Peter Campbell

Creative industries in a European Capital of Culture

This article examines the articulation of the benefits associated with staging the European Capital of Culture (ECoC) in Liverpool, England in 2008. It is argued that relevant policy documents, and policy discourses more generally, propose a strong influential role for the operations of the ECoC upon the creative industries. Such a strong relationship, however, is difficult to evidence either at a discursive level or from the attitudes expressed by those working within the creative industries locally. The idea that the ECoC can promote broadly ‘creative’ activity is thus posited as being merely one aspect of the ECoC’s major goal of attempted city rebranding, rather than anything more substantive; nevertheless the articulation of ‘success’ of the ECoC in this regard seems entrenched.

Imaginary Success? - The Contentious Ascendance of Creativity

This paper posits that a set of “creative industries” centred around cultural practice have played a key role within a dominant “economic imaginary” in recent years. The success and stability of this role is considered, and a coherent position regarding the nature of creativity is outlined. Examination of the “evidence” gathering projects used to bulwark this position, however, reveals how the data which emerge from such projects may no longer appropriately serve to support the position the creative industries have come to occupy within the dominant imaginary. It is argued that this imaginary persists in providing a coherent framework for understanding and for action, however, regardless of the contradictions it contains. A tangible example of this “imaginary success” is briefly considered within the UK context, via an examination of developments around the staging of the European Capital of Culture programme in Liverpool, England in 2008. In this case, it is also argued that apparent contradictions are successfully concealed by dominant positions regarding culture and creativity. In conclusion, some explanations for this state of affairs are considered, and it is argued that the increased attention being paid to cultural creativity may render the continued concealment of these contradictions untenable.

You say 'creative', and I say 'creative'

This article examines the conceptual referents of the term ‘creative’ as used in the terms ‘creative industries’, ‘creative class’ and ‘creative city’. The way in which these conceptually divergent usages can be conflated, and the difficulties this poses for policy, is considered with a particular focus on the deployment of the term within the current ‘Liverpool Cultural Strategy’. It is argued that both within and without the purview of this strategy, multiple aims for policy intervention are obscured by the use of this single term. It is also argued that this obfuscation is encouraged by a Floridian conception of creativity as a single, unified entity, but that the adoption of such a Floridian conception is not followed through to Floridas ultimate conclusions regarding the potential for the adoption of the creative agenda to exacerbate social problems.

The social life of measurement: how methods have shaped the idea of culture in urban regeneration

ABSTRACT Although ‘culture-led regeneration’ has been critiqued as both a concept and practice, it is clear that policy-makers continue to make efforts to use cultural activity of varying forms to achieve ends which could be (and are) described in terms of urban ‘regeneration’. Whilst the idea of culture-led urban regeneration had gained considerable prominence in a range of policy by the early twenty-first century, many questions have remained over how exactly such ‘regenerative’ outcomes could be convincingly demonstrated, despite much activity to attempt such demonstration over the course of preceding years. The desire for convincing evidence can be seen in a continued, and increasing, focus on evaluation, and methods aimed at providing evidence of impact and outcomes. In light of the renewed political focus in recent years on ‘proving’ the effects and value of cultural activity, this paper considers the continuation of practice in this area, and asks what lessons, if any, have been learned in evaluative practice which seeks to demonstrate the regenerative effects of culture. In light of the continuation of apparently problematic practices, the paper seeks to delineate and account for what has been learned, and what has not.

Cultural Engagement and the Economic Performance of the Cultural and Creative Industries: An Occupational Critique:

This article presents a new critical engagement with the concept of Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs), focusing on the rationale for grouping occupations and industries under this label. We show how the definition of ‘creativity’ used to demonstrate CCIs’ economic performance remains contested and variable, particularly with regard to the inclusion of specific parts of the IT sector. In demonstrating the importance of IT to the economic narrative regarding CCIs, we then unfold a related critique, exploring patterns in cultural consumption within CCI occupations. We demonstrate how some CCI workers have distinctively high cultural consumption, others reflect their broader social class, and some, including IT workers, show lower than expected consumption. Overall, we question the coherence of the prevailing CCI category, particularly in government policy, and suggest a new mode of ‘cultural’ occupational analysis for the sociology of CCIs.

On brutal culture

If it is true that culture has succumbed to the ‘derivative logic’ of contemporary economies of circulation, deprived of essential attributes and working to scramble and undermine the very premise of culture as essence, the word nevertheless continues to be used to explain things that are politically difficult, intractable, and yes, undeniably brutal.