)

Thatcher’s use of design as a key industrial tool resonates with the New Labour Government of 1997–2010, under Tony Blair, and its use of creative industries (‘Cool Britannia’) as a strident policy area, in which ‘design’ and the ‘creative economy’ co-evolved. Whilst Churchill and Thatcher had both framed design as a key policy vector for growing the economy in the national interest (a feature also present during 1997–2003), the new Labour Government for the first time drew wider public interest in the value creation associated with other nebulous and hidden aspects of arts and culture, arguing that these should be part of the mainstream and emerging new economy (see DCMS 2001). In practice, the new Labour approach was an intensification of Thatcher’s policies developed throughout the 1980s, but the explicit promotion of ‘design thinking’ as a valuable and new aspect of the economy from 1997 onwards reflects a new attitudinal approach to its role and a move away from engineering value into objects towards value potential in a wider range of activities, especially services. In collaboration with the Design Council (formerly Council of Industrial Design, and named The Design Centre from 1956), the New Labour Government launched an initiative in the form of a competition,

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to find the best of British design, which would come to furnish the Millennium Dome in London from 2000. Of the 4000 or so products and services entered into the competition, 1012 were ultimately awarded the coveted ‘Millennium Product Status’ and promoted as exemplary British designs. As Blair stated: These are world-beating designs that will help improve the quality of our lives and give economy the edge over our competitors. (Blair 1998)

Utterback et al. (2006) note in their research that only 19 per cent of the companies awarded the Millennium Product Status had an in-house designer, a design team, or engaged a consultant designer. In other words, 81 per cent of the products and services promoted as the best of British design were in fact not designed by designers. This is all the more remarkable given the shift in thinking at this time towards ‘Design Management’ and the primacy of design within business—involving communication between the different departments in an organisation (e.g. production, finance, marketing, sales) to synthesise design information from the inception of a product through to its eventual completion (see Jerrard and Hands 2008). Although often seen as suffering somewhat from a perceived lack of clarity in definition,1 the philosophies of design management from the 1980s onwards were nonetheless championed by the Design Management Unit of the London Business School through a series of influential lectures and seminars by Peter Gorb. Gorb was a firm believer in the strategic importance of design (management) and saw the structured control of design in organisations as a vital and frequently underutilised resource that adds value to a business (see Jerrard and Hands 2008). For example, Peter Gorb and Angela Dumas investigated the ‘organisational place of design’ from 1987 onwards, in which their main objective was to reach beyond anecdotal evidence surrounding best practice in design, and discover what constituted design as ‘general practice’. Their research was seminal in discovering: ‘all aspects of the business where design is utilised’ and identified how the ‘enterprise organises itself to make best use of design’ (Gorb and Dumas, 1987, p.  151); in doing so beginning to understand how the

1  Oxymoronically, design is often seen as an unstructured and risky practice, whereas management is based on control and predictability.

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activities of design flow between, and receive input from, the various people and departments in a firm. Working within their own narrow working definition of design as, ‘a course of action for the development of an artefact or a system of artefacts, including the series of organisational activity required to achieve that development’ (ibid., p.  151) (reflecting their assumption that product development pervades industrial organisations), Gorb and Dumas were concerned with the development of a series of design matrices in case study companies, which highlighted the role of covert activities. These covert activities or ‘silent design’ as they termed them, are seen as actions within an organisation that are not called design and are carried out by individuals who are not considered designers. Gorb and Dumas noted silent design as staff (often middle managers in larger firms) undertaking certain activities unaware of their importance to overall design and product development. Interestingly, Gorb and Dumas surmised that these individuals often made decisions viewed as more appropriate and important to the design process than those of the actual designers. The relatively uncomplicated realisation by Gorb and Dumas that much design in companies was undertaken by ‘non-designers’ has been further explored over the years, and provides a context in the following section, which explores some key developments in the understanding of who does design in businesses.

Silent Design in Business Early recognition of something analogous to silent design was noted by Walsh (1996) who recounts research undertaken in the early 1980s (see Walsh and Roy 1983). When interviewing manufacturers about design activities, some organisations made quite positive statements about their lack of design efforts. ‘We don’t do design’ was one response recorded, qualified with an explanation that sketches of potential products were often informally prepared (‘on the back of a cigarette packet’) and then developed by a range of shop floor workers who would essentially decide the shape, size, form, material and manufacturing process of the product (ibid.)—a non-linear, collective effort, not wholly silent, but certainly not recognised as design activity. By the late 1990s, Walsh began to align his thoughts on silent design around the definitions of Gorb and Dumas and included a few ideas that expanded its characterisations. Firstly, he saw silent design as design centred activities that were often undertaken by

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staff developing and contributing to product ideas in their own time (something defined latterly as ‘Bootlegging’). Furthermore, Walsh felt silent designers were frequently staff that were highly qualified and committed to design, but their time to work on design ideas was constrained by their managerial duties. By 2003, Bruce Tether (2003) observed that silent design was ‘widespread’ in companies, even for companies that have been awarded prizes for their exemplary, well designed products. Tether’s research revealed that nearly a quarter of the award-winning companies investigated stated they had no in-house design staff or design team, nor engaged consultant designers when developing new products. As he noted, these companies lacked professional design input, yet still managed to produce praiseworthy products. Tether went on to define two more possible areas of design in the business, which he saw as influencing product development: 1. Subordinate Design, which conveys an explicit design influence, recognised by designers, but existing as a subsidiary function, for example, within Research and Development or Marketing. 2. Designed Focused activities in a business, which sees designers separate from other functions but nevertheless have equal status to other departments. Tether’s ‘locations/types of design’ within an organisation reveal that design ideas can originate from many sources; the initial product ‘vision’ is influenced by many people along its developmental journey, silent designers amongst them. However, only some of these people will be rewarded, or even, credited for their input; a point we discuss later in the chapter. Whilst Tether’s research was aimed specifically at large production companies, the work of Moultrie et  al. (2007) was concerned with smaller firms. They noted that whilst there was strong evidence of the importance of good design to companies, it was apparent that design skills were often marginalised in small and medium-sized firms (p. 335), and evidence of completion of design activities by staff ‘with no training or aptitude in design’ (p.  357). This marginalisation, which frequently leads to silent designing, is often a symptom of ‘design illiteracy’ or immaturity, within smaller organisations which is often characterised by an over emphasis on engineering, internally sourced marketing information and unfounded

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prejudices towards design, combined with tradition-based beliefs of some managers about how to make things (ibid.). Although there is persuasive evidence to suggest that when developing existing and new products, an ‘integrated’ design approach (a resource that links, directs and supports disparate specialisms in the organisation) is desirable for competitive advantage, Stevens et  al. (2009) argue that in practice, the ‘dis-integration’ of design activities within SMEs contribute to ‘the myriad factors, which impede or diminish the effective strategic exploitation of design’. To highlight the dis-integration of design in firms, Stevens et al. proposed two themes which align with the concept of marginalisation of design whilst supporting the notion of silent design: 1. Partial Design, employed to a limited degree for such things as superficial styling or communicating through marketing and branding; and 2. Disparate Design, a non-holistic approach to design within the firm where design is widespread but not co-ordinated in any effective way to realise synergistic potential. The marginalisation of design along with the dis-integration of design activities in firms (partial and disparate design included) has been seen by some theorists as evidence that design in organisations is nearly always undervalued, frequently neglected and regularly seen as unimportant. For example, the abstruse and capricious nature of design has remained despite transformation in information and communication technologies and the advent of web-based innovation and product development (see Candi 2009). Open source systems, social media interactions, electronic design templates and crowdsourcing activities have meant that in certain fields of design the responsibility, management and ultimate ownership of ideas and designs has become increasingly vague. It could be argued then, that silent design has become even more inaudible. The corollary of these new ways of designing is the possible inaccurate and unwitting, ‘normalisation’ of design through design tools that include speculative templates and defaults, which in time become accepted design practice (Candi 2009). In other words, a fifth-hand form of designing that is markedly removed from the professional designer and consequently the ownership of ideas becomes more tenuous. Contemporary research has begun to push the notion of silent design far beyond the design ‘space’ considered by Gorb and Dumas (op cit.)

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with for example, Brøgger and Jevnaker (2014) expanding the idea of what constitutes design in two further ways: (1) how design is done and (2) where it can take place. Brøgger and Jevnaker use the term ‘waremaking’ to frame the expanse of influences that ultimately lead to the realisation of a ‘ware’ or product. The authors see waremaking as not only machine-made things, but also critically items that incorporate physical interaction; something akin to Craft, where designing and making blur. This leads to things that are richly ‘personalised’ and thus, in some way, bare the mark of the maker, not only physically but also tacitly (or silently). Moreover, Brøgger and Jevnaker see the design space as being well beyond the design studio or design department. Not unlike Heap (2008) who witnesses casual, but highly important, design-centred ideas and information being circulated around businesses through the ‘corridor conversations’ of employees, which echoes the research of Brøgger and Jevnaker who frequently witnessed non-designer interactions, daily experimentation, conjecture and backstage conversations in and between design projects. Further still, the authors include wholesale, retailing, product demonstrating and selling in their sphere of design input, along with the manipulation of the design space, noting: designing happens whenever someone (re)arranges and (re)configures particular premises or problem settings, performance and/or solution settings or otherwise takes action to change some forms and formatting and content into something else. (Brøgger and Jevnaker 2014, p. 128)

Brøgger and Jevnaker go on to state that ‘taken-for-grantedness’ of actions that are an implicit part of designing, along with ‘waremaking’ and the manipulation of design spaces means a designed thing is always the consequence of many seen and unseen actions. As such, more layers of ownership are draped over that ‘thing’, making it increasingly difficult to see where the credit for it lies. Recent researchers looking into silent design seem to have convoluted the notion and perhaps even misinterpreted its central characteristics; perhaps in an attempt to say something different. For instance, Shams and Lam (2016) and Grana et  al. (2018) position silent design as a purposeful, managed way for some firms to do design, and go to some lengths to rationalise the pros and cons of adopting a particular design strategy—seen or silent. Yet such thinking seems to at once overlook the essential features of silent design, that is, it is unseen,

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unsought and silent designers are unaware of their influence on designs (Heap 2008). Having presented in this section a brief overview of how the notion of silent design has evolved, an examination of silent design in empirical practice reveals a number of issues, which are considered in the context of value creation in practice in the remainder of the chapter.

Silent Design and Value Creation in Practice As already observed, design in industry, that is, the thinking, communications and actions of design agency, does not occur in a vacuum; rather it manifests in dynamic and often unpredictable environments where it is mediated by prior knowledge, tacit understanding and unseen, even enigmatic, design input. To further illuminate how this ‘randomness’ of design practice can occur in companies, and in turn attempt to illustrate who may be responsible for ideas and design input, the following section relates empirical observations of design activities, seen and silent, within a case study furniture manufacturer. With 85 employees and annual turnover of c.£5 million in 2007, Company A, a furniture manufacturing company was well-established in the UK’s furniture design/manufacture sector. Although having a product catalogue containing over a hundred designs, the firm regularly took on bespoke jobs. The company was large enough to require a design manager, a marketing team, finance and technical managers and a substantial shop floor workforce comprising woodworkers, machinists, metal fabricators and upholsterers. These teams and workers were duly supported by the sales, purchasing, quality control and transport departments. Most of the commentary related here comes directly from observations and semi-­ structured interviews with company managers, as well as anecdotal evidence collected over the months of conversations and interactions with the company’s staff. These observations were undertaken as part of a wider investigation into the characteristics of design knowledge and a company’s capacity to locate, disseminate and manage design information as discussed by Heap (2008). Three groups of workers in the company are presented to illustrate the diverse and seemingly unconnected areas where design ideas can emanate, framed hereafter as (1) the Makers; (2) the Quality Controllers; and (3) the Purchasers.

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(1) The Makers—the factory shop floor staff, the people in the firm that machined parts, assembled components and finished-off ‘show’ wood, upholstery and fittings were frequently making adjustments to furniture designs. The motivation for these changes varied; sometimes changes made assembly easier, other times adjustments were made to ease the processes of manufacture, and on some occasions, changes and adjustments were made because the original design did not work. On one occasion, an order for several chairs that had not been produced for some years came in to the company. The shop floor staff set about machining components, reactivating the original jigs that helped assemble the components and prepare the finishing items. Midway through assembling the first chair, the process came to a sudden halt; some components would not fit together. Several attempts to re-machine parts of the chair had no effect; when the components were placed in the jig, they would not align to the point they could be fixed in place. The solution to the problem came about through a casual corridor conversation with a member of the transport team. Several years earlier, this employee had worked on the shop floor and recalled making this particular chair. What is more, he remembered the same problem of component non-alignment, with the problem lying with the assembly jig, which had not been made correctly. To overcome the problem, the assemblers took a hammer to the jig and knocked parts of it into shape every time it was used, so that the components aligned and the chair could be made. The solution was never communicated to the design team, so the problem persisted until the next time the chair was to be made. This manipulation of the jig had resulted in changing the way the chair was produced, but probably more significantly, had resulted in a slight change in the chair’s aesthetic. As one employee notes ‘shop floor staff knew they were making adjustments to the design but never considered it especially significant’—‘it just kept things moving on’. Moreover, these modifications took place unseen by the company’s managers. (2) The Quality Controllers—Similar design adjustments were revealed through observations of, and discussions with, the quality control supervisor in Company A’s upholstery department. The supervisor described how he frequently instructed the upholsterers to make changes to the way in which items of furniture were upholstered. His instructions were based on practical issues as well as aesthetics based on experience: ‘I have an eye for what looks best and know how to finish off’. He rationalised his instructions and adjustments through his belief that the design specifications he received often, ‘left a great deal of information un-specified’, and

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felt his job was to ‘interpret many of the design specifications and complete the design’ as he saw appropriate. However, as with the shop floor workers, he rarely, if at all, conveyed his adjustments back to the design team so they could be used on future furniture designs. Moreover, similarly to the machinists, his design interactions were unsought and unbeknown to the design office. (3) The Purchasers—the purchasing team was composed of three people located in an unimposing office on the shop floor and were collectively responsible for sourcing, negotiating a price for and procuring materials, fittings, machines, tools and components that went into making the company’s furniture. On the face of it, the purchaser’s connection to anything design-related was at best tenuous. However, the availability, delivery timescales and volumes of items purchased had a significant ‘knock on’ effect for the design office. This was confirmed by Company A’s Design Manager on several occasions when describing ‘having to make changes to design because certain materials and the like could not be obtained’. The interesting aspect of this observation and what makes it a convincing example of silent design is how unaware the purchasing staff were of the impact they could have on the design and development of furniture products. When asked, they felt their impact on the design process was ‘negligible’ because they felt ‘distanced’ from the products; in fact, most of the time never seeing finished items, and certainly never having any physical contact with the furniture, they found it difficult to appreciate their impact on designs. In a similar vein, purchasing activities were not directed by the design team (they were unsought), and in most instances, they went about their purchasing activities unknown (and unseen) by the Company’s Design Manager. As we argue, these silent changes serve to change a designer’s original concept (for worse or better) and therefore introduce the question of ownership and credit, which in commercial terms is governed by ‘intellectual property’.

Valorising Design Through Intellectual Property Intellectual property (IP) is defined broadly as ‘creations of the mind’ by the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO), one of the 15 specialised agencies of the United Nations (WIPO 2004). WIPO’s definition covers a range of rights. Some codified in national and international legislation and codes of practice (e.g. registered design’), others more nebulous (e.g. ‘know-how’ and ‘trade secrets’). From a legal and political perspective, in

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the UK—and as far back as the English Statute of Anne, 1709—the key objective of intellectual property law has been to control and recognise the value that exists within the expression of creativity by preventing its wider unauthorised use. In other words, to protect the right to make copies (literally the ‘copyright’) of the elaborate illustrative designs within religious books. This is a critical point in the context of the creative economy since from the start, the protection was concerned with the recorded item and not the original ideas, and given the influential nature of British law, this ‘protectionist’ stance spread throughout the western world through the momentum of post-Enlightenment and Industrialisation, manifest in the International Convention of Berne, in 1886, concerned with copyrights, and the International Convention of Paris in 1883, concerned with industrial design.2 These Conventions were seen as critical given the impending impact and risks inherent in internationalisation—and monetisation—of innovative ideas. Both Conventions set minimum requirements for the existences of IP rights that became widely used and harmonised, and embedded into national laws, as reflected in the World Trade Organisation’s General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. In a contemporary context, the valuation of so-called creations of the mind is like any other property right. They allow creators or owners of patent, trademark, design or copyright works to benefit from their own work or investment in a creation. These rights are outlined in Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which provides for the right to benefit from the production of moral and material interests, resulting from authorship of scientific, literary or artistic productions. Goodridge et al.’s research (2014) on the valuation of these ‘creations of the mind’ indicates that UK investment in intangible assets such as intellectual property, workplace training and non-scientific R&D exceeds that in fixed assets (£137 bn investment in intangible assets in 2008, compared to £104 bn for fixed assets). Global licenses in the patent and creative industries alone have exploded; worth more than £600 bn annually (Hargreaves 2011) with some estimations that 84 per cent of the value of assets in the top 500 businesses in the US are ‘intangible’ (Ocean Tomo 2015). There are some inevitable and increasingly apparent problems, which arise from valorising designs and ‘creations’ as intellectual property. Whilst WIPO, as an agency of the United Nations, is the global forum for 2  Convention of Paris for the Protection of Industrial Property 20th March 1883. Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, 9th September 1886.

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i­ntellectual property, which operates to a mandate to ensure governing bodies and national statutes are designed to a common understanding of ‘international intellectual property’, there is surprisingly little uniformity. Furthermore, there are diverse views on the recognition of value in the creative economy (see Webber 2005; Darcy 2013; O’Connor 2015). Understanding intellectual property as the product of a creative mind has been translated into law variously, for example, as ‘originality’ (Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988), ‘innovative step’ (Patents Act 1977) in patents, and the identification of these features and their owners has led to costly legal action. Take for example the case of Apple Inc. vs. Samsung Electronics litigation (2011–2018) that involved over 50 court cases with a proposed $1 bn award of damages. As Hargreaves (2011, p. 3) notes ‘proliferating use of IP can push up IP transaction costs and “block” new players from entering markets’. For incoming digital designers, the application of concepts of originality and ownership appear restrictive within the wider paradigmatic moves towards open access, open markets and digital sharing (expressed through e.g. Creative Commons). This is creating an existential turmoil for the recognition of value within, for example, the design industry, which is especially marked in two areas. Copyright Infringement Firstly, the turmoil can be seen within copyright law itself, that exists in technical drawings, computer software or databases, where the ‘originality’ does not require an element of ‘newness’ from existing work or be required to carry the common symbol ©, as the key test for the existence of potential value and a warning against copying. Secondly, is the issue of ‘subconscious copying’, which has been exposed most commonly through law cases—for example, Thicke’s 2013 hit ‘Blurred Lines’, which a court found copied Marvin Gaye’s ‘Got to Give it Up’, and H&M’s (2015) legal action against Forever 21 for a copyright infringement of its ‘Beach Please’ tote bag. Such examples highlight the vagaries of working practices in creative areas and of the need to record design creations and the routes to design changes, including the inspiration and the creative talent from all participants in the process. Traditionally, emphasis has focused on the original designer, noting the insight and experiences that originate with the designer if the design is new, and the ultimate user. This is exacerbated by some common industrial myths such as ‘5 changes to a fashion design

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secures originality’, that posting the design to yourself or marking this with © secures ownership, and that ‘everything placed on the internet is free to use’. Added to this is the problem of identifying ownership. Outside of state-registered rights patents, registered design or trademarks where ownership is more certain, the presumption is that the original creator is the owner of the IP. Yet, where the design of ‘creations of the mind’ is the product of teams, the ownership may be ambiguous unless stated clearly. For example, in 2009, the music industry was shocked by the decision in Fisher vs. Brooker where 40  years after the heyday of ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’, the keyboard composer was able to claim co-ownership and therefore royalties due to the distinctive musical chords that added to the background melody. Other examples have included designers not being aware of the ownership of IP work by independent contributors, especially where there has been an absence of contract (e.g. Doc Martens) and exposing the potential risks found in cases of ‘silent design’. Remix Culture The second deeper element that challenges the foundations of intellectual property is that of the ‘Remix Culture’ or the free movement culture, which finds the basis of IP rights and ownership, utterly unsuitable for a modern digital culture that uses alternative senses of value via an ability to share assets through peer-to-peer file sharing. Lessig (2008) argues for example, that creative groups have found a new way of working involving digital sharing and mash-ups that support their creativity and that the criminality of copyright infringement law is too ‘heavy-handed’ and which here we argue is overly rigid and austere. Whilst his focus is largely on the artistic elements of IP, Rostama (2015) writing for the WIPO, acknowledges that such communal sharing in creative production has a longer history that many imagine and ‘mash-ups’ would be protected currently under the global defence that actions ‘do not unreasonably prejudice the interest of the legitimate rights holder’ (Art 9 Berne 1886). At the same time, Rostama (opt. cit) concedes that there is uncertainty in this area as evidenced by the long running dispute of Lenz vs. Universal Music. This is particularly problematic where individuals hold personal ethical views of communal sharing, consistent with the ‘free culture movement’ and collaborate in the field of industrial design, which is subject to commercial and legal parameters of intellectual property ownership (see Koutras 2016).

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Conclusion: Problematising Value Creation and Design Ownership In this chapter, the mainstream framework of intellectual property rights as a proxy of creative value has been examined. At the beginning of the chapter, the design industry was drawn upon to contextualise the rise of ‘creative value’ in the UK context but also more recently, to examine the emergence of ‘silent design’. Silent design in this context occurs when individuals participate in the design process, sometimes unwittingly or subconsciously, but nevertheless in a way that militates an original design. The existence of silent design in a furniture company as discussed earlier raises three important points in relation to intellectual property and the way in which creative value is currently connoted. Firstly, the case study of the furniture design manufacturer serves to expose the value that non-designers can make in the design process, which resonates with Asheim and Coenen’s (2005) work in Northern Europe on innovation systems for diverse knowledge forms including the way in which innovation occurs tacitly when using culturally rich symbolic knowledge. It raises the question however about whether some workers, who currently contribute to the creative design process, for example, through purchasing, problem solving and quality control, should be recompensed in some way, in a framework, which recognises only the originator of the design. As silent design has been shown to have a positive effect on the development of products, the question of who should be credited with this and profit from this is raised. Intellectual property and the ownership of ideas is regularly cited as being the life blood of competitive companies, yet in many instances, the accurate ownership of an idea that has travelled the path of design in a firm becomes ambiguous. Secondly, and drawing on the same concept of design, the chapter leads to the logical question of whether there are inherent risks associated with design on, for example, the shop floor, that might expose a company or designer to copyright infringement. In these situations, who is most at risk? Finally, the chapter highlights the current flaws in the current copyright framework. For example, the free culture movement described earlier and the continuing influences of silent design on product and service development expose the rigidities of the current statute. As a proxy of creative value, the issues of IP need to be better understood to reflect all aspects of the design process, whether hidden silent or not. That said, the creative economy is operating in a context of the first generation of millennial

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designers, who have emerged and honed their design skills within a free culture movement entailing the wholesale sharing of ideas and designs, for example, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file sharing, social media and open access channels, and where creative value can emerge through a complex web of open innovation (involving users and customers), from mash-ups, and from sampling. There are several ways to view this. The role of the free culture movement needs to be fully appreciated in commercial terms for its impact in supporting and producing design value. At the same time, there is the risk that where individuals do not wish to record or own their creative contributions, the potential value will be lost and limited to, for example, a personal media record or social media event, whilst the route of intellectual property rights may be perceived as the reserve of the elite. We conclude by arguing that the current commercial and legal schema in which valorisation occurs requires further consideration, resulting in more nuanced frameworks and tools.

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Thatcher, M. (1982a). Product Design and Market Success. Seminar at 10 Downing Street, 25 January 1982. Thatcher, M. (1982b). Industrial Design, in Engineering, 31 May 1982. Retrieved October 12, 2018, from http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=104951. Utterback, J.  M., Ekman, S., & Tether, B. (2006). Design-Inspired Innovation. World Scientific Publishing Company. Walsh, V. (1996). Design, Innovation and the Boundaries of the Firm. Research Policy, 25, 509–529. Walsh, V., & Roy, R. (1983). Plastic Products, Good Design, Innovation and Business Success. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Walsh, V., Roy, R., Bruce, M., & Potter, S. (1992). Winning by Design. Technology, Product Design and International Competitiveness. Oxford: Blackwell. Webber, D. (2005). Intellectual Property - Challenges for the Future. European Intellectual Property Review, 27(10), 345–348. Williams, B. (2007). The Finniston Report 1980. Policy Studies, 1(1), 45–52. WIPO. (2004). What Is Intellectual Property. World Intellectual Property Office. Retrieved October 12, 2018, from www.wipo.int.

CHAPTER 11

The Hidden Value of Underground Networks and Intermediaries in the Creative City Rachel Granger

Introduction In this chapter, the value produced from creative performance in collective spaces and processes is examined by drawing on creative relationships and networks. For some, the city can be read as a series of bounded spaces, socio-political and dialectical tensions, sites of linguistic or material development and representation or even as places of historical significance. In this chapter, the creative city is read through its people and their interrelationships, and the main message offered is that this provides a rich and more nuanced view of creative economic performance as a live action. Drawing on relational economics and the New Economic Geography, the chapter positions value in the creative economy firmly as economic value, but also as socially constructed value, created, mediated and validated by a series of actors and agencies, some performing as intermediaries. In this, it is recognised that creative performance is shaped, and ultimately R. Granger (*) De Montfort University, Leicester, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Granger (ed.), Value Construction in the Creative Economy, Palgrave Studies in Business, Arts and Humanities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_11

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constructed from the unique spatialities of knowledge and power bound in relationships that take place between key actors and sites/social spaces in a city. In doing so, the chapter sheds light on the key processes through which creative activities are constructed and valorised, the key sites and actors that add value to creative processes and the legitimising and enabling relationships both within and between places that have salience in improving our understanding of what value means in the creative economy.

Relational Geographies of Creativity It has been claimed in recent years that researchers have made great strides in producing data that maps the geography of the UK’s creative ecosystems (Siepel 2019) with Nesta’s Creative Nation (Mateos-Garcia et  al. 2018) proffered as a rich case in point.1 Nesta’s assertion that its most recent mapping of creative industries shows their ‘evolution’, their ‘contribution to local economic development’, ‘strength of their ecosystems’ and their ‘connections with each other’ is not borne out by the locational mapping of companies using Office for National Statistics (ONS) data, supplemented by meet-up details. While it is true to say that Nesta, like other stakeholders, is constrained by a paucity of national data on the creative economy, which to some extent will be ameliorated through the work of the new Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre in the UK, it also speaks of the limitations of existing ways of viewing value in the creative economy, which in Chap. 1 was argued to be entirely unsuitable for a post-industrial setting. The use of Standard Industrial Classifications to denote different areas of activity in an economy (SIC 2007)2—disaggregated into two-, threeand four-digit codes—have been the subject of extensive criticism over the years (e.g. Jacobs and O’Neill 2003; O’Kile and Phillips 2009). In economies rich in service industries, rigid sector codes lack flexibility to cover the breadth of activities that can occur in a single reporting unit (e.g. a company, a university), or the rapidly changing nature of work that occurs in project working. This is especially pronounced in the creative economy, in which a creative team may work on design issues on one project (SIC 71121, 71122, 74100) but be engaged in advertising and media of new products or service design on another project (SIC 73110, 73120). The omission of many micro businesses from the official data stemming from  Nesta is a UK innovation foundation.  SIC 2007 is the current Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) used in the UK to classify a business establishment and other statistical unit by the type of economic activity it engages in. 1 2

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the way data is collated from tax returns and the current taxable threshold (£85,000 in the UK) exacerbates the data deficit for the creative economy. As a result, cities rich in (creative) micro businesses can be at best misrepresented, and at worst omitted in official economic statistics such the UK’s Business Register and Employment Survey, as has been remarked in Leicester by Granger (2017b). There is further disquiet when these same datasets play a pivotal role in policy design and resource allocation either directly through, for example, the work of Department for Culture Media and Sports (DCMS) or through the influence of stakeholder and funding organisations who rely on this same data. The second area of concern relates to what meaningfully can be deduced from business location mapping in such datasets. The location of a business can be based on a number of decisions, including taxation, costs and availability of factor inputs, and customers. In some parts of the literature and in public policy, it has become commonplace to take that location, especially co-location, as inferring inter-trading (e.g. Bakhshi and Mateos-­ Gacria 2016; Mateos-Garcia 2010) so that concentrations of businesses are elevated to ‘clusters’, ‘learning regions’ or ‘innovation systems’ despite exhibiting very different tendencies. Clusters in particular have been noted as favourable sites rich in knowledge and transfer as a result of their urban agglomeration and localisation economies (Storper and Christopherson 1987; Pinch et  al. 2004), and which emphasise (and differentiate) the importance of traded and untraded interdependencies (Storper 1995). Yet in practice, colocation of companies may not result in inter-trading or indeed the type of interdependencies, which typically result in value-added activities, knowledge transfer or pooling of resources seen as pivotal to economic growth. More recently and in an attempt to fill the apparent vacuum, attention has been paid to the spatiality—(social) spaces—in which knowledge and innovation occurs as a process, and to places that enable valuable links that support such knowledge-seeking aspects of innovation and advance. ‘Acting as territorialised expressions of a resource-based view of relationships and linkages, un-traded interdependencies are mediated through the market as well as social conventions’ (Powers 2013, p. 2). As Faulconbridge (2017) notes, these twin aspects have contributed to the development of relational perspectives in economic studies—noted as the relational turn— in which the focus has fallen upon ‘economic and social relations, processes of organizing, problem solving and innovation, as well on the creation of informal and formal institutions’ (Bathelt and Gluckler 2005, p. 1546, in Faulconbridge 2017, p. 1).

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Relational perspectives offer unique insights into knowledge and innovation processes by considering both the social and spatial dimensions of innovation (and creativity) in tandem, and also through a perspective that shifts focus ‘from the macro to micro level’ (Boggs and Rantisi 2003, p. 111) foregrounding the way in which knowledge and innovation are innately shaped by the contexts and people in which they are produced, and the socio-cultural constituents of micro economic practice (Jones and Murphy 2011). As a result, relational studies of the economy draw emphasis on relational microspaces, trust and reciprocity and power (power is both exercised and constructed) in shaping economic practice. Gertler (2003) offers an additional perspective in arguing that culture needs to be understood as being related to, and situated within institutions, and that this spatiality is continually reconstructed by social agency (see Bathelt and Gluckler 2003) and architectures and infrastructures (see Amin and Cohendet 2004), underpinned by complex assemblages of social collaboration. As Faulconbridge (2017) is at pains to stress, such a socially constructed understanding of spatiality reconfigures conceptions of the primary sites needed for knowledge and innovation to occur, and here, the primary sites for value creation in the creative economy.

Social Proximity and Value Understanding the role that cities can play as creative ecosystems is marked out by their place-based characteristics and also the complex socio-spatial collaboration located or enabled there. As Chapain et  al. (2013) note, places can provide ‘ideal’ attributes that act as a centripetal force on factor inputs e.g. ‘attracting and retaining creative workers that provide the know-how, ideas and creativity that fuel their economic success’ (p. 203). Implicit here is that qualitative shifts in a workforce provide the impetus and talent to drive creativity in the city or a place, and therefore draws on the earlier work of Raban (1974), Zukin (1995) and Florida (2001). Whilst the importance of human capital does seem logical, this view of a creative city, for example, also overlooks the wider forces at play in a creative ecosystem—the cityscape and the social spaces found there, which Cohendet et al. (2010) capture in their work on valuable ‘underground’ scenes and Potts et al. (2008) express as the value of ‘social networks’ in creative enterprise. In these different accounts, social spaces, networks and social capital are positioned as elemental, perhaps even imperative, in driving creative economic activity, such that ‘the survival of creative industries [relies] on social networks of cities’ (Potts et al. 2008, p. 166).

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From this perspective, a city’s space—both physical and social—are seen as key factors of production that constructs value and produces capital, and follows on from Lefebvre’s (1974, 1992) reading of the ‘Urban Problematic’ where ‘social space is essentially urbanised space in advanced capitalism and where dominant production is reproduced’. As Boschma (2005) acknowledges, much has been written on the impact of proximity, especially co-location, but other dimensions of proximity besides geography have begun to emerge in understanding interactive learning and innovation. Bunnell and Coe’s (2001) reference to ‘de-territorialisation of closeness’, which elsewhere has been captured as ‘propinquity’ (Granger 2006) underscores Boschma’s identification of cognitive, organisational, social and institutional proximity in learning and innovation contexts. As he notes, geographical proximity cannot be considered in isolation: ‘geographical proximity per se is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for learning to take place’ (p. 61). One might conclude then that the creative economy is primarily a social economy since it relies on factors of production constructed by and through unique socio-spatial relations and networks, leading to the proposition that a creative city is fundamentally about networks and (social) space.

Relational Views of Leicester as a Creative City In conceptualising the value imbued in relational attributes of creative performance and spaces in which this chapter has been located, it now draws upon the empirical spatial-relational mapping found in Leicester’s ‘Creative Census’ and bespoke ‘FLOKK’ platform.3 Leicester is a second-tier city in the UK (pop. 464,000), and politically is a combined authority with an elected mayor, forming the most significant city in the East Midlands region. Nottingham lies 28  miles to the North, London 100  miles (one  hour) to the South and Coventry and Birmingham 27 and 44 miles, respectively, to the West. Leicester is notable for its ethnic diversity and tolerance, being the only ‘minority majority’ city in the UK and is home to migrants from all over the world. In recent years, the city has become notable through the Champions League win of Leicester City Football Club, the discovery of King Richard III and as runner up for 2018 City of Culture. Leicester’s participation in the City of Culture competition, in which it lost out to Hull, reflects is rich cultural offer, tied to its textiles heritage, its strong visual and performing arts  FLOKK is a digital platform created by Leicester to monitor sector networks (https:// flokk.online). 3

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(home to 15 theatres and art galleries) and high concentration of creative industries (rich in digital, arts and design sectors). Building on earlier empirical models of spatial-relational mapping (outlined in Granger 2010, 2016), FLOKK was developed in 2017 as an open data platform to capture the relational activities of Leicester’s rich creative economy. FLOKK operates as an open mapping database, and collates data incrementally through snowballing techniques. During a six-month period in 2018, a total of 817 organisations and workers participated in the FLOKK mapping process, producing 3518 interactions and face-to-­face interviews conducted with 168 of these to examine their creative working practices in further detail. Starting in July 2018 and as part of a Creative Census exercise, organisations in Leicester were invited to participate in FLOKK via the work of strategic stakeholders, who helped the census project to maximise reach and sector balance (e.g. Leicester City Council, Leicester Business Festival, East Midlands Chamber of Commerce). Participants were asked to self-disclose details about their work, and also self-identify sectors in which they operate, using four-digit SIC codes, allowing for broader comparison with the wider economy. Looking first at the links participants self-disclosed through FLOKK, which are taken to infer ‘traded’ and ‘untraded’ links between actors and institutions (Table 11.1), one notes the dominance of creative and digital sectors across the entire economy. Given that several iterations of snowballing took place and that sector targeting was used at the 500-entry point, there is confidence that this is not a product of the sampling approach used in Leicester but reflects a local dominance of the creative economy. A total of 1456 interactions emanating from creative and digital sectors were recorded, representing a third of all interactions in the economy. The majority of these took the form of intra-relationships (42%), indicating a breadth and density of the operations of local creative and digital sectors, and as reflected by an ‘Intra-operability Quotient’4 (IOQ2) in Table 11.1 (IOQ2 = 1.37), but which might equally suggest a risk of path lock-in in the future (see Granger 2016).

4  An intra-operability quotient is a measure of the degree of interaction within a sector, as a proportion of all intrasectoral interactions in the region, while an inter-operability quotient is a measure of the degree of interaction between a sector and other sectors, as a proportion of interactions in the region, nation and other sectors (see Box 11.1).

Sector i

Creative economy Digital Smart economy Construction/ Engineering Transport/ Logistics Manufacturing Science/R&D Services Administration Investment Education Health Retail Visitor economy Community & Third Sector Sub-total

(Links from sector i, to sector ii)

Sector ii

110

132 2

2

2

12 10 4 2 18 20 2 4 0

2

322

496

110 16

4

16

16 4 32 12 2 62 16 18 10

32

846

Creative Digital economy

90

4

2 0 6 0 0 14 0 4 0

0

6

6 63

0

Smart economy

74

0

9 2 8 0 0 0 0 0 0

8

43

0 0

4

Construc­ tion/ Engineer­ ing

101

0

8 0 6 2 2 2 0 4 12

51

0

2 2

10

136

0

81 2 9 2 2 6 0 4 0

4

6

4 12

4

Transport/ Manufac­ Logistics turing

160

0

26 80 8 8 10 4 0 0 2

2

0

10 6

4

Science/ R&D

272

4

10 10 44 6 0 22 4 10 8

26

6

46 26

50

Services

Table 11.1  Sector interactions in Leicester ecosystem (817 organisations)

307

28

8 4 24 31 4 44 0 6 12

17

16

32 18

63

Adminis­ tration

195

4

20 20 28 0 4 8 0 0 0

0

0

32 31

48

603

44

16 38 44 47 0 142 6 24 24

2

4

58 18

136

Invest­ Educa­ ment tion

28

6

4 0 4 2 0 0 4 0 0

0

0

2 2

4

Health

88

4

6 0 14 4 4 2 0 6 10

4

2

2 0

30

Retail

114

18

8 4 6 14 0 8 0 11 8

8

2

2 4

21

Visitor economy

167

71

6 0 10 0 8 21 2 0 2

4

2

4 3

34

Commu­ nity & Third Sector

0.9779 1.287 0.498 0.6679 0.207 1.1203 0.3295 0.1846 0.2546

0.992

1.295

0.836 0.8292

1.37

IOQ2 (intra)

3518

217 0.91644

232 174 247 130 54 355 34 91 88

144

93

442 203

1014

Sub-­ total

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Box 11.1  Measures of Interaction (Inter- and Intra-operability)

Inter-operability Coefficient • measure of the degree of interaction between a sector and other sectors, as a proportion of interactions in the region, nation and other sectors. IOQ1   Int sr / Intr  /  Int sn / Int n 





Where: Int = Interactions s = sector r = region n = nation ΣInt = Total reference area interactions Intra-operability Coefficient • measure of the degree of interaction within a sector, as a proportion of intrasectoral interactions in the region. IOQ2   Int ss / Int s  /  Int ss / Int 





Where: ss = interactions within a sector s = sector ΣInt = Total reference area interactions Also of note are the links recorded between creative/digital sectors and educational (194 interactions) and administrative (95) arms of the economy, which infer a proactive creative and digital industry, which is engaging on knowledge and policy issues. On the one hand this is not surprising given the size of the creative economy in Leicester (estimated to be 34,000 workers by Granger (2017a)) and also that Leicestershire is home to three

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major universities and three significant further education colleges, all with major creative faculties. On the other hand, it does highlight some incongruities, especially in terms of conventional thinking on the way value is constructed in the creative economy, and the role of universities and government in this process. In the New Economic Geography literature, knowledge transfer relationships between higher education and other sectors are framed as axiomatic, and reflect an economy’s desire to operate as a learning city or region (Asheim 2007), innovation system (Morgan 1997; Lundvall 1994; Cooke et al. 2014; Jensen et al. 2007), Helix (Etzkowitz 1994; Leydesdorff and Etzkowitz 1998) and/or cluster (Porter 1990; Fujita 1988; Fujita and Thisse 2002), and where learning is framed as the key resource. In the trilateral relationship of a Helix Model in particular, universities have a central primacy given their knowledge and research capabilities, which are framed as capital for economic growth. Such constructs usefully express the notion of interaction and network between public and private agents that allow for the rapid diffusion and exploitation of knowledge, skills and best practice in a locality, and where universities have a key role to play. One might expect therefore that empirical data would show a strong relational network in university cities, and depict strong links from university towards industry. Yet, in Leicester, the interactions recorded through FLOKK depict weaker relations from university towards the creative economy (82) comparative to interactions from industry towards education (194), which is replicated in those from industry towards administration (63) (see also Fig. 11.1). Given the varied nature of higher education in

Fig. 11.1  A sector-relational map of creative and digital sectors, Leicester (2018)

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Leicester (comprising diverse research interests and both mode 1 and 2 research), as well as vocational training through colleges and universities, it seems doubtful that this could be explained by the particular institutional make-up of the city and to a lesser extent county. Why is it then that Leicester’s creative economy stands in marked contrast to the conceptual ideas found in the literature and perhaps even the empirical behaviour recorded from creative and digital practitioners in other creative studies? A reasonable supposition is to question the conceptual basis of creative economy thinking, influenced by the New Economic Geography discourse, and to ascertain whether value construction from university learning drives value in creative practice in empirical terms. Reflecting further on this obvious anomaly, there appears to be at least five areas of distinction between hegemonic models of the innovation and creative enterprise discourse, and the empirical realities of the creative economy, and which might warrant further thinking. Firstly, the sizeable presence of tacit knowledge (Polanyi 1966, 1974), symbolic knowledge (Asheim and Coenen 2005) and intrinsic value (Throsby 2001) in creative industries would seem to require very specific spatial-economic transactions for transfer, diffusion and even absorption that are incongruous with the formal transfer transactions implied in territorial knowledge dynamics involving universities and industry in the literature (e.g. Crevoisier and Jeannerat 2016). This is reflected in the numerous examples of successful Triple Helixes found in advanced science and technology fields but few if any in the arts and humanities (see Viale and Composall’Orto 2002; Arnkill et al. 2010). Secondly, the importance of lifestyle to creative workers, the juxtaposition of creative production and consumption (Cunningham 2012a) and the existence of portfolio work and liminality (Daniel and Ellis-Chadwick 2016) and sharing and gifting (Botsman and Rogers 2011) would suggest that creative workers exhibit markedly different working practices, social spaces, and in some cases, motivations for work and collaboration, which do not fit comfortably within the schema of learning and innovation of the New Economic Geography. Unlike in advanced sciences where university workers produce research and knowledge, and then transfer this to practice via industry, in creative work, university workers tend to be both producers and consumers, and producers and practitioners, and the way new knowledge is produced and applied is more multiplex. This is especially pronounced in smaller cities and ecosystems where many creative workers operate in multiple roles and the situation is more fluid, social spaces are intertwined

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and knowledge transfer can be informal (Granger and Hamilton 2010). Thirdly, creative businesses tend towards downstream, rather than upstream value appropriation with a tendency towards co-evolution with end users reinforced by open innovation practices, risk-minimising investment packages and shorter life cycles, which run counter to the linear upstream value chains of some innovation models, which involve universities (Cunningham 2012b; MacNeill and Jeannerat 2016). Fourthly, in a trilateral relationship, the imperative for universities to interplay with industry is implicit in producing commercially relevant and viable research and innovations (termed Mode 2 Knowledge), which industry then takes to the market. Yet the idea of research-intensive universities engaging in novelty production in creative spheres is unsuitable for creative business, in which innovation is highly consumer-orientated, and where heterogeneity (something different) has salience over scientific discovery for creating new market value. As a result, the distinction between the main players (university-industry-­ customer-producer) and what is and isn’t knowledge in context is ambiguous. In the context of Leicester, the qualitative data captured in interviews, along with the spatial-relational mapping data of FLOKK points at some possible explanations, and which might provide a platform for further consideration—and reinterpretation—of value within the context of creative development and relationships in the creative city. During 2018, 104 interviews were conducted with creative and digital practitioners in Leicester and Leicestershire, and another 64 surveys completed with local university staff operating in creative faculties (three universities that serve the Leicester creative city). From this, one notes the very high number of practitioners who are graduates (76.9%), which exceeds the average for the city (29%) and denotes a learning sector overall, but which entails very few collaborative links with local universities (1.9%). While a third of practitioners (32.6%) indicate that in the last 12 months they had been invited as guest speakers at universities or had been asked to host students in placements, implying that active conversations do take place between university and industry, these might be framed as reinforcing universities’ second mission role in skill development and human capital, rather than underpinning their third mission role in knowledge transfer towards industry. This is particularly in evidence through the question, ‘what examples of knowledge transfer exist between your organisation and a local university?’, in which 61 creative practitioners (58.6%) provided examples of knowledge-intensive projects with universities, compared to

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less than 5% (4.6%) for creative staff in universities. Upon further analysis, universities appear to be engaged in a number of practices with creative workers (e.g. 92.1% organising guest speakers, 87.5% organising placements, 20.3% organising new projects), but do not resemble the type of formal knowledge transfer activity presupposed in clusters and Helixes (see ante). Given the very high number of graduates operating in Leicester’s creative economy, it seems probable that creative practitioners are familiar with, and even value, universities and the way in which they can generate and transfer relevant knowledge for industry, but there is not the forward and backward (university-to-business) linkages in Leicester, nor the spillovers, or embeddedness with university institutions that one would expect. Reflecting further on this, interviewees were asked, ‘where does your organisation secure new knowledge for innovation?’ to which 93 practitioners (89.4%) indicated that ‘new knowledge’ was found principally within the industry, while 87 respondents (83.6%) cited the importance of customers in the innovation process. In other words, knowledge transfer for innovation in Leicester’s creative industries comes from within the industry, recognisable as ‘competitors’, ‘critical friends’ and ‘peers’, and which supports the earlier calculation of a high ‘intra-operability quotient’. Participants also noted the integral role of ‘customers’ in the innovation process, supporting the ontological argument that consumers play an intrinsic role in value production in creative spheres. Why is it that these creative businesses, large in number, diverse in size and sub-sector, buoyant in turnover and recruitment and highly skilled at their core should be so disconnected from Leicestershire’s higher education system, which collectively specialises in creative activity?5 One possible reason might be that Leicester’s local universities are deployed in Mode 1 rather than Mode 2 knowledge production with regards to creative industries, meaning that university research on creative industries is largely out of sync with local business needs. A second argument is that Leicester’s ecosystem lacks the type of spaces and soft institutions needed to germinate genuine university-industry interplay, preventing businesses from anchoring new knowledge created in higher education. A third possible argument is that businesses rely on soft knowledge transfer through other mediums such as turnover of staff, freelance portfolio work from university staff or through other external pipelines, thereby negating the 5

 De Montfort University, University of Leicester, Loughborough University.

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need for formal engagement with universities. These alternative explanations are now considered in the remainder of the chapter, by drawing on relational data. H1: Leicester Universities Produce Mode 1 Creative Knowledge The Leicester Creative City ecosystem is served by three universities, which specialise in different aspects of creative industries, with several examples of centres of excellence, which produce internationally significant research (Table 11.2). These are complemented most notably, by the specialist creative teaching and research that takes place at Leicester College of Further Education. Looking at the range of creative disciplines offered by local universities, there does seem to be a close match between Higher Education sector (HE) skills and the industrial composition of Leicester’s Creative City. The expertise held collectively by local universities suggests that they are well placed to feed in new knowledge to museums, visual and performing arts sectors, the design industry, textiles and fashion and also media. The location of Loughborough University’s Institute for Digital Technologies and Institute for Media and Creative Industries (both in London) might be argued to dilute the potential for local knowledge transfer in Leicester but the wider knowledge base is considerable. In considering whether local universities are producing Mode 1, rather than Mode 2 knowledge in creative industries, one notes that Leicester’s universities concentrate on skill development rather than new knowledge production in creative disciplines. This could be concluded from the extensive range of teaching in creative areas comparative to the more restrictive areas of research, and from the amount of time spent on creative projects (16%) compared to teaching (71%) from interviews with university staff. In response to the question ‘Who do you collaborate with on research projects?’, 64 respondents from local universities (61.5%) indicate that collaboration and knowledge development occurs predominantly outside of the region, rather than within it. This would imply that several areas of latent research expertise leak out of the region rather than being harnessed locally. H2: Leicester’s Ecosystem Does Not Support Knowledge Transfer Leicestershire’s three universities could be said to shape the institutional thickness of the ecosystem, which has a strong presence of public, private

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Table 11.2  Creative specialisation of Leicester’s HE Institutions (2018) University

Creative disciplines

International recognition

University of Leicester

Creative Writing Creative Marketing, Advertising, Business Film and Media Studies Victorian Studies, Heritage Interpretation, Museum Studies Media, Culture and Society Creative Writing Creative Business Creative Music/Sound Technology Computer Games Programming Intelligent Systems and Robotics Animation/Game Art Graphic Design Film Studies, Media Production Journalism Photography Digital Arts Fine Art Dance, Drama, Performing Arts Drama Art and Festivals Management Architecture Design, Design Innovation Textile Design Fashion Management Contour Fashion, Fashion Buying Footwear Design Product Design, Interior Design, Retail English/Writing Fine Art, Art and Design Product Design Engineering Graphic Communication/Illustration Drama, Performing Arts, Cultural Policy Creative Business

Leicester Institute for Cultural and Media Economies (CAMEo) School of Museum Studies

De Montfort University

Loughborough University

Institute of Creative Technologies Institute of Art and Design Textile Engineering and materials (TEAM) Performing Arts Centre (PACE) Leicester Media School Creative and Cultural Industries Research Group

Centre for Research in Communication and Culture Institute for Design Innovation Institute for Digital Technologies (London) Institute for Media and Creative Industries (London)

and third sector organisations (Table 11.3). One notes the large number of organisations conducting research (18), offering business and skills support (30) and also space for networking (48) which serves the city and surrounding areas with both the talent and infrastructure for creative

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Table 11.3  Leicester creative city ecosystem (2018)

work. Whilst it could be argued that the research capacity of some organisations is softer in nature than novelty-producing research, the picture painted is of a rich creative ecosystem in combination. H3: Leicester’s Creative Knowledge Transfer Occurs Through Alternative Pipelines Looking further at the institutional thickness of Leicester’s Creative City (Table  11.3), one notes the vibrancy of the Third Sector in particular, which engages in creative practice and also conducts creative research, provides skills and business support and actively supports networking through the provision of social spaces. It does raise the question about why so many organisations conduct skills and business support activities in creative disciplines given the dominance of local universities and a college, and the presence of a city-wide (free) business support programme funded through public sources (The ‘Collaborate’ programme). As one creative

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worker explains: ‘The City’s Business Growth Team [Collaborate] have been excellent but there’s only so much they can do. They offer generic business advice, whereas we are living and breathing in specialist business areas, which are acutely competitive, and the best advice can only come from within; from the people who have survived those same kind of pressures’. A leading figure in Leicester offers further clarification: ‘the global financial crisis has had longer term impacts on the landscape in which we must now operate, and the Brexit Referendum has compounded the situation by cutting off main routes of funding and investment that we need. The changes meted out by institutions have transformed the business landscape here, which us as businesses have had no choice but to respond to. We mentor, support, and invest, in our sector and our neighbours, first because they need our support and without us they might succumb to the pressures of the market, but second because we have a vested interest in Leicester’s creative city blossoming’. These comments are supported to some extent by the high levels of intra-relationships occurring within creative and digital sectors and noted by FLOKK (Table 11.1). While there is perhaps a rationale for self-serving the sector to support potential clients (creative industries are both producers and consumers), it is unclear why the sector serves from within rather than externally towards higher education as a major stakeholder. One possible reason lies in the way value is constructed and mediated, and the changes that have occurred within higher education. The financial upheaval from the 2007 Banking Crisis imperilled national economies and has ushered in new business models, new ways of financing and investing and also new actors and stakeholders. Higher education has introduced new business models, most notably in terms of student fees, which are likely to be reduced and capped, but which have rendered formal degree courses an expensive option. The introduction of new providers such as Echo Factory (providing degrees accredited by Wolverhampton University), Curve Theatre (in arts and business degrees), My Graphic Design School (MGDS), Two Queens Studio, Spark Arts and SEED Creative Academy to name but a few, provides a diversity of options for creative and digital practitioners. To this, one might add the training provision through specialist maker spaces such as the Clay Room, Print Workshop and Art Studios, and the indirect training and support on offer through networks (e.g. Creative Coffee, CREATE, TEDx Leicester). As one practitioner argues ‘Why would I pay to listen to somebody lecture me [at university] about creative practice and research, when I can sign-up for a short course with a local expert, or talk to experts for free in my local coffee shop, or sound out ideas at a city event, or a tenanted co-working space

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and do the research myself?’ This idea of internal, shared access to knowledge resources is expanded on in feedback from another respondent: ‘De Montfort University are doing some interesting work in sound technology but not as interesting as my own work. Most of my work these days is in America and the ideas coming from there are emerging so quickly that we are at the edge of change in our industry. The best ideas come from talking to others on trans-Atlantic projects, which I then use to seed local projects or help those I mentor. These guys are experts in everything—not just one field but several. […] I touch base with people from the university through direct conversations or at networking events, and in some cases when they are in Grays [coffee shop]. I’m happy to pass on new ideas to the university in the same way I do with new start-ups. Having a support network and a group of pals in the same line of work is really useful for updating skills and keeping abreast of new ideas, as well as keeping on top of new talent coming through, and enabling the local creative scene to move forward’. In both accounts, the notion of value is strong. There is a palpable sense of financial value (value for money) and the opportunity costs of ­taking a formal degree course at university in the first quote. In the second quote, the sense of value in terms of ‘worth’ or ‘relevance’ comes to the fore, and evokes power in authenticating and valorising the worth of provision. Drawing on De Propris and Mwaura (2013) and De Propris (2019) as well as wider work on cultural intermediaries, one might begin to position some of the key actors in Leicester’s creative economy—and perhaps some of the interviewees—as exerting power in ‘legitimising’ (defining value), ‘mediating’ (allowing for new constructions) and ‘enabling’ new value to be created through local social spaces.

Legitimating Value Through Cultural Intermediaries The notion of cultural intermediaries in the creative economy has gained widespread support in recent years, and as Jakob and van Heur (2014) argue, the effectiveness of the creative economy will depend largely on the intermediaries that shape and regulate it. While cultural intermediaries cover a gamut of agents and activities, leading to the proposition that ‘everyone is a cultural intermediary now’ (Smith Maguire and Matthews 2012, following on Nixon and Du Gay 2002), O’Connor (2015) makes a useful distinction between cultural intermediaries that mediate between

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the production and consumption of creative and cultural activities, which draws on Bourdieu (1984, 1996) and those that operate as economic and commercial agents, which he terms more as economic imaginaries. Bourdieu’s (1984, 1996) understanding of cultural intermediaries as exemplars of the new middle class involves the mediation of production and consumption, and which in a contemporary context might refer to cultural practitioners and agencies engaged in both production of culture and consumption, and who both mediate between producers and consumers of creative products as well as connect them in unparalleled ways (Jakob and van Heur 2014). In the Leicester context, Curve Theatre, New Walk Museum and festivals act as centres of both production and consumption; in so far as they produce work and also commission work. The LCB Depot, Leicester’s creative hub, also produces work through its gallery spaces and programme of activities but also consumes cultural work as individual workers, as a site for ancillary activities (hosting other activities), and plays an important role in mediating new work, for example, its role as a sponsor, host and consumer of the 2019 Bring Your Paint Festival, and its role in enabling a Design Season in Leicester. By contrast, economic imaginaries are framed as more commercially minded and as market agents involved in the qualification of goods that mediate between culture and the economy. In that sense, the term economic imaginaries might be used to depict the power exerted by corporate sponsors or philanthrophic interests in art, which as noted in Chap. 4 serves to essentially qualify what is deemed to be art and what and how this is provided to wider audiences. Munro’s (2017) reference to intermediary agencies that sit between government/policymakers and creative practitioners such as the Arts Council might straddle both definitions however. For this reason Jakob and van Heur (2014, p. 357) have identified various kinds of cultural or creative intermediaries: ‘arts and cultural councils, policy networks, economic development agencies, foundations and unions to artist collectives, cultural centres, creative industries incubators, festivals and tradeshows’—that are engaged in the further development of the creative economy and perform a role as ‘taste maker’ (Nixon and Du Gay 2002). More recently, Perry et al. suggest a need for a third area of intermediaries operating in the third sector and community, which serve to mediate between culture and communities, such that we might realistically identify four main groups, covering different sic and soc codes, working variously to legitimate particular goods and services, enabling cultural work and advancing creative activity (widely defined) for the wider good.

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1. Taste Makers—Powerful agents legitimating what is perceived as ‘valuable’ in the creative sphere, and often working seamlessly between production and consumption and adding value through the qualification of goods, reinforced by their occupation and expertise. These agents construct value by mediating how goods or services (or practices and people) are perceived and engaged with by others and relate to their expert orientation and market context (Matthews and Smith Maguire 2014, p.  2), for example, Arts Council England. For this reason, De Propris (De Propris and Mwaura 2013; De Propris 2019) views such intermediaries more as codifying (constructing) how value is interpreted by constructing legitimacy. 2. Economic Imaginaries—Drawing on O’Connor (2015) to portray market actors involved in the qualification of goods and services, mediating between the economy and culture, for example, funders, commercial galleries and even the media. 3. Enablers (within creative spheres)—Referring to those individuals and agencies who bring actors together and mediate to allow projects or services to develop. Often viewed as leaders in their field, or well respected locally for being entrepreneurial and are able to take a more strategic view of what is appropriate or needed locally. 4. Bridgers (between creative and other)—Perry and Symmons (2019) make a case for a distinct category of intermediaries operating between culture and communities, and play a key role in mediating how culture is comprehended and interpreted as lived, and playing a key role in how individuals make sense of culture. Judgements of what has value, what is meaningful and how this is interpreted provide an added dimension that has not thus far been captured in the cultural intermediaries discourse. As Perry et al. (2015, p. 726) note: ‘little attention has been given to analysis of the working practices of cultural workers who operate in diverse professionalised and everyday cultural ecologies. The wider set of political, social and moral motivations of cultural workers have been often overlooked, particularly those that seek not only to advance their own interests but also to develop connections with excluded, marginalised or disadvantaged communities […]. There is a gap in understanding this “other” form of cultural work and its potential to mediate between different values in the creative economy’.

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The notion of intermediaries and the different ways of viewing these provide a useful framework for reconsidering Leicester’s creative economy and for understanding the nature of interactions taking place, some of which has been noted earlier. Using Gephi software, and calculating the (degrees of) closeness between different actor interactions, it has been possible to identify prominent ego networks and naturally occurring clusters and communities. In practice, this has allowed 26 distinct communities to be identified in Leicester’s economy, and the ego networks of individual actors highlighted. In Fig. 11.2, the role of universities, chambers of commerce, city council and the more informal Leicester Business Festival, LCB Depot, Create, DOCK, Ultimate Web and Leicester Start-­ Ups are noted as connecting several actors and their interactions. One also notes, for example, the frequent citing of ‘Ultimate Web’, ‘Tech Start-Up’ and ‘Ben Ravilious’ both in the spatial-relational mapping exercise and also interviews, which in practice refers to the same person. Ben appears to play an active role in enabling work through the Tech Start-Up Community (network), in legitimating work (citing some actors and work as more important than others in his blogs and networking) and in building bridges and trust (and reciprocity) in ancillary sectors. In this sense, one might say that Ben performs several intermediary roles but is neither a powerful funding agency nor a public policy unit, as the original working of the intermediary literature describes. Using the above taxonomy, one might identify Ben as performing a tastemaker role, acting as

Fig. 11.2  Key actors and interfaces in Leicester (2018)

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enabler of local projects and also bridging sub-sectors, projects and actors in a more strategic role. As one participant notes ‘Ben has his ears on the ground and is the person who knows what is good for the sector, and what we should be looking out for. More recently, Ben has started to be more professionally acquainted with “Cats Are Not Peas” and mark my words, Alex [the founder] will be the next big player in the city’. A similar pattern is also noted for ‘Leicester Interchange’, ‘TEDx Leicester’ and ‘Solvers Studio’, who are all operated by ‘Carl Quinn’. Carl’s extensive links in the community and expertise in social innovation as well as arts-based training allow him to mediate between the cultural world of practitioners (artists, film makers, designers), traditional cultural intermediaries (such as art establishments, Royal Society for Arts), strategic stakeholders (such as universities, local government, LCB Depot) and community groups. He operates seamlessly between these different spheres of the economy, and as one interviewee notes ‘connects disparate parts of the economy in a way single-focused actors and organisations cannot’ and ‘in a bridging role that cascades and connects information, while at the same time, anchoring projects and people to create a sticky creative environment, much of which happens away from public view but is unrivalled locally’.

Value Construction Through Relational Mapping While in recent years, the tendency has been for scholars and policymakers to frame the value of the creative economy as the final and financial output of creative endeavour, in this chapter value has been viewed through a relational lens. Value has been conceived as knowledge transfer and the productive use of knowledge for wider economic gain, which draws from Chap. 1 in terms of framing the creative economy as performance-based. Implicit is that the location of actors and practitioners as well as the sectors in which they operate is not a reliable or useful indicator of how value is constructed in the creative economy, and is in many ways futile since they describe the actor rather than the action! The chapter notes the benefits of spatial-relational mapping (here demonstrated through FLOKK) and also the conceptual work of intermediaries as a framework for understanding the empirical realities of a creative economy. Data from 817 organisations and their 3518 interactions across the economy, together with 168 interviews has provided a rich basis from which to view the creative economy in the case study area of Leicester. Against the ontological backdrop of agglomeration economies, traded and

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untraded interdependencies and knowledge transfer, which positions learning as the critical capital in a knowledge system, we find that the position in Leicester is markedly different. The idea of HE-led learning in which ideas and knowledge is transferred from university research to creative practitioners is not borne out either by the spatial-relational mapping work or the extensive interviews. While it is true that the creative and digital sectors that make up the creative economy are pervasive across the economy and have extensive links, it is also true that they display a high level of intra-operability (IOQ2 = 1.37), suggesting that traded and untraded interdependencies occur predominantly within the sector. There are some possible ontological reasons for this relating to the characteristics of creative activities, for example, the predominance of tacit knowledge, which requires very specific spatialities for transaction, the working practices and motivations of creative practitioners, and close relationships with end users, which suggest a different set-up for creative businesses than is supposed through Research and Development (R&D) studies in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics sectors (STEM) sectors. To this, a review of Leicester’s HE credentials in creative areas, which outlines the potential for HE-led knowledge transfer, together with a review of key stakeholder functions (Table 11.3) and anecdotal evidence from interviews suggests a more marginalised role for Leicester’s HE in developing knowledge and value in practice. In particular, a spatial-­relational map of Leicester’s creative economy and its naturally forming clusters/communities suggests a strong role for some key actors and agencies, which has not been explained through the New Economic Geography literature, and eclipses those relationships within and between university and administrative sectors. While some interviewees alluded to the financial value and barriers of HE in terms of the financial costs of accessing training and the worth of university skills and ideas vis-à-vis ‘free’ knowledge from within the sector, it was the feedback about some individuals, coupled with the relational maps of key actors that imply that some actors more than others have value in the creative economy. Drawing on the literature on cultural intermediaries, the chapter has been able to describe and explain the relative power and value of some actors over others in mediating between spheres, shaping and in some cases authenticating what is perceived as locally valuable, while enabling new projects to come to fruition, and bridging between creative and non-creative actors. From the grassroots level, this is framed as locally more valuable in constructing value in a creative economy than the learning and knowledge emanating from larger, and key stakeholders.

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CHAPTER 12

Value Transformation: From Online Community to Business Benefit Tracy Harwood, Jason Boomer, and Tony Garry

Introduction The aim of this chapter is to shed light on the generation and transformation of values through the production and consumption of Let’s Play (LP), as an area of practice in the creative economy. Let’s Play has emerged from the practice of machinima, ‘animated filmmaking within a real-time virtual 3D environment’ (Marino 2004, p. 1), and is referred to as ‘non-narrative machinima’ (Menotti 2014, p. 81). The phenomenon typically takes the form of video game walk-throughs, reviews and other gameplay videos

T. Harwood (*) Department of Digital Culture, Institute of Creative Technologies, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK e-mail: [email protected] J. Boomer SideFest, Leicester, UK e-mail: [email protected] T. Garry Department of Marketing, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Granger (ed.), Value Construction in the Creative Economy, Palgrave Studies in Business, Arts and Humanities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_12

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that are often live-streamed over the internet to fan followers and archived in curated playlists. The practice of making LP is now a mass cultural endeavour, largely described by industry stakeholders such as game developers and publishers as a form of ‘user-generated content’. Whilst this form of user-generated content will become increasingly pivotal to the digital economy (Terranova 2000; Lessig 2008; Tapscott 2008; Hesmondhalgh 2010) and to new emergent forms such as Twitch.tv (Shontell 2014), the value of such remains largely undocumented. As a creative sub-culture of gaming, with a distinct community of practice and intellectual property (IP) (Dredge 2014), little is understood about players’ behaviour and motivations for generating content or value associated with the community, as well as the relationship between creators, those who follow and its impacts on business stakeholders. Content is inherently a derivative of IP owned by computer video games developers and publishers, and as such it adheres to the Game Content Usage Rights (or similar) outlined by IP rights owners (Hayes 2008). Rights require creators to distribute their content freely but allow them to monetise their content as part of advertising revenue sharing programmes, such as YouTube’s Partner Program (Google, n.d.). Through these programmes, advertisements are included in video content, with revenue split between the distributing platform (e.g. YouTube) and the creator, thus there appears to be a significant economic driver from businesses to engage this community in a creative process. The process challenges the notion of LP as form of free labour for businesses, given the advertising revenue generated clearly represents economic value for the creator and the social networking platform. What is unclear, however, are the types of value derived from the process. This chapter contributes by presenting a framework and empirical evidence through which the LP community may be better understood. It is the dynamic relationship between the value components and the analysis of how and why value is generated and transformed within the LP community that form the primary contribution of this empirical study. The chapter is organised into two key parts. The chapter first provides a conceptual framework for understanding value in the context of LP before presenting findings of an LP case study, and drawing wider conclusions for discourse on cultural value.

Conceptual Framework of Value Drawing on Bourdieu (1989), value may include ‘economic capital […], cultural capital, social capital, and symbolic capital, which is the form that the various species of capital assume when they are perceived and recognized

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as legitimate’ (p. 17). Bolin (2012) argues against the use of capital over value, suggesting that ‘[i]f value is defined as the worth of a thing, […] it follows that this worth can be of other kinds than mere economic’ (p.  33). Through an exploration of value, evidence of social influence may be reinforced by the potential elevation to celebrity status, whereby creators of LP content occupy a position between the video game IP owners and their target market, assuming the position of an unofficial brand advocate. Drawing on the themes of a video game as an interactive, immersive virtual experience, a video game can be defined as ‘… a specific kind of digital entertainment in which the gamer interacts with a digital interface and is faced with challenges of various kinds, depending on the plot of the game’ (Zackariasson and Wilson 2012, p.  5). Regardless of the type of video game (e.g. first person shooter and fantasy role play), they are separate from the real world yet have a common language, rituals and expectations which Huizinga (1949) has referred to as a magic circle. While Huizinga predates computer video gaming, his ideas on rules and performance of an act are pertinent. The rules refer to norms, for example, the codes of conduct for participation, whereas the performance is an intellectual or imaginative work, emanating from the behaviours, strategies and player-performance required to adapt in the changing environment. Newman (2008) suggests there is an ‘inherently social, productive and creative nature [to] these cultures that surround and support videogaming’ (p. vii). This intimates an almost instinctual integration of culture into the self whereby language, behaviour and patterns of thinking are shared and internalised over time, shaping the ways that community members emerge and interact through practice (Wenger 2000; Henri and Pudelko 2003). This is not so much about value-in-exchange between the game developer and the game player (Toffler 1980) but is typical of the shift to recognising value-in-use (e.g. Vargo and Lusch 2008; Ritzer and Jurgenson 2010), where the game becomes an ‘operant’ resource to the player, becoming integrated by the player in their experiences. LP therefore represents a contemporary social, productive and creative form within video gaming culture, where hacking and modding (modifying content) is often observed in the prosumption practices of its community (Toffler 1980). As the popularity of the LP phenomenon has grown since its emergence in 2005 (see Klepek 2015) with a global forecast of 500  million views of content in 2016 (see Statista.com), the potential impact is its potential benefit to businesses as well as the players, the latter particularly in terms of adoption of work-like digital skills among the community of practice members (see Wenger 2000; Payne 2011; Menotti 2014).

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Building on Kuchlich’s (2005) concept or playbour and Newman’s (2008) assertion that live-performed machinima, or LPs (Menotti 2014), are inherently productive, LP practices develop work-like skills (such as video editing) that are used in creative and production processes. As a form of user-generated content, the issues of free and immaterial labour also arise (Lazzarato 1997; Terranova 2000; Cote and Pybus 2007). Lazzarato (1997) proposes a focus on ‘productive cooperation and the social relationship with the consumer [which] is materialized within and by the process of communication’ (1997: n.p.). He further states: ‘… in this kind of working existence it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish leisure time from work time. In a sense, life becomes inseparable from work’ (1997). This is central to the concept of the social factory where the ‘work process [has] shifted from the factory to society’ (Terranova 2000, p. 33), particularly in relation to the digital economy. Cote and Pybus (2007) build on the concept of immaterial labour for Web 2.0, suggesting that what ‘2.0 addresses is the “free” labour that subjects engage in on a cultural and biopolitical level when they participate on a site such as MySpace’ (2007, p. 90). Thus, the shift in perception of labour as something that solely occurred in the factory to something that takes place in society is an important concept in relation to non-work activities (Kuchlich 2005; Zwick et al. 2008). As with LP, the peripheral activities involved in the production of this content have converged with an otherwise leisurely activity of gameplay. Given the application of skills developed through associated creative and production processes, which are often seen as free forms of advertising for game developers and publishers (Hayes 2008), LP is inherently productive (Newman 2008). Despite this, few game IP owners have clarified the legal status of LP as a creative endeavour, allowing games developers and publishers an opportunity to potentially exploit the playbour, say, through advertising the game to other gameplaying community members. Furthermore, LP adds value to community engagement activities such as audience development, say, by coordinating live-streamed gameplay to members. Conceptually then, value is the attributes ascribed to something, either explicitly or implicitly, by an individual or group, and which may be consciously or unconsciously held about it (Alder and Gudersen 2008). Value is also ‘the result of a social praxis and negotiation between producer and consumer’ (Bolin 2012, p. 33) and is therefore highly subjective. Whilst the actions of individuals might be the same, the value sought or experienced is always idiosyncratic. To qualify, as Bechmann and Lomborg

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(2012) suggest, the act of joining and participating in social networks such as Facebook results in the generation of distinct forms of value for different parties. Examples of value in the LP community may therefore exist as social value through networking and collaboration; cultural value through learning and development of advanced production techniques, and development of work-like skills; economic value through advertising revenue and merchandising; and symbolic value, in the ability to develop an audience and inspire them to action. The notion of value transformation in such a context is tantalising: how might an organisation such as a game developer capture and (re-)use the types of value a phenomenon such as LP generates? Value is continually shaped and transformed by its context, for example, changes or mutations are influenced by historical, sociological and geographical influences where something of value in one time-­ space setting will have different value in other settings (e.g. Cova and Paranque 2016; Jafari 2017). It is through prosumption activities (Toffler 1980; Fiske 2010) that LP attains an elevated status with the community, where symbolic value is derived from numbers of followers (converted through views of content). The development of an audience may, however, be only one objective for a community member: Crane and Sornette (2008) identify two methods of promotion of social networking platforms: content being exogenic (i.e. promoted by LP players) or endogenic (i.e. discovered by the audience). Thus, the mode of engagement influences the lifetime popularity of the content that in turn, determines the types of value generated through playbour, and the potential for its capture and transformation by the firm. By engaging in collaborative works, and providing regular and reliable content, LP players may also transfer value through the process of building extended reputation, providing their collaborators with significant influence over a community of followers, such as that attributed to a role of opinion leadership (Katz and Lazarsfeld 1955; Robinson 1976) in a word-of-mouth marketing context (see Trustov et al. 2009). Furthermore, there is a continuous flow of information from game developers to the prosumer through ongoing game development processes, which collectively highlight the dual importance of mass media and interpersonal influence (Baksy et al. 2011) as resources are absorbed by each party, reused and further value generated in an iterative process. This is summarised in Fig.  12.1. Several articles have sought to apply this in the context of the digital age (Potter 2007; Dennis 2008; Weaver 2008; Baksy et al. 2011).

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Fig. 12.1  Two-step flow of communication. (Source: based on Katz and Lazarsfeld 1955; Robinson 1976)

One high profile example of the power of opinion leadership in the LP community is that of PewDiePie (real name Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, community subscribers of 45+ million, see Dredge 2014). Through content streaming, this player is directly attributed with reinstating Skate 3® to the videogame sales charts some four years after its first release. As Dring (2014) explains: ‘[t]he result of this coverage has caused a spike in interest. The game was out of print, but the weight of consumer demand at retailer GAME meant the firm requested EA produce more copies. The result has been the title sitting in the charts all year’ (2014). It is highly unlikely that the retailer or the game publisher could or would have instigated such demand from its target consumers, yet a series of LP content which incorporate this community member’s onscreen personality through gameplay activities has influenced both community and firm behaviour. In this way, community members may potentially counter exploitation by firms (Robinson 1976). It also enables the players to extract value from their playbour (Gerencer 2016; Weaver 2008)—PewDiePie has reportedly earned over $124 million in sponsorship and advertising revenue since 2010 (Gerencer 2016). Emergent business models, such as multi-channel networks (MCNs; e.g. Maker Studio™), further muddy the value flows by capitalising on the community. Such flows highlight the potential for value to be transformed from one (subjective) form to another as well as transferred between the

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firm, prosumers and community members (Cova and Paranque 2016). Green (2015) describes how cultural capital derived from the development of technical skillsets for creating virtual reality experiences was transformed into economic value; Entwistle (2002) describes the transformation of cultural value to symbolic value for high-fashion photographic models who derive kudos that helps to develop their longer-term careers; and, Morreale (2014) describes the transformation of cultural value from a creative process to economic value for a prolific YouTube video maker. Whilst Dujarier (2016) highlights the ambiguity of this kind of work and the value derived from it, others raise questions about how the quality of the product relates to value-in-use (e.g. Payne et al. 2008; McColl-Kennedy et al. 2012; Golder et al. 2012; Macdonald et al. 2016). Quality has long been considered to be an antecedent of value (e.g. Zeithaml 1988; Ulaga and Eggert 2006) yet it is clear that prosumers of LP are actively seeking to transform the original content into something new for what appears to be a variety of reasons. Further reflecting on this discussion, MCNs facilitate LP players in developing their audience (and thus the community) but primarily act to benefit IP owners and the platform by mediating programming, funding, cross-promotion, partner management and digital rights management (Mediakix.com, 2016). In acting as intermediaries between the IP owner and the community, MCNs transform the inherently social and productive nature of the community (Newman 2008) into economic value for all stakeholders. The speculative nature of LP monetisation (Hayes 2008) by games developers is therefore enabling new valuable business models to emerge. Whilst media coverage demonstrates the impact of the LP community (see Brightman 2016; O’Rourke 2015; Hodson 2015; Dring 2014), there is limited understanding of the types of value and the roles and significance of the LP phenomenon as a community of practice and interest, and their transformative impacts on the development of new business models, which demands further study. This chapter therefore provides insight into the nature of value generated and how it is transformed and transferred by firms and community members, with particular focus on opinion leaders (LP players). The remainder of the chapter reports findings of a qualitative research design, with the next sections describing in turn, the research methodology, findings and conclusion.

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Methodology This research sought to explore the ways in which participants (LP players) immerse themselves in the game sub-cultures and communities of interest to generate value. In order to address the research aim, a mixed methods qualitative design was used (Schwandt 1999; Husserl 1980) that enabled the subjective nature of value-in-use inherent within the LP community to be explored (Bechmann and Lomborg 2012). The approach generates rich insight (Geertz 1973) and allows for the extraction of meaning from experiences (Farina 2014). This research also draws on the prior experience of one of the authors within the community as a participant observer to the focal phenomenon. Netnography was used to evaluate the online, social nature of LP (see Kozinets 2015) in conjunction with semi-structured interviews. Participants were selected on the basis of their involvement in the community. As Henri and Pudelko (2003) states, in order for participants to be aware of gaming sub-cultures, they must be active in the community of interest. Fiske (2010) has suggested this can be in the form of communication with other community members as well as the productive consumption of cultural texts (i.e. LPs). Thus, sampling was purposive in design, based on the role of the community member as an opinion leader alongside which a random selection of the ten most recent examples of their creative work was selected (see Table 12.1). Interviews were conducted via Skype, which enabled recording and transcription for data analysis. Interviews focused on the circumstances surrounding the establishment of the participants’ social media streaming channels, and how much LP content participants viewed, how they collaborated with others, and the role of advertising, sponsors and subscribers. Participants were asked to reflect on the types of value they derived from LP and how it was transformed through the creative development processes they employed. In addition, content analysis of creative work produced by participants (streamed videos) was used to evaluate the references participants made to other texts, the common language and symbols (see Peterson 1979; Krippendorff 1980) they used in their creative expression, as well as the sub-cultural references related to the specific game(s) they used to create their content. The approach to community and brand engagement undertaken by participants was also evaluated using the range of social media platforms identified by participants during interviews. Themes were allowed to emerge through analysis of the datasets and this was then grouped in relation to four types of value (economic, sym-

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Table 12.1  Sample description Sample

Method

Data analysis

70 LP videos

Netnography

Seven community members Field notes

Interviews, each lasting approximately one hour Participant observation

Thematic and content analysis of LP Thematic analysis of interviews Thematic analysis

Research participant ID

Channel subscriber-base

Duration of participation in community

Connectivity (number of social networks used)

P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 P7

69 1,293,746 18 26 66 386,123 55

3 years 4 months 5 years 8 months 3 months 6 years 3 months 4 years 10 months 6 years 1 month 2 years 8 months

4 7 4 1 6 7 4

bolic, social and cultural). In this way a deep understanding of the responses from community participants was generated (Ritchie et  al. 2013). The next section discusses the key research findings in relation to the value types identified.

Findings Of the four value themes identified in the literature (economic, social, cultural and symbolic value), two themes emerged from the dataset for each type of value, resulting in eight themes in all. We next discuss each of the value themes identified, focusing on how it was generated and used by LP players and organisations. Economic Value Advertisements and merchandise were related to economic value. Advertisements were often included as part of YouTube’s partner programme, with content produced by the LP player being overlaid with the advert. Economic value was derived from the cost-per-mille set by the platform (e.g. $2/1000 views, Green 2015). Products such as t-shirts,

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hats and event tickets were sold by the LP player to followers and subscribers and were evidence of merchandise. Some participants demonstrated a clear focus on economic value as a driver for content creation. This was evidenced through the inclusion of advertisements and promotion of merchandise on their content videos. For these participants, there was evidence of a decision-making process to derive monetary income and focus on view count, enabling them to determine how and where to monetise their content and monitor its success. Participants appeared to be directly responding to the business models developed by platforms and games developers, as well as third party organisations seeking to advertise their products and services by association with the LP player content. For others, the process of monetising their content was of lower perceived value than the development of skills, considered to be a form of cultural value. P2 comments: ‘If I ever couldn’t do this as a job anymore full time, I would still make content…’. Whilst most participants had allowed (multiple) advertisements to be associated with their content, they denied economic value was the driver for creating work. Some participants commented they did not find the economic value derived from the LP process adequate for the contribution they felt their work made to the community. It is most likely that advertising was used as a means to generate a form of symbolic value, effectively helping them to legitimise their work by association with a (platform-led) process, rather than a specific brand advertiser. This is also evidenced by their frequent participation in platform ‘partner’ schemes. Furthermore, one participant claimed ‘… at the minute I don’t monetise, […] although that is in my future plans’ (P3), suggesting economic value was used as part of a transformative process to develop other value forms such as collaborative opportunities (social value) and technical skillsets (cultural value). This player commented value was derived from seeing the content enjoyed by others: ‘[it is] for anyone who would watch it’ (P3). Thus, evidence of economic value suggests that participants were aware of the preliminary steps that needed to be taken to prepare for future monetisation by focusing on viewing figures and profiling their work, resulting in their elevated social status, collaborations and skills but the process they adopted transformed economic value to symbolic, social and cultural values.

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Symbolic Value Symbolic value was identified in two themes related to subscription boxes and calls to action. The subscription box was a form of overlay on content and was used to indicate the LP player’s desire to boost their subscriber-­ base. This highlighted their aim to develop an audience, and thus their symbolic value. Calls to action were where the LP player encouraged the viewer to ‘share’, ‘subscribe’, ‘comment’ or ‘visit the store’ to buy merchandise through the content itself. This theme was therefore an attempt to exert influence over the viewer. Symbolic value was embedded into participants’ content. Evidence highlights how LP players customise their work using ‘idents’ as branding for their content across multiple media platforms. Participants stated that a focus on subscriber counts was for them an indication of elevated status and influence over their target audience. In particular, their membership of the YouTube Creator Academy was a mechanism they used to encourage collaboration and opinion sharing among community members. Whilst status established through numbers of followers was highlighted as a focus, many participants did not consider their status within their target audience to be central to the success of their channels. These participants explain: ‘There is an ego related to YouTube … you do want people to watch [your content]’ (P3) and ‘… sometimes people […] get engrossed in the view-counts, the subscriber-counts […] sometimes it is greatly important’ (P4), however, as P5 suggests ‘… I might manage to turn my channel into an actual thing if I get enough subscribers … if people have a lot of subscribers then they have a track record, they’re a bit more committed’. It is the altruistic nature of content creation that players determine elevates their status within the community, as P2 states: ‘there are a lot of people that are almost dependent on the content, and I kind of keep it going for them as well’. This is reinforced by one participant who legitimises his position with content that was created from a visit to a game developer, implying status through superior knowledge and brand access. Longevity in the community was also identified as a contributing factor to let’s player success, as P5 states in relation to the level of engagement with viewers: ‘… maybe I’m a little bit of a role model because I’ve been doing it for so long’, albeit this participant has a relatively low subscriber-­ base. Importantly, it is the stated desire to ‘make a career’ out of content production that this participant perceived to be indicative of generating

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symbolic value. P2 states: ‘… people are so narrow-minded that, if they’ve got fewer subscribers than them, then they instantly have the connotation that that channel is lesser [BUT, it is the subscriber count that is] your seal of approval, like your value on YouTube, and that is something that I really hate’. Such a view highlights the participants’ tension with current business models of the content platforms (i.e. whereas platforms primarily aim to support the transformation of symbolic to economic value, the LP content producers predominantly seek to generate social and cultural value and transform it symbolic value). Social Value Social value was evidenced in themes relating to comments and replies and collaborations and friends. Comments and replies indicated social engagement with others in the LP community and reinforced the connection between the LP player and their viewers. Collaborations were often evidenced by multiple LP participants in a single video, each of whom had their own LP channel. Friends may also be included in the LP content but were not otherwise active in producing LP content. Content is shared for an audience to engage with alongside various mediated strategies that actively promoted communication between the LP player and their viewer. Collaboration and friendship are therefore dominant themes, emphasising that content creators are highly motivated by sociality of the environment. This is perhaps surprising, given that these content creators are often perceived to be bedroom-based ‘nerds’ with few friends. The content illuminates that social value was the most universally sought form of value in this study. All participants stated they enjoyed producing the content with or for friends and themselves, but they also actively sought to create new networks through their efforts. As P3 states, ‘[I’m] hoping to find people that are like-minded, who enjoy watching the same things as I watch’ whilst P7 extends this by commenting ‘I want to make a dual comedy let’s play with someone in the same room’. Generating social value in this way is quite a complex process: not only do c­ ollaborators need to coordinate their effort to create content, ‘thing that people like about let’s plays is that they are watching the video as if they are sat on the sofa with a friend’ (P2) but as their social value transforms to symbolic value, so their network grows providing more opportunities to create social value. Evidence suggests that more frequent collaboration occurs on the larger channels, with those that form a part of a larger group of players.

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Conversely, however, there seems to be little relationship between collaboration and comments on content by community members, despite the various social networks connected to the primary content channels. Whilst Facebook and Twitter were cited by participants as important social networking tools, they also commented that engagement with their community was mainly an ‘in the moment activity’, typically taking place when using a specific platform to create content. Social value is thereby simultaneously generated with cultural value through the content creation process. This goes some way to explaining the dismissive attitudes of participants towards economic value as they described a lack of certainty in the ability to monetise content yet an obvious enjoyment in the creative process, which is entirely within their control. Cultural Value Cultural value was identified in themes related to face cam use and the technical advances evidenced in content. A face cam, or forward-facing camera, was used by LP players to overlay their face on to the content. This was a popular mechanism used and clearly a skill that evidenced technical proficiency. LP players saw the use of the face cam as a way of adding quality and indicating professionalism. Technical advances were also observed in LP content, including the use of chroma key (green screen), proficiency with audio and video editing and multi-cam setups, where the content view was switched between several players’ content streams. The production of LP content clearly necessitated players to develop work-like skills. Skills related to everything from presentation skills, cinematography, audio-visual capture and editing, storyboarding, and compositing, and therefore the generation of cultural value was considered a main motivating factor. Evidence of the use, development and intent to advance their creative and technical skillsets were highlighted, for example, participants frequently suggested their goals were to: ‘… learn all the different programs of recording, editing, and learning […] the best ways to do that’ (P7). P7 explained that development was not limited to computer-based skills but ‘… personalities have changed as well, like some of the people that I do let’s plays with have become a lot more open with it’. Others cited specific examples of original inspiration, demonstrating their creeping involvement in creative activities that transformed them from consumers to producers. P5 states: ‘… there’s a lot of recording, planning it out, writing everything, ­putting it all together … it’s [now] more focused, more effort,

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and more planning’ whilst P2 comments ‘I really enjoy storytelling in video games, and I think in turn that makes me a better storyteller myself … making that content refines all of those skills’. Development was described as a learning process, as P2 comments: ‘… you tend to mimic and copy people you aspire to be like, because when you start out on YouTube you are normally quite vulnerable … then after kind of like the year mark you tend to start finding your own voice’. This illustrates how social value transforms to cultural value, as P4 explains, ‘[I] get a lot of inspiration from the content providers that we watch, which inspires us to try and develop those skills that would be needed to create that content to show it off to our friends, or to even show it off to potential interviewers as a development of skills’. Thus, participants demonstrate that the value transformation process is well understood, identifying the applicability of their learned skills to more traditional work environments such as broadcast TV, radio or graphic design.

Discussion LP is shown to have multiple types of value that has benefit for LP players, the community and businesses alike, and consequently business models have been developed around this new form of user-generated content (Vollmer et al. 2014; Dredge 2014; Marsden 2013; Rapp 2012). There is evidence that the gaming industry is largely supportive of LP players in creating the work despite some contradiction in terms and conditions stated by developers and IP owners (Brightman 2016; O’Rourke 2015; Hodson 2015; Dring 2014). Social networks serve as points of contact with the community, where members can assemble around a topic of common interest (Henri and Pudelko 2003). The consumption of a shared passion is a common theme and is indicative of a community of interest (ibid.). Payne (2011) suggests that engagement with and consumption of content can result in the development of skills. This implies that members of communities of interest become prosumers (Toffler 1980) by participating in creative practice (Wenger 2000). Within this research, participants that transformed into active members of the community did this initially by imitating the work of other community members, effectively ‘paying tribute’. This demonstrates a desire to pursue social and cultural value through prosumption of content. The social aspect observed through collaborations intimates that content is the result of a form of playbour, inherently play-like yet requiring work-like skills to produce

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(Newman 2008; Kuchlich 2005). The consequential physical socialisation between community members is more akin to ‘living room gaming’ (Chambers 2016), rather than a virtual purely online endeavour. Furthermore, it highlights how the transition from a community of interest to a community of practice can take place. Also evidenced in this research is how social, cultural and symbolic value is a corollary to economic value for community members. As Bourdieu suggests (1986), value can be of many types and it may be transformed from one form into another. The research into the LP community highlights that whilst becoming a well-known player is tied to generating income, it may not be possible to generate income without becoming well known in the process. Yet, despite this, economic value is not a primary goal for participants: research highlights there is considerable potential economic value that LP content generates but there is little evidence that this is actively pursued, even though content is frequently embedded with income-generating advertisements and merchandise. Even those expressing an interest in translating the production of LP into future employment (Ritzer and Jurgenson 2010) claimed not to be incentivised by monetising content. Thus, it appears that economic and other forms of value have been transformed into symbolic value (following from Bourdieu 1989) through which participants secure an elevated status, regardless of any potential loss of economic value through the processes employed. This is clearly the opposite of what firms and intermediaries have implemented in their development of an ecosystem that supports LP players through a process of monetising engagement. Within the community, the actual and potential value transformations identified are intriguing, and demonstrate a level of simultaneous naivety and sophistication among community members, as well as emergence of the focal phenomenon. The audience is used to generate social value, with cultural value of content resulting in development of skills (Fiske 2010) and symbolic value being derived from the means to influence others. Economic value is derived from views of content created. Thus, social and cultural value results in personal growth, leading to symbolic value for participants. Whilst it seems obvious that it is an elevated status (Dennis 2008; Weaver 2008; Potter 2007) that is transformed into economic value, participants highlighted a reverse attitude (i.e. economic value for them transforms to symbolic value). The trajectory implied by the findings is therefore highly dynamic and is neither linear nor hierarchical. The presence of advertising does not necessarily indicate a desire among

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­articipants to generate economic value but demonstrates technical p competency. LP players make content in the pursuit of social (friends, networking) and cultural (creative skills) value. The process involves producing and distributing content, collaborating with others and engaging with online communities, which develops skills. The generation of economic value is therefore tied to the consumption of the content (Hayes 2008) and controlled by the audience, yet participants highlighted how they are able to generate both social and cultural value for themselves. This intimates that control over value generated is of primary importance to community members. Whilst arguably social value relies on others, players aim to exert or retain ownership of their content across multiple platforms and networks (Henri and Pudelko 2003), resulting in a power balance that favours the creator in the generation of social and cultural value. In such a way, players build their power base by utilising existing game-based sub-­cultures that gather around common interests (Menotti 2014). The ways in which power is used were not a focus of this research but would make an interesting future direction for investigation. LP monetisation relies on the audience consuming the content, and so economic value for the creators is not a given. Ritzer and Jurgenson (2010) state that social networking platforms extract value from their users by relying on unpaid user-generated content to add value to their platform. Whilst direct economic impact of LP is a frequent topic of discussion (Dring 2014; O’Rourke 2015; Hodson 2015; Brightman 2016), this is not reflected in the actions of participants in our research. Even though unpaid labour might be seen as exploitative, it is through the production of content that LP players generated a demonstrable skillset which they used as a strategy to gain future employment. Thus, players transformed cultural value into economic value. The productive nature of LP is not solely related to the production of content, rather the consumption of LP can be considered productive (Payne 2011) in that knowledge and skills relating to production techniques and gameplay elements are transferred among community members. Participants highlight their passion for gaming, and fun over income is of paramount importance, suggesting LP is a form of playbour (Kuchlich 2005) that makes use of work-like skills (Newman 2008). From a firm perspective, this form of economic value embedded in the content is not immediately exploitable albeit that contribution to business development results from extended brand reach generated through

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the process of community building. Participants do not, therefore, see firms as exploitative per se. Bourdieu (1989) suggests that symbolic value is the acknowledgement of other forms of value as legitimate and, as such, it cannot be pursued in and of itself. In the research, the process of developing an audience and building status is evidently time consuming and challenging but what is surprising is that the pursuit of symbolic value was claimed by participants to actively destroy social value of the community. For optimum symbolic value, a two-step flow of communication (Lazarsfeld et  al. 1944) was identified, whereby community members transfer credibility onto a product by featuring it in their content, effectively engaging in word-of-mouth promotion for the game (Trustov et al. 2009). The symbolic value these community members then generated, by association, preserved their elevated position. Economic and social value is developed through this elevated position in the form of collaboration and shared audiences (YouTube Creator Academy 2015). Combining this with the social requirement for generating economic value, as explored above, then highlights the need to pursue social value before symbolic value becomes accessible. For example, the social nature of a platform means that a video with great skill (cultural value) will be shared, and collaborative videos (social value) will transcend communities.

Conclusion The four forms of value outlined by Bourdieu (1986)—economic, social, cultural and symbolic—were used as the basis for discussing value transformation in the LP community, as outlined in this chapter. Findings demonstrated that each form of value is pursued and manifested through the interplay of various creative and prosumption activities. The process of content creation indicates the embedded nature of social and cultural value but, whereas the business models employed by firms (platforms and games developers) emphasise economic value as the driving force for emergence of the LP phenomenon, the community itself focuses more on the consequential symbolic value they generate. It is possible that the relative youth of the industry (Klepek 2015) and speculative nature of the channel monetisation processes explored (Hayes 2008) impedes participants from pursuing direct and meaningful economic value generation. This research, however, suggests that alternative approaches to

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considering value creation and transformation in this type of context may be required. LP is not necessarily driven by the virtualised online experience environment, highlighting that prosumers are engaged by the social and cultural environment in which content is created. Sharing of content using a multitude of networks and platforms is identified in this study as an extension of the magic circle, through which rules and performance of gameplay are enacted and further developed. The consequential work-like skills, playbour, developed by community members is in this research seen as evidence of the transformation process between social, cultural and economic value to symbolic value. Both the LP community and IP owning organisations recognise the types of value generated by LP and both seek to exploit the phenomenon. What is interesting is the complementarity of the exploitation of value by each party. Community members seek to generate symbolic value to support their career development, whilst firms seek to use skills of content creators to extract revenue through associated advertising (platforms) and building audience (games developers). The research design has limitations in that it reports on a small sample size. Future research could therefore expand the framework developed into a quantitative investigation to explore further the relationships between the types of value generated and ways in which it is transformed for the stakeholders in the community.

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CHAPTER 13

Conclusion: Value Constructs for the Creative Economy Rachel Granger

Performing Value and Constructs for Conceiving Value One conclusion from the variety of perspectives offered on value construction both in the literature and also in this book would be that value in the context of the creative economy is varied and multiplex, and as a result of this complexity, tends to fall back on narrow definitions of economic practice. While entirely logical and reasonable, Part I of this book argues that there are inherent pitfalls in doing so. By way of alternative, the book offers an action-based framework for conceptualising value, tied to the notion of performance. In Part II, the book considers the attributes considered to be valuable (useful) to one’s self and the principles or standards that shape these, which might be viewed as performance of expression, and shaped by performative power and experience. In Part III, the book explores the different ways value is constructed and mediated through processes and interactions, through performance as -doing, -art form, -process, and -power.

R. Granger (*) De Montfort University, Leicester, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Granger (ed.), Value Construction in the Creative Economy, Palgrave Studies in Business, Arts and Humanities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_13

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Part I: Defining the Creative Economy Through Value In Chap. 1, the book outlined a case for viewing the creative economy through the performing lens, which it was argued enables broader disciplinary reach. As a result, the book has allowed for less conventional aspects of value to come to life through the different chapter contributions, and the condition of value has been further enabled in a way that opens up new avenues of enquiry and a vernacular that enriches current economic frameworks and terminology. In Chap. 2, Laura Parson’s valorisation of hidden cultural activities in societies, such as those taking place in the household (hidden from view), and those in some way forced to become hidden through power and soft institutions (that devalue the societal worth/perception of an attribute) speak of the way value in a creative economy performs as a process and as power. As Laura Parsons argues, this goes beyond what might be conceived as tacit, and alludes to the difficulties of expressing culture or transmitting it as a complex form; it resonates with institutional frameworks through, and by which power upholds and subjugates societal views on what might be perceived as legitimate or visible, and belief systems on what is willing to become visible. In much the same way as Lundvall (2002) expresses the power imbued in ‘local codes’ within epistemic communities, which effectively keeps outsiders at arms-­length, so power relations can play out in households and communities, and manifest in a variety of ways: (1) marginalisation of a set culture; (2) an unwillingness to share or reproduce cultural artefacts or processes for a mainstream or commercial audience; (3) a tendency to hide cultural attributes including materiality and symbols from public display, (4) a concerted effort to reinforce the authenticity of a culture by restricting ownership and practice within a designated community, and (5) deliberate marginalisation of a set culture within society. For example, it has been argued that the legitimacy of subcultures and ‘low’ culture are predicated on powers of subjugation. Thus the idea that we might simply enrich taxonomies and measurement toolkits, as a worthwhile contribution to the creative economy field, and to remedy existing flaws and deficits is to overlook the more complex power relations at play in a creative economy, and the structure and agency within this (see Archer 1995; Barker 2005).

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Part II: The Creative Self In Chap. 3, Pinky Bazaz considers value in the creative economy both as a factor input (university degrees as embodied and institutionalised cultural capital) and by exploring the personal experiences of learning, which have personal value. What is revealed through the data on higher education performance in British universities is another power structure, which for some plays out as a positive process of embodying new skillsets, and expanding opportunities for capital accumulation in the graduate job market. For others, notably BAME groups,1 the experience at university is shown to be comparatively less empowering, and creates an ideological contestation over widening participation agendas in the higher education system. Operating in an wider environment in which a premium is now placed on creative skillsets, creative degrees are framed as commercially lucrative and students’ own value of these are accordingly high at the point of university entry. Yet the experience of BAME students at the point of university exit across several creative disciplines is problematic, and reflects real and marked differences in educational performance and employment options between ethnic groups. Pinky’s use of statistics provide compelling evidence of ‘attainment gaps’ (Broecke and Nicholls 2007; HEFCE 2013; ECU 2017), which reinforce existing concerns about meritocracy in the creative economy (e.g. O’Brien et  al. 2016; Taylor and O’Brien 2017; Brook et al. 2016). Pinky’s contribution serves to remind us that students as feepayers, now occupy a changing position as consumers in a creative economy, who as a result, are more likely to reflect on the broader returns on investment of creative learning, and the value of learning in both economic and social terms. Resisting the inclination to interpret value as merely monetary returns, which arise from converting cultural capital into economic capital, Pinky draws on Rokeach (1973) to consider terminal value, or the sets of standards, which guide and determine actions and attitudes. Building on his earlier (1968) work on beliefs, attitudes, and values, Rokeach’s terminal values refer to those values that shape social structure such as equality, social recognition, a sense of accomplishment, security, comfortable life, exciting life, and so on, as well as the instrumental values that help achieve these including ambition, capability, intellect, imagination, and independence. Social structure here refers to the social arrangement in society that 1

 Black and Minority Ethnic students.

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emerges from and determines the actions of individuals, and lead to socio-­ economic stratification. In the context of higher education and creative skills, while there is a temptation to position degrees and students as objects, which have monetary value in a commercial setting, the wider experience of learning and being at university as a process and expression of personal beliefs and values, can reveal important insights into the overall worth of higher education, within a wider society and system. What is revealed here is that while the attainment gap between White and BAME students has been explained partially by the relationship between a student and university, and in particular, the barriers that might prevent full BAME development, examining the relationship between student values and those of an institution can reveal much about a student’s educational experience and value sets. Pinky notes here the importance of social belonging at a university (e.g. role models, mentors) as well as personal attributes (the way education is viewed and used, and motivation for learning), which shape construction of terminal values around security, success, and so on, and can create markedly different social structures around the same commercial degree. One student’s pursuit of ‘stardom’ through a creative degree (Currid-Halkett 2015), using the accreditation system as a passport to high-earning jobs, may differ to another experience that draws on the learning environment to grow skills and new experiences and is likely to view returns in terms of ‘delayed value’. For BAME groups, with poorer relationships with peers, with fewer role models, and a weaker support community, as well as lower instrumental values such as capability and ambition, the value of a degree may not be so much delayed, as devalued. In this sense, terminal values are inherently individual (e.g. one person’s accomplishments may differ to another’s) and while Pinky has not attempted to map these in her contribution, she nevertheless makes a case for critiquing widely held assumptions about the universal value and effects of creative learning. Pinky’s contribution reminds us to consider differences in micro social values (BAME cohorts, Generation Z), which may differ to hegemonic views of the creative economy as wealthy workers and businesses; bearing little resemblance to other groups with different terminal and instrumental values, their learning and employment experiences, their social and interpersonal interactions, and own positionality, from which social acceptance and/or monetary value is shaped and ascribed. Pinky concludes by making a connection between social values (societal views of the value of higher education), personal and moral values, which shape and are shaped by experiences and interactions within the higher

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education system, and competency values, which ultimately shape employability and remuneration. Pinky’s review of one’s creative self, shaped by individual beliefs and moral systems, that ultimately shape social structure, play out in other chapter contributions. Jennie Jordan and Ruth Jindall’s portrayal of a changing arts landscape (Chap. 4), shaped by the power of so-called philanthropy, speaks to the power that underpins structure and agency. Jennie and Ruth’s portrayal of financial actors who fund art in lieu of public resources and who unwittingly constrain art access through their own value systems, might be described as a type of cultural intermediary. The literature on intermediaries has thus far considered the role of the new middle classes whose actions mediate production and consumption of culture (following Bourdieu 1984, 1996), those economic imaginaries who as market actors mediate between culture and the economy to qualify cultural goods for economic returns (see O’Connor 2015), and the more recent birth of community actors who introduce and shape cultural consumption in communities (Perry 2019). While Maguire and Matthews (2012) argue that the cultural intermediaries construct have been used as a ‘descriptive catch-all’ for any creative activity or occupation, it does seem that Jennie and Ruth’s account of philanthrophers who are neither market agents nor necessarily part of the ‘petit bourgeoisie’ (in the way envisaged by Bourdieu 1984) nevertheless shape content and access, in a way that lends power to shaping consumer taste. It therefore provides a new account of intermediaries who through financial power express their creative self to reproduce cultural consumer economies. Both Pinky’s work on higher education experiences, and Jennie and Ruth’s account of philanthropy in the arts, reveal something of one’s creative self (expression), shaped by power. Foucauldian discourse analysis has relevance here, in providing insight into the way institutional power relationships exerted through one’s language and practice, can shape the way groups and individuals use these to affirm their own identity, consolidate beliefs, and even resist the effects of such power. Foucault’s work (e.g. 1969) reinforces how power can inhere in institutions rather than individuals to effectively automate power and ‘disindividualise’ values and actions. In Chap. 5, Claire Lerpiniere’s account of how fast fashion as a global institution exerts power on individuals and demographic groups to affirm their own identity, in effect disindividualises their creative self. Although Foucault’s work on the archaeology of power was intended as a socio-physical reference point about power inhered in

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prisons, and later schools and hospitals, it nevertheless has salience in illustrating how power has its principles not so much in a person, as a concerted distribution of institutions with principles of control and order, and in an arrangement that produces a set of relations in which individuals are caught up. In other words, societal power relations coerce, command, direct, or influence the actions of others. Here Claire makes reference to the values or forces exerted on individuals to embody, and to enhance social relationships, sense of identity, or affiliation to a brand or group (brand values) and even ethical values or principles. Her work implores us to consider the material value embodied within a textile, as ‘embodied situated bodily experience’ (Entwistle 2005) or second skin. This embodied reading of textiles can lead to the creation of a personal relationship between a garment as creative product, and individual, which connects with deliberate design and textile thinking, and enables the agency of textiles to come to the fore. As a result, Claire argues, interaction can lead to curatorial processes of owning, consuming, and caring for a textile that detaches from the (global) economic power that connects fast fashion and the consumer, and dominates the creative economy. Claire’s reading of textiles through a phenomenological and existential understanding of a garment sets out a practical way for culture and creativity as an art form in a post-consumption phase of fashion, which is in a sense more ritualistic. Lury’s description of ‘post-consumption rituals’ connotes the personalisation of an artefact, as a means of reassigning its meaning from that of the manufacturer or retailer, to that of an individual—that belongs to them and speaks to them (Lury 1996). In Chap. 6, Malika Kraamer uses these same sentiments to examine the deliberate cultural consumption of Kente cloth as an exclusive garment in today’s Ghana, as well as in a pan-African context, in a way that evokes a sense of belonging and satisfaction among its wearers, with deep aesthetic value. Malika argues that the continued wearing of the cloth over the last two centuries is embedded in a sense of continuity and identity with the past and current day identity as an expression of cultural value, which marks gender, class, status, or role in more complex ways. As she argues, one way to study the relationship between social identity and textiles is to look in detail at the use of these fabrics in relation to the way that particular identities are achieved in wearing these textiles, for example, at occasions, in political situations, or to promote social mobility. In that sense, Kente cloth has more of an intrinsic value (Throsby 2001) rather than market value, and Claire and Malika’s works both speak to connections made through materials and their embodiment

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of meaning. In other words, textiles have power as a productive force that makes it possible to understand and relate to ourselves, as well as others in the world around us. Part III: Collective Creative Spaces and Processes Starting in Chap. 7, the unique interactions between people and space are examined in Part III of the book, to understand value construction in the creative economy from a community and relational perspective. David Rae’s analysis of learning and cultural exchange in communities in Cape Breton, Canada, and Leicester, UK are used to depict cultural activities at the micro scale, which he terms ‘intracultural’. David asserts that cultural interactions and the value constructed from these are highly dependent on the sharing of values, belief systems, and behaviours of a distinct group of people, which here also share a spatial characteristic. The idea that relational proximity and a group’s ‘idioculture’ (Fine and Hallett 1979) provides the basis of connections that serve to create value in the creative economy, and that this sustains and expands through innovation, is an idea also shared in Chap. 8, where I explore the role of relational and cognitive proximity in informal spaces, as a determinant of creative innovation. The locus of value construction in Chap. 7 is the geographical construct of ‘home’, which is an important anchor for cultural identity, and which frames the sharing of linguistics, signs, and symbols, and has wider social and cultural meaning. In Cape Breton, this takes the form of ‘Caper’ cultural references and explicit references to membership of indigenous ‘family’ groups, which facilitate and authenticate cultural exchanges in the area, while in Leicester these play out as ‘Asian’ cultural references and connections, and the symbolic use of cuisine as a marker of membership and connection. In Denmark (Chap. 8), the same ideas of proximity (drawing on Boschma 2005) are forged through references to ‘music’ and ‘maker mindsets’, which provides a common basis for micro-level cognitive and relational social capital, and at the meso scale the structural proximity inhered in the physical characteristics (e.g. building, projects) and informal organisation of maker spaces in a creative economy. In Chaps. 7 and 8, cultural proximity made possible through shared signs and narratives (or codes) is cited as a key determinant of economic value construction in the creative economy, whereas in Chap. 9, cultural and creative vision provides the basis for relational and structural proximity that drives change in Ouseburn in the North-East of England. In other

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words, in Chaps. 7 and 8, culture and creative value is the outcome of interaction, and in Chap. 9, it represents the tool, which supports connections and through which political and economic change is enacted. Similarly, in Chap. 10, ‘design’ as one area of the creative economy is viewed as a valuable art form that drives a process of economic conversion. While the focus, like that in Chaps. 7, 8, and 9 is economic in nature, the chapter contribution reveals the way in which value is constructed through highly intricate and subtle exchanges and processes that occur through informal interactions at work, often hidden from the public gaze and occurring in highly tacit forms. By way of example, David Heap and Caroline Coles draw on furniture design, to highlight the tacit and multiplex characteristics of (incremental) design working in furniture production, which commercially remain hidden from economic and legal value frameworks. As David and Caroline note, while ‘silent design’ remains a powerful driver of economic value in the creative economy, ‘creations of the mind’ as a product of the interplay within teams, is directly at odds with the economic imperative of establishing ownership of intellectual property, on which economic or commercial value is ascribed and converted. In Chaps. 11 and 12, these same ideas of hidden value, which sit uncomfortably with economic frameworks and narratives, are extended. In Chap. 11, empirical data on creative businesses and university staff in Leicestershire reveal surprisingly low knowledge transfer between universities and business, which is not explained by the intellectual and research capability of local universities. The data reveals a very strong role for ‘competitors’, ‘critical friends’, and ‘customers’ in driving innovation through hidden pipelines, and is reflected in a high ‘intra-operability quotient’ (knowledge transfer from within the creative sector). As I argue, while these other actors in the same sector remain largely hidden from the commercial and academic views of value construction in the creative economy (see literature on New Economic Geography), they exert power by ‘legitimising’, ‘mediating’, and ‘enabling’ new value creation through local social spaces. In Chap. 12, the notion of hidden action is reflected both in the emergent—but often hidden—practice of Let’s Play, which has been referred to as non-narrative machinima (Menotti 2014) and is a sub-­ culture of gaming. The Let’s Play community of practice acts as a key locus for value creation, creating a hidden value chain between gamers, IP owners, business stakeholders including advertisers, and followers. Examples of value in the Let’s Play community exist as social value through social interaction, cultural value through learning and development of

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emerging production techniques, economic value through advertising and merchandise, and symbolic value in the lure and motivation of an audience. The case study reveals that social value is the most universally sought form of value (in the case study used), and reinforces the idea of relational capital as the key locus of value construction in a creative economy.

Where Does This Leave Us? There is no doubt at all that the 13 chapters in this book have confirmed the creative economy to be of the moment but also that more needs to be done to revisit the narratives and the policy agenda that support value construction. Framing the different viewpoints of the creative economy through performance as has been done here (as doing; as an art form; as expression; as power; as a process; and as experience) has been rewarding in thinking about value beyond cursory views of economic worth, and in a way that uncovers new vocabulary, which offer a capacious approach to considering performance in the creative economy: • Seeing—We have gleaned key information from seeing the creative economy expressed in new terms—especially through actions, relationships, and materiality. These actions and belongings reflect the value placed on different activities, different items, different communities and sectors, and new extensions of identity, which have revealed new insights to the way value emerges and builds. • Revealing—With the viewpoint slightly altered, and using a different lens, different surfaces or views have become visible, especially where value construction remains largely hidden in processes or away from the public gaze. This was particularly apparent in case studies of value being constructed in hidden spaces (in design industries, in maker spaces, and within geographical and ethnic communities). • Reinforcing—Some views have reinforced existing thinking and understanding on key practices or terms, especially on issues of relationality or power, while other views have enabled mainstream thinking to be challenged (e.g. the role of stakeholders such as universities), or reinforced new ideas or new processes of value construction (e.g. the role of informal organisations). • Embodying—What some may see as inanimate objects or artefacts, or processes, others understand as symbolic objects or actions that go beyond art form or function, to embody a living cultural or creative

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practice, and as a tool for value creation. An object in its material form embodies knowledge and practices, and may stand for value that is still emerging, through a wider process, and this was highly visible in accounts of textiles and garments, but also in the game play at the heart of new digital formats (Let’s Play). • Connecting—Belonging—Physical belongings remain connected to their narratives and communities of origin, that connect users to their creation stories, and may be reinforced through wider display and awareness. Some accounts connect the user with complex symbolic forms, and express fundamental relationships between human beings, or humans to physical spaces. Some accounts express an affinity for a place or situation, and can evoke different responses from those who read and reflect on the wider meanings and significance of accounts. This was visible especially in accounts of belonging in maker spaces and in micro entrepreneurial communities in Cape Breton and Leicester. Actions and accounts that connect people, objects, and places, provide a narrative that helps us to understand the world around us, and connects theory to praxis. • Accumulating—How do experiences or material objects embody histories? Using different frameworks, these experiences (actions) and objects accumulate stories, encourage new conversations and relationships, which accumulate value over time, and help to build new narratives. • Resonating—These accounts and in some cases, art forms resonate today. They are inspiring and challenging, and provide key links that help us to understand and make sense of, or feel in common with wider phenomena. • Expanding—Through these cases and discussions, new knowledge has been encouraged to expand scholarly and policy reach, in a way that helps to rebuild knowledge, and renew connections between objects, people, community, and living creative/cultural practice. • Sustaining—These different accounts record and protect ideas for others to draw from and in a way that sustains learning and thinking. • Converging—The idea that two viewpoints can occupy the same space at the same time is central to the creative economy, and in several chapters conflicting accounts encourage the reader to reflect on this new convergence—or collision—of value in time and space, in a way that expands existing thinking and understanding.

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In the first two chapters of this book, we have explained how the concept of value in the creative economy first emerged within research and policy fields, the pitfalls of this view, and alternative ways of thinking about the same issue performatively. This performance framework was applied in the remainder of the book. The framework has shed light upon important connections and relationships, and new terms, as outlined above. These terms give us tools for understanding how people speak in terms of value construction—shaped by wider power relations—which might inform emerging policy on the creative economy, and potentially opens up new avenues of research, for example, through the Creative Industries Policy and Impact Centre at Nesta, and the Centre for Cultural Value at Leeds. Through the different chapter contributions, both empirical and conceptual, our aim was to bring together different researchers from different fields, to engage in a diverse range of views and creative practices to stimulate new thinking on the creative economy, and also to raise new questions relating to value construction. While the different chapters reinforce the view that culture and creativity matter, through the use of different lens and new constructs, the book provides an alternative view of how policy might begin to evidence the impacts on individuals and communities. Our own thinking and view of the creative economy has been affected by the sheer richness of stories of value accumulated in this book, which suggest we can no longer continue to rely on an axiomatic model, which positions economic value exclusively at the centre of the creative economy. Our hope is that community practitioners and policy makers can see the pitfalls of continued overreliance on economic tools, and look towards the alternative framework and constructs outlined here, which we believe have stood up well, and would help remove constraints. To conceive of the creative economy as a broader performance, and to deploy some of the additional constructs outlined in this chapter, is to tap into an incalculably large resource of ideas that can transform existing thinking, and tackle existing deficits. Fundamentally, it requires thinking differently. Supported by fellow thinkers, the conversations in this book help.

References Archer, M.  S. (1995). Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barker, C. (2005). Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. London: Sage.

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Index

A Accumulating, 274 Activism, 177–183, 187–191, 193–197 Aesthetic value, 110 Agency, 94, 95 Agotime, West Africa, 111, 123 Anthropology, 98 Artists, 182, 187, 191, 194–196 Artivism, 179, 184 Arts, 21–27, 67–77, 79–83 Arts Council England (ACE), 21, 22, 69, 71, 72 Asante Empire, 115, 116 Ashanti Region, West Africa, 111, 111n1, 112 Association for Business Sponsorship of the Arts (ABSA), 70 B Behaviours, 244, 245, 248 Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME), 48, 50–53, 55, 56, 58–61

Bourdieu, P., 10, 67, 110, 151, 157–160, 234, 244, 257, 259 capital, 10, 244 cultural value, 110 Habitus, 10 social capital, 158–160 taste, 67 Brand notoriety, 191–194 Brisbane, 3 C Cameron Coalition Government, 70 Cape Breton, Canada, 131, 138, 141–144, 146 Caper, 142 Capital, 85, 87–93, 100 Celebration, 124 Centre for Cultural Value (Leeds), 275 Charities, 188, 189 Charities Aid Foundation, 71 Charity, 71, 73–77 Circular Economy, 91 Cluster, 219, 225, 228, 236, 238

© The Author(s) 2020 R. Granger (ed.), Value Construction in the Creative Economy, Palgrave Studies in Business, Arts and Humanities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0

279

280 

INDEX

Co-creation, 152 Cognitive proximity, 170 Collective action, 143 Commercialisation, 3, 5 Community, 180–182, 184, 186–189, 191, 193, 197 Connecting, 274 Constructs, 265–275 Consumption, 85–102, 243, 250, 256, 258 Converging, 274 Copenhagen, Denmark, 152, 160–162 Copyrights, 210–213 Cowries, 116, 116n3 Craft, 88, 93, 102 Creative city, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9 Creative Commons, 211 Creative economy, 4–6, 8–15 Creative Industries Policy and Impact Centre, 275 Cultivate, 72, 73, 78, 80 Cultural capital, 88–92 Cultural district, 178–180, 188, 191, 192, 194–196 Cultural intermediaries, 233–238 Cultural production/consumption, 183, 185 Cultural values, 22, 25, 30, 36, 37, 244, 247, 249, 252, 254–259 Cultural Value Scoping, 6 Culture, 132–137, 139, 141–146 utopia, 21, 23 way of life, 21, 24 D Dance, 141, 144 Data deficit, 219 Definition, 265 culture, 20, 21, 23, 26, 30–32, 35 value, 6

Degree attainment, 50, 52 Degrees, 47–61 Design, 85–95, 97–102, 110–112, 114–116, 118, 120, 123–125 Design Council, 199–201 Design ownership, 213–214 DeVos (Institute of Art Management), 74, 76, 78–80 Digital, 244–247, 249 Digital natives, 54 Disindividualisation, 269 District Brand, 191–194 Dress, 110, 111, 113, 117, 119–124 E Economic value, 244, 247, 249, 251–252, 254, 255, 257–260 Economy, 19–22, 24, 37 Ecosystem, 218, 220, 223, 226, 228–231 Embodying, 273–274 Emotions, 95, 100 Entrepreneurship, 131–147 Equality Challenge Unit (ECU), 51, 56 Exportation/exports, 111, 115 F Fabric, garment, 91, 102 Fashion, 109, 114, 116–121, 123–125 Fashion brands, 89, 97 Fast fashion, 92, 94–101 Festivals, 112–114, 120, 123, 124 Flagships, 3 Flexicurity, 169 Food, 139, 140 Funding, 67–72, 75, 77, 79–83 Furniture, 200, 207–209, 213 Furniture design, 200, 207–209, 213

 INDEX 

G Gaming, 244, 245, 250, 256–258 Generation X, 54 Generation Z, 53, 54, 56 Gentrification, 178, 194 Ghana, 109–118, 120–123 Global economy, 4 Global Financial Crisis, 4 H Heritage, 183, 184, 186, 189 Heritage Site (World), 186 Hidden culture, 19–39 High culture, 180 I Identity, 21–23, 32, 34, 36, 58–60, 89, 94, 110, 119–124, 178, 179, 184, 187, 188, 192, 195 Idioculture, 133, 134 Immaterial labour, 246 Individual creativity, 50–51, 57 Innovation, 115–118, 123–125, 131, 132, 134–137, 139, 142, 143, 146, 152–157, 161, 162, 165, 167, 168, 170, 219–221, 225–228, 237 Intellectual property (IP), 200, 209–214 Inter/intra-operability Quotient, 222, 222n4, 228 Intermediaries, 154, 157 Intrinsic value, 118, 121, 125 J Jobs, 4, 5 K Kente Cloth, 110–111, 114, 116, 122, 123 Knowledge systems, 156, 158, 160

281

L Lab movement, 162–163 Languages, 21–23 Leadership, 72–79 Leadership for the Future (2014–16), 69, 72–79, 81, 82 Learning, 48, 54–58, 60, 61, 131, 134, 135, 139, 153, 154, 157, 162–164, 166–168, 171 Lefebvre, 7 Leicester, 219, 221–234, 236–238 Leicester, UK, 131, 138–141, 146 Let’s Play (LP), 243 Local customs, 123 Local patronage, 118, 119, 123 Localisation economies, 152, 155–156, 169 Logo, 193, 194 London, 3 Low culture, 20, 33–35, 266 Lundvall, B.-A. local codes, 266 M Machinima, 243, 246 Made in Ouseburn, 194 Maker mindset, 167, 168, 170, 171 Maker spaces, 152, 161–163, 165, 166, 168, 169, 171 Manchester, 3 Mapping, 218, 219, 221, 222, 227, 236–238 Material capital and value, 89–90 Material culture, 34 embodied meaning, 32–33 Microculture, 131, 133–136, 139, 142, 145, 147 Millennium Product Status, 202 Modding (modifying content), 245 Mode 1 Knowledge, 229–230 Monetary value, 49 Monetisation, 249, 252, 258

282 

INDEX

N Nationalism, 121 Neoliberalism, 5–7 NESTA, 218 Networks, 5, 8, 14, 217–238 New Economic Geography (NEG), 153, 217, 225, 226, 238 O Occasions, 110, 112, 115, 118–124, 118n4 Oral history, 186 Ouseburn Futures, 182, 186 Ouseburn Trust, 177, 182, 186, 189–190, 193–195 Ouseburn Valley, 177–180, 188–190, 193, 195, 196 Outdooring, 118, 118n4 P Participation, 142, 143, 146 Performative utterance, 10 Performing, 9–15 Performing value, 265–273 Phenomenology, 100–101 Philanthropy, 67–83 Place-making, 131–147 Place marketing, 191–194 Playbour (playing labour), 246–248, 256, 258, 260 Polanyi, 27 tacit knowledge, 28 Post-consumption rituals, 270 Power, 20, 23, 25, 26, 28, 30–33, 35, 36, 90, 91, 97, 265–267, 269–273, 275 Power relations, 30–31 Processes, 200, 208 Production, 201, 202, 204, 210, 212 Production and consumption, 5, 14

Prosumption, 245, 247, 256, 259 Public/merit good, 67–75, 77, 79–83 Q Quality control, 207, 208, 213 R Reinforcing, 273 Relational Analysis, 152, 237–238 Remix Culture, 212 Resonating, 274 Revealing, 273 Rituals, 119 Rokeach, M., 48, 60, 61, 267 terminal value, 48, 60, 61, 267 Role models, 56, 58–60 S Sectionality, 133 Seeing, 273 Signs and symbols, 7 Silent design, 199–214 Single Regeneration Budget (SRB), 181, 182n1 Skills/training, 47, 49, 51, 54–58, 61 Slavery, 28 Slow fashion, 100 Social cohesion, 189, 197 Socialisation, 257 Social proximity, 220–221 Social relationships, 119 Social value, 247, 252, 254–259 Societal worth, 266 Spatial fix, 4 Standard Industrial Classification (SIC), 218, 222 Students, 48, 50–61 Subcultures, 20, 27, 33–35

 INDEX 

Subordinate design, 204 Subsidy, 67, 68, 70, 71, 74, 79, 80 Sustainability, 85–88, 92, 93, 98, 99, 101, 102 Sustaining, 274 Symbol, 28, 32, 35 Symbolic value, 247, 249, 251–254, 257, 259, 260 Symbolism, 32, 36 Synthetic knowledge, 28, 29 T Tacit and embodied knowledge, 93, 95 Tacit knowledge, 27–29, 31, 33, 39 Tax, 70, 71, 79, 82 Technology, 153, 154, 161, 170 Textile, 85–102 Textile production, 110–116, 120 Third space, 151–173 Throsby, 24, 26, 31 symbolic value, 26 Toffee Factory, 182–184, 186 Togo, 110, 115, 118, 120, 122 Triple Helix, 154–155, 226 Tyne and Wear Development Corporation (TWDC), 181, 182n1 Types of design, 204

283

U UK design industry (British design), 200–203, 213 Underground, 217–238 UNESCO, 180, 189, 195, 197 University, 48, 50, 53, 58–60, 138, 139, 187, 218, 225–229, 232, 233, 238 Untraded interdependencies, 155–157, 238 Urban regeneration, 19 Urban renewal/revitalisation, 178, 180, 182, 192, 193, 195 V Valorisation, 8, 214 Value for money, 47, 48 Visual arts, 23 Volta Region, West Africa, 111 W Waremaking, 206 Wealth, 49, 51 West Africa, 110, 115–117, 119 Working-learning-social nexus, 156–160 Work/labour, 244–247, 249, 250, 252, 253, 256, 258 World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO), 209, 210, 212