MA Cultural Policy, Relations & Diplomacy

This module will address a range of issues relevant to cultural policy and practice in the UK and other European countries. We will discuss the relationship between cultural production and policy and deal with issues of ‘what is culture’ in different cultural contexts and countries. The module has two distinct elements: the first will deal with post-war arts policy and practice within the UK, exploring the main developments that have contributed to the evolution of current policy. It will examine the interrelationship of the many functions and responsibilities of the Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS), the Arts Councils of, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and their regional offices, and how policy is managed at a national, regional and city level. This section of the module will also map the relationship of the ‘cultural industries’ to the economy of access, accountability and cultural/national identity will be explored as well as specific areas of arts and tourism, arts and regeneration, arts education and the globalisation of culture. In general the module will concentrate on policy in relation to the performing arts although reference will be made to visual arts and the heritage sector. 

The second section of the module will provide an introduction to cultural policy models and cultural policies in other European countries, and the structures and priorities that govern arts support. It will look in particular at the situation in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland as well as the specific issues facing arts policymakers in Central and Eastern Europe. Reference will also be made to the role of the European Union in cultural policy development.

In our increasingly globalised world, the traditional cultural representations and relations of countries are being challenged to incorporate a multidimensionality of identity and a plurality of actors.

This module will introduce you to the major theories and ideas within international cultural relations and will provide insight into its practice by a wide range of actors (governments, international organisations, corporations, non-governmental organisations and individuals). The role of the arts, their practitioners and mediators is highlighted in relation to their importance in the establishment of relations between the peoples of different countries. 

Topics include learning about the history and theory of international cultural relations, discussing the notions of cultural diplomacy and public diplomacy, analysing the relation between the arts and diplomacy, investigating the concepts of cultural diversity, intercultural dialogue, mutuality, cultural and linguistic human rights, soft power and hegemony, and connecting these with contemporary developments in areas such as communication technology, transport and economic flows.

This module places emphasis on the discussion of current themes and issues at policy and practice level in this transdisciplinary area. It fosters a reflexive and entrepreneurial approach to international cultural relations, by encouraging students to actively engage in the area by developing their own research and projects, relating them to wider debates. The module thus allows for the development of critical, creative, practical and reflexive skills complementing other elements of the MA Cultural Policy, Relations and Diplomacy programme.

The module covers a range of trans-disciplinary contemporary issues that concern those researching and practicing in the areas of cultural relations and diplomacy. It will consider key questions faced by countries, regions, cities, organisations and individuals in creating and delivering policy and projects. The topics are broad and changeable responding to the current issues concerning policy makers, practitioners and the public engaged in the field – an indicative list of topics to be covered in the sessions is provided below.

While providing space for student led education through individual and collaborative presentations, the module works around topical and geographical sessions, each representing a contemporary issue and/or area of current interest in cultural relations and cultural diplomacy. These include for example: culture and international development policies and practices; the role of the cultural and creative industries in cultural relations and diplomacy; migration and (transnational) cultural citizenship; language, communication and identity in international cultural relations; international cultural policies and cultural co-operation; sessions with a geographical focus e.g China’s cultural diplomacy, EU strategy for culture in external relations; project planning, monitoring and evaluation for cultural relations and diplomacy.

The Dissertation is an extended piece of written work of 12,000 words, more or less 10%, on a research topic of your choice (but subject to approval). It is undertaken during the Spring and Summer terms. The dissertation comprises a critical review of the literature and/or original analysis of documentary and/or other evidence on a chosen topic within the fields of your programme. The dissertation is intended to assess the full range of students’ abilities and to apply a range of learning outcomes, which the programme enables students to develop. In particular it enables assessment of the ability to design, develop and write an advanced research project using primary and/or secondary materials appropriate to the topic and according to the necessary conventions of scholarly work. It requires independent motivation and self-directed learning, under supervision, and enables students to demonstrate competence for critical analysis and sustained persuasive argument.

Contemporary Issues in Cultural Policy explores a range of trans-disciplinary topics that concern those researching and practicing in the areas of cultural policy. The module will consider key questions faced by all countries, regions and cities in creating and delivering policy. As globally most cultural ministries and their agencies are also responsible for a range of areas of policy often including international cultural relations, tourism, information and broadcasting and sport and also cross over with other ministries responsible for foreign affairs, education and creative industries the scope of the module will be broad.

Those topics will be addressed in a rigorous and structured way using methodologies conducive to student in depth and collaborative learning. Learning will be delivered through lectures, seminars, case studies, group work and presentations. Students will be taught in a single lecture environment each week before breaking off into smaller groups to conduct topical seminars, discussions or group work.

This module critically analyses the growth and character of cultural tourism and the growing relationship between the creative industries and cultural tourism.  It critically interrogates notions of the creative class, the creative city and the experience economy which have been used to underpin strategies in cultural tourism development. Ideas about the growing sophistication of cultural tourists and their changing tastes suggest that travellers wish to move beyond consumption to ‘prosumption’. With increasing competition between tourism destinations, the development of timely, attractive and innovative tourism products has never been more necessary – whether using the historic environment in creative ways or exploiting contemporary cultural forms. 

This module looks at the governance of cultural tourism at different spatial levels (from UNESCO to local government and local partnerships), best practice in destination management and the development of new tourism products. The geographic spread of cultural tourism and the greater diversity of products, necessitates the examination of issues related to contested meanings, authenticity, ethics, and sustainability. 

This module comprises weekly lectures delivered by the module tutor and guest speakers followed by seminar sessions to develop, explore and apply the ideas developed in the lectures. Group and individual tasks will give student the opportunity to work with the key concepts developed in the module. The seminars will also be used to support students in the development of their own research. Fieldwork in week 5 will introduce the students to key cultural and creative tourism ideas in central London.

This module explores the relationship between culture, tourism and regeneration. Tourism has long played a role in the economic social and physical transformation of towns and cities in cities famed for their proximity to coast or spectacular scenery – from the centres of the grand tour, to spas, coastal resorts and cultural centres.  However in recent decades the nature of city tourism has changed.  This module explores the growth and increasing diversity of cultural tourism, the role it plays in urban centres and their regions and the ways in which cities have reinvented and rebranded themselves as centres of leisure and recreation consumption using major cultural infrastructure investment, heritage commodification, events and festivals.

Underlying this transformation are the planning strategies that use culture as a means of transforming urban economies in the face of industrial change.  With decline, reorganisation and new technologies transforming traditional manufacturing industries and services, cities have been searching for new strategies that promise to deliver investment, jobs and prosperity.  The need to tackle not just employment but housing, social, physical, and environmental problems has necessitated an approach to tackle multiple problems in a single strategy – regeneration.

Culture-led urban regeneration strategies can employ any of the following - major cultural infrastructure (museums, opera houses, theatres); cultural events; mega-events; cultural industries; or provide attractive and ‘creative’ environments that will appeal to key personnel and business investment.  All these approaches are designed to generate streams of cultural tourists to the new infrastructure and revitalised cities – as outcomes or ‘legacy’ of the investment incurred. 

This ‘instrumental’ use of culture is examined in the module and the theories of urban decline and regeneration philosophies critiqued and the political structures through which regeneration is achieved analysed by means of case studies in the UK and further afield. London provides accessible examples of culture-led regeneration (for example Bankside and South Bank, Greenwich or Kings Cross) and event-led regeneration (2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games).  However cities throughout Europe, the Americas and increasingly in Asia and the Gulf States are pursuing culture in similar ways to position themselves on the international tourist map.

This module aims to nurture the skills and attitudes of students to allow them to become innovators and to provide models of entrepreneurial/business support relevant and useful for creative entrepreneurs. This course will provide a link between the theoretical aspects of the broader overview of the sector and the practice specifics, and work to focus on how creativity can be strengthened when put through creative commercialisation modelling techniques. The course has evolved from NESTA’s Creative Pioneer Programme and will use the Modelling Techniques that were designed and have evolved from `The Academy’ ‘Starter for Six’ and `Insight Out’ which provide approaches to commercialising creativity.

It will critically review the key characteristics of successful enterprises, entrepreneurs and leaders, within the cultural and more commercially focused creative industries. It will look at the range of business models that exist and review how best to build a financially sustainable organisation.

In line with the ethos of this programme, which seeks to foster the development of creativity and entrepreneurship as related activities rather than bringing entrepreneurship or business to creativity, this module allows you to continue to develop your understanding of a creative practice. This module, therefore, comprises studies in one area of creative practice related to your chosen pathway. Please see the relevant MA Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship pathway page on the website for more information on options 

The discourses of contemporary 'Leadership' and 'Enterprise Theory' are, much like the wider discourse of Management Theory itself, in a state of critical transformation. The authority, validity, and appropriateness of that type of scientifically influenced or 'positivist' thinking that informed so much of the early 'Taylorist' and 'Fordist' influenced work of the so-called 'first age' (Snowden, 2005) of Management Theory has been thrown into disrepute, as have many of the premises of that more contextually aware and 'constructively' influenced work that informed the so-called 'second age'.

Undermined by both the universalising and de-contextualising tendencies of that type of thinking that defined the 'first age', and the still latent problems of the 'implementation' or 'internalisation' (Nonaka, 1995) of the insights of that thinking that defined the 'second age,' we are now in a position in which – in what is increasing being recognised as the 'third age' of Management Theory – all of the principal discourses of Management Theory from Knowledge Management, to Organisational Theory, Enterprise Theory, Innovation, and Leadership, are having to come to terms with the difficult question of how they can still deal with their various objects of analysis, whether that be the essential nature, qualities, or conditions of successful Leadership, Enterprise, or Innovation, in a relatively organized, structured, and predictable way, and yet a way that does not undermine, foreclose, or delimit the essential 'complexity', unpredictability, and 'emergent' qualities of these phenomena and the contexts in which they arise. This is a problem that has seen a pronounced emphasis in recent years on the analysis of the role that the individual 'creative', 'entrepreneurial', or 'self-actualising' subject plays in the 'narrative' construction of their own relationships to those contexts in which they exist, innovate, lead, or learn (Tsoukas, 2005).

This module will introduce students to all of the main theories that have contributed to the evolution of this discourse from the early scientifically orientated, 'positivist', and 'essentialist' theories of Frederick Winslow Taylor in The Principles of Scientific Management (1911), to Joseph Schumpeter’s work on Innovation as “creative destruction” (1934), to Gordon Allport (1921) and Kurt Lewin’s (1935) early work on 'Trait Theory' and 'Situational' theories of personality as they have been applied to Leadership, to Ralph Stacey (2001, 2003, 2010), and Henry Chesborough’s (2003, 2006, 2010) recent work on 'Organisational Complexity' and 'Open Innovation', to more recent 'Transactional', 'Transformational', and 'Organic' Theories of Leadership, to Ikujiro Nonaka’s (1995) and Hubert Dreyfus’ (1997) 'ontologically' orientated theories of Innovation, and Roger Martin (2009) and Armand Hatchuel’s (2010) recent work on the value of various 'design thinking' lead creative research methodologies to the articulation of how we can most ‘productively’ act, think, innovate, and lead, within the ever increasing 'complexity' of current business environments.

The principal objective of this archaeological analysis of the history of the evolution and development contemporary Management Theory, and particularly as it has been applied to the discourses of contemporary 'Enterprise' and 'Leadership' Theory, is to enable students to develop a comprehensive understanding of not only the history of the discourse but also how the insights of these theories can be practically applied to the conceptualisation and analysis of their own projects—thus overcoming the much debated 'relevancy gap' in so much contemporary Management Theory and education.

Particular emphasis will also be placed on the 'cross-cultural' significance of this work in relation to both Gert Hoftstede (2001) and Richard E. Nisbett’s (2005) work on the differing 'dimensions' of cultural belief, value, and understanding.

It is not uncommon for the modern art museum to use words like interpretation, education and communication as a way of differentiating between the remit of individual departments and the type of responsibility each member of staff might have. But there are important fundamental differences inherent within each term that are rarely examined or explained.

This course will focus on the way in which art museums define their relationship to content, meaning and context, how they communicate their ‘message’, the methods they use to address the diversity of their visiting publics and the kind of institutional struggles that sometimes take place.

The course will look at the relationship between museums, government and their agencies and other cultural organisations. There will be an emphasis on examining education and learning, the importance of access, diversity and the role of marketing and income generation. It will introduce theories, which relate to the writing of interpretative text, and consider how the experience of looking at art might be different if text were not available. There will also be a discussion regarding the role of the aesthetic in art education and the range of expectations visitors have from a museum visit.

Museums and Galleries of art make an important contribution to income generation in the UK. To achieve this successful outcome it is necessary for them to understand the role that culture plays in our society. The manner in which they display works of art, provide information and education, are committed to making their collections more accessible and generally strive to be welcoming, entertaining, friendly and rich in diverse opportunities shows how well they have understood the part they play in establishing culture at the heart of all that we do. This ten week course will focus on the growing importance of cultural organisations, how taste is shaped not only by museums and galleries but also by designers of fashion and lifestyle products and how commercial organisations are keen to engage in large-scale cultural projects as a way of attracting a new, younger audience and establishing themselves as key players in a modern society.

Individual sessions will focus on the many definitions of culture from Raymond Williams to Brian Eno; the connections between culture and class using the work of Bourdieu and Tony Bennett, the issue of taste as Greenberg saw it and more recently as the type of lifestyle choices we make. The course will also use case studies of large scale public cultural projects like the Unilever series in Tate Modern’s turbine Hall and the Fourth Plinth project in Trafalgar Square.

Recent research in Asia has questioned the widely held assumption that tourism arose in the UK during the mid-19th century as a result of Thomas Cook’s introduction of the ‘package’, a combination of the cost of travel and another service.

It has been shown that travel and leisure existed in early Han Dynasty China as scholars and priests explored mountainous areas giving rise to one of the civilizations most enduring art forms, the landscape painting. Travel and leisure also seem to have gone hand in hand with that other widespread phenomenon, the pilgrimage, with the attendant development of hostelries, storytelling and souvenir production.

Industrial forms of tourism were introduced to Asia by European colonial powers in the late 19th and early 20th century with the development of hilltop stations to provide relief for officials and merchants working in tropical areas. Grand hotels were introduced with the Sarkies brothers opening up famous establishments in Myanmar (Burma), Singapore and Indonesia (Dutch East Indies). The inter war cruise ship industry made Asia accessible to wealthy Europeans and Americans with perceptible impacts on Asian hospitality traditions and visual and performing arts.

Western artists used the opportunities provided by tourism to open studios in Asia, notably Bali, often working alongside indigenous artists to create hybrid and highly creative art forms. The post-war era opened up parts of Asia to Western mass tourism, notably the so-called ‘rest and recreation’ of the US military in Thailand.

Tourism was also used as a nation building strategy by Asian leaders such as Suharto in Indonesia to encourage his countrymen to travel and to get to know their country and to project a tourist friendly external image of stability.

As the Asian economies developed, countries like Japan became major sources of outbound tourism with accompanying impacts on Western retail practices, especially with regard to fashion and luxury. By 2014 China had become the largest outbound and inbound tourism market with the introduction of China-friendly hotel ranking systems in Europe, such as the 5-dragons scheme, began to be experimented with in Europe.

Indian outbound tourism also became significant with some novel characteristics, such as an interest in the hybrid Indian-British culinary tradition of the ‘curry house’. Tourism is also one of the drives that has spread Asian culinary traditions around the world.