Cultural Policy is Local: Understanding Cultural Policy as Situated Practice

This publication argues that understanding cultural policy at a local level is imperative to the field of critical cultural policy studies. Through an in-depth examination of the manifestation and development of cultural policies, actors and issues at local level, this book builds on the findings of the Special Issue (Gilmore et al., 2019) through two key themes: 1) Disciplining ‘the local’ in cultural policy; 2) Locating the local. The work will bring together the voices of academics working in diverse disciplines including geography, sociology, cultural policy studies, heritage studies, and the humanities. These selected works will be international in scope in as much as they represent research commentaries reflecting on different local contexts and experiences, with acknowledgement that they cannot hope to provide a comprehensive comparison of all potential international-local contexts. Rather, the publication will present comparative research in order to better understand the place of the local in cultural policy.