Policy-making as an emotionally-charged arena: the emotional geographies of urban cultural policy-making

Thomas Borén,Patrycja Grzyś,Craig Young

doi:10.1080/10286632.2020.1792891

Abstract

ABSTRACT Analysis of the role emotions play in a range of social processes has increased significantly, but is neglected in the context of cultural policy-making. Recent literatures in feminist and emotional geographies draw attention to how emotions are emergent in, and play a role in shaping, a broad range of social contexts and processes, while other literatures stress the need to ‘personalise’ the expert and consider the emotional aspects of planning. Inspired by these literatures we deploy the notion of ‘affective urbanism’ to study how emotions are interwoven with cultural policy spaces in the city and explore the ‘emotional regimes’ that incorporate emotions with the multi-scalar politics that is shaping urban cultural policy-making. This is undertaken through an analysis of emotions in the working lives and political contexts of cultural policy-makers in Stockholm (Sweden), Gdańsk (Poland) and Manchester (UK). Overall the paper seeks to develop a research agenda that places emotions centrally in studies of cultural policy formation and implementation.

Highlights

Emotions have become increasingly important in multi-disciplinary understandings of a broad range of social processes, but almost no attention has been paid to their role in cultural policy-making and implementation
Anderson and Holden’s (2008) notion of ‘affective urbanism’ draws attention to the links between uneven topologies of power and the complexities of emergent emotions in urban space, which we have applied to understand the role of emotions in the cultural policy-making context
We argue that these ‘emotional regimes’ of cultural policy-making are not territorially produced or bounded, but are emergent within a multi-scalar tension

Summary

Introduction

Emotions have become increasingly important in multi-disciplinary understandings of a broad range of social processes, but almost no attention has been paid to their role in cultural policy-making and implementation. In each case study city, a diverse multi-scalar political context is producing a heightened ‘affective urbanism’ that shapes the emergence and role of emotions in the lives and practices of cultural policy-makers. One thing that characterised the emotional context of cultural policy-making in the three cities was a fear of the threats posed by these political changes to the role that culture could play in urban development and essentially the meaning of culture itself. The fear expressed here relates both to Stockholm and a much more geographi cally widespread context and chimes with emotions felt in the cultural policy sector in Gdańsk in the run up to the 2019 election, as one local government arts official described: So, they [the people working in the urban administration] are all scared. In Stockholm, in a further contrast, the EU did not feature much at all in the responses of interviewees and was discussed in a rather neutral fashion

Conclusion

Findings

Notes on contributors