Walmsley, BA orcid.org/0000-0002-4536-5180 (2018) Deep hanging out in the arts: an anthropological approach to capturing cultural value. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 24 (2). pp. 272-291. ISSN 1028-6632
Abstract
This article presents the findings of an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project carried out from September 2013 to March 2014 by five researchers at the University of Leeds (UK), who paired off with five audience-participants and engaged in a process of “deep hanging out” (Geertz 1998) at events curated as part of Leeds’ annual LoveArts festival. As part of AHRC’s Cultural Value project, the overarching aim of the research was to produce a rich, polyvocal, evocative and complex account of cultural value by co-investigating arts engagement with audience-participants. Findings suggested that both the methods and purpose of knowing about cultural value impact significantly on any exploration of cultural experience. Fieldwork culminated in the apparent paradox that we know, and yet still don’t seem to know, the value and impact of the arts. Protracted discussions with the participants suggested that this paradox stemmed from a misplaced focus on knowledge; that instead of striving to understand and rationalize the value of the arts, we should instead aim to feel and experience it. During a process of deep hanging out, our participants revealed the limitations of language in capturing the value of the arts, yet confirmed perceptions of the arts as a vehicle for developing self-identity and -expression and for living a better life. These findings suggest that the Cultural Value debate needs to be reframed from what is currently an interminable epistemological obsession (that seeks to prove and evidence the value of culture) into a more complex phenomenological question, which asks how people experience the arts and culture and why people want to understand its value. This in turn implies a re-conceptualization of the relationships between artists or arts organisations and their publics, based on a more relational form of engagement and on a more anthropological approach to capturing and co-creating cultural value.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2016 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | cultural value; deep hanging out; audience engagement; relational aesthetics; anthropology |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > Performance and Cultural Industries (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Arts & Humanities Research Council AHRC AH/L006308/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 02 Mar 2016 11:14 |
Last Modified: | 11 Apr 2018 15:32 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10286632.2016.1153081 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Taylor & Francis |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/10286632.2016.1153081 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:95568 |
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