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Accounting for Culture

 | 
Caroline Andrew
, 
Monica Gattinger
, 
M. Sharon Jeannotte
, 
et al.

Part III. New Approaches in a Changing Cultural Environment

9. Just Showing Up

Social and Cultural Capital in Everyday Life

M. Sharon Jeannotte

Texte intégral

  • 1 Eric Uslaner and Paul Dekker, “The ‘Social’ in Social Capital,” in Paul Dekker and Eric M. Uslaner (...)

To paraphrase the American filmmaker and comedian Woody Allen:
eighty percent of social capital is just showing up1

1This chapter is intended to be a synthesis of current knowledge about social and cultural capital and their relationship to questions of citizenship. Its aims are to identify the role that these forms of capital play in the construction of cultural citizenship and to suggest how a conceptual understanding of them is useful to our understanding of the formulation of cultural policies. The chapter is structured as follows: Section One describes what we know about social and cultural capital and includes definitions, analytical approaches, and an overview of research findings and critiques of current approaches. Section Two focuses on knowledge gaps with regard to social and cultural capital and the construction of citizens, and Section Three discusses the implications for policy and decision-making, based on current knowledge and the analysis of knowledge gaps in Section Two.

2In reading this synthesis, it should be kept in mind that despite the deluge of literature and the huge policy interest in social capital in recent years, there is no consensus on research findings. By contrast, policy interest in cultural capital and its relationship to social capital is of quite recent origin and, since researchers have only begun to explore what this relationship might mean for cultural policy, agreement is nowhere on the horizon. In both the social and cultural capital research fields, definitional issues are still being debated (although researchers and policy-makers appear closer to consensus in the case of social capital). As analytical approaches tend to follow from the definitions of social and cultural capital adopted by researchers, it is important to understand just which elements of social or cultural capital are being discussed. Therefore, Section One of this chapter will begin with a focus on definitional issues.

What We Already Know2

Definitions of Social Capital

  • 3 Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Sc (...)
  • 4 Ibid., 22.
  • 5 Michael Woolcock, “The Place of Social Capital in Understanding Social and Economic Outcomes,” Isu (...)
  • 6 Policy Research Initiative, Social Capital Background Paper-Conceptualization (Ottawa: Policy Rese (...)

3The definition of social capital most often used is the one made popular by Robert Putnam: “social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them.”3 Putnam has made a further distinction between “bonding” and “bridging” social capital. The former refers to social networks that reinforce exclusive identities and homogeneous groups, the latter to networks that are outward looking and encompass people across diverse social cleavages (forging so-called “weak ties,” as opposed to the strong ones that characterize “bonding” social capital).4 Recently, some scholars have added a third type of social capital to this list—“linking” social capital—which refers to vertical links between different strata of wealth and status.5 It has been suggested that “linking” social capital is key to leveraging resources and information from formal institutions beyond the community.6

  • 7 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, The Well-being of Nations: The Role of Huma (...)

4Another popular definition of social capital is the one used by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (oecd) which characterizes social capital as “networks together with shared norms, values and understandings that facilitate co-operation within or among groups.”7 Many scholars go beyond these fairly abstract definitions to deconstruct the elements of social capital. One study, done in Australia, used factor analysis to identify eight dimensions of social capital:

  • generalized trust;
  • social agency (capacity to seek information and make decisions);
  • tolerance of diversity;
  • value of life (empowerment);
  • community connections;
  • neighbourhood connections;
  • family and friends connections; and
  • work connections.8
  • 9 Amanda Aizlewood and Ravi Pendakur, “SRA-657: Ethnicity and Social Capital in Canada” (paper prepa (...)
  • 10 Helen Gould, “Culture and Social Capital,” in François Matarasso, ed., Recognising Culture—A Serie (...)
  • 11 Colin Mercer, Towards Cultural Citizenship: Tools for Cultural Policy and Development (Stockholm: (...)

5In another example, a Canadian study on ethnicity and social capital analyzes social capital along four dimensions: interpersonal trust, political trust, formal participation, and informal social interaction.9 Helen Gould, a researcher looking at social capital in the context of cultural development, defines social capital as “the wealth of the community measured not in economic but in human terms,” where each transaction “… over time, yields reciprocity and sustainable improvements to quality of life.”10 Both Colin Mercer and Gould suggest, however, that the “currency” of these transactions is “relationships, networks and local partnerships.”11

Definitions of Cultural Capital

  • 12 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984).
  • 13 Pierre Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital,” in John G. Richardson, ed., Handbook of Theory and Resear (...)

6The extensive work of Pierre Bourdieu, a French sociologist, has shaped contemporary thinking on the subject of cultural capital. He has defined cultural capital as “the disposal of taste” or “consumption of specific cultural forms that mark people as members of specific classes.”12 Bourdieu’s conceptualization of cultural capital is complex, but in its simplest terms consists of three elements: 1) embodied capital (or habitus), the system of lasting dispositions that form an individual’s character and guides his or her actions and tastes; 2) objectified capital, the means of cultural expression, such as painting, writing, and dance, that are symbolically transmissible to others; and 3) institutionalized capital, the academic qualifications that establish the value of the holder of a given qualification.13

  • 14 Gould, “Culture and Social Capital,” 87.
  • 15 Jeannotte, “Singing Alone,” 39.

7For a long time, the investment yields from cultural capital, as defined by Bourdieu, were viewed as primarily personal. However, in the context of cultural development theory, some scholars have begun to define cultural capital in collective terms. Gould has observed that “when a community comes together to share cultural life, through celebration, rites and intercultural dialogue, it is enhancing its relationships, partnerships and networks—in other words, developing social capital.”14 In this vein, I have suggested that while cultural capital has traditionally been thought to contribute to “bonding” social capital by reinforcing ideologies, values and social differences, and by strengthening ties between intimates, it may also play a role in “bridging” social capital by promoting social solidarity (or commitment to a larger whole), social integration (or linkages between functional elements), and sustainable communities (patterns of social and spatial interaction distinguishing a collective).15

  • 16 David Throsby, “Cultural Capital and Sustainability Concepts in the Economics of Cultural Heritage (...)

8An additional definitional angle has been introduced by David Throsby, an economist who distinguishes between tangible and intangible cultural capital. In his view, tangible cultural capital is “an asset that embodies a store of cultural value, separable from whatever economic value it might possess; the asset gives rise to a flow of goods and services over time which may also have cultural value.” He places most heritage buildings and artifacts in this category of cultural capital. Intangible cultural capital, in his view, consists of “ideas, traditions, beliefs, and customs shared by a group of people, and it also includes intellectual capital, which exists as language, literature, music and so on.”16

Relationships Between Social Capital and Cultural Capital

  • 17 Asoka Mendis, “Social Capital Formation and Institutions for Sustainability” (workshop proceedings (...)

9At a workshop on “Social Capital Formation and Institutions for Sustainability” that was held in 1998 at the University of British Columbia, participants explored the differences between social and cultural capital. “This distinction is important,” they stated, “because one can have a society rich in social capital; however, due to the nature of its cultural capital (as represented, for example, by a ‘frontier economic’ mentality) such a society may be unsustainable. Cultural capital may determine the quality of social capital.”17

  • 18 Fikret Berkes, “Cultural and Natural Capital: A Systems Approach Revisited, in Asoka Mendis, ed., (...)

10Researchers have pointed out that both social and cultural capital are embedded in complex social systems that are in many ways the human equivalent of natural ecosystems. Social and natural systems, some suggest, are not separate, but are intertwined in ways that are still not understood. From this perspective, cultural capital can be viewed as an asset that “provides human societies the means and adaptations to deal with the natural environment and to actively modify it.”18 According to this notion of sustainable development, how people view the world and the universe, their environmental philosophy and ethics, their traditional knowledge, and their social and political institutions will dictate how they function within their environment. Embodied cultural capital, or habitus, therefore lies at the base of this concept.

Analytical Approaches to Social and Cultural Capital

11As noted above, the analytical approach taken in social capital research usually depends on how it is defined by the investigator. Bryant and Norris of Statistics Canada have developed a useful thematic typology to organize the agency’s social capital data holdings which also serves as a concise summary of the main analytical categories:

12Theme 1: Social Participation, Social Engagement, and Commitment (participation in voluntary organizations, political action, civic engagement, sense of belonging to community).

13Theme 2: Level of Empowerment (life satisfaction, perception of control and level of self-esteem and confidence).

14Theme 3: Perception of Community (levels of satisfaction with community in areas such as quality of life, crime and safety).

15Theme 4: Social Networks, Social Support, and Social Integration (contacts with friends and family, support systems, and depth of relationships).

  • 19 Quoted in Policy Research Initiative, Social Capital Background Paper-Measurement (Ottawa: Policy (...)

16Theme 5: Trust, Reciprocity and Social Inclusion (both trust in people and institutions, confidence in institutions, and perceptions of shared values).19

17The Policy Research Initiative has usefully described how the four main analytical frameworks on social capital mesh with the five themes developed by Bryant and Norris. These are summarized in Table 1 below.

18In the case of cultural capital, analytical frameworks have been much less clearly articulated, probably because public policy interest in the subject is so recent. To date, however, a number of themes appear to dominate.

19Theme 1: Personal Empowerment (personal benefits derived from investments in cultural capital).

20Theme 2: Cultural Participation (linkages between cultural participation and altruistic behaviour, such as volunteering and civic engagement).

21Theme 3: Cultural Development and Quality of Life (linkages between cultural capital and economic and social development).

22Theme 4: Cultural Sustainahility (ways in which cultural capital supports human development and maintains the cultural life and vitality of human civilization over time).

  • 20 Ibid.

Table 1: Analytical Approaches to Social Capital20

Analytical framework

Thematic Focus

Communitarian

Theme 1 – participation

Network Analysis

Theme 4 – resources embedded in networks; individuals’ access to bridges or key resources within the network ; size, density and composition of networks

Institutional

Theme 1 – civic engagement, voting, sense of belonging
Theme 3 – historical and cultural context of the political and institutional environment; cleavages within civil society, economic performance

Synergy (combination of & institutional approaches)

Theme 3 – Community capacities, relations between public and private sectors
Theme 5 – relationship between citizens and public institutions

  • 21 Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital,” 249.
  • 22 Gould, “Culture and Social Capital.”

23Research on cultural capital has tended to concentrate on Themes one and two. This is perhaps a logical outgrowth of Bourdieu’s contention that the volume of social capital possessed by an individual depends on the size of his or her network connections and on the volume of economic and cultural capital possessed by those to whom he or she is connected.21 While Theme one, focusing on the quantitative effects of network “investments” on personal capital, has been fairly well researched, particularly by educational sociologists, the qualitative and collective themes have barely begun to be explored. In recent years, the cultural capital and participation element (Theme two) has received a fair amount of attention from researchers working on public policy issues such as social exclusion, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. The cultural capital/quality of life connection has been most frequently explored by scholars working in the area of urban development and creativity. Both the World Bank and unesco have been active in exploring Themes three and four, but only recently have they taken a closer look at the role of cultural capital in promoting either cultural development or sustainable communities.22

Research Findings on Social Capital

24Over the past few years, there has been an explosion of research on social capital. This section will not attempt to provide a comprehensive review of this research, but will instead focus on the characteristics and procedural elements of social capital that are thought to transmit its effects, an overview of these effects, and one of the major social capital issues that has been of interest in cultural policy analysis.

  • 23 Christian Grootaert, “Social Capital-The Missing Link?,” in Dekker and Uslaner, eds., Social Capit (...)
  • 24 Paul S. Adler and Seok-Woo Kwon, “Social Capital: Prospects for a New Concept,” Academy of Managem (...)

25Economists have only recently begun to take an interest in adding social capital to the list of other “capitals” (natural, physical, and human) that play a part in economic growth. They have identified it as a public good, since it can only be acquired by a group of people, rather than an individual. Like many public goods, it also tends to be under-produced.23 The major mechanisms through which social capital produces its beneficial effects have been summarized by Adler and Kwon as: 1) enhanced information flow through networks of collaboration; 2) increased influence through the quantity and quality of an individual’s network ties; and 3) increased solidarity as a result of the "bonding" that takes place in closely-knit social networks.24

  • 25 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, The Well-being of Nations.
  • 26 Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (New York: The Free Pre (...)
  • 27 Peter A. Hall, “Social Capital in Britain,” British Journal of Political Science 29 (1999): 416—61 (...)
  • 28 Quoted in Policy Research Initiative, Social Capital Background Paper–Conceptualization (Ottawa: P (...)

26In general, social capital has been shown to be linked to improved health, greater personal well-being, better care for children, lower crime, and improved government.25 As well, there is growing evidence that greater co-operation and trust (an outcome or possible element of social capital) are associated with both stronger economic performance26 and more effective democratic political participation.27 However, some researchers have pointed to several potentially negative outcomes as well. In this vein, Portes lists exclusion of outsiders, free-riding by individuals within social networks, restrictions on individual freedoms due to excessive bonding, and downward leveling of norms.28

  • 29 E. L. Glaeser, D. Laibson, J. Al Scheinkman and C. L. Soutter, “Measuring Trust,” Quarterly Journa (...)
  • 30 Neil Nevitte and Antoine Bilodeau, “SRA-747—Trust, Tolerance and Confidence in Institutions: Evide (...)
  • 31 Aizlewood and Pendakur, “Ethnicity and Social Capital in Canada,” 14.

27One of the major social capital debates of relevance to cultural policy analysts and decision-makers concerns the impact of diversity on social capital. Several studies conducted in the United States have found lower scores on trust and participation in ethnically diverse communities.29 However, recent Canadian research appears to suggest that other contextual factors may be more significant in explaining levels of social capital among recent immigrants and diverse ethnocultural groups. Nevitte and Bilodeau, in an analysis of trust, tolerance, and confidence in institutions among Canadian immigrants, have discovered that recent immigrants have both higher levels of general trust and higher levels of confidence in institutions than native-born Canadians, but that their levels of trust and confidence tend to converge with those of native-born Canadians over time.30 A study of ethnicity and social capital conducted by Pendakur and Aizlewood also found higher levels of trust in government among immigrants and visible minority groups using bivariate analysis, but found that controlling for individual and contextual characteristics using survey regression methods erased most of these differences. They concluded that community size was the most significant determinant of social capital, suggesting that “… an urban lifestyle may be a more useful explanation for variance in civic attitudes and behaviours.”31

Research Findings on Cultural Capital

28In examining the research findings on cultural capital, one should keep in mind the variations in definitions discussed in Section One. Most cultural policy research tends to focus on what Bourdieu called objectified cultural capital—means of cultural expression that are symbolically transmissible to others (or what Throsby has labelled intangible cultural capital). Most educational policy research examines habitus—the embodied cultural capital that forms an individual’s character and that frequently underpins his or her institutionalized cultural capital or academic qualifications. Much recent cultural development research has taken place in the urban studies field, using Throsby’s definition of tangible cultural capital (or assets embodying cultural value) as a starting point (although in practice it has been difficult for researchers to separate intangible cultural capital from its physical manifestations). In general, cultural sustainability studies have used an expanded notion of both social and cultural capital which seeks to aggregate such notions as habitus and intangible cultural capital up to the community level and to examine the impact that ideas, traditions, beliefs, customs, and intellectual capital might have on the health and sustainability of collectives.

29The common feature of most studies is that they concentrate on the role that cultural capital plays in the everyday lives of individuals and communities. While cultural development research has tended to focus on individuals as consumers, the individual as citizen is generally the focal point for cultural capital research on participation and sustainability.

30However, because of the embeddedness of cultural capital within everyday transactions, it is often difficult to separate economically-driven activity from the social framework in which it takes place. It is this embeddedness that makes analysis so difficult and leads to fierce debates within the academy about whether trust, or civic engagement, or cultural participation, or creativity is the key factor producing positive or negative outcomes. Since there are no easy answers (and certainly no consensus) about the role of cultural capital (however defined) in reinforcing the fabric of everyday life, this section will simply provide a selective overview of research under the thematic headings identified in Section One.

Theme 1: Personal Empowerment

  • 32 James S. Catterall, “Involvement in the Arts and Human Development: General Involvement in Music a (...)
  • 33 Annette Lareau, “Social Class Differences in Family-School Relationships,” Sociology of Education (...)
  • 34 Paul DiMaggio and John Mohr, “Cultural Capital, Educational Attainment and Marital Selection,” Ame (...)
  • 35 Chris Shilling, “Schooling and the Production of Physical Capital,” Discourse 13, no. 1 (October 1 (...)
  • 36 David R. Offord et al., “Sports, The Arts and Community Programs: Rates and Correlates of Particip (...)
  • 37 See, for example, Catterall, “Involvement in the Arts and Human Development;” Judith Humphreys Wei (...)
  • 38 A. Peaker and J. Vincent, Arts in Prisons: Towards a Sense of Achievement (London: Research and Pl (...)

31The field of educational sociology has extensively documented the personal benefits derived from investments in cultural capital, demonstrating that it improves academic performance,32 family-school relationships,33 marital prospects,34 physical fitness35 and children’s psycho-social development.36 In addition, there is a growing scientific literature on the benefits of arts involvement for youth-at-risk37 and prisoners.38

Theme 2: Cultural Participation

  • 39 François Matarasso, Use or Ornament? The Social Impact of Participation in the Arts (London: Comed (...)
  • 40 Ibid., vi-vii.

32In his ground-breaking study on the social impact of the arts, British researcher François Matarasso documented several instances where participation in the arts increased the confidence of individuals, enriched their social lives, and helped them to build the skills needed to find better jobs.39 He also recorded in some detail how participatory arts projects reinforce social cohesion by promoting partnerships, co-operation, and intercultural understanding. Such involvement, he maintains, strengthens communities by encouraging people to become more active citizens and to get involved in their neighbourhoods.40

  • 41 Saguaro Seminar, “Better Together.”
  • 42 Ibid., 35.

33In the United States, the Saguaro Seminar, an organization devoted to studying civic engagement in America, has produced case study research showing the various ways that arts organizations and museums are attempting to build community connections and “bridging” social capital through initiatives such as residencies in women’s shelters, music classes in impoverished areas, and community theatre productions.41 In these cases, it is clearly the quality of the cultural capital underpinning the social capital that is given credit for bridging differences, as the report asserts that “we need not be of the same race, generation, gender, political party, religion, or income group to sing, act, or create together.”42

  • 43 Jeannotte, “Singing Alone,” 45.
  • 44 Jean-Pierre Bourdeau, “SRA-672-Bowling Along: Cross-indicators of Social Participation and Local C (...)
  • 45 Ibid.; Jeannotte, “Singing Alone.”

34To determine the collective impact of individual investments in cultural capital, I have used data from the Canadian General Social Survey to examine the volunteering patterns of individuals who participate (or do not participate) in a variety of cultural activities. I have found that those who attended performances, visited galleries, museums and historic sites, read books and magazines, visited libraries, and participated in cultural activity (such as singing in a choir) were much more likely to volunteer than those who did not.43 Bourdeau has confirmed these findings and, using multivariate analysis, has determined that the correlation of cultural participation (and, indeed, sport participation) with voluntarism remains significant after controlling for socio-economic and demographic factors such as gender, income, and education.44 The tendency to volunteer increases with the frequency of participation in cultural activities.45

  • 46 Diedand Stolle and Thomas R. Rochon, “Are All Associations Alike? Member Diversity, Associational (...)
  • 47 Ibid., 61.

35Stolle and Rochon used survey data to answer the question, “Are all associations alike?”46 They hypothesized that not all associations contribute to social capital to the same degree and that the effect will vary depending on the inclusiveness of the association. They found that members of cultural groups (defined as those engaged in “preservation of traditional regional, national or ethnic culture, church groups, literary, music and arts activities”) scored highest on generalized trust and political trust/efficacy, and second-highest on optimism and tolerance (after social groups). They also concluded that “… some association memberships, particularly those of cultural associations, appear to exhibit a wide range of forms of public social capital.”47

  • 48 Henrik P. Bang and Eva Sorensen, “The Everyday Maker: Building Political, Rather than Social, Capi (...)

36Very little research has been done on the motivations for voluntarism and community involvement, either from a social capital or a cultural capital perspective. However, a study by Bang and Sorensen on so-called “Everyday Makers”—people who engage in “small p” politics at the local level—suggests that “they do not primarily gain their political identities from being citizens of the state but from being engaged in the construction of local networks.”48

  • 49 Chris Walker, Arts & Culture: Community Connections-Contributions from New Survey Research (Washin (...)
  • 50 M. Sharon Jeannotte, “SRA-541-Cultural Symbiosis: Cultural Participation and Cohesive Communities” (...)

37The findings of a cultural participation survey carried out by the Urban Institute in the United States in 1998 tend to support the importance of local networks as motivations for involvement. In that study, the top three reasons why people attended arts and cultural programs and events were to socialize with friends and family (fifty-nine per cent), to support friends and family (forty-none per cent) and to support organizations or events important to the community (forty-seven per cent).49 The desire to socialize was also evident in a Canadian study of passive cultural participation that was conducted by Environics in 2000. That study found that the primary motivation for attending live performances and artistic events was the desire to be entertained, to relax, or to enjoy oneself (sicty=two per cent). Only small minorities mentioned other motivations, such as interest in specific performers (fourteen per cent) or to learn, stimulate, or challenge oneself (four per cent).50 These figures suggest that the aesthetic value of cultural capital appears to be a secondary consideration for many participants and may, in fact, be serving more as a building block for social capital, although much of this social capital may be based on nothing more profound than “just showing up.”

Theme 3: Cultural Development and Quality of Life

  • 51 Pérez de Cuéllar, Javier et al., Our Creative Diversity-Report of the World Commission on Culture (...)

38The theme of culture and development in the 1980s was primarily linked to economic development, but in the 1990s, the unesco World Commission on Culture and Development proposed a broader conceptualization that recognized the role of culture in relation to other societal objectives, such as “… sustaining the physical environment, preserving family values, [and] protecting civil institutions in society.” This definition, the Commission suggested, should be guided by “… the fostering of respect for all cultures and… the principle of cultural freedom.”51

  • 52 See, for example, Richard Florida, “The Rise of the Creative Class-Why Cities Without Gays and Roc (...)
  • 53 Betsy Donald and Douglas Morrow, “SRA-674-Competing for Talent: Implications for Social and Cultur (...)
  • 54 Richard Florida, “The New American Dream,” The Washington Monthly (March 2003): 26-33; Betsy Donal (...)

39In the intervening years since the Commission’s report, the focus of cultural development has shifted noticeably from a national to a local community perspective. Over the past decade or so, there has been an explosion of research on the role of culture and creativity in the development of communities, particularly urban communities. The most well-known scholar working in this area is Richard Florida, whose linkage of human capital and diversity to creative cities has received enormous attention in both the popular and scholarly press.52 His work has prompted (at least in North America) concerted attempts by city administrations to establish the amenities and find the right cultural “mix” needed to attract knowledge workers. However, some have criticized Florida’s methodology for deriving his “bohemian” and “gay” indices as unreliable.53 Moreover, as Florida has recognized himself, recent research suggests that the regions with the strongest creative economies also have the greatest income inequality.54

  • 55 Meric S. Gertler, Richard Florida, Gary Gates, and Tara Vinodrai, Competing on Creativity: Placing (...)
  • 56 Ibid. 24-25.

40In Canada, Meric Gertler, in collaboration with Florida and others, recently attempted to reproduce Florida’s “quality of place” findings using data from a group of city-regions in Ontario.55 In a comparison of 309 city-regions in Canada and the United States, Gertler found that Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, Kitchener, London, St.-Catherines-Niagara, Windsor, and Thunder Bay ranked in the top ten for diversity (on the “mosaic index”), while Toronto also ranked in the top ten on the “bohemian index” but only Ottawa ranked in the top ten on the “talent index” (within their population size categories). Gertler and his colleagues concluded that “… there appears to be a strong set of linkages between creativity, diversity, talent and technology-intensive activity that are driving the economic growth of Canada’s—and Ontario’s—city regions.” They were also explicit about the role of cultural capital in this development, suggesting “that public policies at all three levels of government that support immigration and settlement, as well as nurturing the arts and creativity, have played a critical role in creating the conditions tor successful urban economic development today and into the future.”56

  • 57 Charles Landry, L. Green, François Matarasso, and F. Bianchini, The Art of Regeneration: Urban Ren (...)
  • 58 Jason J. Azmier, Culture and Economic Competitiveness: An Emerging Role for the Arts in Canada (Ca (...)

41A great deal of research on this topic is also taking place in Europe. For example, in 1996 Charles Landry and his colleagues examined the role of cultural activity in urban regeneration, using case studies of fifteen European cities. Among the benefits derived from cultural programming at the community level, they identified enhanced social cohesion, improved local image, and renewed vision for the future.57 In a similar vein, the Canada West Foundation examined the role of culture in promoting the economic competitiveness of Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, and Regina. Qualitative research clearly showed four categories of community benefits derived from arts investments: 1) health and well-being of citizens; 2) enhanced community identity and social cohesion; 3) community revitalization and redevelopment; and 4) economic growth. However, while the study concluded that cultural capital has an important impact on the quality of life of cities and is an important factor in attracting talent, quantitative evidence of this impact was still lacking.58

  • 59 Gertler et al., Competing on Creativity, 25.

42Despite the growing evidence base on the beneficial impacts of cultural capital investments in urban communities, there is still little agreement on the nature of these investments. Gertler and his colleagues have suggested that “… Ontario’s and Canada’s city-regions ought to reinforce and strengthen their urban character by using planning tools that encourage higher-density growth, diverse, mixed-use urban redevelopment, and the preservation and accentuation of authentic, distinctive neighbourhood character.59

  • 60 Paul Chatterton and Robert Hollands, Urban Nightscapes: Youth Cultures, Pleasure Spaces and Corpor (...)

43According to many researchers, however, the type of cultural capital investment that many cities are now undertaking is anything but “authentic.” In his book on “fantasy cities,” John Hannigan examines the growth of Urban Entertainment Destinations (packaged and sanitized leisure and tourist attractions in cities). He also analyzes the linkages between tangible and intangible cultural capital in postmodern cities, suggesting that themed venues, which blend entertainment, fashion, sport, technology, and food represent the only truly global cultural capital. Like Naomi Klein in her widely-read book No Logo and Chatterton and Hollands in their book on Urban Nightscapes, Hannigan believes that the primary value of corporatized themed environments lies not in their tangible bricks and mortar, but in their ability to generate intangible cultural capital in the form of brands which can be replicated in locations throughout the world. This form of cultural capital is aimed primarily at generating economic rather than social benefits, leading to questions as to the sustainability of local cultures within such an environment.60

Theme 4: Cultural Sustainability

  • 61 Throsby, “Cultural Capital and Sustainability Concepts,” 106.

44David Throsby has drawn some parallels between natural resources and cultural capital that serve as a useful departure point for a discussion of cultural sustainability. He points out that while natural capital has arisen from the beneficence of nature, cultural capital has grown from the creative activities of human beings. Both types of capital impose a duty of preservation in order to pass them on to future generations and, while complex natural ecosystems function to maintain and support balance in the natural environment, equally complex “cultural ecosystems” are required to maintain the cultural life and vitality of human societies. Throsby also points to the importance of diversity in both natural and cultural ecosystems, suggesting that the principal value of cultural capital resides in the unique and distinct nature of the cultural goods and services that comprise it.61

  • 62 Michael J. Chandler and Christopher Lalonde, “Cultural Continuity as a Hedge Against Suicide in Ca (...)
  • 63 Cynthia Chataway, “Successful Development in Aboriginal Communities: Does it Depend Upon a Particu (...)
  • 64 Katherine A.H. Graham and Evelyn Peters, Aboriginal Communities and Urban Sustainability (Ottawa: (...)

45The role of cultural capital in building and maintaining communities has not received a great deal of research attention in Canada. However, a few sociological and psychological studies of Aboriginal groups suggest that cultural capital may be a critical element in sustaining communities that, in turn, support the individuals within them. Chandler and Lalonde found a significant correlation between low levels of youth suicide and Aboriginal communities that scored high in six markers of cultural continuity.62 Chataway’s research indicates that institutions and initiatives in Aboriginal communities are more likely to succeed if they are grounded in culturally-relevant values and that a “cultural match” is related to higher levels of employment and income.63 Graham and Peters, in examining Aboriginal communities and urban sustainability, suggest that support for diverse Aboriginal cultures and identities in urban communities must take place at the same time as poverty-reduction measures to ensure the sustainability of these communities.64

  • 65 Chatterton and Hollands, Urban Nightscapes, 209.

46The type of cultural capital that sustains communities, as indicated in the discussion of cultural development above, is the subject of much disagreement among researchers. In a study of urban nightlife in the United Kingdom, Chatterton and Hollands describe the commodification of alternative lifestyles by the “coolhunters” who attempt to brand “subcultural capital” and replicate it in other communities. They suggest that in authentic venues, “… participation is more about ‘active production’ than ‘passive consumption’ and hence there is a more fluid boundary between producers and consumers through the exchange of music, ideas, business deals and networks of trust and reciprocity.”65

  • 66 Jeannotte, “Singing Alone,” 42.

47This “fluid boundary” seems to apply to non-profit types of cultural capital as well. Describing the Our Millennium project initiated by the Community Foundations of Canada to mark the new century, Jeannotte notes that over twenty-seven percent of the lasting “gifts” that Canadians made to their communities to mark the millennium were in the domains of heritage and arts and culture. Some of these projects were traditional, such as restoration of heritage buildings in the community or the publication of local histories. Others, however, utilized various means of cultural expression as a platform for activism. For example, several groups organized concerts or film festivals to raise awareness of problems such as racism or global warming. In other cases, performance art was used as a vehicle for promoting intercultural contact and understanding, for articulating the special needs of groups such as the disabled, or for preserving and celebrating the traditions of particular ethnocultural groups.66 Clearly, the citizens who mobilized cultural capital in this manner were using it as a vehicle to sustain the everyday life of their community and were doing more than “just showing up.”

Critiques of Cultural Capital Research

  • 67 Paola Merli, “Evaluating the Social Impact of Participation in Arts Activities: A Critical Review (...)
  • 68 Ibid., 115.
  • 69 Ibid., 110; Eleonora Belfiore, “Art as a Means of Alleviating Social Exclusion: Does it Really Wor (...)

48Cultural capital research carried out in the past decade or so on Theme Two (cultural participation) and Theme Three (cultural development) has borne the brunt of critical commentary. Research on the social impact of arts participation has come under intense scrutiny, probably because of its profound influence on the cultural policies of the New Labour government in the United Kingdom. Paola Merli has criticized Matarasso’s research, suggesting that the “research design is flawed, research methods are not applied in a rigorous way and the conceptual bases are questionable.”67 For example, she contends that “… in order to legitimately declare that an artistic programme has improved the quality of life of participants it is necessary… to know what are, in the opinions of participants, the main constituents of ‘quality of life’ and the relative weights attributed to them.”68 Both Merli and Eleonora Belfiore suggest that the quantitative statistics utilized by Matarasso’s survey data have been derived from ambiguously-worded questions and that, without longitudinal evaluation of the impacts of arts and cultural participation, it is very difficult to prove either positive or negative effects.69

  • 70 Adrian Ellis, Valuing Culture (London: Demos, 2003), 5.
  • 71 Ibid., 7.
  • 72 Ibid.
  • 73 Ibid., 8.

49Under Theme Three, the issue of instrumentality—employing research to justify using culture as a means to another end, such as economic growth or social inclusion—has come in for heavy criticism in the United Kingdom. A recent discussion paper by Adrian Ellis suggests that current cultural policy aimed at contributing to social inclusion, urban regeneration, tourism, inward investment, employment, and the development of the creative industries is “perverse” because it “… eschews value-judgments that imply a hierarchy of cultural value; emphasizes the quantitative in a field where qualitative assessments have been regarded as central; and aspires to judge cultural organizations by their efficacy in addressing social and economic agenda that could in some cases be addressed more effectively directly.”70 The biggest disconnect, Ellis contends, is in the case of the economic impact studies of cultural development which define cultural activity too generously, seldom account for opportunity costs, and almost never compare funding inputs to actual outcomes.71 Social impact studies, however, do not escape criticism as Ellis, like Merli and Belfiore, points to the lack of strongly grounded empirical data to back up social impact claims.72 He does concede, however, that evidence regarding locally-oriented urban cultural development appears to be more persuasive than evidence for projects aimed at attracting “fickle international capital and tourists.”73

  • 74 Donald and Morrow, “Competing for Talent,” 13-14. It should be noted, however, that Florida will b (...)

50As indicated in Section One, the methodology for deriving the various indices on which Richard Florida bases his “Talent Model” has also come in for a fair amount of criticism. Donald and Morrow, in examining the implications of this model for social and cultural policy in Canadian city-regions, observe that the “gay index” is based on data that include same-sex households that are not gay, that the “talent index” measures only the university-educated and does not take into account other forms of post-secondary education and that the “melting pot” or “mosaic” indices fail to include minority group members that are born in Canada or the US. They are also critical of Florida’s lack of attention to gender and life cycle issues and to the relationship between high-tech urban growth and income inequality, racial segregation, and social capital.74

What We Need to Know

51The critiques of various types of research on social and cultural capital provide a hint as to some of the perceived gaps in our knowledge. It may be useful to group these knowledge gaps under several broadly overarching questions:

  • What is the relationship between social and cultural capital? How does social and cultural capital work to produce beneficial (or detrimental) effects? How important are these effects in producing positive public policy outcomes?
  • What are the most important elements of social and cultural capital that cultural policy research should be examining?
  • How can we best measure the effects of cultural capital?

Causation Knowledge Gaps—How Does Social and Cultural Capital Work?

  • 75 Putnam, Bowling Alone, 137.

52To quote Robert Putnam, “The causal arrows among civic involvement, reciprocity, honesty, and social trust are as tangled as well-tossed spaghetti.”75 If we are to assume, as the evidence cited above suggests, that social and cultural capital are deeply embedded in complex social and cultural ecosystems, then it may be many years before causation is fully understood.

53Uslaner and Dekker, in analyzing the tangle of causality, suggest that social capital is not a single concept and cannot be reduced to a single dimension. They therefore recommend that researchers adopt Onyx and Bullen’s metaphor of the cake as a starting point:

  • 76 Onyx and Bullen, “The Different Faces of Social Capital,” 56.

We recognize many varieties of cake that look and taste different, having been baked with different variations of a similar stock of ingredients, all of which we none the less recognize as a cake. So it is with social capital. Communities and groups differ, not only in the overall level of social capital, but also in the importance of each arena and capacity building block.76

  • 77 Uslaner and Dekker, “The ‘Social’ in Social Capital,” 179-83.

54They suggest that researchers begin to examine, for example, whether civic engagement leads to trust and whether all types of social ties are equally good at generating trust. They also note that levels of both trust and civic engagement appear to be lower where there is substantial economic inequality, and the relationship of these dimensions of social capital, at least, needs to be examined within the context of broader public policy interventions.77

55In the case of cultural capital, we are even further from understanding the causal connections. Jeannotte has suggested that,

  • 78 Jeannotte, “Singing Alone,” 47.

… [A] very important feedback loop may exist between cultural capital and civil society/social capital that has not hitherto been acknowledged. We do not yet understand why people who participate in cultural activity also seem to have higher rates of participation in their communities, but if this connection proves to have a robust link to social capital and the quality of community life, it may signal a role for cultural capital that goes far beyond “opera tickets for the elite.”78

56Nevertheless, understanding causality in the area of participation may not provide answers regarding other important dimensions of cultural capital, such as trust, tolerance, connections, reciprocity or social agency, which may be critical to sustainable communities. Much work remains to be done, as Gould suggests in a series of questions (and sub-questions, which are not reproduced here), aimed at describing how cultural capital sustains cultural ecosystems:

  • What are the community’s cultural resources and assets?
  • What cultural values underpin that community and its way of life?
  • How can the development of social capital work with cultural values and resources?
  • How can cultural capital and its impact on the development of social capital be evaluated?79
  • 80 Mercer, Towards Cultural Citizenship, 51.

57To answer these questions, Colin Mercer argues that an understanding of cultural capital will entail “… an archaeological task of excavation of the relations between access to and use of cultural resources (including regimes of ‘taste’ and ‘distinction’) and the capillary structures of social and economic power.”80

Constituent Knowledge Gaps—What Are the Key Elements of Social and Cultural Capital?

  • 81 Onyx and Bullen, “The Different Faces of Social Capital,” 56.

58In the case of social capital, scholarly attention has begun to focus on the interrelationships among the key elements described in Section One, but this research has been inconclusive so far. Onyx and Bullen have found that tolerance of diversity in their research correlates most with the capacity of an individual to act (social agency) and with feelings of trust and safety. On the other hand, they found that tolerance of diversity correlates least with neighbourhood connections and participation in the local community. In fact, some of the rural communities they studied scored highly on all elements of social capital except tolerance of diversity.81

  • 82 Dietland Stolle, “‘Getting to Trust’: An Analysis of the Importance of Institutions, Families, Per (...)
  • 83 Robert Putnam, “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital,” Journal of Democracy 6, no.1 ( (...)
  • 84 Marc Hooghe, “‘Not For Our Kind of People’: The Sour Grapes Phenomenon as a Causal Mechanism for P (...)

59Stolle found that people who tended to join groups and associations already scored high on trust and that membership over a period of time did not increase generalized trust.82 She also found significant variations in trust between “joiners” in different countries and in different kinds of groups. This would seem to contradict Putnam’s argument that in the social capital arising from joining an association, “the causation flows mainly from joining to trusting.”83 Other research tends to support this cultural “self-selection” thesis. Hooghe, in his research on people who do not participate, found that “[n]ot only do the privileged groups in society participate more, they also do so more intensely” and concluded that putting stress on civic participation might introduce new inequalities by favouring people with higher debating skills or time to spare.84

  • 85 Bang and Sorensen, “The Everyday Maker,” 159.
  • 86 Onyx and Bullen, “The Different Faces of Social Capital,” 56.
  • 87 Putnam, Making Democracy Work.
  • 88 Robert Putnam, “Social Capital: Measurement and Consequences,” Isuma—Canadian Journal of Policy Re (...)
  • 89 Ibid., 51.

60Part of the appeal of Putnam’s model of social capital, according to Bang and Sorensen, may be that it succeeds in providing “… space both for those who want freedom from the ‘system’ (the communitarians) and those who consider the hegemony or legitimate domination of the state to be a condition for such freedoms (the republicans).85 Onyx and Bullen found little evidence that social capital is derived from the state, inasmuch as “… government agencies do not hold a meaningful place in people’s networks.”86 However, this runs contrary to Putnam’s arguments that strong civic involvement correlates with well-run state and civil institutions.87 In the United States, Putnam has run a series of multivariate regressions in which he shows strong correlations between social capital and such public policy outcomes as crime rates, health, educational performance, and economic equality.88 He has, however, cautioned that the direction of causation is not clear: it is not certain whether social capital is a precondition for the development and maintenance of healthy public institutions, such as schools and health care institutions, or whether it is these institutions that help create the conditions that favour social capital formation.89

61On the cultural capital side, the research of educational psychologists has confirmed the role that habitus (or embodied cultural capital) plays in improving the academic qualifications and life chances of individuals. However, there has been little research on the community-level impacts of these investments.

  • 90 Gary O. Larson, American Canvas (Washington, DC: National Endowment for the Arts, 1997), 84.
  • 91 Mark J. Stern and Susan C. Seifert, “Individual Participation and Community Arts Groups: A Quantit (...)
  • 92 Ibid, 7.

62More to the point for cultural policy decision-makers, there are large knowledge gaps in our understanding of the impact that either tangible and intangible cultural capital might have on the development and well-being of communities (this in spite of the fact that an American study has found that “arts in community development” initiatives were the fastest growing program and service area of local arts agencies in 1996.90 One of the few rigorous investigations in this area is the extensive research on the community impact of the arts undertaken by the Social Impact of the Arts project in Philadelphia.91 In 1994, the project team set out to determine if cultural capital was important, not only as an instrument of class dominance by elites, but also as a means of strengthening social ties and community spirit. While the study found the usual correlations between arts attendance and higher incomes and education, it also found that the number of arts and cultural groups in the respondent’s zip code was the best single predictor of participation in arts events. After examining a number of possible explanations, the researchers concluded that the ecological context in which individuals live is a powerful contributor to involvement, although the causation was not clear. While it was possible that the number of groups in a neighbourhood might encourage individuals to become more involved in the arts, the researchers suggested that “… there might be another feature of these areas—for example, the social commitment of community residents or “social capital”—that leads to both the creation of more groups and greater attendance.”92

  • 93 Mark J. Stern, “Is All the World Philadelphia? A Multi-City Study of Arts and Cultural Organizatio (...)

63The Social Impact of the Arts project carried out similar analyses in other cities—Chicago, Atlanta, and San Francisco—which confirmed and expanded upon the Philadelphia findings. These analyses found strong correlations between neighbourhoods that were both economically and ethnically diverse and the number of arts groups in those neighbourhoods. This study also found that those areas of Philadelphia most likely to have experienced economic revitalization between 1980 and 1990 were both economically and ethnically diverse and had a large number of arts and culture organizations.93

  • 94 Throsby, “Cultural Capital and Sustainability Concepts,” 109-10.

64Throsby maintains that cultural capital generates a time stream of both economic and cultural benefits that can be used as justification for investment. He suggests that cultural investments in tangible cultural capital should be based on an understanding of the social impacts that they will have on intergenerational equity (or sustainability), intragenerational equity (equity in access to cultural capital benefits across social classes, income groups, and locational categories), and maintenance of cultural diversity. He cautions that since the destruction of cultural heritage is irreversible, the role of heritage in the infrastructure of a city, region, or country must also be understood in making decisions about cultural capital investments.94 However, it is the economic impacts of intangible (or objectified) cultural capital on communities, as indicated in Section One, that have tended to dominate both the research and the policy agendas. In general, huge knowledge gaps exist with regard to the social impacts listed by Throsby, both in the relatively straightforward domain of tangible cultural capital (which is mainly concerned with movable and immovable cultural property) and the much more abstract realm of intangible cultural capital (which embraces the various forms of intellectual property used by creators to express themselves).

Measurement Knowledge Gaps—How Do We Measure Social and Cultural Capital?

  • 95 Anirudh Krishna and Elizabeth Shrader, “Social Capital Assessment Tool” (prepared for the World Ba (...)

65In recent years, there has been a flood of social science literature on social capital measurement issues. The World Bank has developed a fairly cohesive framework to guide the measurement strategies of the projects it has funded (see Figure 1). This framework is notable for its attention to both the micro and the macro dimensions of social capital, as well as to the hard (structural) and soft (cognitive) elements that may contribute to the level of social capital in a society. This has been further refined in a Social Capital Assessment Tool developed for the World Bank by Krishna and Shrader which examines not only community and household characteristics, but also structural elements, such as organizational affiliations and networks, and cognitive elements, such as trust, solidarity, and reciprocity.95

  • 96 Putnam, “Social Capital: Measurement and Consequences,” 51.
  • 97 J. Douglas Willms, “Three Hypotheses About Community Effects on Social Outcomes,” lsuma—Canadian J (...)

66Putnam has suggested that in addition to analyzing micro-and macro-level data on social capital, there is also a need to compare data across countries, to do experimental work, and to develop longitudinal measures.96 Willms has also stressed the multi-level measurement challenges and has suggested that, because social capital is about relationships among people, analysts must examine both individual and collective impacts.97

  • 98 Ibid.

67In comments that are also relevant to the measurement of cultural capital, Willms has argued that the quality of social relationships appear to be more important than quantity in dictating outcomes such as social integration and social support. Because “… social capital is embedded in the culture of a society and, therefore, affected by social, economic and historical factors,” Willms suggests that these factors cannot be ignored when seeking to measure and understand the impact of social capital.98

Figure 1: Measurement Dimensions of Social Capital

Figure 1: Measurement Dimensions of Social Capital

Source: Grootaert and van Basteleaer, 2002

  • 99 Michelle Reeves, Measuring the Economic and Social Impact of the Arts: A Review (London: Arts Coun (...)

68Due to the pressure on cultural organizations in the United Kingdom to demonstrate that they are addressing social exclusion in their communities, more attention has been given to cultural indicators in that country than elsewhere. A survey report on measuring the economic and social impact of the arts, prepared in 2002 for the Arts Council of England, describes a huge range of assessment methodologies with varying levels of robustness.99 None of these methodologies, however, explicitly uses a cultural capital lens and little effort has been made to date to develop an overall model or framework for such a lens.

  • 100 Mercer, Towards Cultural Citizenship, 51.
  • 101 Ibid, 60-61.
  • 102 Ibid, 53.

69An exception, however, is the work of Colin Mercer on cultural citizenship, carried out for the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation in 2002. In his book, Towards Cultural Citizenship: Tools for Cultural Policy Development, Mercer proposes the development of a Cultural Capital Assessment Tool, using as a base the methodology employed by Australian researchers for the Accounting for Tastes study. That survey methodology asked a series of questions under eight categories: household characteristics, domestic leisure practices, social activities, tastes and preferences, recreational activities, family and friends, personal characteristics, and social and political attitudes.100 Refining and supplementing these questions with material from other researchers, Mercer suggests a framework of four sets of indicators aimed at measuring: 1) cultural vitality, diversity, and conviviality; 2) cultural access, participation, and consumption; 3) culture, lifestyle, and identity; and 4) culture, ethics, governance, and conduct.101 He argues that the methodological “edge” given by social and cultural capital assessment is that “… they are tools that set in motion not an ‘objective’ process of scientific research but a mode of questioning and reflection which enable people to recognise—and potentially become stewards of—assets they may not have realised they had.”102

70The density of cultural capital existing within a community is likely much greater than policy-makers realize. A purely unscientific glance at the local “What’s on?” listings in Ottawa/Gatineau, a medium-sized city, yielded 172 separate cultural and entertainment events during the August 23-29, 2003 period. These ranged from large events, such as the Ottawa Folk Festival, the Central Canada Exhibition, and the Gatineau Hot Air Balloon Festival, to small ones, such as a Heritage Ottawa walking tour of the village of Britannia, and Soundstorm, a youth video dance event. In addition, there were seventeen separate events, such as dances and workshops, for “singles” wishing to increase their social capital.

71A numerical breakdown of the events by category (Table 2) provides an interesting perspective on public investment in the cultural capital of everyday fife. About one-third of the events—music featured in various clubs and other venues—was clearly unsubsidized by the public purse. While a significant portion of the museum events listed were likely in receipt of public support from one level of government or another, the majority of the gallery events probably were not. But even if public money may not be directly invested in the venues and events that embody everyday cultural capital, the public sector, through various urban government planning processes, definitely has an interest in the extent and shape of this cultural landscape.

  • 103 “Going out,” The Ottawa Citizen (August 23, 2003), K1-K3.

Table 2: Cultural Capital in Ottawa/Gatineau, August 23-29, 2003103

Category of Event

Number of Events

Concerts

5

Theatre

5

Dance

2

Special screenings (film and video)

2

Comedy

2

Live music/Rock

7

Live music/Folk/World/Blues

18

Live music/Jazz

6

Live music/Country

6

Live music/Lounges

8

Dance clubs

11

Readings/Literary events

3

Other events (includes fairs, walking tours, historic sites)

14

Museums

41

Galleries

42

Total

172

Implications for Cultural Policy and Decision-Making

  • 104 Greg Baeker, “SRA-468–Cultural Policy and Cultural Diversity in Canada” (prepared for the Strategi (...)
  • 105 Ibid, 3.

72In a report on cultural policy and cultural diversity in Canada, prepared for the Council of Europe in 2000, Greg Baeker referred to the definitional and conceptual dilemmas in Canadian cultural policy as “longstanding and numbingly repetitive,” documenting what he refers to as “recurring policy tensions”: between “high art” and “popular culture,” between public and private interests, between old and new institutions and between “supply-side” and “demand-side” policies.104 He concludes that, in the face of increasing diversity, “… traditional arguments regarding national identity and cultural sovereignty are outmoded and elitist: new policy rationales are needed.”105

  • 106 Catherine A. Murray, “The Third Sector: Cultural Diversity and Civil Society,” in Nancy Duxbury, e (...)

73Catherine Murray, in an essay on cultural diversity and civil society, frames her arguments in terms of cultural governance and suggests that “… we must also seek to create a more broadly conducive climate for the appreciation of cultural value, through more effective forms of cultural governance and coordination.”106

  • 107 Mercer, Towards Cultural Citizenship, 112.

74From an international perspective, Mercer defines the policy challenge as one of needing “… to witness and encounter… a much noisier ‘stakeholder scenario’ in which many more voices participate.”107 His prescription is to develop a set of cultural indicators that go beyond administrative performance measures in order to listen to these many voices and incorporate their point of view into the knowledge base that informs policy.

75At the risk of contributing to the “numbing repetitiveness,” this chapter must also add its voice to the growing chorus urging a broadening (and possibly deepening) of the conceptual base for cultural policy in Canada. Social and cultural capital are not panaceas for cultural policy dilemmas, but they are certainly useful tools for understanding those dilemmas.

  • 108 Chatterton and Hollands, Urban Nightscapes, 80.

76Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, fields (or social spaces), and cultural capital can help us to understand the critical linkages between lifestyle and culture. Social spaces, as Chatterton and Hollands have pointed out, are “… mediated by various types of ‘capital’: economic—access to various monetary resources, social—resources which one accrues through durable networks of acquaintance and recognition, and cultural or informational—competence and ability to appreciate legitimate culture related, in particular, to level of education.”108 The central question for cultural policy is: who is defining “legitimate culture?”

  • 109 Caroline Andrew, “Cities and Polarization” (workshop presentation for Canadian Council on Social D (...)
  • 110 Chatterton and Hollands, Urban Nightscapes, 83.

77In a recent paper on cities and polarization, Caroline Andrew connects the dots between social spaces, physical spaces, lifestyles, and public policy by asking the question, “Is the persistence and deepening poverty of poor neighbourhoods a problem because the residents cannot see other lifestyles and therefore cannot imagine changing the distribution of societal resources? Or is it a problem because these spatial distributions get different levels of public services and indeed different philosophies of public action?”109 Chatterton and Hollands argue that the fragmentation of cultural capital into a cornucopia of “subcultural capitals” explains, in part, why certain segments of the urban landscape are ignored by public policy.110 Those inhabiting these marginalized areas are usually left with only two options: to “invent” new forms of symbolic or objectified forms of expression or to fend for themselves on the margins with whatever cultural resources are available.

  • 111 Russell Smith, “Hot Town, Summer in the City,” The Globe and Mail (August 2, 2003), T1.
  • 112 Peter Hall, Cities in Civilization (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1998), 6.
  • 113 Ibid, 21.

78For a number of reasons (not the least of which is the increasingly urban nature of Canada), cities have become the primary site where many of the issues related to cultural and subcultural capital play out. As Russell Smith, in a recent Globe and Mail column, notes, “the word citizen comes from the Latin word for city—civitas. We would not have a concept of citizenship without cities.”111 In his monumental work, Cities in Civilization, Peter Hall goes further to suggest that “… a very important part of living, and the creativity that comes out of it, has consisted in finding solutions to the city’s own problems of order and organization.”112 In his view, it is the collective creativity brought to bear on the problems of the civitas that characterize a great city—“People meet, people talk, people listen to each other’s music and each other’s words, dance each other’s dances, take in each other’s thoughts. And so, by accidents of geography, sparks may be struck and something new comes out of the encounter.”113 In the current world of instantaneous communications and international travel, cities are the conduits of global cultural flows, and local encounters frequently represent the shores over which the leading edge of these flows break and disperse.

79So, what does this mean for cultural policy? For cultural policy as currently formulated, visions of dollar signs often spring to mind when the words “creative” and “cities” are used in the same sentence. However, the real meaning may lie in the more mundane and, paradoxically, more profound sphere of everyday life as lived by citizens in their communities. A first step in understanding the significance of social and cultural capital in the formulation of cultural policy may consist in applying, as Mercer suggests, a Cultural Capital Assessment Tool at the level of the local community. As he has pointed out:

  • 114 Mercer, Towards Cultural Citizenship, 53.

… this process or “tool” of mapping, auditing and assessment of the true cultural resources of a community becomes part of the task of linking culture integrally, rather than marginally, to the development process. It makes culture part of the action rather than an incidental or bit player and stresses the ongoing and indissoluble connection between culture and economy, culture and social relations, culture and power, culture and identity, culture and rights, culture and human development.114

  • 115 Ibid, 169-70.

80In building the case for a more deliberate and scientific “cultural mapping” of urban spaces, Mercer emphasizes that this is not simply an exercise in inventorying the “bricks and mortar,” but alsohow individuals and communities interact with these resources—in other words, how they are used to build and maintain social and cultural capital. In developing new cultural maps, he suggests that “… there needs to be a new compact and relationship between ‘local knowledge’ and tactics on the one hand, and the larger and strategic prerogatives of cultural policy and service delivery on the other.”115

  • 116 Ibid, 171.
  • 117 Ibid.

81Cultural mapping, in the emerging lexicon of cultural policy, is merely a prelude to cultural planning—a process that goes beyond beautification or “producing a mask of leisure and entertainment to conceal the most profound social and economic inequalities.”116 The fundamental emphasis of cultural planning should be, as Mercer suggests, the production of citizens, rather than goods and services.117

  • 118 The following sources may also be helpful: Cindy-Ann Bryant and Doug Norris, Measurement of Social (...)

82The production of citizens has not traditionally been on the cultural policy agenda, but in a global cultural economy, where the means of production for cultural goods and services are increasingly in the hands of the multinationals; this may be the only remaining locus for effective state intervention. This chapter has outlined the case for linking a greater understanding of the role of social and cultural capital in the creation of citizens. It has argued that cultural, as well as political and economic practices, contribute to a sense of empowerment and belonging, foster active participation in communities, contribute to economic vitality and quality of life, and help to sustain the civitas—the social space in which citizenship is rooted. Cultural citizenship, in an increasingly diverse and globalized environment, may in fact be one of the most effective mechanisms for states wishing to strengthen their democratic foundations. Citizens live their lives in communities not only through rights and duties, but also through imagination and creativity. Therefore, recognition of the many forms that cultural capital takes within the multifaceted and complex social spaces of today’s world is a necessary first step to the development of a vital and inclusive form of cultural citizenship.118

Notes

1 Eric Uslaner and Paul Dekker, “The ‘Social’ in Social Capital,” in Paul Dekker and Eric M. Uslaner, eds., Social Capital and Participation in Everyday Life (London: Routledge, 2001), 178.

2 Certain parts of this section rely heavily on the author’s previous study: M. Sharon Jeannotte, “Singing Alone? The Contribution of Cultural Capital to Social Cohesion and Sustainable Communities,” International Journal of Cultural Policy 9, no. 1 (2003): 35-49.

3 Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 19.

4 Ibid., 22.

5 Michael Woolcock, “The Place of Social Capital in Understanding Social and Economic Outcomes,” Isuma-Canadian Journal of Policy Research 2, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 13.

6 Policy Research Initiative, Social Capital Background Paper-Conceptualization (Ottawa: Policy Research Initiative, 2003), 8.

7 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, The Well-being of Nations: The Role of Human and Social Capital (Paris: oecd, 2001), 41, available athttp://www.oecd.org/els/pdfs/EDSMINDOCA003.pdf.

8 Jenny Onyx and Paul Bullen, “The Different Faces of Social Capital in NSW Australia,” in Dekker and Uslaner, eds., Social Capital and Participation in Everyday Life, 45-58.

9 Amanda Aizlewood and Ravi Pendakur, “SRA-657: Ethnicity and Social Capital in Canada” (paper prepared for the Strategic Research and Analysis Directorate, Department of Canadian Heritage, Ottawa, June 27, 2003).

10 Helen Gould, “Culture and Social Capital,” in François Matarasso, ed., Recognising Culture—A Series of Briefing Papers on Culture and Development (London: Comedia, the Department of Canadian Heritage and UNESCO, 2001), 85-86.

11 Colin Mercer, Towards Cultural Citizenship: Tools for Cultural Policy and Development (Stockholm: Gidlunds Förlag, 2002), 34.

12 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984).

13 Pierre Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital,” in John G. Richardson, ed., Handbook of Theory and Research in the Sociology of Education (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1986), 241-58.

14 Gould, “Culture and Social Capital,” 87.

15 Jeannotte, “Singing Alone,” 39.

16 David Throsby, “Cultural Capital and Sustainability Concepts in the Economics of Cultural Heritage” in Marta de la Torre, ed., Assessing the Values of Cultural Heritage (Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute, 2002), 103.

17 Asoka Mendis, “Social Capital Formation and Institutions for Sustainability” (workshop proceedings, at the University of British Columbia, November 16-17, 1998), available at http://www.sdri.ubc.ca/GBFP/soc_cap.html; italics added.

18 Fikret Berkes, “Cultural and Natural Capital: A Systems Approach Revisited, in Asoka Mendis, ed., Social Capital Formation and Institutions fir Sustainability.

19 Quoted in Policy Research Initiative, Social Capital Background Paper-Measurement (Ottawa: Policy Research Initiative, 2003), 2-3.

20 Ibid.

21 Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital,” 249.

22 Gould, “Culture and Social Capital.”

23 Christian Grootaert, “Social Capital-The Missing Link?,” in Dekker and Uslaner, eds., Social Capital and Participation in Everyday Life, 16-17.

24 Paul S. Adler and Seok-Woo Kwon, “Social Capital: Prospects for a New Concept,” Academy of Management Review 27, no.l (2002): 20-30.

25 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, The Well-being of Nations.

26 Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (New York: The Free Press, 1995); Stephen Knack and Philip Keefer, “Does Social Capital have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics (November 1997): 1251-88.

27 Peter A. Hall, “Social Capital in Britain,” British Journal of Political Science 29 (1999): 416—61; Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Institutions in Modern Italy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993); Dani Rodrik, “Participatory Politics, Social Cooperation, and Economic Stability,” American Economic Review 90 (2000): 140-44.

28 Quoted in Policy Research Initiative, Social Capital Background Paper–Conceptualization (Ottawa: Policy Research Initiative, June 2003), 7.

29 E. L. Glaeser, D. Laibson, J. Al Scheinkman and C. L. Soutter, “Measuring Trust,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 65 (August 2000): 811-46; Saguaro Seminar, “Better Together-The Report of the Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America” (Cambridge, MA: John F. Kennedy School of Government, 2002), 33-39; Robert Wuthnow, Sharing the Journey: Support Groups and America’s New Quest for Community (New York: Free Press, 1994).

30 Neil Nevitte and Antoine Bilodeau, “SRA-747—Trust, Tolerance and Confidence in Institutions: Evidence from the Canadian World Values Surveys, 1990-2000” (prepared for the Strategic Research and Analysis Directorate, Department of Canadian Heritage, Ottawa, March 20, 2003).

31 Aizlewood and Pendakur, “Ethnicity and Social Capital in Canada,” 14.

32 James S. Catterall, “Involvement in the Arts and Human Development: General Involvement in Music and Theatre Arts,” in Edward B. Fiske, ed., Champions of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning (Washington, DC: Arts Education Partnership and the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, 1999), available at http://www.aep-arts.orgy highlights/coc-release.html; Paul DiMaggio, “Cultural Capital and School Success: The Impact of Status Culture Participation on the Grades of U.S. High School Students,” American Sociological Review 47 (April 1982): 189-201; Richard L. Zweigenhaft, “Accumulation of Cultural Capital and Social Capital: The Differing College Careers of Prep School and Public School Graduates,” Sociological Spectrum 13 (1993): 365-76; Richard L. Zweigenhaft, “The Application of Cultural and Social Capital: A Study of the Twenty-fifth Year Reunion Entries of Prep and Public School Graduates of the Yale College,” Higher Education 23 (1992): 311-20.

33 Annette Lareau, “Social Class Differences in Family-School Relationships,” Sociology of Education 60 (April 1987): 73-85.

34 Paul DiMaggio and John Mohr, “Cultural Capital, Educational Attainment and Marital Selection,” American Journal of Sociology 90, no. 6(1985): 1231-61.

35 Chris Shilling, “Schooling and the Production of Physical Capital,” Discourse 13, no. 1 (October 1992): 1-19.

36 David R. Offord et al., “Sports, The Arts and Community Programs: Rates and Correlates of Participation,” (prepared for the Applied Research Branch, Human Resources Development Canada, Ottawa, October 1998).

37 See, for example, Catterall, “Involvement in the Arts and Human Development;” Judith Humphreys Weitz, Coming Up Taller-Arts and Humanities Programs for Children and Youth at Risk (Washington, DC: President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, 1996).

38 A. Peaker and J. Vincent, Arts in Prisons: Towards a Sense of Achievement (London: Research and Planning Unit, Home Office, 1990).

39 François Matarasso, Use or Ornament? The Social Impact of Participation in the Arts (London: Comedia, 1997), 14–22.

40 Ibid., vi-vii.

41 Saguaro Seminar, “Better Together.”

42 Ibid., 35.

43 Jeannotte, “Singing Alone,” 45.

44 Jean-Pierre Bourdeau, “SRA-672-Bowling Along: Cross-indicators of Social Participation and Local Community Belonging in Canada” (prepared for the Strategic Research and Analysis Directorate, Department of Canadian Heritage, April 2002).

45 Ibid.; Jeannotte, “Singing Alone.”

46 Diedand Stolle and Thomas R. Rochon, “Are All Associations Alike? Member Diversity, Associational Type and the Creation of Social Capital,” American Behavioral Scientist 42, no. 1 (September 1998): 47-65.

47 Ibid., 61.

48 Henrik P. Bang and Eva Sorensen, “The Everyday Maker: Building Political, Rather than Social, Capital,” in Dekker and Uslaner, eds., Social Capital and Participation in Everyday Life, 156.

49 Chris Walker, Arts & Culture: Community Connections-Contributions from New Survey Research (Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 2002), 4.

50 M. Sharon Jeannotte, “SRA-541-Cultural Symbiosis: Cultural Participation and Cohesive Communities” (prepared for the Strategic Research and Analysis Directorate, Department of Canadian Heritage, Ottawa, November 24, 2000), 9-10.

51 Pérez de Cuéllar, Javier et al., Our Creative Diversity-Report of the World Commission on Culture and Development (Paris: unesco, July 1996) (summary version), 15.

52 See, for example, Richard Florida, “The Rise of the Creative Class-Why Cities Without Gays and Rock Bands are Losing the Economic Development Race,” The Washington Monthly (May 2002), available at http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0205.florida; Richard Florida, The Geography of Bohemia (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University, 2001); Richard Florida and Gary Gates, Technology and Tolerance: The Importance of Diversity to High-Technology Growth (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, 2001).

53 Betsy Donald and Douglas Morrow, “SRA-674-Competing for Talent: Implications for Social and Cultural Policy in Canadian City Regions” (prepared for the Strategic Research and Analysis Directorate, Department of Canadian Heritage, Ottawa, May 14, 2003), 14.

54 Richard Florida, “The New American Dream,” The Washington Monthly (March 2003): 26-33; Betsy Donald and Douglas Morrow, “SRA-674-Competing for Talent:”.

55 Meric S. Gertler, Richard Florida, Gary Gates, and Tara Vinodrai, Competing on Creativity: Placing Ontario’s Cities in North American Context (Toronto: Ontario Ministry of Enterprise, Opportunity, and Innovation and the Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity, November 2002).

56 Ibid. 24-25.

57 Charles Landry, L. Green, François Matarasso, and F. Bianchini, The Art of Regeneration: Urban Renewal Through Cultural Activity (London: Comedia, Stroud, 1996).

58 Jason J. Azmier, Culture and Economic Competitiveness: An Emerging Role for the Arts in Canada (Calgary: Canada West Foundation, 2002).

59 Gertler et al., Competing on Creativity, 25.

60 Paul Chatterton and Robert Hollands, Urban Nightscapes: Youth Cultures, Pleasure Spaces and Corporate Power (London: Routledge, 2003), 28-44; John Hannigan, Fantasy City: Pleasure and Profit in the Postmodern Metropolis (London: Routledge, 1998), 69-70; Naomi Klein, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2000), 35-38.

61 Throsby, “Cultural Capital and Sustainability Concepts,” 106.

62 Michael J. Chandler and Christopher Lalonde, “Cultural Continuity as a Hedge Against Suicide in Canada’s First Nations,” Transnational Psychiatry 35, no. 2 (June 1998): 191-219.

63 Cynthia Chataway, “Successful Development in Aboriginal Communities: Does it Depend Upon a Particular Process?,” Journal of Aboriginal Economic Development 3, no. 1 (2002): 76-88.

64 Katherine A.H. Graham and Evelyn Peters, Aboriginal Communities and Urban Sustainability (Ottawa: Canadian Policy Research Networks, 2002), 22.

65 Chatterton and Hollands, Urban Nightscapes, 209.

66 Jeannotte, “Singing Alone,” 42.

67 Paola Merli, “Evaluating the Social Impact of Participation in Arts Activities: A Critical Review of François Matarasso’s Use or Ornament?,” International Journal of Cultural Policy 8, no. 1 (2002): 107-18, 114.

68 Ibid., 115.

69 Ibid., 110; Eleonora Belfiore, “Art as a Means of Alleviating Social Exclusion: Does it Really Work? A Critique of Instrumental Cultural Policies and Social Impact Studies in the UK,” International Journal of Cultural Policy 8, no. 1 (2002): 91-106, 98.

70 Adrian Ellis, Valuing Culture (London: Demos, 2003), 5.

71 Ibid., 7.

72 Ibid.

73 Ibid., 8.

74 Donald and Morrow, “Competing for Talent,” 13-14. It should be noted, however, that Florida will be responding to some of these criticisms in his forthcoming book.

75 Putnam, Bowling Alone, 137.

76 Onyx and Bullen, “The Different Faces of Social Capital,” 56.

77 Uslaner and Dekker, “The ‘Social’ in Social Capital,” 179-83.

78 Jeannotte, “Singing Alone,” 47.

79 Gould, “Culture and Social Capital,” 90-91.

80 Mercer, Towards Cultural Citizenship, 51.

81 Onyx and Bullen, “The Different Faces of Social Capital,” 56.

82 Dietland Stolle, “‘Getting to Trust’: An Analysis of the Importance of Institutions, Families, Personal Experiences and Group Membership,” in Dekker and Uslaner, eds., Social Capital and Participation in Everyday Life, 126-29.

83 Robert Putnam, “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital,” Journal of Democracy 6, no.1 (1995): 65-78, 66.

84 Marc Hooghe, “‘Not For Our Kind of People’: The Sour Grapes Phenomenon as a Causal Mechanism for Political Passivity,” in Dekker and Uslaner, eds., Social Capital and Participation in Everyday Life, 173.

85 Bang and Sorensen, “The Everyday Maker,” 159.

86 Onyx and Bullen, “The Different Faces of Social Capital,” 56.

87 Putnam, Making Democracy Work.

88 Robert Putnam, “Social Capital: Measurement and Consequences,” Isuma—Canadian Journal of Policy Research 2, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 41-51, 48-51.

89 Ibid., 51.

90 Gary O. Larson, American Canvas (Washington, DC: National Endowment for the Arts, 1997), 84.

91 Mark J. Stern and Susan C. Seifert, “Individual Participation and Community Arts Groups: A Quantitative Analysis of Philadelphia” (working paper no. 1 prepared for the Social Impact of the Arts Project, University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work, 1994).

92 Ibid, 7.

93 Mark J. Stern, “Is All the World Philadelphia? A Multi-City Study of Arts and Cultural Organizations, Diversity and Urban Revitalization” (working paper no.9 prepared for the Social Impact of the Arts Project, University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work, May 1999), 8.

94 Throsby, “Cultural Capital and Sustainability Concepts,” 109-10.

95 Anirudh Krishna and Elizabeth Shrader, “Social Capital Assessment Tool” (prepared for the World Bank Conference on Social Capital and Poverty Reduction, Washington, DC, June 22-24, 1999), available at http://www.poverty.worldbank.org/library/view/8150,citedinMercer, Towards Cultural Citizenship, 35.

96 Putnam, “Social Capital: Measurement and Consequences,” 51.

97 J. Douglas Willms, “Three Hypotheses About Community Effects on Social Outcomes,” lsuma—Canadian Journal of Policy Research 2, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 53-62, 60.

98 Ibid.

99 Michelle Reeves, Measuring the Economic and Social Impact of the Arts: A Review (London: Arts Council of England, May 2002).

100 Mercer, Towards Cultural Citizenship, 51.

101 Ibid, 60-61.

102 Ibid, 53.

103 “Going out,” The Ottawa Citizen (August 23, 2003), K1-K3.

104 Greg Baeker, “SRA-468–Cultural Policy and Cultural Diversity in Canada” (prepared for the Strategic Research and Analysis Directorate in the Department of Canadian Heritage, Ottawa, August 28, 2000), 39-42.

105 Ibid, 3.

106 Catherine A. Murray, “The Third Sector: Cultural Diversity and Civil Society,” in Nancy Duxbury, ed, “Making Connections: Culture and Social Cohesion in the New Millennium,” special issue, Canadian Journal of Communication 27, nos. 2 & 3 (2002): 331-50, 346.

107 Mercer, Towards Cultural Citizenship, 112.

108 Chatterton and Hollands, Urban Nightscapes, 80.

109 Caroline Andrew, “Cities and Polarization” (workshop presentation for Canadian Council on Social Development Conference on Social Inclusion, Ottawa, March 27-28, 2003), 4.

110 Chatterton and Hollands, Urban Nightscapes, 83.

111 Russell Smith, “Hot Town, Summer in the City,” The Globe and Mail (August 2, 2003), T1.

112 Peter Hall, Cities in Civilization (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1998), 6.

113 Ibid, 21.

114 Mercer, Towards Cultural Citizenship, 53.

115 Ibid, 169-70.

116 Ibid, 171.

117 Ibid.

118 The following sources may also be helpful: Cindy-Ann Bryant and Doug Norris, Measurement of Social Capital: The Canadian Expedience (country report for the oecd-uk ons International Conference on Social Capital Measurement, London, September 25-27, 2002); Christiaan Grootaert and Thierry van Bastelaer, Understanding and Measuring Social Capital: A Synthesis of Finding? and Recommendations from the Social Capital Initiative (Washington, DC: Forum Series on the Role of Institutions in Promoting Economic Growth, January 2002); Alejandro Portes, “Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern Sociology,” Annual Review of Sociology 24 (1998): 1-24

Table des illustrations

Titre Figure 1: Measurement Dimensions of Social Capital
Légende Source: Grootaert and van Basteleaer, 2002
URL http://books.openedition.org/uop/docannexe/image/2415/img-1.jpg
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Auteur

The manager of the International Comparative Socio-Cultural Research unit in the Strategic Research and Analysis Directorate of the Department of Canadian Heritage. Since 1996, her primary research focus has been on social cohesion as a horizontal public policy issue affecting Canadian society as a whole. She has produced research reports on a variety of subjects, such as the impact of value change on Canadian society, international definitions of social cohesion, the points of intersection between cultural policy and social cohesion, the role of cultural participation and cultural capital in building sustainable communities, culture and volunteering, the use of gambling revenues to fund culture, the role of culture and heritage in everyday life, and youth “on-line” culture. During her long career in the Government of Canada she has been a corporate strategic planner in both the Department of Canadian Heritage and the former Department of Communications. She has held positions as a social policy analyst, a program officer providing grants for information technology applications in the cultural field, and a writer and editor in several other government departments

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