Page 278 - Cultural Theory

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••• Cultural Citizenship •••

the shifting terrain of popular taste and life style (Bennett 1998). Such has been the
impact of these developments that many commentators assume that post-modern
cultures have eclipsed ideas of the ‘high’ and the ‘popular’. Under post-
modern definitions of culture both consumer and artistic cultures talk the language
of strategic management, niche marketing, product differentiation and promotion.
Within these definitions art has become democratised and commodified. These
developments have seemingly brought to an end a long tradition of left-liberalism
that sought to redistribute art and culture, rather than question what constituted it
in the first place (Mulgan and Wapole 1986).
Particularly striking in the European context has been the development of city
based cultural policies. Since the 1980s local strategies sought to diversify the eco-
nomic base of the city and develop a more cosmopolitan definition of urban civil life.
These trends, which build upon post-modern definitions of culture, have seen the
decentralisation of cultural policy and the development of more inclusive civic iden-
tities. For example, Simon Frith (1993) argues that in the 1980s there was a burst of
state intervention in the production of popular music. This included attempts to
enhance employment opportunities and grant access, knowledge and relevant tech-
nology to previous excluded groups of cultural producers. Yet there is growing con-
cern that more inclusive cultural strategies are being progressively overshadowed by
cultural policies that more explicitly target urban regeneration. The neo-liberal need
to maximize the economic potential of local cultural industries has meant that more
inclusive strategies have become progressively sidelined (Bianchini 1993; Griffiths
1993). That is, while broadening the definition of the ‘cultural’ had initially inclu-
sive implications attempts to combat social exclusion have progressively given way
to the needs of the market. For example, in the North American context Sharon
Zukin (1995) has reasonably argued that the rise of symbolic or cultural cities has pri-
marily sought to establish the city as a safe place for cultural consumption, seeking
to attract new business and corporate elites into the city. That is, as the city seeks to
establish itself as a dynamic place of business, tourism and multiculturalism, it
becomes progressively divided as its public places become commodified and under
the constant watch of security cameras. As cities become the playgrounds of the
affluent classes (or those high in economic, cultural or symbolic capital) they also
become places of surveillance and social division.

A ‘Common’ Cultural Citizenship

Here I aim to develop a normative model of cultural citizenship, and then seek to
understand how it might help us with questions of cultural policy. The aim here is
to develop a framework for cultural policy that seeks to both deconstruct ideas of
high and low culture (that is, problematising which cultures, artifacts, experiences
require governing) within a context that both preserves difference against homo-
geneity while promoting a strategy of equality. As such, my argumentative strategy
will be post-modern the extent to which it questions distinctions between ‘high’ and
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