This book explores the policy and social frames through which citizens and wider communities are being engaged with culture as a tool to mitigate the effects of social exclusion and deprivation. The study is based on an inter-disciplinary four-year research project investigating those individuals and organisations whose mission is to use culture, instrumentally, to help deprived communities in a variety of different ways. The project sought to examine the different scales of activity involved within cultural intermediation, examining national policy and practice, but grounded within specific c ... More

This book explores the policy and social frames through which citizens and wider communities are being engaged with culture as a tool to mitigate the effects of social exclusion and deprivation. The study is based on an inter-disciplinary four-year research project investigating those individuals and organisations whose mission is to use culture, instrumentally, to help deprived communities in a variety of different ways. The project sought to examine the different scales of activity involved within cultural intermediation, examining national policy and practice, but grounded within specific community-level case studies. Although a number of sites across England were examined, two field sites in particular were the subject for a deep ethnographic engagement, including active interventions. These were Birmingham, with a focus on the Balsall Heath neighbourhood and Greater Manchester, with detailed work being undertaken in the Ordsall ward of Salford. These case studies feature throughout much of the book as a lens through which to see the impacts of wider policy trends. Research was undertaken during a period of quite dramatic change in policy and governance within the UK’s cultural sector. These changes were driven by one of the biggest experiments in refiguring the role of the public sector within the UK since 1945, as post-credit crunch governments have responded to the challenges of a struggling global economy by employing the discourse of ‘austerity’. As this book shows, what has emerged is a cultural intermediation sector that has refined its practices, adopting new funding models and arenas of activity.