Date: 2020
Type: Article
Modelling diversity : cultural district policies in Doha and Singapore
International journal of cultural policy, 2020, Vol. 26, No. 6, pp. 740-755
MOLHO, Jeremie, Modelling diversity : cultural district policies in Doha and Singapore, International journal of cultural policy, 2020, Vol. 26, No. 6, pp. 740-755
- https://hdl.handle.net/1814/68879
Retrieved from Cadmus, EUI Research Repository
Over the last twenty years, cities around the world have seen the multiplication of cultural district projects, which aim to concentrate cultural organisations in a circumscribed urban space, or to label a neighbourhood’s cultural scene. This paper examines the adoption and adaptation of a globally circulating cultural policy model as an instrument of urban governance. Moving away from the notion of policy transfer, understood as a neutral and unidirectional process through which successful culture-led development models spread to other contexts, I show how local actors mobilise external references to position themselves in a transnational cultural policymaking field, and construct their city as a model. I compare the multi-scalar politics of urban modelling in Doha and Singapore, where globally circulating culture-led development models have been introduced not only as instruments of economic growth, but also as diversity management tools. On the one hand, cultural districts serve as discursive nation building/branding instruments to project an imagined identity locally and internationally. On the other hand, urban elites can mobilise cultural districts to make strategic shifts in the diversity management discourse, through an engagement with the urban environment, and the co-optation civil society actors at multiple scales.
Additional information:
Published online: 05 October 2020
Cadmus permanent link: https://hdl.handle.net/1814/68879
Full-text via DOI: 10.1080/10286632.2020.1811250
ISSN: 1028-6632; 1477-2833
Publisher: Routledge
Files associated with this item
- Name:
- Molho,20-Modelling diversity.pdf
- Size:
- 467.4Kb
- Format:
- Description:
- Full-text in Open Access, Final ...