Justin O'Connor | Monash University (original) (raw)
Papers by Justin O'Connor
Routledge Handbook of Cultural and Creative Industries in Asia, 2018
Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research, 2011
City, Culture and Society, 2014
1 We don't wish to discuss these disputed terms in this introduction. We use 'cultural/creative i... more 1 We don't wish to discuss these disputed terms in this introduction. We use 'cultural/creative industries' (C/CI) to signal its disputed nature rather than 'cultural creative industries' (CCI) which elides this ambiguity and confusion. The term designates for us the visual and performing arts, audiovisual sectors, new media, computer games, publishing, design and architecture. It includes large and small businesses and institutions, commercial, subsidised and not-for-profit actors, as well as the related services and material supplies that go with these.
The European Journal of Arts Education, 2000
Arena 2 There is no work that I know of examining the role of this group in the emergence of the ... more Arena 2 There is no work that I know of examining the role of this group in the emergence of the new cultural policy. It includes standard consultancy firms (such as KPMG, though these came late to the scene); 'arts consultants', usually working in the interstices between cultural administration and producers; political/ intellectuals working between policy, journalism and occasional academic writing (such as Comedia); and academics whose policy work was often deemed 'outside' normal academic functioning-though this has changed. Apart from MIPC I would point to the work of Sylvia Harvey in Sheffield and Franco Bianchini for Comedia.
This paper sets out to challenge the dominant narrative of the creative economy as a new option f... more This paper sets out to challenge the dominant narrative of the creative economy as a new option for developing countries. The much-vaunted growth rates proclaimed by UNCTAD's Creative Economy Programme have slowed, and are seen to apply to a particular kind of manufactured good, as well as being overwhelmingly dominated by Asia, and especially China. This paper tries to unpick the dominant creative economy model of entrepreneurship, creative human capital and open market opportunity and suggests that – other than in East Asia – it is business as usual for the Global North. The creative economy not only fails to deliver its promise of development but has profound consequences for local cultures, caught up in an ever more global web of exploitation driven by the new digital platforms. We need to return to the earlier concerns of 'culture and development' now fully aware of the downsides, as well as the potential, of cultural economies in an uncertain global landscape.
Re-Imagining Creative Cities in Twenty-First Century Asia, 2020
The idea of the Creative City is a product of the 1990s. Of course, the idea has long roots in a ... more The idea of the Creative City is a product of the 1990s. Of course, the idea has long roots in a Euro-American narrative of the city as a primary site for commercial and industrial development or 'modernisation', and as a locus for a certain quality of experience we call 'modern'. The Creative City involved a reframing of this narrative at a moment when the
A account of Shanghai Clusters via the mobilities literature
This book responds to the lack of Asian representation in creative cities literature. It aims to ... more This book responds to the lack of Asian representation in creative cities literature. It aims to use the creative cities paradigm as part of a wider process involving first, a rapid de-industrialisation in Asia that has left a void for new development models, resulting in a popular uptake of cultural economies in Asian cities; and second, the congruence and conflicts of traditional and modern cultural values leading to a necessary re-interpretation and re-imagination of cities as places for cultural production and cultural consumption. Focusing on the ‘Asian century’, it seeks to recognise and highlight the rapid rise of these cities and how they have stepped up to the challenge of transforming and regenerating themselves. The book aims to re-define what it means to be an Asian creative city and generate more dialogue and new debate around different urban issues.
We summarise the results of a deep search for Lyman emission from star-forming regions associated... more We summarise the results of a deep search for Lyman emission from star-forming regions associated with damped Lyman absorption systems and conclude that the Lyman luminosity of high redshift galaxies is generally less than 10 42 erg s 1. We also present a newly discovered case, in the eld of the QSO Q2059 360, where the emission is unusually strong, possibly because the damped system is close in redshift to the QSO.
This paper unifies and articulates a series of debates that brought together the Global Cultural ... more This paper unifies and articulates a series of debates that brought together the Global Cultural Economy Network (GCEN), an informal group of policy experts currently attempting to re-frame international policies on culture and economy. Directed by the author, the Network is critical of the rhetoric on the creative industry/ economy agenda as routinely used by policy makers and public officials, at local, national and international levels (by UNCTAD, WIPO and UNESCO, among others). Subjecting key terms in this rhetoric to scrutiny, this article considers the historical evolution of the 'culture-economy' nexus, and observes that even where the arts and culture have evidently benefitted from their cooption into mainstream public policy agendas, the current dominant and now popular discourse of 'creative economy' is problematic. The article sets out the dilemma by considering the various policy trends involved in this cooption -from creative industries to creative citie...
Whatever happened to our arts and culture sector? Justin O'Connor (Adelaide) charts the nasty... more Whatever happened to our arts and culture sector? Justin O'Connor (Adelaide) charts the nasty intersection between neoliberalism and creative industries - and the urgency of new ways of fighting its damage.
Cultural Trends, 2020
Caves, R. E. (2000). Creative Industries: Contracts Between Art and Commerce. Harvard University ... more Caves, R. E. (2000). Creative Industries: Contracts Between Art and Commerce. Harvard University Press. Cunningham, S. (2009). Trojan horse or Rorschach blot? Creative industries discourse around the world. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 15(4), 375–386. doi:10.1080/10286630902977501 Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) (1998). Creative Industries Mapping Document. London: DCMS. Department for Culture Media & Sport (DCMS) (2016). DCMS Sectors Economic Estimates. https://www.gov.uk/ government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/544103/DCMS_Sectors_Economic_Estimates_-_ August_2016.pdf Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (2017). Independent Review of the Creative Industries. https://assets. publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/649980/Independent_ Review_of_the_Creative_Industries.pdf Giles, C., & O’Dwyer, B. (2016). The Role of the A/R/tographer in Design for Enterprise. Proceedings of the 39th Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE) Conference, Paris, France, 2016. Jones, C., Svejenova, S., Strandgaard Pedersen, J., & Townley, B. (2016). Misfits, Mavericks andmainstreams: Drivers of innovation in the creative industries. Organization Studies, 37(6), 751–768. doi:10.1177/0170840616647671 Lampel, J., Lant, T., & Shamsie, J. (2000). Balancing act: Learning from organizing practices in cultural industries. Organization Science, 11(3), 263–269. doi:10.1287/orsc.11.3.263.12503 Müller, K., Rammer, C., & Trüby, J. (2009). The role of creative industries in industrial innovation. Innovation, 11(2), 148–168. doi:10.5172/impp.11.2.148 Nathan, M., Pratt, A., & Rincon-Azner, A. (2015). Creative Economy Employment in the EU and UK: A Comparative Analysis. Nesta. http://www.nesta.org.uk/publications/creative-economyemployment-eu-and-uk-comparativeanalysis#sthash.hLgFhfJT.dpuf Romano, S., & Carey, C. (2019). An Investigation into Individual Meaning, Knowledge Production and Research Identities of Creative Industries Entrepreneurship Scholars to Map their Academic Careers in Uncertain Time. Proceedings of the British Academy of Management (BAM) Conference, Birmingham, UK. UNCTAD (2018). Creative Economy Outlook Trends in International Trade in Creative Industries Country Profiles 2002–2015 2005–2014. https://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/ditcted2018d3_en.pdf
Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 2019
Dedicated to the memory our late colleagues, Dr Anna Upchurch (1957–2016) and Dr Lorraine Lim (19... more Dedicated to the memory our late colleagues, Dr Anna Upchurch (1957–2016) and Dr Lorraine Lim (1980–2017), both of whom attended the symposium from which this Special Issue emerged (Prato, September 2016), and both of whom were to make valuable contributions.
Changing Cities, 2005
... Login |, Urban dilemmas of competition and cohesion in cultural policy. ... In: Buck, N. and ... more ... Login |, Urban dilemmas of competition and cohesion in cultural policy. ... In: Buck, N. and Gordon, I. and Harding, A. and Turok, I., (eds.) Changing Cities: Rethinking urban competitiveness,cohesion and governance. Palgrave, London, pp. 132-153. ISBN 1 4039 0680 7. ...
Ekonomiaz, 2011
The era of the cultural and creative industries, which can be said to date from 1997, brought tog... more The era of the cultural and creative industries, which can be said to date from 1997, brought together many different approaches to culture around an urgent call for recognition of a new reality that was «out there» and that represented the future, change, renewal and the revitalisation of the economy. However that energy for change was gradually eroded by a number of factors that reduced their initial expectations. Those factors included absorption by real-estate development, their own ability to integrate rapidly into new digital, media challenges and the scant intellectual and financial resources earmarked by most local authorities for their development. This article tracks the complex, disputed accounts of the «cultural and/or creative» industries and seeks to establish if not what they actually are at least why they are worthwhile in terms of political effort, i.e. how they came to be a «cause for concern», and what type of new concern they may now have become.
Creative Industries Faculty, 2007
This report was commissioned by the Yorkshire Cultural Observatory and the Yorkshire & Humber... more This report was commissioned by the Yorkshire Cultural Observatory and the Yorkshire & Humber Key Cities group. It is not a strategy document but an attempt to give an overview of the current thinking within academia and policy-making about the cultural agenda for regions and regional cities in the UK. In particular it looks at the challenges for Yorkshire cities in the context of the current and potential regional cultural offer. The report is a snapshot of current academic and policy thinking, but it also draws on a series of interviews conducted with policymakers in the five key cities as well as regional agencies. These interviews were limited in number and are not meant to be a comprehensive consultation exercise. Rather they acted to focus some of the issues raised by the literature and policy review and to develop suggestions around priority areas for the region.
Routledge Handbook of Cultural and Creative Industries in Asia, 2018
Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research, 2011
City, Culture and Society, 2014
1 We don't wish to discuss these disputed terms in this introduction. We use 'cultural/creative i... more 1 We don't wish to discuss these disputed terms in this introduction. We use 'cultural/creative industries' (C/CI) to signal its disputed nature rather than 'cultural creative industries' (CCI) which elides this ambiguity and confusion. The term designates for us the visual and performing arts, audiovisual sectors, new media, computer games, publishing, design and architecture. It includes large and small businesses and institutions, commercial, subsidised and not-for-profit actors, as well as the related services and material supplies that go with these.
The European Journal of Arts Education, 2000
Arena 2 There is no work that I know of examining the role of this group in the emergence of the ... more Arena 2 There is no work that I know of examining the role of this group in the emergence of the new cultural policy. It includes standard consultancy firms (such as KPMG, though these came late to the scene); 'arts consultants', usually working in the interstices between cultural administration and producers; political/ intellectuals working between policy, journalism and occasional academic writing (such as Comedia); and academics whose policy work was often deemed 'outside' normal academic functioning-though this has changed. Apart from MIPC I would point to the work of Sylvia Harvey in Sheffield and Franco Bianchini for Comedia.
This paper sets out to challenge the dominant narrative of the creative economy as a new option f... more This paper sets out to challenge the dominant narrative of the creative economy as a new option for developing countries. The much-vaunted growth rates proclaimed by UNCTAD's Creative Economy Programme have slowed, and are seen to apply to a particular kind of manufactured good, as well as being overwhelmingly dominated by Asia, and especially China. This paper tries to unpick the dominant creative economy model of entrepreneurship, creative human capital and open market opportunity and suggests that – other than in East Asia – it is business as usual for the Global North. The creative economy not only fails to deliver its promise of development but has profound consequences for local cultures, caught up in an ever more global web of exploitation driven by the new digital platforms. We need to return to the earlier concerns of 'culture and development' now fully aware of the downsides, as well as the potential, of cultural economies in an uncertain global landscape.
Re-Imagining Creative Cities in Twenty-First Century Asia, 2020
The idea of the Creative City is a product of the 1990s. Of course, the idea has long roots in a ... more The idea of the Creative City is a product of the 1990s. Of course, the idea has long roots in a Euro-American narrative of the city as a primary site for commercial and industrial development or 'modernisation', and as a locus for a certain quality of experience we call 'modern'. The Creative City involved a reframing of this narrative at a moment when the
A account of Shanghai Clusters via the mobilities literature
This book responds to the lack of Asian representation in creative cities literature. It aims to ... more This book responds to the lack of Asian representation in creative cities literature. It aims to use the creative cities paradigm as part of a wider process involving first, a rapid de-industrialisation in Asia that has left a void for new development models, resulting in a popular uptake of cultural economies in Asian cities; and second, the congruence and conflicts of traditional and modern cultural values leading to a necessary re-interpretation and re-imagination of cities as places for cultural production and cultural consumption. Focusing on the ‘Asian century’, it seeks to recognise and highlight the rapid rise of these cities and how they have stepped up to the challenge of transforming and regenerating themselves. The book aims to re-define what it means to be an Asian creative city and generate more dialogue and new debate around different urban issues.
We summarise the results of a deep search for Lyman emission from star-forming regions associated... more We summarise the results of a deep search for Lyman emission from star-forming regions associated with damped Lyman absorption systems and conclude that the Lyman luminosity of high redshift galaxies is generally less than 10 42 erg s 1. We also present a newly discovered case, in the eld of the QSO Q2059 360, where the emission is unusually strong, possibly because the damped system is close in redshift to the QSO.
This paper unifies and articulates a series of debates that brought together the Global Cultural ... more This paper unifies and articulates a series of debates that brought together the Global Cultural Economy Network (GCEN), an informal group of policy experts currently attempting to re-frame international policies on culture and economy. Directed by the author, the Network is critical of the rhetoric on the creative industry/ economy agenda as routinely used by policy makers and public officials, at local, national and international levels (by UNCTAD, WIPO and UNESCO, among others). Subjecting key terms in this rhetoric to scrutiny, this article considers the historical evolution of the 'culture-economy' nexus, and observes that even where the arts and culture have evidently benefitted from their cooption into mainstream public policy agendas, the current dominant and now popular discourse of 'creative economy' is problematic. The article sets out the dilemma by considering the various policy trends involved in this cooption -from creative industries to creative citie...
Whatever happened to our arts and culture sector? Justin O'Connor (Adelaide) charts the nasty... more Whatever happened to our arts and culture sector? Justin O'Connor (Adelaide) charts the nasty intersection between neoliberalism and creative industries - and the urgency of new ways of fighting its damage.
Cultural Trends, 2020
Caves, R. E. (2000). Creative Industries: Contracts Between Art and Commerce. Harvard University ... more Caves, R. E. (2000). Creative Industries: Contracts Between Art and Commerce. Harvard University Press. Cunningham, S. (2009). Trojan horse or Rorschach blot? Creative industries discourse around the world. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 15(4), 375–386. doi:10.1080/10286630902977501 Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) (1998). Creative Industries Mapping Document. London: DCMS. Department for Culture Media & Sport (DCMS) (2016). DCMS Sectors Economic Estimates. https://www.gov.uk/ government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/544103/DCMS_Sectors_Economic_Estimates_-_ August_2016.pdf Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (2017). Independent Review of the Creative Industries. https://assets. publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/649980/Independent_ Review_of_the_Creative_Industries.pdf Giles, C., & O’Dwyer, B. (2016). The Role of the A/R/tographer in Design for Enterprise. Proceedings of the 39th Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE) Conference, Paris, France, 2016. Jones, C., Svejenova, S., Strandgaard Pedersen, J., & Townley, B. (2016). Misfits, Mavericks andmainstreams: Drivers of innovation in the creative industries. Organization Studies, 37(6), 751–768. doi:10.1177/0170840616647671 Lampel, J., Lant, T., & Shamsie, J. (2000). Balancing act: Learning from organizing practices in cultural industries. Organization Science, 11(3), 263–269. doi:10.1287/orsc.11.3.263.12503 Müller, K., Rammer, C., & Trüby, J. (2009). The role of creative industries in industrial innovation. Innovation, 11(2), 148–168. doi:10.5172/impp.11.2.148 Nathan, M., Pratt, A., & Rincon-Azner, A. (2015). Creative Economy Employment in the EU and UK: A Comparative Analysis. Nesta. http://www.nesta.org.uk/publications/creative-economyemployment-eu-and-uk-comparativeanalysis#sthash.hLgFhfJT.dpuf Romano, S., & Carey, C. (2019). An Investigation into Individual Meaning, Knowledge Production and Research Identities of Creative Industries Entrepreneurship Scholars to Map their Academic Careers in Uncertain Time. Proceedings of the British Academy of Management (BAM) Conference, Birmingham, UK. UNCTAD (2018). Creative Economy Outlook Trends in International Trade in Creative Industries Country Profiles 2002–2015 2005–2014. https://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/ditcted2018d3_en.pdf
Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 2019
Dedicated to the memory our late colleagues, Dr Anna Upchurch (1957–2016) and Dr Lorraine Lim (19... more Dedicated to the memory our late colleagues, Dr Anna Upchurch (1957–2016) and Dr Lorraine Lim (1980–2017), both of whom attended the symposium from which this Special Issue emerged (Prato, September 2016), and both of whom were to make valuable contributions.
Changing Cities, 2005
... Login |, Urban dilemmas of competition and cohesion in cultural policy. ... In: Buck, N. and ... more ... Login |, Urban dilemmas of competition and cohesion in cultural policy. ... In: Buck, N. and Gordon, I. and Harding, A. and Turok, I., (eds.) Changing Cities: Rethinking urban competitiveness,cohesion and governance. Palgrave, London, pp. 132-153. ISBN 1 4039 0680 7. ...
Ekonomiaz, 2011
The era of the cultural and creative industries, which can be said to date from 1997, brought tog... more The era of the cultural and creative industries, which can be said to date from 1997, brought together many different approaches to culture around an urgent call for recognition of a new reality that was «out there» and that represented the future, change, renewal and the revitalisation of the economy. However that energy for change was gradually eroded by a number of factors that reduced their initial expectations. Those factors included absorption by real-estate development, their own ability to integrate rapidly into new digital, media challenges and the scant intellectual and financial resources earmarked by most local authorities for their development. This article tracks the complex, disputed accounts of the «cultural and/or creative» industries and seeks to establish if not what they actually are at least why they are worthwhile in terms of political effort, i.e. how they came to be a «cause for concern», and what type of new concern they may now have become.
Creative Industries Faculty, 2007
This report was commissioned by the Yorkshire Cultural Observatory and the Yorkshire & Humber... more This report was commissioned by the Yorkshire Cultural Observatory and the Yorkshire & Humber Key Cities group. It is not a strategy document but an attempt to give an overview of the current thinking within academia and policy-making about the cultural agenda for regions and regional cities in the UK. In particular it looks at the challenges for Yorkshire cities in the context of the current and potential regional cultural offer. The report is a snapshot of current academic and policy thinking, but it also draws on a series of interviews conducted with policymakers in the five key cities as well as regional agencies. These interviews were limited in number and are not meant to be a comprehensive consultation exercise. Rather they acted to focus some of the issues raised by the literature and policy review and to develop suggestions around priority areas for the region.