Eleonora Belfiore
Biographic Data
| ID | 603775 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Eleonora Belfiore |
| GIVEN NAMES | Eleonora |
| FAMILY NAME | Belfiore |
| SIGNATURE | BELFIORE E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Warwick |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7825-4615 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 406 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Promoting culture and creativity in Ghana
The neoliberal turn in the cultural and creative industries has led to two distinct bodies of work. Global North scholars focus on the tension between the emphasis on the creative industries as an engine of growth and the unequal access to the means of cultural production and consumption that neoliberalism presents. Global South scholars face a different reality; the increasing inability of governments to provide institutional support, particular…
Cultural Democracy, Cultural Equity, and Cultural Policy
This article offers an exploratory discussion of two cultural policy concepts and traditions: cultural democracy in the UK and cultural equity in the US. We explore what the concepts share, how they have been shaped by their cultural policy traditions, and how they yield value for cultural policy makers, scholars, and activists. As scholars from divergent yet mutually Anglo-centric traditions, we articulate how these concepts inform one another w…
Reflexivity and the perpetuation of inequality in the cultural sector
Discourses of social justice offer the sense of a progressive and developing narrative within the arts sector. Cultural democracy, cultural equity and cultural diversity address broad policy issues related to production, consumption and representation. This article questions whether these approaches have failed in their challenge to the long-established power dynamics of the cultural sector. We take this position of failure as a starting point fo…
Who cares? At what price? The hidden costs of socially engaged arts labour and the moral failure of cultural policy
In the broader context of research into cultural labour, this article focuses analytical attention on working conditions within socially engaged arts practice, which have been under-researched to date. In particular, the article aims to uncover the unacknowledged costs shouldered by socially engaged practitioners working on publicly subsidised participatory projects. On the basis of the analysis of qualitative interviews with socially engaged art…
Is it really about the evidence? argument, persuasion, and the power of ideas in cultural policy
In the move towards a supposedly “evidence-based” cultural policy, “evidence” is rarely the main driver of decision-making. If “evidence” is not the actual basis of policymaking, then what is its real role? Why is there so much “bad” or unverifiable evidence of impact in cultural policy documents? The article suggests focusing on recent developments in policy theory for more accurate and sophisticated approaches on the connection between evidence…
Histories of Cultural Participation, Values and Governance
This book develops the first integrated, critical-historical examination of the terms, narratives and assumptions constructing present day notions of participation and value, and the relations between them. It proposes a radical re-evaluation of these relationships in two inter-related sections.
Whose cultural value? Representation, power and creative industries
The debate around ‘cultural value’ has become increasingly central to policy debates on arts and creative industries policy over the past ten years and has mostly focused on the articulation and measurement of ‘economic value’, at the expense of other forms of value—cultural, social, aesthetic. This paper’s goal is to counter this prevalent over-simplification by focusing on the mechanisms through which ‘value’ is either allocated or denied to cu…
Cultural democracy and cultural policy
You’re asking me, how can people live without some sense that there’s an ultimate truth or ultimate scale of values, and I don’t know but I don’t any longer think that this is just a transitional p
Dr Anna Upchurch
Cultural policy research in the real world
The very identity of cultural policy rests on a long-standing and widely accepted tension between “proper research” and policy advocacy, which has often resulted in resistance to the idea that robust, critical research can – or even should – be “useful” and have impact on policy discourse. This paper tries to navigate a third route, which sees policy relevance and influence as a legitimate goal of critical research, without accepting the pressure…
Impact’, ‘value’ and ‘bad economics’
Questions around the value of the arts and humanities to the contemporary world and the benefits they are expected to bring to the society that supports them through funding have assumed an increased centrality within a number of disciplines, not limited to humanities scholarship. Especially problematic, yet crucial, is the issue of the measurement of such public value. This article takes as a starting point a discussion of the ‘cultural value de…
Defensive instrumentalism” and the legacy of New Labour's cultural policies
The paper identifies “defensive instrumentalism” as a main feature that has characterised New Labour's cultural policies, and which constitutes an important aspect of its legacy. Yet, resorting to instrumental arguments to defend the arts and to make a case for their usefulness is hardly an invention of New Labour. However, in the past, such defensive arguments were built into a more constructive and creative attempt to elaborate a coherent theor…
Beyond the “Toolkit Approach”
This article presents a reflection on the possibility and potential advantages of the development of a humanities‐based approach to assessing the impact of the arts, which attempts to move away from a paradigm of evaluation based on a one‐size‐fits‐all model usually reliant on empirical methodologies borrowed from the social sciences. A “toolkit approach” to arts impact assessment, as the article argues, demands excessive simplifications, and its…
Janet Minihan, The nationalization of culture
by Janet Minihan, New York, New York University Press, 1977, 276 pp., hardback, ISBN 0‐8147‐5413‐9 When I was invited to write a book review for a special supplement of the IJCP, I thought I would
Researching the social impact of the arts
This paper offers a contribution to current debates in the field of cultural policy about the social impact of the arts. It explores the conceptual difficulties that arise in the notion of ‘the arts’ and the implications of these difficulties for attempts to generalise about their value, function and impact. It considers both ‘essentialist’ and ‘institutional’ perspectives, first on ‘the arts’ in toto and then on literature, fiction and the novel…
On bullshit in cultural policy practice and research
In 2005, Harry G. Frankfurt, a retired professor of moral philosophy at Princeton University, made it into the best‐sellers chart with his book On Bullshit. Taking his essay as its starting point, this article explores the analysis of bullshit and the prevalence of bullshitting in the contemporary public sphere. Frankfurt’s short essay indeed provides an intellectual framework to interpret and understand contemporary rhetoric and practice in the …
The Social Impact of the Arts
An intellectual history of contrasting ideas around the power of the arts to bring about personal and societal change - for better and worse. A fascinating account of the value and functions of the arts in society, in both the private sphere of individual emotions and self-development and public sphere of politics and social distinction.
Determinants of Impact
The article argues that current methods for assessing the impact of the arts are largely based on a fragmented and incomplete understanding of the cognitive, psychological and socio-cultural dynamics that govern the aesthetic experience. It postulates that a better grasp of the interaction between the individual and the work of art is the necessary foundation for a genuine understanding of how the arts can affect people. Through a critique of phi…
Rethinking the Social Impacts of the Arts
The paper presents a critical discussion of the current debate over the social impacts of the arts in the UK. It argues that the accepted understanding of the terms of the debate is rooted in a number of assumptions and beliefs that are rarely questioned. The paper goes on to present the interim findings of a three-year research project, which aims to rethink the social impact of the arts, with a view to determining how these impacts might be bet…
The Unacknowledged Legacy
This paper presents a critical discussion of the treatment of mimetic art, and particularly poetry and the theatre, in the work of the Athenian philosopher Plato (427–347 BC). It centres on Plato’s discussion of the corrupting powers of the arts in the Republic, and the implications that his fierce attack on poetry and theatre have for his construction of the ideal polity. The legacy of Platonic ideas in later elaborations of the corrupting power…
Auditing culture
This article explores the effects of the spread of the principles and practices of the New Public Management (NPM) on the subsidised cultural sector and on cultural policy making in Britain. In particular, changes in the style of public administration that can be ascribed to the NPM will be shown to provide a useful framework to make sense of what has been felt as an “instrumental turn” in British policies for culture between the early 1980s and …
Art as a means of alleviating social exclusion
(2002). 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: Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 91-106
Rethinking the Social Impacts of the Arts
The paper presents a critical discussion of the current debate over the social impacts of the arts in the UK. It argues that the accepted understanding of the terms of the debate is rooted in a number of assumptions and beliefs that are rarely questioned. The paper goes on to present the interim findings of a three-year research project, which aims to rethink the social impact of the arts, with a view to determining how these impacts might be bet…
Art as a means of alleviating social exclusion
(2002). 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: Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 91-106
Auditing culture
This article explores the effects of the spread of the principles and practices of the New Public Management (NPM) on the subsidised cultural sector and on cultural policy making in Britain. In particular, changes in the style of public administration that can be ascribed to the NPM will be shown to provide a useful framework to make sense of what has been felt as an “instrumental turn” in British policies for culture between the early 1980s and …
On bullshit in cultural policy practice and research
In 2005, Harry G. Frankfurt, a retired professor of moral philosophy at Princeton University, made it into the best‐sellers chart with his book On Bullshit. Taking his essay as its starting point, this article explores the analysis of bullshit and the prevalence of bullshitting in the contemporary public sphere. Frankfurt’s short essay indeed provides an intellectual framework to interpret and understand contemporary rhetoric and practice in the …
Determinants of Impact
The article argues that current methods for assessing the impact of the arts are largely based on a fragmented and incomplete understanding of the cognitive, psychological and socio-cultural dynamics that govern the aesthetic experience. It postulates that a better grasp of the interaction between the individual and the work of art is the necessary foundation for a genuine understanding of how the arts can affect people. Through a critique of phi…
Whose cultural value? Representation, power and creative industries
The debate around ‘cultural value’ has become increasingly central to policy debates on arts and creative industries policy over the past ten years and has mostly focused on the articulation and measurement of ‘economic value’, at the expense of other forms of value—cultural, social, aesthetic. This paper’s goal is to counter this prevalent over-simplification by focusing on the mechanisms through which ‘value’ is either allocated or denied to cu…
Defensive instrumentalism” and the legacy of New Labour's cultural policies
The paper identifies “defensive instrumentalism” as a main feature that has characterised New Labour's cultural policies, and which constitutes an important aspect of its legacy. Yet, resorting to instrumental arguments to defend the arts and to make a case for their usefulness is hardly an invention of New Labour. However, in the past, such defensive arguments were built into a more constructive and creative attempt to elaborate a coherent theor…
Impact’, ‘value’ and ‘bad economics’
Questions around the value of the arts and humanities to the contemporary world and the benefits they are expected to bring to the society that supports them through funding have assumed an increased centrality within a number of disciplines, not limited to humanities scholarship. Especially problematic, yet crucial, is the issue of the measurement of such public value. This article takes as a starting point a discussion of the ‘cultural value de…
Cultural democracy and cultural policy
You’re asking me, how can people live without some sense that there’s an ultimate truth or ultimate scale of values, and I don’t know but I don’t any longer think that this is just a transitional p
Is it really about the evidence? argument, persuasion, and the power of ideas in cultural policy
In the move towards a supposedly “evidence-based” cultural policy, “evidence” is rarely the main driver of decision-making. If “evidence” is not the actual basis of policymaking, then what is its real role? Why is there so much “bad” or unverifiable evidence of impact in cultural policy documents? The article suggests focusing on recent developments in policy theory for more accurate and sophisticated approaches on the connection between evidence…
Cultural policy research in the real world
The very identity of cultural policy rests on a long-standing and widely accepted tension between “proper research” and policy advocacy, which has often resulted in resistance to the idea that robust, critical research can – or even should – be “useful” and have impact on policy discourse. This paper tries to navigate a third route, which sees policy relevance and influence as a legitimate goal of critical research, without accepting the pressure…
Who cares? At what price? The hidden costs of socially engaged arts labour and the moral failure of cultural policy
In the broader context of research into cultural labour, this article focuses analytical attention on working conditions within socially engaged arts practice, which have been under-researched to date. In particular, the article aims to uncover the unacknowledged costs shouldered by socially engaged practitioners working on publicly subsidised participatory projects. On the basis of the analysis of qualitative interviews with socially engaged art…
Researching the social impact of the arts
This paper offers a contribution to current debates in the field of cultural policy about the social impact of the arts. It explores the conceptual difficulties that arise in the notion of ‘the arts’ and the implications of these difficulties for attempts to generalise about their value, function and impact. It considers both ‘essentialist’ and ‘institutional’ perspectives, first on ‘the arts’ in toto and then on literature, fiction and the novel…
The Unacknowledged Legacy
This paper presents a critical discussion of the treatment of mimetic art, and particularly poetry and the theatre, in the work of the Athenian philosopher Plato (427–347 BC). It centres on Plato’s discussion of the corrupting powers of the arts in the Republic, and the implications that his fierce attack on poetry and theatre have for his construction of the ideal polity. The legacy of Platonic ideas in later elaborations of the corrupting power…
Art as a means of alleviating social exclusion
(2002). 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: Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 91-106
Auditing culture
This article explores the effects of the spread of the principles and practices of the New Public Management (NPM) on the subsidised cultural sector and on cultural policy making in Britain. In particular, changes in the style of public administration that can be ascribed to the NPM will be shown to provide a useful framework to make sense of what has been felt as an “instrumental turn” in British policies for culture between the early 1980s and …
The Unacknowledged Legacy
This paper presents a critical discussion of the treatment of mimetic art, and particularly poetry and the theatre, in the work of the Athenian philosopher Plato (427–347 BC). It centres on Plato’s discussion of the corrupting powers of the arts in the Republic, and the implications that his fierce attack on poetry and theatre have for his construction of the ideal polity. The legacy of Platonic ideas in later elaborations of the corrupting power…
Determinants of Impact
The article argues that current methods for assessing the impact of the arts are largely based on a fragmented and incomplete understanding of the cognitive, psychological and socio-cultural dynamics that govern the aesthetic experience. It postulates that a better grasp of the interaction between the individual and the work of art is the necessary foundation for a genuine understanding of how the arts can affect people. Through a critique of phi…
Rethinking the Social Impacts of the Arts
The paper presents a critical discussion of the current debate over the social impacts of the arts in the UK. It argues that the accepted understanding of the terms of the debate is rooted in a number of assumptions and beliefs that are rarely questioned. The paper goes on to present the interim findings of a three-year research project, which aims to rethink the social impact of the arts, with a view to determining how these impacts might be bet…
The Social Impact of the Arts
An intellectual history of contrasting ideas around the power of the arts to bring about personal and societal change - for better and worse. A fascinating account of the value and functions of the arts in society, in both the private sphere of individual emotions and self-development and public sphere of politics and social distinction.
Researching the social impact of the arts
This paper offers a contribution to current debates in the field of cultural policy about the social impact of the arts. It explores the conceptual difficulties that arise in the notion of ‘the arts’ and the implications of these difficulties for attempts to generalise about their value, function and impact. It considers both ‘essentialist’ and ‘institutional’ perspectives, first on ‘the arts’ in toto and then on literature, fiction and the novel…
On bullshit in cultural policy practice and research
In 2005, Harry G. Frankfurt, a retired professor of moral philosophy at Princeton University, made it into the best‐sellers chart with his book On Bullshit. Taking his essay as its starting point, this article explores the analysis of bullshit and the prevalence of bullshitting in the contemporary public sphere. Frankfurt’s short essay indeed provides an intellectual framework to interpret and understand contemporary rhetoric and practice in the …
Beyond the “Toolkit Approach”
This article presents a reflection on the possibility and potential advantages of the development of a humanities‐based approach to assessing the impact of the arts, which attempts to move away from a paradigm of evaluation based on a one‐size‐fits‐all model usually reliant on empirical methodologies borrowed from the social sciences. A “toolkit approach” to arts impact assessment, as the article argues, demands excessive simplifications, and its…
Janet Minihan, The nationalization of culture
by Janet Minihan, New York, New York University Press, 1977, 276 pp., hardback, ISBN 0‐8147‐5413‐9 When I was invited to write a book review for a special supplement of the IJCP, I thought I would
Defensive instrumentalism” and the legacy of New Labour's cultural policies
The paper identifies “defensive instrumentalism” as a main feature that has characterised New Labour's cultural policies, and which constitutes an important aspect of its legacy. Yet, resorting to instrumental arguments to defend the arts and to make a case for their usefulness is hardly an invention of New Labour. However, in the past, such defensive arguments were built into a more constructive and creative attempt to elaborate a coherent theor…
Impact’, ‘value’ and ‘bad economics’
Questions around the value of the arts and humanities to the contemporary world and the benefits they are expected to bring to the society that supports them through funding have assumed an increased centrality within a number of disciplines, not limited to humanities scholarship. Especially problematic, yet crucial, is the issue of the measurement of such public value. This article takes as a starting point a discussion of the ‘cultural value de…
Cultural policy research in the real world
The very identity of cultural policy rests on a long-standing and widely accepted tension between “proper research” and policy advocacy, which has often resulted in resistance to the idea that robust, critical research can – or even should – be “useful” and have impact on policy discourse. This paper tries to navigate a third route, which sees policy relevance and influence as a legitimate goal of critical research, without accepting the pressure…
Dr Anna Upchurch
Whose cultural value? Representation, power and creative industries
The debate around ‘cultural value’ has become increasingly central to policy debates on arts and creative industries policy over the past ten years and has mostly focused on the articulation and measurement of ‘economic value’, at the expense of other forms of value—cultural, social, aesthetic. This paper’s goal is to counter this prevalent over-simplification by focusing on the mechanisms through which ‘value’ is either allocated or denied to cu…
Cultural democracy and cultural policy
You’re asking me, how can people live without some sense that there’s an ultimate truth or ultimate scale of values, and I don’t know but I don’t any longer think that this is just a transitional p
Histories of Cultural Participation, Values and Governance
This book develops the first integrated, critical-historical examination of the terms, narratives and assumptions constructing present day notions of participation and value, and the relations between them. It proposes a radical re-evaluation of these relationships in two inter-related sections.
Who cares? At what price? The hidden costs of socially engaged arts labour and the moral failure of cultural policy
In the broader context of research into cultural labour, this article focuses analytical attention on working conditions within socially engaged arts practice, which have been under-researched to date. In particular, the article aims to uncover the unacknowledged costs shouldered by socially engaged practitioners working on publicly subsidised participatory projects. On the basis of the analysis of qualitative interviews with socially engaged art…
Is it really about the evidence? argument, persuasion, and the power of ideas in cultural policy
In the move towards a supposedly “evidence-based” cultural policy, “evidence” is rarely the main driver of decision-making. If “evidence” is not the actual basis of policymaking, then what is its real role? Why is there so much “bad” or unverifiable evidence of impact in cultural policy documents? The article suggests focusing on recent developments in policy theory for more accurate and sophisticated approaches on the connection between evidence…
Reflexivity and the perpetuation of inequality in the cultural sector
Discourses of social justice offer the sense of a progressive and developing narrative within the arts sector. Cultural democracy, cultural equity and cultural diversity address broad policy issues related to production, consumption and representation. This article questions whether these approaches have failed in their challenge to the long-established power dynamics of the cultural sector. We take this position of failure as a starting point fo…
Cultural Democracy, Cultural Equity, and Cultural Policy
This article offers an exploratory discussion of two cultural policy concepts and traditions: cultural democracy in the UK and cultural equity in the US. We explore what the concepts share, how they have been shaped by their cultural policy traditions, and how they yield value for cultural policy makers, scholars, and activists. As scholars from divergent yet mutually Anglo-centric traditions, we articulate how these concepts inform one another w…
Promoting culture and creativity in Ghana
The neoliberal turn in the cultural and creative industries has led to two distinct bodies of work. Global North scholars focus on the tension between the emphasis on the creative industries as an engine of growth and the unequal access to the means of cultural production and consumption that neoliberalism presents. Global South scholars face a different reality; the increasing inability of governments to provide institutional support, particular…
Political science (20 works) · Cultural Industries and Urban Development (19 works) · Sociology (19 works) · Law (17 works) · Law (14 works) · Cultural policy (13 works) · Social and Cultural Dynamics (11 works) · The arts (9 works) · Social science (8 works) · Art (7 works)