Saskia Warren

Revealing and re-valuing cultural intermediaries in the ‘real’ creative city: Insights from a diary-keeping exercise

From critics and cultural commentators to professionals who mediate between production and consumption for economic gain, the term ‘cultural intermediaries’ has been variously interpreted over recent decades. Often framed as self-interested entrepreneurs seeking to maximise economic value the wider set of political, social and moral motivations of cultural workers have been often overlooked.Drawing on a diary-keeping exercise with 20 cultural workers in Greater Manchester and Birmingham in 2013, we suggest that a ‘third’ wave of studies of cultural intermediaries is needed, which emphasises socially engaged practices and non-economic values. The study reveals a field of cultural work which mediates between professionalised and everyday cultural ecologies, one which is often invisible and undervalued. Combining methodological insights into diary-keeping as a reflexive exercise, the study suggests that we should reclaim and re-value the term ‘cultural intermediary’ to make visible this socially grounded cultural work, particularly in the current era of austerity and cuts to the arts in England.

Pluralising the walking interview:: researching (im)mobilities with Muslim women

Abstract Within writing on walking practices, walking has often been presented as pleasurable, relaxing, and even liberatory. Research using walking interviews has recognised that different kinds of bodies can be excluded from mobile methods, impacting upon place-based knowledge production. However, the social and cultural politics of the walking interview remains underplayed, an omission that is acutely apparent in a context of urban diversity. This article investigates the ways in which walking practices intersect with social difference, particularly in relation to faith, ethnicity and gender. It argues for the need to pluralise mobile methods in order to more subtly address social distinctions, and further offers empirical observations on the embodied experiences and socio-spatial practices of Muslim women in the city of Birmingham, U.K.

Local governance, disadvantaged communities and cultural intermediation in the creative urban economy

The creative economy is a key arena where austerity, localism and social policy debates are being played out. This paper explores how cultural intermediation has been captured by a broader state agenda on socio-economic exclusion, examining how these processes function at the local level in Birmingham, UK. Intersections of local cultural policy with grass-roots practice are explored in the neighbourhood of Balsall Heath, through two case studies: (1) Birmingham City Councils Community Cultural Pilot and (2) Balsall Heath Biennale. We argue that despite savage cuts the local state is still having a considerable – and not always enabling – influence on processes and outcomes of non-state cultural intermediation, directing ways in which creative initiatives function at the local level. The paper ends on a hopeful note that these unstable times offer a moment where a renegotiation of the relationship between cultural intermediation, disadvantaged communities and the creative economy beyond monetised market-value is possible.