[Commlist] CfP: Special issue on Failures in Cultural Participation

Article deadline: March 15, 2020
Patterns of cultural participation have been the focus of policy 
research for decades. Particularly since the millennium, quantitative 
data, often collected by governments, has established the notion of 
‘non-participation’ as a ‘problem’ that the state needs to address 
(Balling and Kann-Christensen, 2013; Jancovich 2015 Stevenson, 2013, 
Stevenson et al., 2015). Yet despite decades of policies and projects to 
address this and a growing body of research, carried out by consultants 
and academics, celebrating the success of such interventions in 
addressing social inclusion and increasing personal wellbeing, the same 
‘problem’ appears to remain in regard to the diversity of people who 
engage with state supported cultural organisations and activities 
(Warwick Commission, 2015). It has even been claimed that Europe is 
becoming it is becoming a “less cultural continent” (European 
Commission, 2013).

     The way in which many projects, organisation and artists are 
funded and evaluated, combined with the state of financial precarity in 
which a large number permanently function, means that stories of failure 
about how cultural participation policies and projects have been enacted 
are largely overlooked and even supressed in the dominant discourses of 
cultural policy. This limits and reduces the capacity for “social 
learning” (May 1992) which may better facilitate change. Without an 
honest acknowledgement and critically reflective exploration into the 
nature and extent of failure present in the existing projects and 
policies by which cultural participation is supposedly supported, then 
the legitimacy of the status quo will remain difficult to challenge.
     This special edition of Conjuctions invites contributions that 
explore the role and place of failure in regard to cultural 
participation. We invite empirical, theoretical and practice informed 
contributions from across a range of disciplines. Topics may include, 
but need not be confined to, the following:

 - The value and role of recognising, understanding and learning from 
failure for cultural policymaking OR for cultural objects, artefacts and 
activities
 - Defining and recognising failure in cultural participation 
projects/policies
 - Cases studies of failure in cultural participation projects/policies
 - The politics of failure in cultural participation projects/policies
 - The morality and ethics of failure in regard to cultural 
participation projects/policies
 - Evaluating and reporting on failure
 - The relationship between quality and failure in delivering cultural 
projects
 - Framing failure in evaluations
 - Discourses of failure and success in cultural policy/cultural practice

Articles should be between 6000-8000 words, including endnotes, captions 
and headings. All articles will undergo blind peer review for final 
selection in the special edition

     Any questions related to this special edition can be sent to the 
guest editors:

Dr Leila Jancovich: (l.jancovich /at/ leeds.ac.uk)

Dr David Stevenson: (dstevenson /at/ qmu.ac.uk)

Submissions can be made at: https://tidsskrift.dk/tcp/index

Deadline for submissions: March 15, 2020

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