New Perspectives on the Role of Cultural Intermediaries in Social Inclusion in the UK

Based on interviews with arts administrators responsible for addressing targeted groups labelled “socially excluded,” this paper highlights new understandings of the term “cultural intermediary” (Featherstone 1991; Bourdieu 2000) within art galleries and art centres. It considers the unique role of such figures in crossing the exclusion/inclusion boundary within the arts and developing more personal approaches to marketing activities in their institutions through relationship building. While it is acknowledged here that such workers find themselves in a privileged position in being able to shape questions of taste and particular consumerist dispositions to understanding the art world, little, if not no, effort has been made to understand this process. As such, there remains a void between the cultural policy‐oriented conception of social inclusion, which implies a version of repairing the “flawed consumer” (Bauman 2005), and the way in which such policy is played out on the ground.

‘‘Capital of Culture - you must be having a laugh!” Challenging the official rhetoric of Liverpool as the 2008 European cultural capital’

Major cultural events are increasingly seen by local stakeholders as important opportunities to stimulate urban regeneration, city branding and economic development. The European Capital of Culture programme is a prominent example. Since 1985 over thirty cities have hosted the title and today it remains a highly sought-after prize. This paper analyses competing interpretations of the success of Liverpool's hosting of the European Capital of Culture in 2008. It unpacks contrasting views of Liverpool08, from the official triumphant message of urban regeneration and economic renaissance to more critical analyses that problematise important elements of the event and its social and spatial impacts. In so doing, it challenges the hyperbole of culture-led transformation to reveal different geographies of culture, different cultural experiences and different socio-economic realities; it also offers an additional cultural reading of Liverpool in 2008. Through the example of Liverpool this paper shows how local culture is politicised, manipulated and sanitised in order to stimulate urban regeneration and construct a spatial re-branding of the city.

De grands événements culturels sont de plus en plus perçus par les rentiers locaux comme des opportunités importantes pour stimuler la régénération urbaine, produire la devise des villes et le développement économique. L'initiative La Capitale Européenne de la Culture est un exemple proéminent. Depuis 1985, plus de trente villes ont accueilli le titre et maintenant il reste un prix largement recherché. Cet article analyse des interprétations en concurrence du succès de l'accueil de Liverpool de la Capitale Européenne de la Culture en 2008. Il déballe des vues contrastées de Liverpool08, du message officiel et triomphal de la régénération urbaine et de la renaissance économique à des analyses plus critiques qui problématisent des éléments importants de l'événement et ses impacts sociaux et spatiaux. De cette façon, il conteste l'hyperbole de la transformation menée par la culture pour révéler des géographies différentes de la culture, des expériences différentes de la culture et des réalités socioéconomiques différentes; il offre aussi une interprétation culturelle différente de Liverpool en 2008. Au travers de l'exemple de Liverpool cet article montre comment la culture locale est politisée, manipulée et aseptisée pour stimuler la régénération urbaine et construire un relookage spatial de la ville.

Cada vez más, los inversores locales vean a los eventos culturales como oportunidades importantes para estimular regeneración urbana, el desarollo económico y la branding a una ciudad. El Capital Europeo de Cultura es un ejemplo prominente. Desde 1985, más que treinta ciudades han presentado el título y hoy sigue siendo un premio deseable. Este papel se analiza interpretaciones competitivos del éxito del Capital Europea de Cultura 2008 en Liverpool. Se deshace las perspectivas opuestas del Liverpool08, del mensaje triunfante de regeneración urbana y renacimiento económico, a analices críticos que problematizan elementos importantes del evento y sus impactos sociales y espaciales. Al hacer esto, se cuestiona el hipérbole de la transformación cultural para revelar geografías diferentes de cultura, experiencias culturales diferentes y realidades diferentes socio-económicas; también ofrece un entendimiento cultural adicional de Liverpool en el 2008. Através el ejemplo de Liverpool, este papel demuestra como la cultura local está politizada, manipulada, y desinfectado para estimular regeneración urbana y construir una nueva branding de la ciudad.

The working practices of Birmingham's Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies

This article offers a history of the working practices of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. Based on extensive interviews with former members and on research into a new archive of the Centre, housed in the Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham, it argues that cultural studies as practised in the 1970s was always a heterogeneous subject. The CCCS was heavily influenced by the events of 1968 when it tried to develop a new type of radical and collaborative research and teaching agenda. Despite Stuart Hall's efforts to impose a focused link between politics and academic practice, the agenda soon gave way to a series of diverse and fruitful initiatives associated with the ‘sub-groups’ model of research.

Anthropology, Socialist Prediction and William Morris’s Commonweal

In the late nineteenth century, a number of writers turned to anthropology to predict a socialist future. They included prominent revolutionary socialists: Friedrich Engels, William Morris and members of the Socialist League. Contextualising the appropriation of the anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan by such readers, this article also pays particular attention to socialist popularisations of anthropology, particularly those by Morris and his fellow writers in his penny weekly, the Commonweal. Focusing on Morris’s articles on ancient society helps to illuminate his own understanding of history, art and socialism. It also sheds new light on his predictive fiction News from Nowhere, which was originally read alongside Commonweal non-fiction. Both, I will argue, encouraged readers to see the future in the struggles of the ancient past.

Exotisme religieux et bricolage

Cet article propose d’utiliser notion d’exotisme religieux afin d’analyser au mieux la dissémination des ressources religieuses « autres » dans les sociétés contemporaines et la relation que les acteurs sociaux entretiennent avec ces ressources. Il s’attachera aussi à montrer que cet outil conceptuel permet de reprendre les analyses qui ont été faites des bricolages composés de ressources symboliques variées, et en particulier d’en saisir les logiques culturelles et sociales. En effet, on a peut-être trop souvent surestimé l’éclectisme des combinaisons élaborées par les acteurs sociaux, pris pour acquise la disponibilité des ressources religieuses en présence et manqué de comprendre l’individualisme religieux de manière satisfaisante.

This article suggests that the notion of religious exoticism allows us to analyse better the diffusion of “other” religious resources in contemporary societies as well as the type of engagement individuals develop with the cultural and religious otherness. It will also try to show that this conceptual tool allows to further the analyzes that have been made about the forms of hybridity that combine diverse symbolic resources, and in particular to grasp its cultural and social logics. Indeed, the understanding of hybridity with foreign religions has sometimes over-estimated its eclecticism, taken for granted the availability of religious resources, and misunderstood religious individualism.

‘“Indelible characters”:Tattoos, Power and the Late Nineteenth-Century Irish Convict Body

Since the late nineteenth-century works of criminologists Lombroso and Lacassagne, tattoos in Europe have been commonly associated with deviant bodies. Like many other studies of tattoos of non-indigenous origin, the locus of our research is the convict body. Given the corporeal emphasis of prison records, we argue that tattoos form a crucial part of the power dynamic. Tattoos in the carceral context embody an inherent paradox of their being a component in the reidentification of 'habitual criminals'. We argue that their presence can be regarded as an expression of convict agency: by the act of imprinting unique identifiers on their bodies, convicts boldly defied the official gaze, while equally their description in official records exacted power over the deviant body. Cursory findings show an alignment with other national studies; corporeal inscriptions in Ireland were more prevalent in men's prisons than women's and associated, however loosely, with certain occupations. For instance, maritime and military motifs find representation. Recidivists were more likely to have tattoos than first-time offenders; inscriptions were described as monotone, rudimentary in design and incorporated a limited range of impressions. Further to our argument that tattoos form an expression of convict defiance of prison authority, we have found an unusual idiosyncrasy in the convict record, that is, that the agency of photography, while undermined in general terms, was manipulated by prison officers.

The Routledge Handbook of Irish Criminology

The Routledge Handbook of Irish Criminology is the first edited collection of its kind to bring together the work of leading Irish criminologists in a single volume. While Irish criminology can be characterised as a nascent but dynamic discipline, it has much to offer the Irish and international reader due to the unique historical, cultural, political, social and economic arrangements that exist on the island of Ireland.