Municipal Culture Incentive Law: what are their inclusive and democratic effects on local cultural production?

Maria Aparecida Neves Azevedo Baldez,Wescley Silva Xavier

doi:10.1590/1984-92302021v28n9703en

Maria Aparecida Neves Azevedo Baldez, Wescley Silva Xavier

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1590/1984-92302021v28n9703en

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Abstract

Abstract This paper aims to analyze the inclusive and democratic effects of municipal cultural incentives law in Cataguases, Minas Gerais, fundamentally considering the promotion of citizenship and identity preservation based on cultural production. Data were collected through non-structured interviews with Cataguases cultural producers and analyzed according to a Marxist notion of discourse. Our findings revealed that approved purposes lead to a form of centralization on cultural production at the local level, characterized by the concentration of resources on established groups and the detachment from historically marginalized groups. Moreover, this scenario is aggravated when complementary cultural actions are transferred to the city’s cultural foundations, reinforcing the distinctive character of culture.

Highlights

Management as a discipline has been increasingly open to incorporating topics beyond the search for efficiency, typical of capitalist organizations
On the one hand, it ensures the allocation of investments in culture, on the other, it allows the allocation of resources to projects that are of interest to these companies and/or cultural foundations (Xavier & Maranhão, 2010). Another critical point of this relationship is the necessary institutionalization of the projects’ applicants, considering that part of the resources derives from tax exemption policies. This is the case of the culture incentive law of the state of Minas Gerais, which allows allocating up to 4% of the amounts collected through the State Tax on Circulation of Goods and Services (ICSM) into cultural projects
Despite the need to maintain cultural productions that can represent identities, especially those allowing a process of awareness among the historically marginalized strata of society – something adopted as a starting point in this paper, it is necessary to highlight that this articulation permeates private companies

Summary

Introduction

Management as a discipline has been increasingly open to incorporating topics beyond the search for efficiency, typical of capitalist organizations. This idea is closely related to the materialist concept of aesthetics, which focuses on the individual’s relationship with material life and its contradictions and the possibility of taking a particular position from art (Lukács, 1970) Notwithstanding this imprisoning character, the importance of cultural insertion through specific artistic productions allows certain excluded cultural manifestations to operate resistance to the production of culture mediated by capital, the State, that is, by the groups that exercise hegemony. Despite the need to maintain cultural productions that can represent identities, especially those allowing a process of awareness among the historically marginalized strata of society – something adopted as a starting point in this paper, it is necessary to highlight that this articulation permeates private companies This relationship is established from the support through municipal Culture Incentive Laws. Based on this system of relations, Bakhtin (2009) emphasizes that the ideological apparatus will only affect if it is directly linked to the socio-economic conditions essential to its presented form

Presentation and Discussion of Results

Findings

Conflict of interests