"Governing through numbers: Taming the cultural industries"
The creative industries research team, ©reative Encounters, is pleased to invite you to two public lectures by Andy Pratt and Don Slater. The lectures are part of the international Government Encounters workshop, which will be held at the Copenhagen Business School from May 4-6, 2009.
In this lecture "Governing through numbers: Taming the cultural industries" Andy Pratt, London School of Economics re-examines how the cultural industries have been 'made up' in particular in the UK context. Pratt shows how the use of 'ready made' or 'pragmatic' cultural industries data actually precluded analysis and enforced a conceptual visibility, and hence an empirical invisibility. The alternative, 'informed objects', are examined as one means of shifting debates, and potential actions. Moving beyond numbers themselves, Pratt looks at how 'measures' delimit both actions and the potential of policy.
Don Slater presents a case study of regional development initiative in northern Spain that focused on the construction of an international cultural centre. The aim was the transformation of a declining steel and coal region into a node in global flows of cultural capital. Slater analyses this situation as a case of performativity: 'culture' and 'global culture' were clearly objects constructed by the policy and the alliances formed around it, rather than objective processes to which the policy sought to connect. The research project Slater was commissioned to carry out in relation to this program was itself intended to be part of the performance of something called 'global culture', rather than to be a study or measurement of existing cultural flows. "Creative Industries and cultural 'globalization': regional regeneration through cultural policy in Asturias" - Don Slater, London School of Economics
Andy Pratt
Andy Pratt is a reader in urban cultural economy and the director of the Centre for Urban research at London School of Economics. His current research interests concern all aspects of the cultural economy in both international and urban contexts.
Don Slater
Don Slater is a reader of sociology at London School of Economics. His work focuses on the relations between culture and economy, and falls into three broad areas: the sociology of economic life (in particular, consumer culture and market society); the sociology of the Internet and new media; and visual sociology (particularly photography and advertising). "Creative Industries and cultural 'globalization': regional regeneration through cultural policy in Asturias" - Don Slater, London School of Economics
Slater will be joining the ©reative Encounters research program as a visiting professor until the end of June.
Contact
Sarah Netter,
Intercultural Communication and Management