A reflection on the challenges and opportunities of researcher-practitioner collaborations in cultural policy making in a recent Special Issue of City, Culture & Society
A key challenge in defining the place of culture in, for, and across policy design and implementation toward sustainable and just urban development is the ability of policy and large state infrastructures to be flexible and malleable enough to respond to what the concept itself might raise. Furthermore, crucial to realising culture’s potential is a need for the interrogation of whose culture, cultural forms, and voices are represented.
To launch a Special Issue of City, Culture and Society this online discussionreflected on the processes of research–practice collaboration, the findings that emerge from it, and the challenges and opportunities of interweaving and enmeshing different academic and non-academic perspectives in research and knowledge-building.
This event was Chaired by Nancy Duxbury, Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Portugal.
Panelists included:
SPEAKER BIOS
M. Sharon Jeannotte is an Affiliated Researcher in the Centre on Governance at the University of Ottawa. Her research focuses on cultural policy and administration at the federal, provincial and local levels, including the points of intersection between cultural policy and social cohesion, the role of culture in building sustainable communities, cultural mapping as a tool for place-making, cultural tourism, cultural indicators at the local level, and the cultural policy implications of digital platforms.
Ben Dick is a Senior Data Analytics Strategist at the City of Ottawa, a Board member of the Creative Cities Network of Canada (CCNC), and Co-Chair of CCNC’s Data and Research Committee. He is also the founder of the Ottawa Culture Research Group and has been a Mass Culture Research Partner and Data Coach. A few of his past projects have included developing a municipal cultural plan for the City of Peterborough, assessing the impact of tax incentives for heritage preservation, leading cultural mapping projects in Ottawa, analyzing public funding for culture, and an analysis of incomes, diversity, and wage disparities in culture occupations. He is now part of the team that is developing a data strategy for the City of Ottawa.
Maurietta Stewart is Head of Environment and Heritage (Table Bay and Tygerberg Regions), Environmental Management, Spatial Planning and Environment, for the City of Cape Town, South Africa.
John Smithies has led the Cultural Development Network, based in Melbourne, Australia,since 2005 working to support stronger planning and evaluation of cultural development activities of local government and its integration with regional and national public cultural policy.
Victoria Durrer is Assistant Professor in Cultural Policy at University College Dublin and co-founder and director of the interdisciplinary network, Cultural Policy Observatory Ireland. Her research considers the policy conditions and value of creative practice as social, cultural, and professional endeavours, with focus on their spatial and relational dynamics. She holds expertise in engaged and policy-informing research, with projects often involving collaborative research designs, data collection and analysis with research participants, and she champions mixed methods approaches that bring creative practice-as-research into dialogue with more traditional social scientific methods.
Máire Davey is Assistant Arts Officer Participation and Learning with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, Dublin, Ireland. An arts administrator with a background working as an artist in community education and in various community and cultural contexts in Ireland and further afield.
Nancy Duxbury is a senior researcher at the Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Portugal. She has conducted research in the contexts of academia, city government and NGO leadership, which has led to her motivation to link these spheres. Her research interests include cultural work and creative tourism in non-urban areas, cultural mapping, and culture in local sustainable development. She is coordinator of the transdisciplinary thematic line “Urban Cultures, Sociabilities and Participation” and the Horizon Europe project “IN SITU: Place-based Innovation of Cultural and Creative Industries in Non-urban Areas” (2022-2026).
