Everyday participation and cultural value

Abstract

[First paragraph] The articles in this special issue present some of the early findings of Understanding\nEveryday Participation – Articulating Cultural Values (UEP), a 5-year large grant\nproject, which began in 2012 and is part of the AHRC’s Connected Communities\nprogramme, receiving supplmentary funding from Creative Scotland. The project starts\nfrom the proposition that the orientation of cultural policy and state-funded cultural\nprogramming towards cultural participation and value is in need of a radical overhaul.\nWe argue that there is an orthodoxy of approach to cultural engagement which is based\non a narrow definition (and understanding) of participation, one that focuses on a\nnarrow set of cultural forms and activities and associated cultural institutions but\nwhich, in the process, obscures the significance of other forms of cultural participation\nwhich are situated locally in the everyday realm.