Cultural commodities as cultural economies: realization through conceptual and operational space

Abstract

The cultural economy framework as a means of realizing the full potential of culture as commodity within the economy of its locale has proven a valuable research approach. The present research extends the links of place, culture, commodity and economy by proposing that in addition to viewing place-based cultural commodities as cumulatively representing the potential of culture overall in the cultural economy of a place, the cultural commodities themselves should be viewed as also constituting their own independent cultural economies. The research focuses on two place-based cultural commodities in rural Japan as cases to illuminate how the diversity of cultural commodities of a locale, in this case expressions of local culture in the form of a craft and a performance, can be fully and meaningfully captured through independent and highly specific representations of their history and current status within the cultural economy framework. The key to fully accommodating the complexity of any cultural commodity is by representing it through a combination of its inherent conceptual and operational spaces, which in combination, constitute its specific cultural economy. The conclusion of the research proposes how such an approach extends the notion and application of the cultural economy framework to one that accounts both for the generalizability of place along with the cumulative reality of place-based cultural commodities while also harnessing the diversity and specificity of place-based commodities independently.