Cultural participation: Stories of success, histories of failure

数据显示，欧洲被标记为文化参与者的人数正在下降。尽管在国家和欧盟一级，文化政策的重点是提高参与率。传统上，研究从一种假设参与者有文化缺陷的方法来研究参与的杠杆和障碍。最近的研究，例如理解日常参与项目（UEP），通过检查被认可为文化参与的活动的性质来挑战这一点。这将重新引导焦点，以了解那些不是的价值。但史蒂文森（2016）和扬科维奇（2014）都认为，参与议程已经发生了一个表演性的转变，认为研究用于合法化，而不是挑战现状。因此，这项研究试图扰乱决策过程。它通过讲述文化参与政策和项目的故事的透镜来关注这些政策和项目。它探讨了这些故事的主导叙事如何有助于文化政策的钙化。在这样做的时候，研究将调查为什么，尽管显然未能提供任何重大变化的参与模式，文化政策制定者似乎执着于相同的方法，战略和论点，为什么可观察到的文化参与模式不同，以及如何减少和消除这种差异。简而言之，这项研究试图解决的问题是，为什么文化政策似乎很难改变，尽管有大量证据表明这种改变的必要性。本研究是建立在有关认识和理解失败的价值的理论基础上的。它认为，在关于文化参与政策和项目的主流叙述中，失败的叙述在很大程度上被忽视了。有人认为，这种缺失降低了学习和变革的能力。它进一步限制了诸如UEP等项目产生的证据能够产生的影响。通过超越在学术和政策文件中普遍存在的“文化案例”的趋势，这项研究将为听到其他声音和故事提供空间。在这样做的时候，研究将试图打破现有政策进程和做法赖以维持和复制的想当然的假设。它将介绍其他失败的故事，目的是鼓励未来旨在支持文化参与的政策干预的新途径，这项研究将分阶段进行，开始参与性研讨会和文本分析，以确定最常见的故事，告诉文化参与项目。它将描绘出他们所依赖的主导叙事结构。在第二阶段，研究将进展到深入的定性访谈和在线数据收集。这一阶段将探讨关于文化参与政策和项目历史的主流叙述的忠实性。在研究的第三阶段，艺术家、艺术管理者和政策制定者将参加研讨会，讨论研究项目确定的文化参与项目的替代故事。根据第一阶段和第二阶段的研究结果，将产生一个艺术输出，为最后阶段提供中心刺激。它将突出显示占主导地位的叙述和那些仍然隐藏的叙述之间的对比。这些研讨会将探讨为什么这些替代故事保持沉默，而其他故事则成为用来维持现状的证据。然后，研讨会将确定可以采取的具体行动，以破坏现有的政策过程。将创建一个创造性的输出，行业报告和学术文本，以促进与不同利益相关者讨论项目生命周期之外的失败

Data suggests that the number of those labeled as cultural participants across Europe is falling. This is despite a cultural policy focus, at national and EU level, on increasing rates of participation. Traditionally research has examined the levers and barriers to participation from an approach that assumes it is the participant who has a cultural deficit. More recent research, such as the Understanding Everyday Participation Project (UEP), has challenged this by examining the nature of activities that are sanctioned as cultural participation. This redirects the focus to understand the value of those that are not. But both Stevenson (2016) and Jancovich (2014) have argued that the participation agenda has taken a performative turn that sees research used to legitimise rather than challenge the status quo. This research, therefore, seeks to disrupt the policymaking process. It focuses on cultural participation policies and projects through the lens of the stories that are told about them. It examines how the dominant narratives of such stories may contribute towards the calcification of cultural policy. In doing so the research will investigate why, despite an apparent failure to deliver any significant change in the patterns of participation, cultural policymakers appear wedded to the same methods, strategies and arguments about why observable patterns of cultural participation differ and how such differences should be reduced and removed. In short, the research seeks to address the question of why cultural policy appears so difficult to change, in spite of the weight of evidence indicating the necessity of such change. This research is founded on theories about the value of recognising and understanding failure. It posits that narratives of failure are largely overlooked in the dominant narratives about cultural participation policies and projects. It is argued that this absence reduces the capacity for learning and change. It further limits the impact that the evidence, generated by projects such as UEP, is able to have. By moving beyond the tendency to make the 'case for culture', which is prevalent both in academic and policy documents, this research will provide space for alternative voices and stories to be heard. In so doing the study will seek to disrupt the taken for granted assumptions upon which existing policy processes and practices are sustained and reproduced. It will present alternative stories of failure, with the intention to encourage new routes for future policy intervention intended to support cultural participation.Working in stages, this research will begin participatory workshops and textual analysis in order to identify the most common stories that are told about cultural participation projects. It will map the dominant narrative structures upon which they rely. In stage 2 the research will progress to in-depth qualitative interviews and online data collection. This stage will explore the fidelity of the dominant narratives about the history of cultural participation policies and projects. Stage 3 of the research will see groups of artists, arts managers and policy makers brought together in workshops to discuss the alternative stories of cultural participation projects that the research project has identified. On the basis of the findings of Stage 1 & 2 an artistic output will be produced that will provide the central stimulus for this final stage. It will highlight the contrast between the dominant narratives and those that remain hidden. These workshops will explore reasons why such alternative stories remain silenced while others become the evidence that is used to maintain the status quo. The workshops will then identify concrete actions that could be taken in order to disrupt the existing policy processes.A creative output, industry report and academic text will be created to facilitate discussion of failure beyond the life of the project with different stakeholders