scholarly journals Resituating the political in cultural intermediary work: Charity sector public relations and communication

2021 ◽  
pp. 136754942199423
Author(s):  
Anne M Cronin ◽  
Lee Edwards

Drawing on a case study of public relations in the UK charity sector, this article argues that cultural intermediary research urgently requires a more sustained focus on politics and the political understood as power relations, party politics and political projects such as marketization and neoliberalism. While wide-ranging research has analysed how cultural intermediaries mediate the relationship between culture and economy, this has been at the expense of an in-depth analysis of the political. Using our case study as a prompt, we highlight the diversity of ways that the political impacts cultural intermediary work and that cultural intermediary work may impact the political. We reveal the tensions that underpin practice as a result of the interactions between culture, the economy and politics, and show that the tighter the engagement of cultural intermediation with the political sphere, the more tensions must be negotiated and the more compromised practitioners may feel.

Author(s):  
Kristina Dietz

The article explores the political effects of popular consultations as a means of direct democracy in struggles over mining. Building on concepts from participatory and materialist democracy theory, it shows the transformative potentials of processes of direct democracy towards democratization and emancipation under, and beyond, capitalist and liberal democratic conditions. Empirically the analysis is based on a case study on the protests against the La Colosa gold mining project in Colombia. The analysis reveals that although processes of direct democracy in conflicts over mining cannot transform existing class inequalities and social power relations fundamentally, they can nevertheless alter elements thereof. These are for example the relationship between local and national governments, changes of the political agenda of mining and the opening of new spaces for political participation, where previously there were none. It is here where it’s emancipatory potential can be found.


Author(s):  
Ruth Patrick

This chapter outlines the rationale behind conducting repeat interviews with out-of-work benefit claimants in an effort to better understand lived experiences of welfare reform. It introduces readers to the political and theoretical context, and highlights the value in employing social citizenship as a theoretical lens in order to tease out citizenship from above and below. The recent context of welfare reform in the UK is also introduced, highlighting the extent to which successive rounds of welfare reform have cumulatively reworked the relationship between the citizen and the state. The research on which this book is based is detailed, and the value in working through and across time by taking a qualitative longitudinal approach highlighted.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-113
Author(s):  
Diann Hanson

This article explores the relationship between capital and education through the experiences of a British secondary school following a grading by the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills that placed the school into special measures, considering the underlying assumptions and inequalities highlighted and obfuscated by the special measures label. The formulaic and ritualistic manner in which operational and ideological methods of reconstruction were presented as the logical (and only) pathway towards improvement is examined in an effort to disentangle the purpose of the ‘means-to-an-end’ approach within prevailing hegemonic structures, requiring a revisit to contemporary positioning of Gramscian concepts of ideology through the work of Gandin. The decontextualisation of schools from their socio-economic environments is probed in order to expose the paradoxes and fluidity of resistant discourse. The ambiguities between a Catholic ethos, neo-liberal restructuring and the socio-economic context of the school and the greater demands to acquiesce to externally prescribed notions of normativity are considered as a process that conversely created apertures, newly formed sublayers and corrugations where transformation could take root. Unforeseen epiphanies and structures of dissent are identified and will enrich the narrative of existence and survival in a special measures school in an economically deprived northern town in the UK.


Araucaria ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 147-171
Author(s):  
Andrew Mathers

The material effects of austerity in the United Kingdom (UK) have generated a resurgence of activist initiatives in the field of housing central to which is ACORN that has developed into a federated organisation contesting housing practices and policies at both local and national levels. ACORN is used to expand the examination of housing activism in Europe beyond the cases in Spain and Germany to the UK (Ordonez et al, 2015). This article also utilises the qualitative methodology of a comparative case study and the framework of ideological and social backgrounds, political repertoires and political logics to present and analyse ACORN. While ACORN displays striking similarities to other cases, it also represents a different trajectory in housing activism that combines direct action with an engagement with party politics as social democracy seeks to return to its roots.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pier Francesco Cherchi ◽  
◽  
Marco Lecis ◽  
Marco Moro ◽  
◽  
...  

This paper illustrates a case study of teaching and research applied to the abandoned mining landscapes of the Sulcis area, located in the south-east side of Sardinia, one of the poorest in Europe. Although the region’s critical condition in the present, the area is nevertheless extremely rich in fascination and history. It offers unique natural landscapes, mostly pristine, a variety of archeological sites and, as mentioned, the ruins of the mining installations. All of this makes fore-seeable a concrete possibility of regeneration for the area, based on tourism, one of the island primary resources. The local institutions of Sulcis started a partnership with the University of Cagliari aiming to pursuit not just a practical and economical outcome in the immediate present, more a cultural and deeper rescue with a wider perspective. In the following pages, we present our academic activities in this mark and how we managed to guarantee fruitful superpositions of pedagogy, design, and research in our work within this kind of cooperation.Our focus is, therefore, the relationship between researching and teaching activities and the actions in support of the territory, pursued in a joint venture with the political institution. During these experiences, we defined a strategy to intercross these different layers, bringing the real and concrete dimension into our classroom, sharing our work with the students, and, at the same time, transferring the fruits of the teaching experiences to the territory. The correspondence between these two levels is not free of ambiguity and contradictions, however, we are convinced that it might show very important and fruitful outcomes.


2008 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Swanwick

A brief review of the state of music education in the UK at the time of the creation of the British Journal of Music Education (BJME) leads to a consideration of the range and focus of topics since the initiation of the Journal. In particular, the initial requirement of careful and critical enquiry is amplified, drawing out the inevitability of theorising, an activity which is considered to be essential for reflective practice. The relationship of theory and data is examined, in particular differentiating between the sciences and the arts. A ‘case study’ of theorising is presented and examined in some detail and possible strands of future development are identified.


Author(s):  
Tariq Modood

This chapter examines the political and cultural challenges posed by the growth of the non-white population in Europe. It reviews the chief current policy responses – assimilation, integration, and multiculturalism – in the context of claims by politicians in Germany, France, and the UK that ‘multiculturalism is dead’. The chapter distinguishes between two multicultural approaches: a valuing of diversity that accords full recognition to differences between cultural groups within a liberal democratic framework; and a multiculturalism that values cultural interaction and social mixing but withholds institutional recognition from groups, especially religious ones. The first approach may unintentionally strengthen barriers between groups and foster segregation, whilst the second may marginalise certain cultural orientations and communities. The chapter concludes by analysing the emerging ethnic fault lines across Europe and stresses the significance of a shift from colour to religion as the foundation of group identity, with major implications for the relationship between religion and politics.


Author(s):  
Maggie Gray

This chapter engages with important strands of scholarship on comics work, arguing for a critical comics studies that attends to the political economy, social relations, and material processes of production. It examines the relationship between struggles over the organization of cultural labor and the forms of value inscribed in comics, via the case study of a specific site of British comics production that reimagined how comics work could be organized and the artistic value comics could have– the cooperative Birmingham Arts Lab Press (1969-1982) and its Ar:Zak imprint. Bringing together archival inquiry and participant interviews, wider historical research into the arts lab, alternative press, community arts and underground/alternative comics movements, and Marxist political and aesthetic theory, this chapter analyzes how struggles for an autonomous, democratized, participatory creative practice that took place within this context of comics production were embodied in the material and visual form of the comics made.


Public Law ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 443-482
Author(s):  
Andrew Le Sueur ◽  
Maurice Sunkin ◽  
Jo Eric Khushal Murkens

This chapter looks at the circumstances surrounding two events. The first is the 2005 decision of the UK Parliament to set up a committee to examine whether the constitutional conventions governing the relationship between the House of Lords and the House of Commons should be codified. The second is the decision of the Commons (and the Labour government) to press ahead and present the Hunting Bill 2004 for royal assent despite the opposition of the Lords to the policy of a total ban on hunting wild animals with dogs; the Lords preferred a policy of licensed hunting.


Author(s):  
Philip Norton

This chapter discusses the political organization of the UK Parliament, at the heart of which are the political parties. It first considers the internal organization of Parliament, focusing on how political parties are structured. There are two principal parties facing one another in Parliament: the party in government and opposition parties. The opposition comprises frontbench Members (shadow ministers) and backbenchers. Smaller parties may also designate some Members as ‘frontbenchers’ (official spokespeople for the party). The frontbench of each party includes whips. The chapter provides an overview of these whips as well as parliamentary parties before considering legislative–executive relations. In particular, it examines how parties shape the relationship between Parliament and the executive, and how these have changed over time.


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