Strategies for social engagement: Arts-service organizations as organizational intermediaries

Abstract

Research on cultural intermediaries has frequently highlighted their roles that shape, regulate, organize, and govern processes of value formation and legitimization in creative economies. Here we move beyond a focus on individual brokers in cultural intermediary occupations to examine cultural intermediary work performed by organizations, focusing on strategies of organizational intermediary work which aim to foster social engagement. Our research study examines the arts-service organization (ASO) sector—member-directed representative professional bodies that serve the interests of their members as well as their artistic discipline and the public—through a quantitative survey mapping the sector in Canada and through semi-structured interviews. In this article, we highlight organizational intermediation strategies in the ASO sector, including fostering diverse representation; reflexivity and learning; and collaboration, discussing challenges and opportunities in these areas. We position the varied strategies of organizational intermediation as one way to communicate the work and worth of developing social engagement, which is often otherwise intangible and challenging to communicate and highlight.