simon.fiala@seznam.

cz 2013

Bloomfield, Bianchini (2001) Cultural Citizenship and Urban Governance in Western Europe
Stevenson, N. (ed.) Culture and Citizenship. SAGE Publications : London, 2001. Pp. 99-123

Notes:
The doubtful capacity of the welfare state to satisfy diverse needs become apparent in the 1980/90s o Student protests of 1968, the new left, feminists, environmentalists, anti-racists o Extended political contestation to the spheres of health, the intimate sphere, the urban life Institutions coming under scrutiny: hospitals, schools, universities, planning bodies o Hegemony of the conservative political vocabulary in the Left o The Right concerned about social consequences restricted access to welfare based on moral criteria the deserving and undeserving poor Citizen as an apolitical private consumer The new poor labeled as underclass Theories of citizenship and concepts of culture o Cultural rights as extended social rights Social citizenship as a strategy to reduce class inequalities and create equal opportunity structures Marshalls conception of citizenship o Habeas corpus (security, property, freedom) o Political rights o Social rights (to education and welfare) o + cultural rights Cultural citizenship a response to the emergence of the cultural pluralism and the demise of the welfare state o Social redistribution obsolescent? New social movements are cultural, but defend also social and political rights (attack unequal distribution and inaccountability of power - Not directly, by detour) Culture has become a key to capital the reorientation of production to symbolic rather than material goods Cultural capital as a key determinant in the skilling of the labour force The stratum of symbolic analysts and cultural producers (Bourdieu) o A monolithic conception of culture as something handed down to undifferentiated masses by the cultural elites (Marshall) is outdated critical competences and public cultural goods are diversified and equal access is subject to struggles o Challenging cultural hegemony from counter-culture to cultural pluralism New social movements experimenting with collective identities; challenging the monolithic conception of (national) culture Concepts of cultural domination, differential appropriation of (sub)cultures Culture as a field of contested power o High/low culture 1 Bloomfield, Bianchini (2001) Cultural Citizenship and Urban Governance in Western Europe

simon.fiala@seznam.cz 2013 o Popular culture and capitalism o Youth subcultures Strive to cultural equality has to involve both recognition of cultural pluralism and redistribution to overcome structural limitations Yet in the mainstream liberal theory of distributive justice debate the conception of cultural homogeneity remained deeply embedded o Conflicting conceptions The contested nature of cultural purity, genetic understanding of culture as inherited and impenetrable Increasingly seen as untenable and anachronistic o Cultural recognition and multiculturalism Cultural pluralims, although an undisputed prerequisite in order to fulfil the universal rights, raises theoretical and practical difficulties Has to avoid essencializing of cultural communities There is pressure to minorities to present themselves as united to the outside but they tend to be pluralistic themselves o Excludes discordant voices of the marginalized Cultural recognition must offer space to renew cultures as well as to preserve them. Defensive purism deprives both cultures of cross-fertilization o Interculturalism Increasing acceptance of the concept of bricolage as of the living culture as opposed to culture as an endangered species in a museum Cultural literacy has to be rethought in pluralistic AND intercultural terms o Participation and cultural representations 108 A modern civic identity has to conceive the city as a meeting place of cultures A republican conception of citizenship is premised on the active mobilization and participation of citizens in realizing their rights The capacity of citizens to come together, formulate demands collectively and organize a public presence is key (Habermas) Identity = a symbolic tool in mobilizing claims to substantive rights and resources o Facilitates political mobilization of those without a voice In a republican view of citizenship, it is incumbent on the public authorities to solicit active participation, particularly of those poorly represented and weakly organized (Habermas 1994) o Passive citizenship and the right to consume An alternative conception of citizenship to the broad participatory one The role of the state: solely to protect property and the rule of law and defend sovereignty No public goods except for security No ethnical and social dimension to citizens rights Key decisions taken outside the realm of political accontability This conception has wider effect than on merely its neoconservative adherents The locus of citizenship o Overlapping and multilayered sovereignty Citizenship is analytically distinct from human rights 2 Bloomfield, Bianchini (2001) Cultural Citizenship and Urban Governance in Western Europe

simon.fiala@seznam.cz 2013 Membership in a community Citizenship as a system of rights and claims on the normative and regulative capacities of the state o To provide resources for self determination o To guarantee the access to the public realm o Cities and citizenship Citizen city (the greek polis) citizenship has direct association with the urban community Often overlooked cities conceived as economic and geographical entities, not political ones City as an artifact, symbolic space, repository of memory and meanings, local political system and social ecology The conceptions of citizenship in urban cultural policy o Overlapping conceptions, often grafted and inconsistent o 3 waves Social citizenship (-1960s) Provision of cultural services as an extension of the welfare state High culture in city centres Cultural democracy the right to be engaged with the culture Paternalistic approach; appropriation of the cultural provisions by the upper middle class (aggravating the class divide) Emancipatory citizenship (60s-80s) Popular participation as a means of social emancipation and community development Wider definition of culture But continuing subsidies to high culture implementation of urban emancipatory policy o Creation of an inclusive urban identity Allied to the political objective of mobilizing people for purposes of ideological contestation and party legitimation 113 Probe them to rediscover and celebrate their cities Stress on walkability, overlapping social and economic use Counteracting atomization and car culture City as the catalyst of public sociability Revitalization of dead space, animation of social groups left behind (the elderly, unemployed) Arts festivals, calming of traffic, better public transport Often sponsored by the liberal left o Empowerment of disadvantaged individuals and groups o Strategies to establish new political base consisting of people unimpressed by class-based party politics The neoliberal competetive city (90s-) International image, attractiveness, returns (not as a response to citizens rights but as a means of succeeding in competition, not becoming peripheral)

3 Bloomfield, Bianchini (2001) Cultural Citizenship and Urban Governance in Western Europe

simon.fiala@seznam.cz 2013 The language of citizenship, personal and community development, egalitarianism, social justice, neighbourhood decentralization and the socialization of urban space was gradually replaced by arguments reducing cultural policy to a function of urban economic and physical regeneration strategies Growing pressure on financial resources Cultural policy as a tool of diversification of the local economic base o Support of emerging sectors (tourism, fashion, design, media) as compensation for the lost industrial opportunities Cosmopolitan cultural life as means of attracting ostensively mobile international capital o Expenditure cuts on peripheral services (libraries, cycling infrastructure,) and neighbourhoods A rhetorical commitment to social and emancipatory citizenship persisted, however The concept of quality of life reduced to discrete indicators of competetiveness Citizen as a private consumer + an active (responsible) citizen o Offloading of the responsibilities formerly held by the public authorities to thrusts, quangos and volunteers o Passive citizenship of the majority and active citizenship for the few worthy centralization of the state power

Conclusions o The crisis of urban citizenship is apparent, but more has to be done in order to revert the neoliberal paradigm, which is fundamentally damaging to the city o Challenges Destructive impacts of competition over the detached global capital have to be coped with Cultural budgets have to be rebalanced Cross-sectoral partnerships need to be established Human capital at peripheries has to be utilized in order to assemble a critical mass of urban actors (businesses, skill clusters, cultural milieux) Multiplicity of voices need to be acknowledged (the communitarian view overcome) o With the decline of parties and unions, more citizens are left disenfrachized urban participatory politics are at stake A more integrated approach to urban cultural policy is needed in order to revive the notion of urban citizenship The idea of city as a project need to be revived only then there can be integration Critical energy of young people need to be tapped on (they can be either human capital or a social problem)

4 Bloomfield, Bianchini (2001) Cultural Citizenship and Urban Governance in Western Europe