WHEN ARTS MET MARKETING

This article argues that arts marketing theory is embedded in the existing context of the nonprofit arts sector – that is, Romantic belief in the universal value of the arts and producer authority over the consumer. As “a set of techniques” and “a decision‐making process”, marketing was able to sit comfortably in the nonprofit arts context during the 1970s and 1980s. However, recent recognition of marketing as “a management philosophy” has brought out incompatibilities between the customer orientation of the marketing notion and the Romantic view of artistic production. This article demonstrates that arts marketing writings embrace Romanticism through the following: generic marketing concept; relationship marketing approach; extended definition of the customer; extended definition of the product; and reduction of marketing to function. Such findings suggest that persistence of the existing belief system and the embeddedness of the market be considered when marketisation in the arts sector is analysed.     

Creative shifts and directions

The availability and “readiness” of culture as a mode of governmental control makes cultural policy a matter of great importance in any contemporary society. This is true not only in liberal democracies with established arts councils or cultural policies, it is also proactively pursued by a technologically advanced yet illiberal regime like Singapore, eager to position itself as the global “Renaissance City” of the twenty‐first century. What this “renaissance” model entails remains highly cryptic, not least because cultural terms and political markers are often elusive, but also because the very concept of “cultural policy” shifts along with the political and economic tides in Singapore. Drawing on a rarely cited essay by Raymond Williams, this article offers an historical look at cultural policy in Singapore – from its first articulation in 1978 to its present standing under the rubric of “creative industries” (2002). It considers some of the problems encountered and the societal changes made to accommodate Singapore’s new creative direction, all for the sake of ensuring Singapore’s continued economic dynamism. This article contends that cultural policy in Singapore now involves extracting creative energies – and economies – out of each loosely termed “creative worker” by heralding the economic potential of the arts, media, culture and the creative sectors, but concomitantly marking boundaries of political exchange. In this regard, culture in Singapore has become more than ever a site for governmentality and control.     

The continuing saga around arts funding and the cultural wars in Australia

Cultural policy, and arts funding in particular, has been a site of much contention and discussion in Australia over the past decade. The events of the past two years took this to another level showing major ideological schisms in the present political approach. While the established arts sector was protected and consolidated, the emerging sector, individual artists, and small organisations were all negatively affected. The policy changes demonstrate the implicit challenges of direct political intervention in arts funding. What this period highlights also though is the vulnerability of artists and the philosophical contradictions around the nature of arts funding.     

Behind the scenes of public funding for performing arts in Italy: hidden phenomena beyond the rhetoric of legislation

This paper focuses on how Italian performing arts organizations were funded between 2003 and 2005. How does policy regulate the financing system for performing arts? What are the underlying logics that govern financing choices? In this paper the authors move beyond the simple examination of formal policies by analysing the funding data and organizational routines of the ministerial offices responsible for the allocation of grants. The authors implemented a multi‐method research methodology consisting of document analysis, in‐depth interviews, and quantitative analysis of funding data. The main findings can be summarized as follows. First, funds are continuously allocated to the same group of organizations. Second, although rigid, the system is imbued by a ‘rhetoric of the project’. Third, the system does not reward innovation. In conclusion, only by studying how the law is actually implemented can one capture the choices that underlie financing actions, and thus unravel unanticipated outcomes and inconsistencies between rhetoric and conduct.     

Forest as hazard,forest as victim: Community perspectives and disaster mitigation in the aftermath of Kelowna's 2003 wildfires

Situated within the political ecology of hazard, this article is an extended case study of the devastating 2003 wildfires in and around Kelowna, British Columbia (also known as the Okanagan Mountain Park Fire). This article reveals how compliance (or lack thereof) with fire mitigation strategies recommended by provincial, regional, and municipal agencies is complicated by differing social constructions of what constitutes ecologically sustainable forest management and community safety. Three perspectives emerge regarding the urban forests: “nature as hazard”—a volatile force to be controlled; “nature as instrumentally valuable”—a contribution to the character of one's surroundings and subsequent sense of place; and “nature as intrinsically valuable”—a distinct entity to be preserved and protected for its own sake. The article also examines how experiences of disaster influence community perceptions and result in a greater willingness to engage in fire mitigation strategies due to perceptions of heightened vulnerability. Forestry and fire mitigation agencies need to determine multiple courses of action among the varied and valid range of residents’ nature perspectives. The role of human agency in disaster mitigation must be examined, particularly as the risk of fire at the wildland‐urban interface continues to be exacerbated by encroaching human settlements and climate change.     

Beyond Alternative: Exploring the Potential for Autonomous Food Spaces

Abstract: Much attention has been given in recent years to the rise of alternative food networks However, the very concept of “alternative” has come under increasing scrutiny, as theorists grapple with what is meant by alternative and whether the concept adequately captures the key components of such a diverse range of networks and communities. Drawing on poststructuralist political economy, I propose the concept of autonomous food spaces as one possible lens for approaches food‐provisioning activities that situate food within the broader context of non‐capitalist communities seeking to build relationships of mutual aid and non‐market exchanges. I use the examples of a radical collective kitchen, Food Not Bombs, and a community‐supported agriculture operation, Vegetables Unplugged, to explore the potential for autonomous food spaces as part of a broader “politics of possibilities” beyond capitalism.     

The Image of the Sámi in Finnish Visual Arts before the Second World War

Abstract

This article examines how Finnish artists depicted the Sámi people in their paintings from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the Second World War. In the first paintings that represented the Sámi, the attitude was very romantic and artists were not interested in knowing the Sámi culture or even in encountering the Sámi people. In the nineteenth century, nationalism required building an image of the Finns, thus most Finnish artists were not interested in the Sámi. The French philosopher Hippolyte Taine's writings influenced the young artist Juho Kyyhkynen, who started to depict the Sámi culture. In the 1920s and 1930s, Sámi were thought to be primitive or Mongolian, so Finnish artists painted relatively few portraits of Sámi. All this time it was only Finnish painters who depicted the Sámi, as the voice and ideas of the Sámi themselves did not become prominent in Finland until the 1970s.     

Ochre,Ground Stone,and Wrapping the Dead in the Late Epipalaeolithic (Natufian) Levant: Revealing the Funerary Practices at Shubayqa 1, Jordan

The appearance of rich and diverse funerary practices is one of the hallmarks of the Late Epipalaeolithic Natufian in the Levant. Numerous burials at a number of sites excavated mostly in the Mediterranean zone of the southern Levant have fed into the interpretation of the Natufian as a sedentary society of complex hunter-gatherers. Here, we report on the human remains recovered from Shubayqa 1, a well-dated early to late Natufian site in northeast Jordan. The majority of the minimum of 23 individuals that are represented are perinates and infants, which represents an atypical population profile. Ground stone artifacts and traces of colorants are associated with some of these individuals, providing a rare insight into funerary treatment of subadults in Natufian contexts. We interpret the Shubayqa 1 evidence in the light of current and ongoing debates concerning Natufian burial practices and the issue of social complexity.     

Banishment,Urban Community and Judicial Practice: Thieves in mid-17th-century Turku

The practice of banishing thieves, and the changes that took place in that practice in mid-17th-century Turku, illuminates the issues of building a good urban community as well as the changes that were happening in law and judicial practice in early modern Sweden. Variations and changes in punishing thieves in the 1640s and 1650s in Turku show that the position of the thief in the urban community, and the amount that was stolen, affected the courts’ considerations throughout the two decades. Nevertheless, an ongoing tendency towards moderation in sentencing is visible in courts, and the influence of a new penal ordinance of 1653 is noticeable. The banishment of thieves, even if it removed unwanted people from town, was no more strongly connected to the goal of creating a good community than other punishments were. Both banishment and other punishments, however, were connected to the conceptions of an ordered and harmonious community. The court cases, nevertheless, show that the makeup of the Turku urban community was more open than the strict moral or legal guidelines of the time would suggest.     

‘I've had it with them!’ Younger migrant women's spatial practices of conformity and resistance

This article examines how younger migrant women from Turkey maneuver the public and private spaces of their everyday lives in a neighborhood in Germany, and how they challenge and affirm the patriarchal practices and gender norms that husbands, fathers, and older migrant women seek to impose within and outside private homes. Younger migrant women selectively comply with gendered and generational norms of veiling and dress, while at the same time also reworking gender roles, and avoiding and transgressing masculinist spaces. Younger migrant women's practices and spatial representations in mental maps reveal the complex entanglements of compliances and resistance, and dispel simple assumptions of being overwhelmingly victimized by their potentially violent men that are so prominent in contemporary Western societies.