Eleonora Belfiore | Loughborough University (original) (raw)
Papers by Eleonora Belfiore
Introduction Towards a new approach to researching the social impacts of the arts Corruption and ... more Introduction Towards a new approach to researching the social impacts of the arts Corruption and distraction Catharsis Personal well-being Education and Self-development Moral improvement and civilization Political instrument Social stratification and identity construction Autonomy of the art and rejection of instrumentality Conclusions References Index
Sounding board - a matter of value
In recent years, funders, politicians and commentators have emphasised the need to evaluate the i... more In recent years, funders, politicians and commentators have emphasised the need to evaluate the impact of arts projects, but often this evaluation has not been as objective as it may appear. Eleonora Belfiore asks whether weve been overstating the case for the arts.
Is it really all about the evidence? On the rhetorical aspect of cultural policy
Abstract Despite the increasing move towards a supposedly 'evidence-based'policy,'... more Abstract Despite the increasing move towards a supposedly 'evidence-based'policy,'evidence'is in fact rarely the real driver of decision-making in cultural policy. However, if 'evidence'is not the real basis for decision making in the policy process (even in a regime of evidence-based policy), then what is? The hypothesis that the paper aims to test is that answers to this question might be found if we adopt the interpretative shift proposed, in the medical field, by Greenhalgh & Russell (2006) from a “technical model of policy ...
Copyright and reuse: The Warwick Research Archive Portal (WRAP) makes the work of researchers of ... more Copyright and reuse: The Warwick Research Archive Portal (WRAP) makes the work of researchers of the University of Warwick available open access under the following conditions. Copyright © and all moral rights to the version of the paper presented here belong to the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. To the extent reasonable and practicable the material made available in WRAP has been checked for eligibility before being made available.
The Humanities and Interdisciplinarity
‘Reaching Across the Fault Lines?’: The Role of Cultural Diplomacy in Post-Brexit Europe
This chapter aims at exploring both the potentials and limits of cultural policy and Cultural Dip... more This chapter aims at exploring both the potentials and limits of cultural policy and Cultural Diplomacy (CD) as policy-instruments in the post-Brexit relationships between the UK and the EU. Intercultural exchanges were indeed identified as potentially beneficial to the UK-EU relationships in the post-Brexit era. In the weeks preceding the British referendum, the British Council commissioned a number of short commentary pieces from leading cultural leaders, broadcasters, writers and cultural diplomacy professionals. The purpose was emphasizing the importance of Britain’s cultural connection with the rest of Europe, and the urgency of a commitment to preserving this relationship irrespective of the Brexit. This chapter acknowledges that, at a time when its political and economic importance is likely to continue to grow as the Brexit process unfolds, CD and its connection to cultural policy-making remain under-researched and undertheorized.
Utility v. Value
Humanities in the Twenty-First Century, 2013
In 2005, Harry G. Frankfurt, a retired professor of moral philosophy at Princeton University, mad... more In 2005, Harry G. Frankfurt, a retired professor of moral philosophy at Princeton University, made it into the best-sellers chart with a slim book entitled, quite simply, On Bullshit. Taking his essay as its starting point, this paper explores the analysis of bullshit and the prevalence of bullshitting in the contemporary public sphere as developed within the philosophical arena.
The Social Impact of the Arts: An Intellectual History
The Social Impact of the Arts offers an intellectual history of claims made over time for the val... more The Social Impact of the Arts offers an intellectual history of claims made over time for the value, function and impact of the arts in Western societies. With chapters on corruption, catharsis, education and 'art for art's sake', as well as number of other key themes, the ...
The Humanities and Open-Access Publishing: A New Paradigm of Value?
Humanities in the Twenty-First Century, 2013
Reading the Present Through the Past: A Critical Introduction
Histories of Cultural Participation, Values and Governance
Initiatives in Cultural Value: An Informal Mapping Exercise
Education and Self-Development
The Social Impact of the Arts, 2008
The version presented here may differ from the published version or, version of record, if you wi... more The version presented here may differ from the published version or, version of record, if you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher's version. Please see the 'permanent WRAP url' above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription.
Cultural Trends
Dr Anna Upchurch was a cultural policy academic, who most recently worked in the School of Perfor... more Dr Anna Upchurch was a cultural policy academic, who most recently worked in the School of Performance and Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds. Anna was born in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1957. She worked for many years in arts management, policy and communications in the USA, before moving to the UK, where she spent the last 15 years of her life. While serving as Director of Communications for the Department of Theater Studies at Duke University, Anna made an immeasurable impact on friends and colleagues. Her warmth, intellect, keen instincts and professionalism made all who had the pleasure of working with her feel valued and supported. As John Clum, Professor Emeritus and former Chair of Theater Studies commented, "Anna was brilliant, charming and passionate about her work." Anna first served as a public relations and communications consultant for the department's productions, and we were thrilled when she agreed to join the staff fulltime. Anna never drew attention to herself, yet so often was the one in the room making everyone else feel at ease, no matter the level of pressure. Anna was an experienced marketing professional, having served as Communications Officer with the North Carolina Museum of Art, and a natural scholar and teacher. Her curiosity and passion drove her to pursue a Masters of Arts in Liberal Studies at Duke, where she ignited her connection to the Bloomsbury Group, and then progressed onto a PhD. While on the MLS programme, Anna easily connected with colleagues from all across the campus, then, as was her style, she began connecting people to one another. She worked with a faculty group that evaluated interdisciplinary research and curricular possibilities in arts management and cultural policy; in fact, she was the instigator of the group and let everyone else believe it was their idea. Anna first visited the Warwick University campus in 2001 for an interview with her prospective PhD supervisor, Oliver Bennett, following her application to the PhD programme at its Centre for Cultural Policy Studies. It was during this visit that Anna first met Ele Belfiore, then a PhD student, who was to become her closest friend and collaborator. Shortly after that first visit, Anna made the brave decision to move to the UK to pursue her research ambition: as a passionate cultural professional and supporter of the arts, Anna wanted to explore the arts council model of support of the arts, and how it was applied in some of the countries it was exported to: Canada and the USA. During her time at Warwick, Anna endeared herself to both staff and fellow PhD students, many of whom soon became good friends. Anna was the life force of the Warwick PhD student group,
Cultural Trends, 2016
The very identity of cultural policy studies as a distinctive field of academic pursuit rests on ... more The very identity of cultural policy studies as a distinctive field of academic pursuit 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 pressures and restrictions of arts advocacy and lobbying. This is accomplished by exploring in detail the journey 'into the real world' of preliminary quantitative data produced by the UEP project in the context of its development of a segmentation exercise based on Taking Part data. The exercise used cluster analysis to identify profiles of cultural participation, and showed that single most engaged group corresponded to the wealthiest, better educated and least ethnically diverse 8% of the English population. This data fed into the consultation and evidence gathering process of the Warwick Commission on the Future of Cultural Value, and was eventually cited in its final report Enriching Britain. The paper looks at the trajectory that 'the 8%' statistic has travelled, charting its increasing prominence in English cultural policy debates and argues that, despite the impossibility for researchers to exert control over the use and misuse of their data, policy influence is nonetheless a realistic objective if understood in terms of 'conceptual influence'.
Introduction: Reframing the ‘Value’ Debate for the Humanities
Humanities in the Twenty-First Century, 2013
International Journal of Cultural Policy
The debate around ‘cultural value’ has become increasingly central to policy debates on arts and ... more 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 different access other forms of value – cultural, social, aesthetic. We know that different social groups enjoy to the power to bestow value and legitimise aesthetic and cultural practices; yet, questions of power, of symbolic violence and misrecognition rarely have prominence in cultural policy discourse. This article makes a contribution to creative industry scholarship by tackling this neglected question head on, and calls for a refreshed articulation of the concept of ‘cultural democracy’ as a possible way to address cultural policy’s blind spot over power and misrecognition. To achieve this, it discusses findings emerging from the case study of a participatory arts project involving the Gypsy and Traveller community in Lincolnshire, England.
Economic impact - inconclusive evidence
Introduction Towards a new approach to researching the social impacts of the arts Corruption and ... more Introduction Towards a new approach to researching the social impacts of the arts Corruption and distraction Catharsis Personal well-being Education and Self-development Moral improvement and civilization Political instrument Social stratification and identity construction Autonomy of the art and rejection of instrumentality Conclusions References Index
Sounding board - a matter of value
In recent years, funders, politicians and commentators have emphasised the need to evaluate the i... more In recent years, funders, politicians and commentators have emphasised the need to evaluate the impact of arts projects, but often this evaluation has not been as objective as it may appear. Eleonora Belfiore asks whether weve been overstating the case for the arts.
Is it really all about the evidence? On the rhetorical aspect of cultural policy
Abstract Despite the increasing move towards a supposedly 'evidence-based'policy,'... more Abstract Despite the increasing move towards a supposedly 'evidence-based'policy,'evidence'is in fact rarely the real driver of decision-making in cultural policy. However, if 'evidence'is not the real basis for decision making in the policy process (even in a regime of evidence-based policy), then what is? The hypothesis that the paper aims to test is that answers to this question might be found if we adopt the interpretative shift proposed, in the medical field, by Greenhalgh & Russell (2006) from a “technical model of policy ...
Copyright and reuse: The Warwick Research Archive Portal (WRAP) makes the work of researchers of ... more Copyright and reuse: The Warwick Research Archive Portal (WRAP) makes the work of researchers of the University of Warwick available open access under the following conditions. Copyright © and all moral rights to the version of the paper presented here belong to the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. To the extent reasonable and practicable the material made available in WRAP has been checked for eligibility before being made available.
The Humanities and Interdisciplinarity
‘Reaching Across the Fault Lines?’: The Role of Cultural Diplomacy in Post-Brexit Europe
This chapter aims at exploring both the potentials and limits of cultural policy and Cultural Dip... more This chapter aims at exploring both the potentials and limits of cultural policy and Cultural Diplomacy (CD) as policy-instruments in the post-Brexit relationships between the UK and the EU. Intercultural exchanges were indeed identified as potentially beneficial to the UK-EU relationships in the post-Brexit era. In the weeks preceding the British referendum, the British Council commissioned a number of short commentary pieces from leading cultural leaders, broadcasters, writers and cultural diplomacy professionals. The purpose was emphasizing the importance of Britain’s cultural connection with the rest of Europe, and the urgency of a commitment to preserving this relationship irrespective of the Brexit. This chapter acknowledges that, at a time when its political and economic importance is likely to continue to grow as the Brexit process unfolds, CD and its connection to cultural policy-making remain under-researched and undertheorized.
Utility v. Value
Humanities in the Twenty-First Century, 2013
In 2005, Harry G. Frankfurt, a retired professor of moral philosophy at Princeton University, mad... more In 2005, Harry G. Frankfurt, a retired professor of moral philosophy at Princeton University, made it into the best-sellers chart with a slim book entitled, quite simply, On Bullshit. Taking his essay as its starting point, this paper explores the analysis of bullshit and the prevalence of bullshitting in the contemporary public sphere as developed within the philosophical arena.
The Social Impact of the Arts: An Intellectual History
The Social Impact of the Arts offers an intellectual history of claims made over time for the val... more The Social Impact of the Arts offers an intellectual history of claims made over time for the value, function and impact of the arts in Western societies. With chapters on corruption, catharsis, education and 'art for art's sake', as well as number of other key themes, the ...
The Humanities and Open-Access Publishing: A New Paradigm of Value?
Humanities in the Twenty-First Century, 2013
Reading the Present Through the Past: A Critical Introduction
Histories of Cultural Participation, Values and Governance
Initiatives in Cultural Value: An Informal Mapping Exercise
Education and Self-Development
The Social Impact of the Arts, 2008
The version presented here may differ from the published version or, version of record, if you wi... more The version presented here may differ from the published version or, version of record, if you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher's version. Please see the 'permanent WRAP url' above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription.
Cultural Trends
Dr Anna Upchurch was a cultural policy academic, who most recently worked in the School of Perfor... more Dr Anna Upchurch was a cultural policy academic, who most recently worked in the School of Performance and Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds. Anna was born in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1957. She worked for many years in arts management, policy and communications in the USA, before moving to the UK, where she spent the last 15 years of her life. While serving as Director of Communications for the Department of Theater Studies at Duke University, Anna made an immeasurable impact on friends and colleagues. Her warmth, intellect, keen instincts and professionalism made all who had the pleasure of working with her feel valued and supported. As John Clum, Professor Emeritus and former Chair of Theater Studies commented, "Anna was brilliant, charming and passionate about her work." Anna first served as a public relations and communications consultant for the department's productions, and we were thrilled when she agreed to join the staff fulltime. Anna never drew attention to herself, yet so often was the one in the room making everyone else feel at ease, no matter the level of pressure. Anna was an experienced marketing professional, having served as Communications Officer with the North Carolina Museum of Art, and a natural scholar and teacher. Her curiosity and passion drove her to pursue a Masters of Arts in Liberal Studies at Duke, where she ignited her connection to the Bloomsbury Group, and then progressed onto a PhD. While on the MLS programme, Anna easily connected with colleagues from all across the campus, then, as was her style, she began connecting people to one another. She worked with a faculty group that evaluated interdisciplinary research and curricular possibilities in arts management and cultural policy; in fact, she was the instigator of the group and let everyone else believe it was their idea. Anna first visited the Warwick University campus in 2001 for an interview with her prospective PhD supervisor, Oliver Bennett, following her application to the PhD programme at its Centre for Cultural Policy Studies. It was during this visit that Anna first met Ele Belfiore, then a PhD student, who was to become her closest friend and collaborator. Shortly after that first visit, Anna made the brave decision to move to the UK to pursue her research ambition: as a passionate cultural professional and supporter of the arts, Anna wanted to explore the arts council model of support of the arts, and how it was applied in some of the countries it was exported to: Canada and the USA. During her time at Warwick, Anna endeared herself to both staff and fellow PhD students, many of whom soon became good friends. Anna was the life force of the Warwick PhD student group,
Cultural Trends, 2016
The very identity of cultural policy studies as a distinctive field of academic pursuit rests on ... more The very identity of cultural policy studies as a distinctive field of academic pursuit 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 pressures and restrictions of arts advocacy and lobbying. This is accomplished by exploring in detail the journey 'into the real world' of preliminary quantitative data produced by the UEP project in the context of its development of a segmentation exercise based on Taking Part data. The exercise used cluster analysis to identify profiles of cultural participation, and showed that single most engaged group corresponded to the wealthiest, better educated and least ethnically diverse 8% of the English population. This data fed into the consultation and evidence gathering process of the Warwick Commission on the Future of Cultural Value, and was eventually cited in its final report Enriching Britain. The paper looks at the trajectory that 'the 8%' statistic has travelled, charting its increasing prominence in English cultural policy debates and argues that, despite the impossibility for researchers to exert control over the use and misuse of their data, policy influence is nonetheless a realistic objective if understood in terms of 'conceptual influence'.
Introduction: Reframing the ‘Value’ Debate for the Humanities
Humanities in the Twenty-First Century, 2013
International Journal of Cultural Policy
The debate around ‘cultural value’ has become increasingly central to policy debates on arts and ... more 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 different access other forms of value – cultural, social, aesthetic. We know that different social groups enjoy to the power to bestow value and legitimise aesthetic and cultural practices; yet, questions of power, of symbolic violence and misrecognition rarely have prominence in cultural policy discourse. This article makes a contribution to creative industry scholarship by tackling this neglected question head on, and calls for a refreshed articulation of the concept of ‘cultural democracy’ as a possible way to address cultural policy’s blind spot over power and misrecognition. To achieve this, it discusses findings emerging from the case study of a participatory arts project involving the Gypsy and Traveller community in Lincolnshire, England.
Economic impact - inconclusive evidence
Essay commissioned by Live Art Development Agency for inclusion in the volume 'Learning in Public... more Essay commissioned by Live Art Development Agency for inclusion in the volume 'Learning in Public: Transeuropean Collaborations in Socially Engaged Arts', one of the outputs for the EU-funded Collaborative Arts partnership Programme (http://www.cappnetwork.com), published in 2018.