Stop measuring, start understanding! An arts policy and management researcher’s autobiographic account of the urgency of an ethnographic turn in research on the values of art1

Abstract

In this article I argue for a shift of focus from measurement to understanding in research on the values of art. Based on my research experience with publicly funded opera companies and inspired by ethnography, I suggest a bottom-up, contextual and patient approach to research on the values of art in society. Bottom-up means that it focuses on the valorization of practice versus theory; contextual means that it focuses on the valorization of the specific contexts versus the generalizability of results; patient means that it focuses on the valorization of the process of understanding versus the urgency to apply. Three of my research projects illustrate how this approach can contribute to finding a voice for all facets, both quantifiable and unquantifiable ones, of the values that arts organizations create for their communities.