Fair practice reconsidered: Critical inside perspectives on grassroots policy development in the Dutch cultural labor market between 2012 and 2025

Objective: This study investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the cultural sector in Kosovo, aiming to identify challenges, assess recovery strategies, and propose measures for sustainable development. It highlights the role of culture in fostering resilience, well-being, and social cohesion during crises. Theoretical Framework: The research is based on theories of cultural resilience, creative economy, and crisis management. These frameworks provide insights into the cultural sector’s vulnerabilities and its potential as a driver for societal recovery and transformation. Method: A qualitative, exploratory approach was employed, utilizing direct surveys, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis. Data were gathered from stakeholders in the formal cultural sector and the independent cultural scene to evaluate their experiences and needs during the pandemic. A SWOT analysis further structured the findings. Results and Discussion: The study reveals significant financial, infrastructural, and operational challenges for the cultural sector during the pandemic, alongside a lack of institutional support. However, it also identifies opportunities for innovation, digitalization, and collaboration. These results are discussed within the context of the theoretical framework, with practical recommendations to address weaknesses and leverage strengths for recovery. Research Implications: The study emphasizes the urgency of targeted government support, enhanced public policies, and sustainable funding mechanisms to revitalize Kosovo’s cultural sector. It also highlights culture’s critical role in mental health, community resilience, and economic recovery. Originality/Value: By providing a comprehensive analysis of Kosovo’s cultural sector during a global crisis, this research offers practical recommendations and contributes to broader discussions on cultural resilience and sustainable development in similar contexts globally.

ABSTRACTThis paper provides a formative evaluation of The Art Institute of Chicago’s initial efforts to diversify the museum field through the Diversifying Art Museum Leadership Initiative (DAMLI) programme. DAMLI is supported by the Walton Family Foundation and Ford Foundation as part of a movement to diversify the arts & cultural workforce in the United States. In Spring, 2018 the author was contracted to evaluate the museum-wide initiative to systematize and improve the experiences of high school, college, and graduate interns from demographic groups currently underrepresented in museum leadership fields. Through the use of [Fraser, N. (1995). Reframing justice in a globalizing world. New Left Review, 36, 1–19.] social justice framework, this paper will focus on the recruitment, selection, and management of internship experiences of the first four cohorts of undergraduate and graduate-level interns within the programme. The paper begins with an overview of recent diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in the arts & cultural sector – highlighting the systemic issues leading to the need for such initiatives and presenting a typology for organisational responses to the issue. This paper then categorise the type of organisational change sought by The Art Institute of Chicago based on Fraser’s two-dimensional social justice conditions and remedies framework in order to assess whether or not the Art Institute is achieving its goal of attracting, retaining, and empowering a diverse set of students and influencing their decision to pursue a career in the museum field by providing an equitable and inclusive environment during the internship. Finally, the paper concludes with a discussion of the broader implications of this work for arts and cultural organisations interested in diversifying the cultural workforce.

In the Nordic tradition, public cultural policy has been endowed with an enlightening and welfarepolitical aim. Nordic cultural policies are based on an overall socio-political objective of furthering the empowerment of the individual, universal enlightenment ("Bildung") and the continued democratisation of society (Nielsen 2003). Locally, an important actor is a municipal cultural sector that is one specialized sector in a municipality's administration. Cultural and art institutions (such as libraries, museums, theatres) are working under the cultural sector administration, although they might sometimes have their own separate administration. According to Gray (2002, pp. 82-83) the arts as a coherent policy sector within local government is weak because of low political salience and a fragmented field of activity, with many actors having a role to play in the provision of services and development of arts policies.

According to empirical studies, two thirds of the people worldwide who surf the Internet use Web 2.0 applications (i.e. social media such as YouTube, Facebook or Twitter). The rate of growth is especially impressive in Germany, where the reluctance to publish personal information has traditionally been greater than in other countries. Accordingly, more and more German cultural suppliers seek to explore the possibilities of Web 2.0 and social media for their marketing objectives. In times of a general information overflow, declining credibility of traditional communication tools and a continued shortage of resources in the cultural sector, the fact that these web‐based applications can facilitate viral marketing and stimulate word‐of‐mouth is of special interest to arts institutions. However, until now, arts marketing has seen hardly any research on this topic. Therefore, the objective of this paper was to analyse the opportunities and limitations of Web 2.0 and social media for the viral marketing of arts institutions, especially with regard to their impact on quality and/or behavioural uncertainty on the part of visitors. The task setting will be carried out under consideration of the economics of information approach and explorative data.Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In this article, I present a review of financial and management accounting literature on the arts and cultural sector. My objective is to understand to what extent this literature is able to offer a critical perspective on the study of performance evaluation practices in arts and cultural organizations, as it is currently missing in the arts management literature. Adopting a critical perspective means shifting the focus of research from the technicalities of evaluation rules and procedures to their embodiment by the different organizational and societal actors of the arts and cultural sector.

In the decade leading up to the Covid-19 pandemic, it seemed that Universal Basic Income (UBI) had burst through into the Overton window of acceptable ideas. The cultural sector suffered particularly harshly in the pandemic, yet in some countries parts of the sector were kept afloat by both cash transfers given to those affected by pandemic job losses, and by more targeted transfers aimed at the cultural sector. Consequently, many in the cultural sector embraced the idea of a “Basic Income for Artists” (BIA) as a solution to the financial challenges they collectively faced, often linked conceptually and politically to the wider claims of social equity and justice represented by a fully universal basic income programme. This paper addresses the complexities of debate around Basic Income for Artists (BIA) and Universal Basic Income (UBI) more broadly, offering an alternative and critical perspective.

This paper analyzes the singularity of artistic cultural sector workers in the Brazilian metropolitan labor market, considering the job satisfaction of artists that Throsby proposes in his work preference model of artist behavior (1994). We also examine the effect of public expenditures on the income of workers in the cultural sector. Using 2002 to 2010 data from the Monthly Employment Survey (PME) and administrative records from Finance of Brazil (FINBRA), we estimate a probit model and a wage equation. In our model, we estimate wages as a function of: (1) sociodemographic characteristics of workers, (2) a variable for informal jobs, (3) the number of working hours, (4) a variable for the worker having another job, (5) per capita expenditures on culture interacted with a dummy for artistic cultural workers, (6) interactive binary variables involving place of residence and artistic cultural workers and (7) the predicted probability obtained by the probit model. This probability is estimated based on the likelihood of working in a creative activity, considering both workers from the cultural sector and other workers, controlled by: (1) sociodemographic characteristics of workers, (2) characteristics of their jobs, (3) dummies for the metropolitan regions and (4) willingness of creative workers to work additional hours interacted with the number of hours worked. Our results show that workers in the cultural sector are likely to work longer hours when compared to workers in other sectors. For our wage equation, the results suggest that women earn relatively less than men and blacks earn less than whites. Furthermore, earnings increase with age and the level of education. Formal workers obtain higher earnings when compared to informal ones. Finally, an increase in the per capita public expenditure on the cultural sector raises the income of workers in artistic cultural occupations.

The past fifteen years have seen a rich debate situating the curatorial in the expanded field of exhibition-making, towards dialogical and discursive formats. Under the umbrella term the ‘educational turn’, pedagogical programmes have explored classroom aesthetics and the emancipatory potentials of pedagogy in the arts and curating – within and outside arts institutions. This article investigates the relevance of such pedagogical programmes in the cultural sector that aim to generate an open resource for long-term critical debates and collective thinking. The article reflects on the role of cultural institutions in wider discussions around the neo-liberalization of formal education and the political potentials of new pedagogical initiatives. It draws on decolonial problem-posing pedagogy to counter the increasing cultures of anti-intellectualism and anti-complexity in the United Kingdom (UK). The text reflects upon the experience of the CAMPUS Independent Study Programme, I curated in 2019–20 at Nottingham Contemporary, a contemporary art centre in the United Kingdom. Contrary to the popular claim for alterity and outsideness, this article demonstrates the political role of embeddedness and radical interdependence in critical pedagogical initiatives in contemporary art institutions.

At the beginning of the XXI century, there are significant changes in relations of work and leisure time. The development of creative economy is also recognized along with emergence of a new social stratification and changes in developmental factors. Increasingly important in the socio-economic transformation is cultural sector as well as promotion of culture and creative industries development including their linkages with dependent sectors such as tourism, architecture and industrial design. The aim of this article is to refer these processes and phenomena to the conditions of Podlaskie Voivodship and to discuss the main reasons of Regional Observatory of Culture establishment. Article indicates the need for and potential benefits of knowledge management on culture at the regional level by conducting theoretical and methodological work within the observatory. Essay based on an analysis of existing data and own research results highlights the main features of the region, information needs of cultural and art institutions, culture observatory possible models, potential activity areas of the regional observatory and the arising benefits from its activities.

Design is considered as the spinal process of all kinds of product development undertaken by for-profit or non-profit organizations. This paper brings design into the realm of cultural organizations-such as museums, galleries, art institutions, cultural centers or publishing houses- and examines how its deeper understanding could help improve their performance. A series of logical considerations and evident comparisons are established, in order to describe the way that cultural organizations could benefit by using design knowledge and design thinking. These include: a) since design is the central process of development of any product, cultural products development (like exhibitions, multimedia productions, digital archives, book series and others) could also be described from the perspective of the disciple of design; b) since cultural products are generally seen as “experiences” and “services”, the understanding of design disciplines such as “service design” and “experience design” could decisively help to create or improve them. Finally, the paper introduces design in the cultural sector, as a process of tangible and intangible product prefiguration, and as the channel that carries an acquired cultural experience.

The integration of intelligent technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), and the Internet of Things (IoT) is reshaping the landscape of art exhibitions globally. In China, this digital transformation is gaining momentum, yet the absence of a comprehensive, context-sensitive model limits the understanding and implementation of intelligent art exhibitions. This study addresses that gap by investigating the developmental dynamics of smart exhibitions within China’s cultural sector. The research aims to explore the challenges faced by art institutions, examine the impact of intelligent technologies on artistic creation, and identify strategies for harmonizing technology with artistic and cultural values. Adopting a Straussian grounded theory approach, the study conducted 22 semi-structured interviews with visual artists, curators, art agency professionals, and audiences involved in intelligent exhibitions. The findings reveal a multi-dimensional model comprising three interrelated core categories: Exhibition Challenges (resource constraints, technical barriers, and market uncertainties), Creative Impact (changes in artistic tools, values, and environments), and Inclusive Development (balanced integration, institutional innovation, and standard-setting). These dimensions are interconnected in a cyclical framework that reflects the dialectical tensions between technological innovation and cultural authenticity. The study concludes that intelligent art exhibitions in China require not only technological adaptation but also cultural sensitivity, strategic planning, and institutional readiness. The proposed model contributes to theoretical development in digital culture and offers practical guidance for curators, policymakers, and cultural institutions navigating the intelligent transformation of the art sector.

Strategic planning, originally designed for industrial enterprises to enhance business performance, has evolved into a widely adopted concept across various sectors, including cultural and art organizations. This study focuses on the processes of strategic planning in Kazakhstan, aiming to provide practical recommendations for implementing a strategic planning and management system in state cultural and art institutions. The research holds significant scientific and practical importance, especially within the context of modern society and the cultural industry's development. Investigation into strategic planning for cultural and arts organizations contributes to the formulation of effective strategies, fostering growth in the cultural sector. The authors conducted a comprehensive review, including an examination of scientific literature, content analysis, and a review of strategic documents, state programs, and reports from domestic and international organizations. The study evaluates the impact of Kazakhstan's new state strategic planning system developed in 2021 on the creation of strategic documents that facilitate the growth of culture and art in the country and the region. An analysis of existing strategic documents at regional, local, and institutional levels revealed shortcomings in areas such as document structuring and information transparency. Notably, the study identified issues in the newly implemented state strategic planning system, shedding light on its influence on cultural and arts development. The research's novelty lies in addressing the lack of similar studies on strategic management in cultural and arts organizations. The proposed sequence for forming strategic documents, emphasizing effective strategic management and planning in the cultural and arts sector, enhances the practical significance of this research.

Paving the Path to an Enhanced Consumer Protection for the Nigerian Online Market: Theories and Concepts

With the formation of Pakistan as a modern Islamic republic in 1947, the institutions of art and design education were transformed under the sway of modernization theories of development. A conceptual and physical infrastructure was put in place to modify existing institutions and to create new ones for encouraging modern art and artists in the country. The 1950s saw major developments taking place in the former Mayo School of Art which was upgraded to the National College of Arts to train designers, artists and architects to meet the requirements of a new nation. The distinction between arts and crafts formed the discourse through which the changes in art education were articulated. The process of change unleashed in art education is emblematic of the changes taking place in the other sectors of economy and culture. The Bauhaus influence which formed the initial impulse to bring artists and craftsmen in the service of national industry gave way to the competing fine art movements in painting resulting in abandoning the synthesis of arts and crafts envisaged in the earlier approaches to art education.

This thesis explores the complex and shifting relationships between writing, the art institution and constructs of dyslexia. At the time of its submission, a detailed study of dyslexia within a post-humanist framework is unique. This thesis engages with the writing lives of six art students diagnosed with dyslexia over the course of an academic year. It interrogates writing in some of its many manifestations, notably writing as an academic, assessed and measurable outcome and writing as a form of fluid and imaginative communication. By placing writing in the art school, I explore both institutional power more broadly, and constructs of the art school, and examine how these relationships interact with and create each other. To do this I actively use ideas around place, objects and materials as factors in the shaping, becoming and making-invisible of dyslexia. I question dyslexia as a fixed and medicalised model, combining theory and practical methods of research to problematise dyslexia and to explore how it comes to be, and its fluctuating relationship to the student participants. I use a post-humanist framework to consider disability, writing, and active, radical pedagogies. I have turned to thinkers including Haraway, Goodley, Butler, Foucault, and Deleuze and Guattari to think through these problems. Refuting the arboreal model of knowledge has allowed me to work with participants, present their stories, navigate the art institution, engage in discourse around dis/ability and writing and develop new and exciting ways of making writing a rich, viable, valid and accessible creative practice. As a direct result of this, I have authored, had validated, and now teach the BA (Hons) Creative Writing undergraduate degree in my institution. This is the only creative wring degree course in an arts institution in the North of England and the only one informed by this radical pedagogy and post-humanist framework. 6 This research contributes to knowledge theoretically, methodologically and pedagogically. Methodologically, the structure and assemblage of the thesis reflects and shapes its subject matter and makes manifest actual students’ writing lives, thereby bringing theoretical considerations and practical circumstances together in a novel way. Regarding theory and pedagogy, the rhizome enables me to interrogate dyslexia differently, and to produce new understandings of a) dyslexia, b) writing, c) the art institution, d) me as a researcher, e) places of research, and f) post-humanist approaches to ethics in research. It does this by employing a critical disability perspective which opens up the relevance of my radical pedagogy to many underrepresented groups and to those who might be regarded as mainstream. The conditions created by this research make this possible and are replicable. This research demonstrates a framework (through explanation and documentation of the 3 workshops) that is portable, transferable and flexible. It can be and has been applied to community groups, adult education students, tutors, community arts groups, literature festivals, writing circles, F.E. and 6th form students across arts and humanities, with dyslexia specialist teachers, with artist lecturers/practitioners, amongst M Level and doctoral students, with groups of young people transitioning from further to higher education, with widening participation cohorts and with potential H.E. applicants from polar quintiles 4 and 5. This research has produced, and continues to produce, peer reviewed articles, conference presentations, creative fiction and non-fiction. This thesis demonstrates a different and transferable way of doing research. It has a life beyond its printed text. It exists in the lives of the participants, in the propagation of the writing workshops and in the development, writing and teaching of the BA (Hons) Creative Writing degree. This thesis presents a vibrant and theoretically sound radical pedagogy which may inspire and provide a blueprint for critically aware, imaginative, liberating and productive teaching and learning.