By Abi Gilmore
Why should there be public funding for the arts? What role does cultural participation play in people’s lives? There has been an ongoing policy debate about the value of the arts to society which asks what kinds of returns policy makers should expect from public investment in arts and culture. ‘Raising our quality of life: the importance of investment in arts and culture’, explores Continue reading
Principal Investigator and lead on Aberdeen case study, Andy Miles, introduces the work taking place there
Work on the Aberdeen case study began in February 2014. Aberdeen is one of two UEP cultural ecosystem studies in Scotland that have been funded primarily by Creative Scotland, the public body that supports the arts, screen and creative industries, which is particularly interested in what it calls ‘edge’ communities. Continue reading
I came to the Performing Place symposium with a view to hearing more about how to carry out research in a creative, experimental and fun way. My background is in Visual Anthropology so although I have been exploring creative methods which play with representation, focus on reflexivity and encourage a collaborative approach, I haven’t Continue reading
What are the key features of everyday leisure participation amongst different geographically located and demographically defined groups in Glasgow and how does is this participation activity linked to other spheres of an individual’s life? Continue reading
My PhD research fieldwork consisting of two ethnographies will be carried out over the period of a year from 2015 – 2016 in Glasgow. I will be supervised by Dr Lisanne Gibson in the School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) as part of the Understanding Everyday Participation – Articulating Cultural Values (UEP) project. Continue reading
Susan Oman discusses Connecting Epistemologies: Methods and Early Career Researchers in the Connected Communities Programme – FINAL EVENT which took place on 28th October, 2014 City University London
The first few days of July saw a huge number of people from different Connected Communities projects decamp to Cardiff for the Connected Communities Festival. This event was the successor to last year’s ‘Showcase’ – you can read about how we got on Continue reading
Intensive research has been underway in Gateshead, UEP’s 3rd ‘cultural ecosystem’, since March this year and at this half way point we are bringing together the local stakeholders to inform and consult with them of the emerging findings. Gateshead stakeholders have been incredibly generous with their time and with providing us with Continue reading
Catherine Bunting discusses the first wave of interviews in Manchester
We completed the first wave of in-depth interviews in Manchester in February and since then we’ve been pouring through the interview transcripts to find out what everyday participation looks like in Broughton and Cheetham Hill and how different forms of participation shape and are shaped by identities, social relationships and ‘place’. Continue reading
Andy Miles talks about UEP interviewing and participation narratives
What does it mean to participate? How, where and why does participation happen and with what consequences – for individuals, families, communities and places? UEP is combining a suite of methods in each of its six case study locations (cultural ecosystems) in order to probe such questions. These include cultural assets mapping – using both official data and vernacular accounts – community and stakeholder focus groups, local histories of participation, in-depth interviews, ethnography and social network analysis. Continue reading