PDF

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN BUSINESS,
ARTS AND HUMANITIES
Value
Construction in
the Creative
Economy
Negotiating Innovation
and Transformation
edited by
rachel granger
Palgrave Studies in Business, Arts and Humanities
Series Editors
Samantha Warren
Faculty of Business and Law
University of Portsmouth
Portsmouth, UK
Steven S. Taylor
WPI Foisie School of Business
Worcester, MA, USA
Business has much to learn from the arts and humanities, and vice versa.
Research on the links between the arts, humanities and business has been
occurring for decades, but it is fragmented across various business topics,
including: innovation, entrepreneurship, creative thinking, the creative
industries, leadership and marketing.
A variety of different academic streams have explored the links between
the arts, humanities and business, including: organizational aesthetics,
arts-based methods, creative industries, and arts-based research etc. The
field is now a mature one but it remains fragmented. This series is the first
of its kind to bring these streams together and provides a “go-to” resource
on arts, humanities and business for emerging scholars and established
academics alike. This series will include original monographs and edited
collections to further our knowledge of topics across the field.
More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15463
Rachel Granger
Editor
Value Construction in
the Creative Economy
Negotiating Innovation and Transformation
Editor
Rachel Granger
Faculty of Business and Law
De Montfort University
Leicester, UK
ISSN 2662-1266 ISSN 2662-1274 (electronic)

Palgrave Studies in Business, Arts and Humanities
ISBN 978-3-030-37034-3 ISBN 978-3-030-37035-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub-
lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institu-
tional affiliations.
Cover illustration: © Leigh Drummond (MONO) https://www.graffwerk.org
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Contents
Part I Defining the Creative Economy Through Value 1
1 Exploring Value in the Creative and Cultural Industries 3

Rachel Granger
2 Problematising Hidden Culture 19

Laura Parsons and Rachel Granger
Part II The Creative Self 45
3 Defining Excellence: Value in Creative Degrees 47

Pinky Bazaz
4 Problematising Philanthropy in the UK Cultural Sector 67

Jennie Jordan and Ruth Jindal
5 Value Definition in Sustainable (Textiles) Production and

Consumption 85
Claire Lerpiniere
6 A Cloth to Wear: Value Embodied in Ghanaian Textiles109

Malika Kraamer
v
vi Contents
Part III Collective Creative Spaces and Processes 129
7 Intercultural Entrepreneurship in Creative Place-Making131

David Rae
8 Co-creative Third Space, Maker Space and Micro

Industrial Districts151
Rachel Granger
9 Cultural and Creative Districts as Spaces for Value

Change177
Jennifer Garcia-Carrizo and Rachel Granger
10 Silent Design and the Business Value of Creative Ideas199

David Heap and Caroline Coles
11 The Hidden Value of Underground Networks and

Intermediaries in the Creative City217
Rachel Granger
12 Value Transformation: From Online Community to

Business Benefit243
Tracy Harwood, Jason Boomer, and Tony Garry
13 Conclusion: Value Constructs for the Creative Economy265

Rachel Granger
Index279
Notes on Contributors
Pinky Bazaz is a senior lecturer in the School of Art and Design,

Nottingham Trent University, where she specialises in fashion marketing
and branding. Pinky has more than ten years of design experience in the
creative sector, including as head designer for eyewear design in pri-
vate practice and was previously creative lead in in the design indus-
try for women’s wear and prior to that, a children’s wear designer.
Jason Boomer is a researcher in Machinima, a form of film making,
which uses computer games graphics. Jason works at Side-Fest, a Leicester-
based social enterprise that works to promote STEAM (science, technol-
ogy, engineering, arts and mathematics) education for all.
Caroline Coles is the senior teaching fellow and deputy head of Law
School at Aston University. Caroline has extensive commercial and aca-
demic practice on copyright and trademarks, and is a trained solicitor in
intellectual property. Her previous research includes work with Boots
Opticians and Boots Foods, and current research focuses on teaching
excellence in law.
Jennifer Garcia-Carrizo is a doctoral researcher at Madrid Complutense
University and recipient of a European Scholarship for her work on cre-
ative industrial districts. Jennifer is a visiting researcher at the Local
Governance Research Centre at De Montfort University where she is
extending her research on creative cities in the UK, to examine the role of
‘cities of culture’ and identity.
vii
viii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Tony Garry is a senior lecturer in the Department of Marketing,

University of Otago, New Zealand. Tony’s research interests include
service and relational marketing, and emergent technologies within ser-
vice contexts, including gamification as a customer engagement
experience.
Rachel Granger is Professor of Urban Economies in Leicester Castle
Business School, and Director of the Creative and Cultural Industries
Research Group at De Montfort University. Rachel is an urban and eco-
nomic geographer with research interests in the creative city, smart city,
urban hacking and disruption, and alternative economic spaces, as a means
of social and economic growth. Her current research includes work on
transforming urban spaces, smart city strategies, and urban innovation
labs. Rachel is co-founder of Inno House, Director of FLOKK (an online
economic analysis platform designed and used in Leicester) Lab, and holds
several board membership positions in cultural and community
organisations.
Tracy Harwood is Professor of Digital Culture in the Institute of
Creative Technologies, Leicester Media School. Tracy’s research is trans-
disciplinary, working across computer science, arts, design, health and
marketing subjects. Current projects relate to the application of
emerging technologies to business and consumer contexts, including
AI, Internet of Things, VR and AR. She has a management back-
ground, with a PhD in negotiation behaviour, and is also manager of
De Montfort University’s Usability Lab, and co-leader of the Art AI
Festival in Leicester, a partnership between De Montfort University,
Phoenix, High Cross and Luba Elliott.
David Heap is Associate Professor of Design Cultures in the School of
Design at De Montfort University. As a trained furniture designer and
Design Manager, David is interested in how design is used within manu-
facturing businesses; and was actively involved in UK manufacturing
through the now defunct Furniture West Midlands Group which
championed design and manufacturing in small firms. David’s cur-
rent research includes auditing design maturity in small manufactur-
ers and fabricators; a related strand of research involves investigating
Silent Design in companies to establish ownership of ideas.
Ruth Jindal is a senior lecturer in Arts, Design and Humanities, De
Montfort University, specialising in arts and the cultural industries. Ruth
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS ix
teaches on critical and contextual studies on the Design Crafts,

Product Design, and Furniture and Textile Design programmes at De
Montfort University. Ruth’s research interests are in design writing and
criticism, cultural labour, philanthropy and design in cities.
Jennie Jordan is an associate professor specialising in business manage-
ment in the cultural and creative industries in Leicester Castle Business
School, De Montfort University. Formerly senior lecturer on the BA Arts
and Festivals Management and MSc Cultural Events Management courses,
Jennie is interested in cultural leadership and cultural policy, market-
ing and audience engagement. Her current research is in festivalisation in
regional cities.
Malika Kraamer is researcher and consultant curator on African, South
Asian, Islamic and African heritage art and culture. Formerly Curator of
World Cultures at New Walk Museum in Leicester, Malika is an interna-
tional researcher on global art and curation, providing curatorial
expertise to a Kente collection in Ghana. Malika’s current research
includes work on eighteenth-century West-African Textiles, funded
by St John’s College, University of Cambridge and Wisbech and
Fenland Museum, and international consulting for the China
National Silk Museum, Hangzhou, and UNESCO on the interactive
atlas on the Silk Roads. Malika is currently affiliated to the University
of Leicester and to the University of Cambridge.
Claire Lerpiniere is Senior Lecturer in Printed Textiles at De Montfort
University, who specialises in the human and ecological impacts of textiles.
Claire’s research focuses on how we use textile artefacts as social agents
which are emotionally significant. Such an approach rejects clothes as
static objects, embracing them instead as locations of meaning, memories
and symbolism, and through her teaching and research Claire pres-
ents conceptual frameworks and technologies to advance the sustain-
able practice of textile design. Claire’s current research centres on
slow fashion, as a viable model of production and consumption, and
is a significant contributor to the Sustainable Development Goals.
Laura Parsons is a doctoral researcher in the Department of Politics,
People and Place at De Montfort University. Her research is on the
Hidden Culture of Food in Leicester, and covers aspects of authenticity,
community and commensality in cultural value production.
x NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
David Rae is Professor of Enterprise at De Montfort University where he

is Director of the Centre for Enterprise and Innovation. David has worked
extensively in executive level business and enterprise roles in higher educa-
tion. His current research is on the connections between creativity, learn-
ing and entrepreneurial behaviour, with a particular interest in social
enterprise and innovation, and open research, innovation and data in
entrepreneurial development.
List of Figures
Fig. 2.1 Hidden culture 38

Fig. 3.1 Degree attainments, by ethnicity (2003–2014). (Source: Based
on data from HEFCE 2015) 52
Fig. 3.2 Values attributed to degrees, student perspective vs. higher
educational measures 59
Fig. 3.3 Value measure attributed to degrees. (Factors contributing to
perceived degree value for BAME students adapted from
Rokeach (1973) List of Terminal Values) 61
Fig. 4.1 Characteristic values inherent in cultural funding sources 75
Fig. 6.1 Two chiefs at the 1999 Kente Festival in Bonwire (Ashanti
Region) in two different rayon textiles with weft-float designs
typical of the late 1990s. (©Photograph by Malika Kraamer,
Bonwire (Ghana), 1999) 112
Fig. 6.2 Weaver Andrus Sosu in his loom while speaking to a customer
in Agortorme (upper part of the Keta lagoon in the coastal area
of the Volta Region). (©Photograph by Malika Kraamer,
Agortorme (Ghana), 2018) 113
Fig. 6.3 Women and men exchanging greetings at the 2018 Agbamevorza,
the Kente Festival, in Agotime-Kpetoe (Volta Region). Some
women wear two uncut wrappers; others are dressed in a Kente
sawn into a kaba. Some men wear a batakari and others wear a
Kente cloth wrapped around the body. (©Photograph by Malika
Kraamer, Agotime-Kpetoe (Ghana), 2018) 114
Fig. 7.1 Value creation through intercultural entrepreneurship 135
Fig. 8.1 Copenhagen creative ecosystem, by units (2019) 161
xi
xii List of Figures
Fig. 9.1 Map of the city centre of Newcastle Upon Tyne (rectangle),
which includes the Ouseburn Valley (circle). (Source: Own
elaboration from Google Maps 2018) 184
Fig. 9.2 Different industrial chimneys in the Toffee Factory at the
Ouseburn186
Fig. 9.3 Local bollards and murals 187
Fig. 9.4 Local tours. (Source: Lesley Turner, Admin & Communications
Officer, Ouseburn Trust) 190
Fig. 9.5 Logo from the Ouseburn Valley and its variation to ‘Made in
the Ouseburn’ campaign. (Source: Ouseburn Trust 2018b) 193
Fig. 11.1 A sector-relational map of creative and digital sectors, Leicester
(2018)225
Fig. 11.2 Key actors and interfaces in Leicester (2018) 236
Fig. 12.1 Two-step flow of communication. (Source: based on Katz and
Lazarsfeld 1955; Robinson 1976) 248
List of Tables
Table 8.1 Analytical, synthetic and symbolic knowledge systems

(Asheim and Coenen 2005) 158
Table 8.2 Characteristics of creative capital, Underbroen (2016–2019) 172
Table 9.1 Cultural production and consumption in the Ouseburn Valley 185
Table 9.2 Activists in the Ouseburn Valley 196
Table 11.1 Sector interactions in Leicester ecosystem (817 organisations) 223
Table 11.2 Creative specialisation of Leicester’s HE Institutions (2018) 230
Table 11.3 Leicester creative city ecosystem (2018) 231
Table 12.1 Sample description 251
xiii
PART I
Defining the Creative Economy

Through Value
CHAPTER 1
Exploring Value in the Creative and Cultural

Industries
Rachel Granger
Introduction
The creative and cultural industries as the primary focus of this book con-
stitute the most distinct area of economic growth of the new Millennium,
and are increasingly viewed as an emerging paradigm in their own right
(see Lazzeretti and Vecco 2018). Recognising and exhorting their early
economic potential, UK and Australia under the Blair and Keating gov-
ernments began to commercialise the creative and cultural industries in
earnest during the 1990s, and in so doing, invested heavily in public and
private flagships, which were to become key international demonstrators,
(for instance, London’s Tech City, Manchester’s Northern Quarter and
Media City, Brisbane’s South Bank and Creative Precinct). These early
demonstrators drove fascination and spawned creative projects through-
out much of the western world, drawing on Florida’s (2001) assertions of
the creative city and creative workers as an economic panacea, and produc-
ing a ‘serial replication’ of investment (McCarthy 2005) in creative infra-
structure. As such, the first decade of the new Millennium could be
R. Granger (*)
De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
e-mail: rachel.granger@dmu.ac.uk
© The Author(s) 2020 3

R. Granger (ed.), Value Construction in the Creative Economy,
Palgrave Studies in Business, Arts and Humanities,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_1
4 R. GRANGER
characterised as a period of creative consolidation in the UK and Australia,

with new international creative cities and clusters emerging in regional
capitals such as Bristol, Birmingham, Sheffield, and Glasgow in the UK,
and in Australia, Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth. Elsewhere, cities have
invested in new creative bases to replicate these early successes in the UK
and Australia, developing meandering creative quarters in metropolitan
areas across both Europe and North America (e.g. New York, Portland,
Austin, Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver).
The resilience of the creative city form in the face of a global downturn
has been especially notable, perhaps acting as one of the few truly expan-
sionary areas of the global economy, and the most recent spatial fix under
capitalist conditions (see Harvey 2001; Jessop 2006). In the Global South,
especially in South East Asia, there has been a concerted effort over the
last decade to develop internationally competitive creative cities to match
those of the Global North, and as a result, considerable investment has
been directed in recent years into the creative industries in world cities
such as Seoul, Shanghai, Taipei, Bangkok, and, more recently, the Middle
East. This globalisation of the creative and cultural industries has been
underpinned especially in South East Asia by new digital technologies, and
a landscape of mature multinationals and global investment.
At the heart of this growing policy attention is the remarkable growth
and economic potential of the creative economy, which in some countries
has offered a route out of long-term structural decline of deindustrialisa-
tion. In these countries, creative industries now account for one in ten
jobs in the economy, and one in four new jobs (DCMS 2018). For exam-
ple, between 2011–2014 and 2015–2016, the creative industries in the
UK grew on average by 11 per cent, twice as fast as in the rest of the
economy (Nesta 2018a). In a climate of continued economic and political
uncertainty, where the effects of the Global Financial Crisis are still being
meted out a decade on, and the risk of a further downturn ever present,
the potential for employment and income from new areas such as the cre-
ative economy acts as a centripetal pull on policymakers. In this sense, the
value of the creative and cultural industries can be seen in terms of jobs
and wealth, and this provides one view of value construction in the cre-
ative economy. This cursory view of what the creative and cultural indus-
tries are, and what value they have, is a recurring theme of this book.
While more and more is known about the creative economy, in other
respects our understanding of it has been constrained by prevailing narra-
tives and a dogmatic orthodoxy tied to the economics of production.
1 EXPLORING VALUE IN THE CREATIVE AND CULTURAL INDUSTRIES 5
Despite the richness of data now available at a variety of spatial scales and
places, and across sub-sectors (e.g. Florida et al. 2012; Nesta 2018b;
Nathan and Kemeny 2018; Gabe 2011; Lazzeretti 2014), our under-
standing of what it means to be creative (or cultural1), how this is con-
structed, and the wider impact of this remains dictated by the economic
lens. Thus, while the last decade has seen advancements in defining cre-
ativity (e.g. Cunningham 2002; Landry 2011) and understanding the
bifurcation of production and consumption (e.g. Potts et al. 2008a; Anand
and Croidieu 2015), and of new genres of creativity (Capdevila et al.
2015; Floriani and Amal 2018; Lorentzen 2013), the same cannot be said
for our empirical constructions. We have expanded our conceptual under-
standing of the role of others in the creative economy through networks
(Potts et al. 2008b), intermediaries (O’Connor 2015; Hracs 2015; Perry
2019), users (Di Maria and Finotto 2015; Flowers and Voss 2015), and
co-producers (Potts et al. 2008a; Hracs et al. 2018), and we are more
aware of the precarities of pay and access to creative work (Banks 2017;
Oakley and O’Brien 2016), and yet in all of this, our view of value remains
either conceptual or embedded firmly in industrial notions of success
(measured by jobs, earnings, investment, and business), as universal values
based on the use and functionality of creativity.
Deficits in the Creative Discourse

The corollary of early efforts to commercialise and profit from creative and
cultural activities is the primacy of the ‘creative product’ and of the pro-
ductionist lens in creative discourse, which has reduced value to a narrow
set of impacts shaped by the dogma of economic institutions. Framing the
creative and cultural industries, and more precisely their products, as cen-
tral to the expansionary potential of economies is to frame humans (cre-
ative workers) and projects as market actors, vying for capital, neoliberal at
heart, and imbued with power relations (see discussion by Mould 2018).
The overall effect is a deficit in our understanding about this important
contemporary economic and social form. There are at least four deficits,
pertinent to the discussion about the value of the creative economy, which
1
Following Jones et al. (2015, p. 5), the arts and cultural industries can be seen as a subset
of creative industries because they depend on creativity and derive value from this creativity.
See also Tose (2011), Caves (2000), Throsby (2001), Heilbrun and Gray (2001), Throsby
and Withers (1979), and Vogel (2007) for commercial underpinnings of arts and culture.
6 R. GRANGER
relate to: (1) the economic returns on creativity and the hegemonic eco-
nomic lens; (2) the creative city form, premised on capitalist expansion;
(3) the inequalities inherent in the creative paradigm; and (4) the domi-
nance of prevailing narratives in the creative discourse.
Within the creative and cultural industries, diverse communities, actors,
and interests have voice, and the idea of value itself is multiplex. Much of
the definitional basis of creativity and the way society ascribes value to
it—or valorises—draw on economic and productionist terms of reference.
This is reinforced by the views and practices of a small number of institu-
tions, through and by which our perception of value has become institu-
tionalised over time. The overall pattern has been one of reducing complex
aspects of value into simple, often economic configurations, and restrict-
ing analysis to fewer and fewer mainstream activities. To qualify, the recent
Cultural Value Scoping Project in the UK (Kaszynska 2018) conflates
those who actively make, debate, and assess cultural value with ‘people
working in arts and culture’ (ibid., p. 3) or those ‘making and influencing
cultural policy’ (ibid., p. 5). Yet, a more expansive and discursive approach
drawing on ancillary sectors and actions would provide a richer lens
through which to conceptualise impact and worth. As we argue in this
book, there is an imperative for policy and academia to prioritise new ways
of thinking about what value means in the context of the creative and
cultural industries, leading to new ways of working across sectors, drawing
on the experiences and techniques of other disciplines, and adopting new
ways of using the evidence base. Broadening the framework of creative
and cultural activities as active production rather than products, and
including behavioural change and intricate connections (Glaveanu et al.
2014) as part of ecologies, as well as interrogating how conversations
around value are framed, have salience in addressing this current deficit in
understanding. Conversations guide definitions, and conversations and
techniques confined to established communities of understanding and
practice limit new knowledge, as a result of lock-in of ideas and thinking.
It could be argued that prevailing narratives on both the ‘creative city’
and ‘inequality’, which have come to dominate the creative landscape,
refer to two sides of the same coin, and emerge from this productionist
view of creative and cultural industries. The creative city as a spatial mani-
festation of the creative economy, neoliberal at its core, results in a
homogenised socio-economic model, which Mould (2015) argues is para-
doxically devoid of creativity. It is merely the most recent permutation of
the neoliberal form, reflecting both cities’ transition to ‘entrepreneurial

urbanism’ (Harvey 1989) and a ‘fast urban policy’ (Peck 2005) based on
conspicuous consumption. As Mould (2015, p. 33) argues, ‘cultural
industries soon became an arena, in which a tidy profit could be made’,
and leading quickly to the ‘Porter effect’ (p. 67), in which every locale
sought to become a creative city, quarter, or cluster.
Inevitably, and following the logic of capitalism, creative cities lead to
revanchist approaches as part of the entrepreneurial urbanist project in
which they must now operate. Gentrification, precarious working, inequal-
ity of access, and poor social mobility are by-products of a system that
disadvantages the most disenfranchised in society. And yet the current
policy model of creative cities overlooks the original sentiment of the
term, which Montgomery (2008) argues is a triumvirate of characteristics
based on creative activity and the built environment, as well as meanings.
He suggests that a cultural quarter, for example, which provides no new
meaning (no new work, no new ideas, or new concepts) is likely to be
merely a pastiche of another place and is not authentically creative
(Montgomery 2008, p. 310). Meaning in this sense might connote the
hidden signs and symbols of creative and cultural activities, or the semio-
capitalism through which a place becomes unique and authentic—the
spiritual, social, intrinsic, and symbolic. Lefebvre (1961) articulates these
often hidden signals and symbols as the ‘background noise of the city’.
On the one hand, we recognise that creative and cultural industries are
a diverse set of activities with different product and consumption combi-
nations, complex issues of power ingrained into access, and different semi-
otic values and material bases, which elicit aesthetic values (see Lash and
Urry 1994; Jones et al. 2015). On the other hand, it seems inconceivable
that one might frame the functionality of creative and cultural activities (as
products) without considering the broader notion of signs and symbols
that shape its materiality and consumptive appeal (see Baudrillard 1996).
Moreover, the fact that some creative activity or cultural assets do not have
a direct (or indirect) economic functionality is becoming acutely obvious
(see Mould 2015, p. 69). Therefore, reducing creative cities and associ-
ated discourse to nothing more than economic returns oversimplifies what
has already been established as a complex area. Against this backdrop, the
primary purpose of this book is to provide a critical response to this defi-
nitional deficit, and to provide a framework for looking towards other
disciplines and approaches, and investigating different creative forms. Our
hope is to create a space for reconceptualising value and impact in the
8 R. GRANGER
creative economy, which moves beyond the economy, and accordingly

defining value in the creative economy is the first pillar of this book.
Values in the Creative Economy

There have been numerous attempts to categorise values into universal
value systems, which reflect values at the level of the individual (e.g.
Rokeach 1973; Hitlin and Piliavin 2004) and those operating at the soci-
ety level (e.g. Hofstede 2001). Both are seen as instrumental in shaping
decision-making. As such, sociologists and anthropologists have been
studying values for over a century, given their centrality in understanding
human groups and societies, and differences between these. Values give
direction to the way that individuals, organisations, and societies act, what
they strive for, and what they deem important. For example, ‘Values shape
people’s beliefs about what is desirable, important, or worthy of striving
for in their lives … are of particular relevance to people’s social and envi-
ronmental concern, [and] people’s motivations to express this concern …
and feelings of social connectedness’ (CCF 2016, p. 6). As the Common
Cause Foundation go on to note, public expression of value is shaped by
the interplay of people’s own values (their personal value system), and
people’s perception of values is reinforced by those held important by fel-
low citizens and shaped by our institutions (CCF 2016, p. 5). In a land-
scape dominated by economic institutions, individual and organisational
values will influence wider perceptions and policies towards the kind of
economic society they would like and how institutions should operate to
reinforce the economic lens. People’s perceptions of fellow citizens’ values
are likely to contribute to a deepening of their commitment to some val-
ues (e.g. economic) and a weakening of commitment to others (e.g. semi-
otic, intrinsic, aesthetic etc.), and people who have values that differ in
importance to them may not be activated in particular contexts (Jaspers
2016) or be part of the mainstream.
The issue of value, and more specifically, the dominance of economic
value, is therefore very important in helping us to rebalance the creative
and cultural industries, and in opening up new avenues of debate. Our
starting point in this book is to recognise value in a variety of forms includ-
ing—but not exclusively: (1) the arts and other manifestations of human
intellectual achievement leading to a need for more nuanced understand-
ing and appreciation (valorisation) of culture and creativity; (2) the ideas
and customs of a particular people or society, and the networks, spaces,
and relations, as well as valued patterns of behaviour, which govern these,

and which lead to value constructions; and (3) personal and social values,
and behavioural activities, as well as institutions of society, which construct
key value points. Our hope is that within this broader but also open frame-
work, which covers different creative and cultural sectors and different
research disciplines, a more convincing paradigm might emerge, which
sets out new thinking for contemplating value in the creative economy, for
the next decade and beyond.
Viewing Creative Value Through

the Performing Lens
Recognising that the critiques of existing research on creative and cultural

industries constitute a set of methodological and critical deficits, the sec-
ond pillar of the book relates to the need to look towards other disciplines
and approaches. The starting point is a critique of existing discourse,
which reinforces creative and cultural mindsets, and views the creative
landscape as an amorphous economic term. By contrast, the contributors
to this book view the same landscape differently, as a markedly diverse set
of activities and values, each constituted with its own set of characteristics
and preferences and narratives. In this vein, the book looks towards disci-
plines such as sociology, anthropology, geography, and law to attempt an
alternative view of the creative economy.
While the contributors come from the Midlands, UK, and draw on the
experiences of Leicester, we have sought wherever possible to discuss value
in an international context to draw meaningful comparisons for a wider
readership. In many ways, Leicester’s experiences as a regional capital and
middle-ranking creative city provide important insights in a literature
dominated by world city narratives, with the book providing a richness
that speaks to the multitude of ‘ordinary’ cities, which must compete with
star creative cities and an overwhelming economic logic.
We contend that there are limitations from the tendency and ability of
economic narratives to be reduced to subsumptive accounts, which over-
simplify (and overstate) causal factors and relations and build explanations
upon all-encompassing logics, while ignoring the explanatory capacity of
the other, expressed here as other paradigms, disciplines, and creative sub-
sets. Moreover, we recognise that these interlocking deficits limit engage-
ment with new and alternative lens and prevent the development of
10 R. GRANGER
informative spaces of contestation. These deficits highlight the failures of

the existing elite to grapple with the micro-criticisms of the prevailing
economic framework, noted previously by O’Brien (2010) (acknowledged
partially by Bakhshi et al. 2015) but which have nevertheless become part
of the creative mainstream.
In thinking about how to move forward the debate, it would be tempt-
ing to look towards Bourdieu’s (1986) work on capital, as a construct that
lends itself to the creative and cultural industries, and has both currency
and a wider reach. However, Bourdieu’s framing of embodied, objectified,
and institutionalised cultural capital, as well as his work on social capital, is
in many respects an overly simplistic framework that does not take us any
further in exploring the other, for instance, the distinction between the
individual and collective, the importance of place-based meanings, sub-
narratives, emotions, and other hidden aspects. It does, however, high-
light the importance of spatiality and power through the central role of
habitus. Bourdieu’s work sheds light on the way activities—such as the
creative and cultural industries—are shaped, owned, and used in society.
Such a view shifts the focus away from simple cataloguing of differences
between sectors, occupations, and places to a more subtle and complex
inquiry into how resources are created and can be used to produce dif-
ferentiation, and the role of the other in this. Bourdieu’s work has a further
advantage in that it acknowledges implicitly, the variability of identities,
behaviour, histories, and so on through and by which the economy, com-
munity, and workers perform, and through which assets are accumulated.
Looking towards sociology, Butler’s (1990) Performative Model,
which draws on ‘performative utterance’ to examine gender, has been
invaluable in destabilising rigidly applied gender identities and categories,
while enabling a richer unpicking of issues related to these same notions of
power and precarity. Butler’s conclusion that gender is ultimately con-
structed through one’s own repetitive performance underpinned by sym-
bols and signs (see also Cameron 1997) implies that people and
communities are active producers (that enact and perform) rather than a
product per se. In other words, gender is produced from actions, not
applied from a label. In thinking about how these same ideas might be
applied to the creative landscape, the notion of ‘performing’ moves the
discussion away from the functionality of creativity as a product, towards
materiality, eliciting a different view of value, which intersects with narra-
tives in potentially illuminating ways. The overall effect is to frame the
creative economy in a more nuanced way, from which new outlooks and
models might advance. It therefore offers one way of resolving current

criticisms of the creative discourse and the puzzle of how best to convey
value. Building on the use of performativity used in other disciplines (e.g.
Richardson’s (2019) use of performing in housing), this book interacts
with ‘performance’ and ‘performing’ in six main ways:
1. Performance as Doing—reflecting a technical undertaking such as a

task, constructing identity and so on
2. Performance as an Art Form—as an act, a manifestation of intellec-
tual capability
3. Performance as an Expression—reflecting deeply held views or

aspects of an identity
4. Performance as Power—exerting control and power in the construc-
tion of the creative economy
5. Performance as a Process (performing)—through which social accep-
tance or monetary value/success is ascribed
6. Performance as an Experience (visible, hidden, or private)
In doing so, the use of performing as an underlying construct for this

book enables the creative and cultural industries to be framed in poten-
tially richer and occasionally, contradictory ways:
• as a reflection of one’s own ideas and values (expressively)

• as a set of relationships
• as assets and conduits
• as transformative processes
• as an indicator of personal status and success (monetary and
otherwise)
• as a permanent or continuous (evolving) facet
It is my contention that theorising creative and cultural industries as

acts of performing provides a valuable way of viewing the creative econ-
omy otherwise. The contributors to this book agree that the creative
economy is a significant part of our economy and society and is here to
stay, and that more robust frameworks and methods are needed to over-
come the challenges to it. We must go beyond old notions of money and
business designed for an industrial era, in order to get a better sense of the
meanings of creative and cultural industries and the intersection of value.
The use of performing as a construct provides a potentially more valuable
12 R. GRANGER
lens through which we might glean new patterns and theories. In Chap. 2,
Laura Parsons builds on these same ideas to examine the value of culture
to society and reflects on value that remains ostensibly hidden in society as
a result of rigidly applied taxonomies and labels. In her work, Laura dif-
ferentiates between value that is hidden by virtue of being unknown
(unconscious acts), that which is unable to be conveyed through codified
means (tacit, intrinsic, and symbolic values), that which is ephemeral, or in
hard to see settings such as the household. These diverse views on cultural
value serve to shed light on the limitations of mainstream categories and
lenses, and open up ideas for alternative and more nuanced taxonomies.
In Part II of the book, which deals with the Self, several contributors
reflect on different areas of value—embodied, objectified, institution-
alised—and which interact with different power dynamics, that shape per-
formance of creativity and culture. In many of these cases, the creativity
economy is framed in terms of a concerted action and manifestation of
intellectual capital and artistic skills. In Chap. 3, Pinky Bazaz examines
education and specifically degrees, as an objectified part of the creative
economy, from which society ascribes different values. Pinky draws on
Rokeach’s (1973) taxonomy of value to underscore the inherent conflict
between the economic valorising of degrees in the market place, and the
more subtle, soft returns of cultural degrees such as design, especially
faced by BAME groups. Pinky uses the construct of ‘success’ to examine
what cultural capital and performing in universities might mean as a pro-
cess, through which economic value develops, but which for some groups,
creates barriers of achievement in society and raises wider questions around
voice, wealth, power, and race.
In Chap. 4, the same dominant issues of power are brought to bear on
an analysis of the visual and performing arts sector in the UK, and the way
power and policy process militate what art means and how this is accessed,
experienced, and shaped by the corporate other. In their work, Jennie
Jordan and Ruth Jindal examine the notion of ‘philanthropy’ in the arts,
the emergence of which can be viewed as a paradigmatic shift in arts policy
and funding. As Jennie and Ruth argue, the mainstreaming of philan-
thropy into arts is to introduce significant power dynamics into the field,
and fundamentally to alter the experience and value of arts by the self to a
more commercial and collective experience. By shaping the location of,
access to, and content of arts, philanthropy in effect changes art from an
individual to a collective experience and process, shaped by commer-
cial others.
In Chap. 5, Claire Lerpiniere reflects on the consumption and produc-

tion of fashion and textiles, which on the one hand could be viewed as an
objectified form of capital (literally an expression of capital wealth) but
which reveals wider views of the self, relating to personal values on the use
of raw materials and environmental damage caused by the production of
fashion. In Chap. 6, Malika Kraamer frames fashion and textiles more as
an embodied and art form, which depicts historical and anthropological
issues of how value is constructed in a society, and the use of a cloth to
express self-identity within a community. Malika uses her work to reflect
on different aspects of performing, which take place through Kente Cloth
in Ghana—its use over the years to reflect both tradition (history) and
modernity (innovation), and the individual choices to wear such cloth and
perform in the cloth, to connote complex relations between occasion, self-
identity, belonging, and political standing in a society.
In Part III of the book, Collective Space and Processes, the creative
economy is portrayed as a collective space and process through which
value is constructed. In Chap. 7, David Rae reflects on the collective char-
acteristics of two locales, one in Canada and the other in the UK, and the
role micro cultures play. As David argues, micro cultures play out (or per-
form) at a community level and are critical in shaping value, in this case
through micro cultural entrepreneurship. David draws on the collective
power of a community, and the cultural signs that reside there to trans-
form the area in which they live. In Chap. 8, I use the same ideas to reflect
upon the unique signs and collective power of another space and locale in
Denmark, which is argued to perform as a third space. What is revealed
from the chapter and discussion of Danish culture and use of innovation
incubators is the importance of social spaces, and the collective performa-
tivity of informal production spaces to produce economic benefits, as well
as generating value from a wider sense of belonging and collective identity.
In Chap. 9, Jennifer Garcia Carrizo and I examine the effects of culture as
an art form in the North East of England, which performs as a transforma-
tive process, which has boosted morale and collective identity in the
Ouseburn Valley. As we argue, while the arts activities themselves might be
viewed as low economic value, their performative power can be seen in the
way they drive social capital, their collective self-worth in the community,
their collective voice outside of the community, and their inclusivity in
bringing a range of economic, social, and third actors together. Many of
these aspects go unnoticed, and to draw on Laura Parson’s work, are hid-
den day to day in the community.
14 R. GRANGER
In Chap. 10, David Heap and Caroline Coles reflect further on the
value of the hidden in collective terms, by investigating the notion (or
value) or silent design in the commercial design sectors. David and
Caroline draw on the examples of silent design in the furniture industry
and the value of non-designers in the wider design process. Reflecting
further on the legal and commercial dominance of value in design, David
and Caroline raise some concerns about the degree to which the economic
lens pervades many aspects of creative performance, effectively excluding
some groups from commercial success, preventing some workers from
performing as designers, and imposing significant risks on others through
intellectual property. David and Caroline conclude by examining the role
of creative commons in value construction, and whether this acts as a pro-
cess through which other values are enabled. The same ideas are expressed
in Chap. 11 on hidden networks, where I take a relational view of the
creative economy and examine the degree to which some actors and sub-
sectors perform different roles in producing economic value in creative
products. While current taxonomies and measurement apparatus privilege
the economic value of the end product, we seldom view products as a
longer-term process and acknowledge the role of intermediaries, co-
designers, and gatekeepers, or ancillary networks and platforms.
Acknowledging platform in a different, virtual, sense, Tracy Harwood,
Jason Boomer, and Tony Garry examine the different performances that
play out through the ‘Let’s Play’ field, which has emerged from the prac-
tice of Machinima. Viewed ostensibly as a consumptive practice, Tracy,
Jason, and Tony examine the wider values derived from the Let’s Play
performance, which is viewed as a complex interplay between both con-
sumption and production. This interplay between production and con-
sumption, hidden and visible, and individual and collective raises a number
of issues about how frameworks need to straddle and be flexible.
Performing in this area produces considerable value and is leading to a
rewriting of the creative economy taxonomy.
These different contributions serve to remind us that the creative econ-
omy is not an amorphous term; rather a set of separate sub-sectors, actors,
and areas of practice with very different characteristics, histories, and lan-
guage. The book spans the areas of gaming, textiles and fashion, food, and
art, but also thinks about the role and production of communities, pro-
cesses, identities, and expressions. It provides a variegated menu that will
have broad appeal and offer different policy ideas and contributions to the
wider creative discourse. While Pinky Bazaz (Chap. 3) and Jennie Jordan
and Ruth Jindal (Chap. 4) address power in a negative way, Jennifer Garcia
Carrizo and I (Chap. 8) frame this as an empowering process. Equally,
while David Rae (Chap. 7) and David Heap and Caroline Coles (Chap.
10), for example, frame power as a hidden asset and space through which
value is constructed, Claire Lerpiniere (Chap. 4) and Malika Kraamer
(Chap. 5) frame this more emphatically as an expressive event. In these
seemingly disparate accounts, we have attempted to provide a variety of
viewpoints on what is often conveyed as an exclusively economic area
of activity.
We believe that a desirable attribute of this book is that it accommo-
dates a wide variety of viewpoints and sector analyses of the creative econ-
omy, and in doing so draws upon a diversity of conceptual frameworks and
approaches that readers might use for further development. Value has
been conveyed in a variety of ways and the goal of the book is not to pro-
vide a unified approach and ideological framework; rather to present a
diverse framework with options that might stimulate future conversations,
leading to more nuanced approaches and understanding of value capture.
References
Anand, N., & Croidieu, G. (2015). Niches, Genres, and Classifications in the
Creative Industries, in User Innovation in Creative Industries. In C. Jones,
M. Lorenzen, & J. Sapsed (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Creative Industries
(pp. 327–349). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bakhshi, H., Fujiwara, D., Lawton, R., Mourato, S., & Dolan, P. (2015).
Measuring Economic Value in Cultural Institutions. A Report Commissioned by
the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Cultural Value Project.
London: Nesta.
Banks, M. (2017). Creative Justice: Cultural Industries, Work and Inequality.
London: Rowman and Littlefield.
Baudrillard, J. (1996) The System of Objects. London: Verso.
Bourdieu, P. (1986). The Forms of Capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of
Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education (pp. 241–258). New York:
Greenwood.
Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity.
New York: Routledge.
Cameron, D. (1997). Performing Gender Identity. Young Mend of the Construction
of the Heterosexual Masculinity. The Discourse Reader, 26, 442–458.
Capdevila, I., Cohendet, P., & Simon, L. (2015). Establishing New Codes for
Creativity through Haute Cuisine: The Case of Ferran Adria and elBulli.
Technology Innovation Management Review, 5(7), 25–33.
16 R. GRANGER
Caves, R. E. (2000). Creative Industries: Contracts between Art and Commerce.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.
CCF. (2016). Perceptions Matter. The Comms Cause UK Values Survey. London:
Common Cause Foundation.
Cunningham, S. D. (2002). From Cultural to Creative Industries: Theory,
Industry and Policy Implications. Journal of Media Research and Resources,
102(1), 54–65.
DCMS. (2018). Creative Industries: Focus on Employment. Department for
Culture, Media and Sport. London: ONS. (See also http://www.thecreativein-
dustries.co.uk/uk-creative-overview/facts-and-figures).
Di Maria, E., & Finotto, V. (2015). User Innovation in Creative Industries. In
C. Jones, M. Lorenzen, & J. Sapsed (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Creative
Industries (pp. 301–319). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Florida, R. (2001). The Rise of the Creative Class. And How Its Transforming Work,
Leisure, Community, and Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books.
Floriani, D. E., & Amal, M. (2018). The Dynamics and Patterns of a Cultural and
Creative Industry in Brazil from an International Business Picture: The Wine
Industry as a Creative Industry. In L. Lazzeretti & M. Vecco (Eds.), Creative
Industries and Entrepreneurship: Paradigms in Transition from a Global
Perspective (pp. 239–260). Elgar.
Florida, R., Mellander, C., Stolarick, K., & Ross, A. (2012). Cities, Skills and
Wages. Journal of Economic Geography, 12(2), 355–377.
Flowers, S., & Voss, G. (2015). User Innovation in the Music Software
Industry: The Case of Sibelius. In C. Jones, M. Lorenzen, & J. Sapsed (Eds.),
The Oxford Handbook of Creative Industries (pp. 320–326). Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Gabe, T. (2011). The Value of Creativity. In D. E. Andersson, A.-E. Andersson, &
C. Mellander (Eds.), Handbook of Creative Cities (pp. 128–145). Cheltenham:
Edward Elgar.
Glaveanu, V., Gillespie, A., & Valsinar, J. (2014). Rethinking Creativity:
Contributions from Social and Cultural Psychology. London: Routledge.
Harvey, D. (1989). From Managerialism to Entrepreneurialism. Geografiska
Annaler B, 7(1), 3–18.
Harvey, D. (2001). Globalization and the ‘Spatial Fix’. Geografische Revu,
3(2), 23–30.
Heilbrun, J., & Gray, C. M. (2001). The Economics of Art and Culture (2nd ed.).
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hitlin, S., & Piliavin, J. A. (2004). Values: Reviving a Dormant Concept. Annual
Review of Sociology, 30, 359–393.
Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Value, Behaviors,
Institutions, and Organisations across Nations (2nd ed.). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hracs, B. J. (2015). Cultural Intermediaries in the Digital Age: The Case of
Independent Musicians and Managers in Toronto. Regional Studies,
49(3), 461–475.
Hracs, B. J., Seman, M., & Virani, T. (Eds.). (2018). The Production and
Consumption of Music in the Digital Age. London: Routledge.
Jaspers, E. (2016). Values. Oxford Bibliographies in Sociology. https://doi.
org/10.1093/OBO/9780199756384-0182.
Jessop, B. (2006). Spatial Fixes, Temporal Fixes, and Spatio-Temporal Fixes. In
N. Castree & D. Gregory (Eds.), David Harvey: A Critical Reader
(pp. 142–166). Oxford: Blackwell.
Jones, C., Lorenzen, M., & Sapsed, J. (Eds.). (2015). Creative Industries: A
Typology of Change. In The Oxford Handbook of Creative Industries (pp. 3–28).
Oxford University Press.
Kaszynska, P. (2018). Cultural Value Scoping Project. Swindon: Arts and
Humanities Research Council.
Landry, C. (2011). A Roadmap for the Creative City. In D. E. Andersson, A. E.
Andersson, & C. Mellander (Eds.), Handbook of Creative Cities (pp. 517–536).
Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Lash, S., & Urry, J. (1994). Economies of Signs and Space. London: Sage.
Lazzeretti, L. (2014). Creative Industries and Innovation in Europe. London:
Routledge.
Lazzeretti, L., & Vecco, M. (2018). Creative Industries and Entrepreneurship.
Paradigms in Transition from a Global Perspective. Edward Elgar.
Lefebvre, H. (1961). Critique de la vie quotideienne (Everyday Life as a Critique).
Paris: L’Arche.
Lorentzen, A. (2013). Post-industrial Growth, Experience, Culture or Creative
Economies? In J. Sundbo & F. Sorensen (Eds.), Handbook on the Experience
Economy (pp. 45–64). Elgar.
McCarthy, J. (2005). Cultural Quarters and Regeneration: The Case of
Wolverhampton. Journal of Planning, Practice and Research, 20(3), 297–311.
Montgomery, J. (2008). The New Wealth of Cities: City Dynamics and the Fifth
Wave. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Mould, O. (2015). Urban Subversion and the Creative City. London: Routledge.
Mould, O. (2018) Against Creativity. Verso.
Nathan, M., & Kemeny, T. (2018). Creative Differences? Measuring Creative
Economy Employment in the US and UK Using Microdata. University of
Birmingham. Retrieved from http://epapers.bham.ac.uk/3154/.
Nesta. (2018a). Creative Nation. London: Nesta.
Nesta. (2018b). Creative Nation: Local Profiles. Open Dataset with Roxanna Torre,
Frontier Economics, and ONS Virtual Micro-Data Laboratory. London: Nesta.
O’Brien, D. (2010). Measuring the Value of Culture. London: Department for
Culture, Media and Sport.
18 R. GRANGER
O’Connor, J. (2015). Intermediaries and Imaginaries in the Cultural and Creative

Industries. Regional Studies, 49(3), 374–387.
Oakley, K., & O’Brien, D. (2016). Learning to Labour Unequally: Understanding
the Relationship between Cultural Production, Cultural Consumption and
Inequality. Social Identities, 22(5), 471–486.
Peck, J. (2005). Struggling with the Creative Class. International Journal of
Urban and Regional Research, 29(4), 740—770.
Perry, B. (2019). Governing the Creative City: The Practice, Value and
Effectiveness of Cultural Intermediation. In P. Jones, B. Perry, & P. Long
(Eds.), Cultural Intermediaries Connecting Communities. Revisiting Approaches
to Cultural Engagement (pp. 119–132). Bristol: Palgrave.
Potts, J. D., Hartley, J., Banks, J. A., Burgess, J. E., Cobcroft, R. S., Cunningham,
S., & Montgomery, L. (2008a). Consumer Co-creation and Situated Creativity.
Industry and Innovation, 15(5), 459–474.
Potts, J. D., Cunningham, S. D., Hartley, J., & Ormerod, P. (2008b). Social
Network Markets: A New Definition of the Creative Industries. Journal of
Cultural Economics, 32(3), 166–185.
Richardson, J. (2019). Place and Identity: The Performance of Home. Abingdon:
Routledge.
Rokeach, M. (1973). The Nature of Human Values. New York: Free Press.
Throsby, D. (2001). Economies and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Throsby, C. D., & Withers, G. A. (1979). The Economics of the Performing Arts.
New York: St Martin’s Press.
Tose, R. (2011). A Textbook of Cultural Economics. Cambridge University Press.
Vogel, H. L. (2007). Entertainment Industry Economics (7th ed.). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
CHAPTER 2
Problematising Hidden Culture
Laura Parsons and Rachel Granger
Introduction
In the previous chapter, culture and the wider creative paradigm were
argued to be one of the most notable areas of economic activity of the new
millennium, and as Lazzeretti and Vecco (2018) note, have come to dom-
inate policy and scholarly outputs over the last decade. In this chapter, the
hidden aspects of that creative landscape are considered in full. The chap-
ter examines what is meant by hidden culture, the value attached to this,
as well as why culture becomes hidden.
Culture is a contested notion, having been subject to frequent scrutiny
and debate in cross-disciplinary scholarship (e.g. Crossick and Kaszynska
2016; Williams 1989; Belfiore and Bennett 2007). In the literature, cul-
ture is portrayed frequently as both a solution (an economic solution to
locales), but is then problematised as a result of its neoliberalist tendencies
(framed frequently as injustice and precarity), and a problematic economic
asset and tool. For example, the cultural industries as one area of the cre-
ative economy are widely credited as a driver for economic growth and
urban regeneration (e.g. Florida 2014; Landry 2000), but as Granger
argues in the previous chapter, neoliberalist paradigms have given primacy
L. Parsons • R. Granger (*)

e-mail: laura.parsons@dmu.ac.uk; rachel.granger@dmu.ac.uk

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_2
20 L. PARSONS AND R. GRANGER
to a financial lens through which use of public resources is scrutinised. The

resulting imperative of ‘impact’ connotes value to the public but also raises
wider issues about the financial impacts as a proxy of utility value or the
collective benefit of products or institutions. For this reason, culture has
been presented more as a lens for understanding societies (e.g. Hall 1997;
Bourdieu 2010), communities (Belfiore 2018), and organisations
(Hofstede 2011; Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner 1998), and yet
there has been a narrowing of the lens through which one might consider
culture. Siloed working practices also mean that sector-specific definitions
of culture have flourished, and as a result, there is a multiplicity of
approaches for how we interpret culture and the wider creative economy
as action, experience, or asset. Moreover, it could be argued that the con-
flated use of terms such as popular culture, low culture, subculture, and
counterculture obfuscates what is valued, what is consumed, and what is
visible to society. As Raymond Williams notes, despite definitions which
belie the true nature of culture, “we all want to be a part of culture and
relate to it, and relate ourselves to it” (Williams 1971, p. 306). In other
words, every discipline wants to claim culture as its own.
Against this backdrop, this chapter examines and problematises the
definitional basis of culture, noting in particular the problems associated
with ‘hidden culture’. As is noted, these hidden cultures are manifest in a
variety of forms: secret or invisible; unacknowledged by those in power;
latent or repressed; non-visual, or non-economic or taking place in private.
The chapter considers all of these forms while making a case for a more
transparent taxonomy of hidden culture and a framework for capturing
the value in tacit, intrinsic, and embodied cultural forms. The chapter
starts by defining what we understand by culture, as a context for consid-
ering what is meant by hidden culture and why this is relevant to a broader
discussion about value construction in the creative economy.
Defining Culture
Despite the disparate use of ‘culture’ as a term, a common thread in
discipline-specific literatures is that the scope or terminology of culture is
either too broad to be meaningful, or so narrow as to exclude certain cul-
tural forms or societal elements (Eagleton 2000). This is especially evident
in the work of Williams (1971), who extols a whole range of general skills
in culture, from gardening, metalwork, and carpentry to active politics.
That said, what can be gleaned from the wide range of literature devoted
2 PROBLEMATISING HIDDEN CULTURE 21
to culture and creative economy is a commonality in acknowledging one

or more of three strands:
1. culture as a way of life, pertaining to the beliefs, values, behaviours,

and activities of certain sections of society (activity, process)
2. culture as a utopian ideal, or the mark of a successful civilisa-

tion (output)
3. culture as an artistic activity or product representative of a specific
way of life (performing identity, embodiment)
There is evidence of these three embodiments of culture in different

disciplines. Broadly, an anthropological view of culture denoting a way of
life seems to underpin all definitions, but the scope of this varies and is
especially marked in policy and sociological readings of the term. Culture
as a civilising force is present in some policy literature, but mainly seems
applicable to literary and art history fields. The privileging of the cultural
object seems almost ubiquitous, yet the scope of what constitutes a cul-
tural object varies across disciplines, as will be reviewed later in this chap-
ter. Such flexible definitions mean that culture is relevant and of interest to
a broad range of fields. Moreover, a review of these disciplinary approaches
allows us to reach a comprehensive definition not yet apparent in current
discourse. The literature within policy, languages, the arts, economics/
business, and sociology are particularly notable and warrant further
discussion.
Homogenous Policy Approaches to Culture

The focus on the tangible, primarily economic benefits of culture in recent
decades has placed the various policy definitions of culture under scrutiny.
For example, while the 2016 UK government (DCMS 2016) describes
culture as being created by “an extraordinary network of individuals and
organisations, that together preserve, reflect and promote who we are as a
nation, in all our rich diversity” and discusses the value of what is local and
unique, this is contradicted by the primacy of cultural outputs; for instance,
there is a clear reliance on Arts Council England (ACE) in providing the
national policy framework. While this is not problematic in itself, its termi-
nology “art and culture” (ACE n.d.) may be interpreted as legitimating
cultural forms and the prioritisation of objects, over less visible or intrinsic
cultural forms. In addition, ACE offers a toolkit to organisations to make
the case for art and culture, which differentiates between traditionalist
consumers, creative intellectuals, and aspiring parents. The rigidity of this
approach leaves little room to reflect on the nuances of a community and
demonstrates a view of culture only as a tool for societal improvement.
It might also be argued that economic value is clearly prioritised over
social or intrinsic value. While the white paper devotes pages to financial
value of the creative economy, the intrinsic benefits receive just one para-
graph: “Culture creates inspiration, enriches lives and improves our out-
look on life. Evidence suggests that culture has an intrinsic value through
the positive impact on personal wellbeing. Data shows that engaging with
culture (visiting, attending and participation) significantly increases overall
life satisfaction” (DCMS 2016, p. 15). This view of culture, in which the
public are consumers rather than creators, seems to disregard the cultural
forms which give groups collective identity, or that which cannot be reli-
ably measured.
Creative Scotland, the counterpart to Arts Council England, are careful
within policy documents not to conflate the terms ‘art’ and ‘culture’.
Culture is used more broadly, alongside heritage, to connote a specific set
of defining national and regional characteristics, such as the “special local
intimacy of local creativity in places like Helmsdale, Langholm and
Ullapool”, while the “Arts, Screen and Creative Industries” are designated
as having specific (and more circumspect) “cultural value” (Scottish
Government 2019, p. 6). The culture strategy for Scotland was written
after consultation with cultural organisations and creative individuals, and
eschews the usual economic markers in favour of ambitions of transforma-
tion, empowerment, and sustainability. Similarly, Creative Australia takes
the notion of defining national characteristics further, describing culture
as “created by us and defines us. It is the embodiment of the distinctive
values, traditions and beliefs that make being Australian in the 21st cen-
tury unique”, placing emphasis on the grounding of the culture in indig-
enous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and acknowledging
the cyclical nature of culture (Creative Australia 2013, p. 8). The docu-
ment also stresses that “[c]ulture is more than the arts”, acknowledging
indigenous languages and ceremonies, collective celebrations, craft, and
design as valid cultural forms and “the substance to our identity” (ibid.).
Looking across these different forms, only some of which have been
presented here, there appears to be a common language of community
and transformation in Western cultural policy, but a very different approach
to defining what culture comprises. This may be due, in part, to the
resence of indigenous populations, ancient languages, and historic strug-

p
gles for power and agency leading to a more visible link to, and awareness
of, embodied cultural forms.
Languages
Literary scholars Raymond Williams and Terry Eagleton utilise historical
and theoretical perspectives on culture to make sense of culture, with both
venturing—verbatim—that a “culture, while it is being lived, is always in
part unknown, in part unrealised” (Williams 1971, p. 320; Eagleton 2000,
p. 112). In his socialist reading of culture, Williams (1971, 1989) rejects
elitist tropes and divisive boundaries in defining what may be defined as a
cultural object or activity. In categorising an exclusive preference for ‘high’
art, he classifies almost all intellectual output, including trade union
marches and political speeches, as cultural artefacts. In this sense, culture
has been framed as an emancipatory political device and is elevated to
become the measure of our future success. By contrast, Eagleton rejects
the notion that culture can form a utopia, questioning Williams’ inclusion
of institutions as culture and suggesting that this definition would render
a public lavatory a cultural institution (2000, p. 38). However, in criticis-
ing postmodernist readings of culture which “privilege the minority” as a
concession to “identity politics” (2000, p. 10), Eagleton also disregards
feminist, post-colonial, and queer critiques of culture, thus silencing the
voices which may effectively disrupt traditional and restrictive definitions
of culture, and which have a stronger voice in contemporary spaces.
Visual Arts
Visual art scholars, by contrast, tend to define culture through a produc-
tionist lens, with the art object representing cultural norms and values,
and acting as a signifier of symbolic meanings through inter alia class
struggle and gender inequality (Hadjinicolaou 1978; Berger 2008).
Debate by art scholars over the role of the artist as a uniquely creative
force within society provides rich ground for the artist to be used as a
proxy for the value of art.
In The Social Production of Art, however, Wolff (1993) critiques the
shibboleth of the artist as a creator and names the artist a producer, in part
to democratise the role of artist; acknowledging creative agency among a
greater range of individuals and communities. Acknowledging a broader
category of producers also points to the multidirectional influence of wider

societal values upon art itself.
Economic-Led Considerations
Despite the apparent dominance of the economic lens, policy makers and
arts funding bodies, cultural economists have predominantly resisted the
reliance on the restrictive boundaries of economic methods to value cul-
ture as a whole (Throsby 2001; Bakhshi and Cunningham 2016). In cri-
tiquing “the reification of the economy” (Throsby 2001, p. 2), Throsby
acknowledges the twofold nature of culture as both a way of life of an
identifiable group, and the cultural artefacts produced by such a way of
life, utilising multiple lenses to ascribe value, including aesthetic, spiritual,
historical, symbolic, and authentic value. This may be seen to consolidate
the work of scholars in art and literature, by acknowledging the holistic
value of various modes of culture.
Throsby (2001, p. 4) offers a triumvirate framework to define culture,
but in contradistinction to Williams (op. cit.) adopts an anthropological
lens, emphasising culture as an object rather than process:
• that activities concern some form of creativity in their production

• that they generate and communicate symbolic meaning
• that their output embodies some form of intellectual property
Intellectual property in this context may be read as a cultural signifier:

these processes and products are indicative of paths of thought shaped by
lived experience and inherent philosophies. If we take culture to mean any
activity or object which fits these provisos, we may begin to separate out
cultural products, especially those which do not fit within the mainstream
schema of, for instance, the preparation and cooking of food, and the
production of certain fabrics.
Culture in Sociology
At the centre of Bourdieu’s (2010) influential work on the relationship
between social order and cultural products is the idea that systems of edu-
cation, language, judgements, values, methods of classification, and activi-
ties of everyday life unconsciously reinforce hierarchies and class structure.
Within the concept of ‘habitus’, cultural practices derive significance not
from intrinsic qualities, as in readings by art and literary scholars, but from
their relationship to one another. Bourdieu uses ‘taste’, a preference for
certain cultural forms, as a proxy for cultural value and a signifier of class.
Hall’s (1997) work on the politics of representation draws similarities with
Bourdieu insofar as the assertion that art, music, images, and even the
food that we consume represent the material dimension of a wider system
of beliefs and practices. As Hall notes: “social actors … use the conceptual
systems of their culture and the linguistic and other representational sys-
tems to construct meaning, to make the world meaningful and to com-
municate about that world meaningfully to others” (Hall 1997, p. 25).
However, whereas Bourdieu’s theory of ‘habitus’ incorporates genera-
tional evolutions of taste and social structure, tied irrevocably to notions
of power, Hall posits that the symbolic meaning of cultural products
changes continuously, propounding the notion of culture as a tool for
radical social change.
Bourdieu’s methods have come under scrutiny in the wake of societal
transformations from the late twentieth century onwards (see Bennett
et al. 2009; Warde et al. 2007). For example, Bennett et al. (2009) argue
that the lack of empirical data does not support the distinctions in taste
and subsequent relationships to class. Bourdieu’s model is predicated
firstly upon distinct boundaries between legitimate and disinterested ‘low-
brow’ cultural forms, and Bennett et al. (2009, p. 257) find that disinter-
est was rare, suggesting that accessibility is a more significant factor in
cultural forms (2009, p. 257), and that the overlap between what is con-
sidered legitimate and popular is at best unclear. Lash and Urry (1994)
also depart from Bourdieu and Hall’s focus on the primacy of the cultural
product as signifier, mirroring instead Wolff’s (1993) more tempered defi-
nition of the artist as producer, and noting transformation in its role: “cul-
tural artefacts are no longer transcendent as representations … they have
become immanent as objects amongst others circulating in information
and communication structures; and that these become the reality of every-
day life[.] More recently we have seen representations taking up the func-
tional position of objects, objects which only differ from other objects of
everyday life in their immaterial form and aesthetic character” (Lash and
Urry 1994, p. 132). This focus on the symbiotic influence of social struc-
ture and cultural product is useful, as Bourdieu’s work is influential, but as
noted here, it highlights the problem of classifying cultural forms and the
limitations of poor data in illustrating value and values.
Reaching a Cross-disciplinary Definition

From these different viewpoints, it is possible to appreciate the differences
between disciplinary lenses, while also identifying areas of commonality,
which warrant further discussion. Firstly, the importance of semiotics is
evident in several discourses—some explicitly, such as Throsby’s (2001)
notion of symbolic value, and some implicitly. Semiotics in this context
might be understood as a signifier or meaning behind a cultural object, or
as Barthes (1977, p. 56) frames “The Third Meaning” or “The Obtuse
Meaning”. As he argues, all social systems involve some element of signi-
fication, but not all of them are in the act of signifying (performing an
action) or paying due attention to cultural systems.
Secondly, it could be argued that culture should be defined in the con-
text of wider society and its ideals, in order to fully understand these signi-
fiers; both to illuminate the cultural object itself, and to allow insight into
the societal fabric of which the object forms a part. Wolff (1993), for
example, notes through a sociological lens that the influence of a singular
art object is unidirectional, but culture feeds into, reinforces, and influ-
ences change in societies. As he notes, the existence of social structures
enables artistic and cultural activity “in a mutual relation of interdepen-
dence” (ibid., p. 9). This consideration of context is not only helpful in
explanations of form or object (e.g. the praxes of Islamic artists in pattern
creation) but also in analysing power relations, such as instances in which
art forms by marginalised communities are appropriated and expurgated
for consumption by mainstream audiences, as noted later.
Thirdly, it could be argued that any definition of culture must encapsu-
late the broadest possible activity to be inclusive, and to democratise the
act of cultural production and participation, and to acknowledge and
legitimise the cultural output of marginalised communities. As Raymond
Williams asks “what kind of life can it be … to produce … this extraordi-
nary decision to call certain things culture and then separate them, as with
a park wall, from ordinary people and ordinary work?” (Williams 1989
[1958], p. 5), and advocates the value of domestic and working-class cul-
tural forms. Eagleton argues that this viewpoint of culture is reminiscent
of “the traditional aesthetic/instrumental dichotomy” (Eagleton 2000,
p. 36), and that not all intellectual output may be deemed as culture, must
be a signifier of wider social meaning to earn this distinction. This rein-
forces the first consideration of the importance of semiotics in defin-
ing culture.
With this in mind, one might define culture as: ‘an object, activity or rite
resulting from or in a transformative process, which conveys symbolic mean-
ing to a community bound by shared experience, iterating a wider system of
practices and values’.
This definition moves away from the previous discussion on historical
utopian ideals, instead focusing on the circumstance, location, and tempo-
rality of the creation of the cultural artefact. In an increasingly globalised
society there can be no singular idea of utopia, arguably an outdated and
colonialist notion (Hardy 2012). This definition instead focuses on plural-
ity of beliefs, values, and experience which make the study of cultures so
rich. It privileges the art object, the signifying act, and the long-held cus-
tom to democratise what we define as culture and broaden its scope (see
Williams 1971). The necessity of a transformative process allows tacit and
domestic activities and objects to become cultural signifiers, and the inclu-
sion of community dispels this myth of the isolated creator, while the
notion of an iterative system suggests the circular motion of culture influ-
encing values and being influenced by them.
The Emergence of Hidden Culture

While the term ‘hidden culture’ does not exist in the literature, there is
considerable evidence that some culture remains in a hidden state. The
literature notes the importance of subcultures, counter culture, participa-
tory and community arts, and material and design cultures which may
form part of a wider understanding of what here is termed hidden culture.
For example, in the economics field (especially the New Economic
Geography), useful distinctions are made between tacit and explicit knowl-
edge, and drawing on the work of Polanyi (1958) tacit, symbolic, codified,
and explicit knowledge. Johnson et al. (2002, p. 250) refer to the
Aristotelian distinction between “epistèmè: knowledge that is universal
and theoretical”, and “technè: knowledge that is instrumental, context
specific and practice related”. Tacit knowledge, or “knowledge that is dif-
ficult to transfer to another person by means of writing it down or verbal-
izing it” (Asheim et al. 2017) often defies conscious articulation, meaning
that holders of such knowledge may not even be aware of it—being hid-
den from view or consciousness (see Gertler 2001).
The participatory nature of acquiring such uncommunicable knowl-
edge and skills means that tacit knowledge is heavily context-dependent.
For example, Polanyi is criticised for not specifying the “common rules”
which allow transfer of tacit knowledge, meaning that modes of transfer

“remain primarily idiosyncratic and ‘cultural’ in origin” (ibid.). However,
the transfer of tacit knowledge as a mode of cultural expression is read as
a positive by Asheim et al., resting in the socially constructed world of
norms, values, and perceptions, and fundamentally an “expression of cul-
tural meaning” (Asheim et al. 2017, p. 430). The notion of transmission
through sensuous media may also inform a methodology and model for
valuing hidden cultures.
There are complementarities between explicit and tacit knowledge
which can become a site for creativity or innovation. There are instances in
culture, for example, where information may be codified in a way which is
universal but this may not be universally transmitted due to form or acces-
sibility; for example, notated music ostensibly conveys the same informa-
tion wherever it is read, but relies on the need to read music, have access
to an instrument, and have the sufficient skill to play the notated music on
said instrument (or absorptive capacity). Asheim et al. (2017) define this
equivocal area as “synthetic knowledge”, which is gained through the
application or combination of existing knowledges, especially through
interactive learning with users, and has a strong tacit and context-specific
dimension. Symbolic knowledge is considered “essential for creating
meaning, desire, and aesthetic qualities” (ibid., p. 432). In the case of
culture, it is easy to see how symbolic and codified knowledge can com-
bine to elicit creativity; for example, the oral tradition of West African
music was uprooted to the USA and became bound in the practice of
slavery, only to evolve into a legitimate cultural form in the 12 bar blues
and become an identifier and a cultural symbol for the African American
community. In this sense, tacit knowledge can be codified in a community-
specific way and passed down through generations or across notional
boundaries.
This concept of both codified and tacit knowledge adds to our under-
standing of culture in two ways. First, we might better understand how
power upholds and subjugates systems, therefore influencing what we per-
ceive as ‘legitimate’ culture. A system that prioritises the economics of
exploitable codifiable knowledge may privilege scientific tacit-symbolic
knowledge. In culture, forms which are replicable, easily interpreted, and
understood may be more readily acknowledged and funded more easily.
Second, the literature underscores the spatial and relational elements of
hidden culture. Gertler discusses the difficulty of exchanging tacit knowl-
edge over long distances (Gertler 2001, p. 3), which gives primacy to
face-to-face contact but also raises an issue about culture capture. It seems
logical that in an increasingly migratory and digitised world, cultural space
may not just be physical, a point made by Harwood et al. in Chap. 11.
Digital spaces offer the possibility of such exchanges over greater distance,
which Bathelt et al. (2004) acknowledge in their work on ‘Local Buzz and
Global Pipelines’. This extended reach afforded by the digital and by
migrant communities also creates opportunities for further innovation and
creativity through synthetic knowledge. Thus one might conclude that
networks are important in the transfer of tacit knowledge and, seemingly,
in the perpetuation of hidden culture.
Gertler describes communities of practice as groups “bound together
by shared experience, expertise and commitment to a joint enterprise”
who facilitate the identification, joint production, and sharing of tacit
knowledge through collaborative problem-solving assisted by story-telling
and other narrative devices for circulating tacit knowledge (Gertler 2001,
p. 11). At the centre of these networks are ‘knowledge enablers’, who are
small groups within larger communities who hold and transfer privileged
symbolic knowledge. In cultural terms, these enablers could be storytellers
relaying folklore, graffiti artists, documentary filmmakers, matriarchs
teaching family how to cook, or online influencers. Identifying these
knowledge enablers in a model for valuing hidden cultures would be use-
ful in mapping networks and tracking the flow of symbolic meaning in
communities.
Finally, the problem of capturing and sharing tacit knowledge is
acknowledged widely, whether this takes the form of unwillingness to cod-
ify certain knowledge or lack of capacity to do so. For example, the impor-
tance of techniques for ‘capture’, ‘harvest’, or ‘unlocking’ is considered.
However, it is worth noting that Gertler’s work operates within the eco-
nomics field and is explicitly based on market value and company growth,
as part of new growth theory. It therefore suffers from being directly at
odds with a model for capturing hidden culture and for culture that might
pertain to other disciplines and fields. There is a sense that Gertler’s work
does not take us much further in recognising and applying hidden culture
in practice and is nothing more than a conceptual exegesis. While culture
scholars may relate to the desire to create a recursive loop which allows the
public to feed back to cultural producers to democratise the creation pro-
cess, it is arguably at this point when knowledge management and culture
literature diverge. Johnson, Lorenz, and Lundvall describe “epistemic
communities” which form “local codes” to make communication inter-
nally more efficient but keep outsiders at arm’s length (2002, p. 251).
Cultural theorists must acknowledge that outside of the capitalist para-
digm, some holders of knowledge do not want to reproduce or share their
knowledge, for fear of it being appropriated, watered down, or lost, thus
losing meaning.
It is, therefore, useful now to look at some ‘hidden’ cultural forms, to
consider what attributes they share in order to reach a more meaningful
definition of hidden culture.
Conceptualising Hidden Culture

It is evident that, despite efforts in some academic, community, and politi-
cal circles, the notion of ‘high’ culture remains dominant, yet is only
accessed by a small proportion of the population (Hewison 2014; Neelands
et al. 2015). The literature identifies routes where hidden cultural forms
begin to emerge.
Power Relations and Value Allocation

The primacy of value is a key factor in locating hidden cultures. It could
be argued that central to the rise of the contemporary neoliberalist para-
digm has been a campaign of “derision and contempt” (Skeggs and
Loveday 2012) through media, political rhetoric, and policy targeted at
the working class and marginalised communities. The logic of such a strat-
egy materialised from an increasingly individualised society in which ‘the
self’ holds value and legitimacy but is subject to “access to particular
sources of value, such as cultural, social, economic and symbolic resources”
(ibid., p. 475), which at once denotes inequalities in how dominant groups
may prosper. This resonates with earlier accounts of Bourdieu’s view of
power (Habitus) in society.
Using power as a lens trough which to analyse questions of value in
culture, Belfiore notes the “relational nature of processes of value alloca-
tion and cultural validation” (Belfiore 2018, p. 2), implying that ‘habitus’
shapes cultural value, and the subsequent entrenched inequalities make
the question of who allocates value a pertinent one in recognising various
cultural forms as legitimate. Symbolic power “shapes how different social
groups enjoy not only different levels of access to different forms of artistic
and cultural engagement, but also different access to the power to bestow
value and legitimise aesthetic and cultural practices” (ibid.). This also
relates to the ease of codification and transfer of knowledge between dom-
inant groups and how certain tacit knowledge comes to be a tool for
exclusion for marginalised groups who do not share the context necessary
to understand. This may mean that the favour afforded to certain cultural
forms may actively disempower, subjugate, or marginalise non-dominant
groups and render them and their activities ‘hidden’.
Current iterations of cultural policy have been criticised for a dominant
discourse of celebration, failing to acknowledge dualities in which certain
groups benefit from policy initiatives while others suffer, or areas in which
community interests have not been served (Belfiore 2018; McGuigan
2006). Belfiore (2018) uses the example of the television programme My
Big Fat Gypsy Wedding to demonstrate how a single cultural object can
become a carrier of both positive and negative value, depending on power
structures: a profitable export model and diversity awards allow the non-
GRT producers to gain further social and economic capital. However, the
effects on GRT businesses and wider perception of the community have
diminished both material and symbolic power for the community. This
raises the question of the authenticity of cultural products when they con-
cern a marginalised group but are not produced by said group.
Considering products further, Oakley and O’Brien (2016) observe that
cultural products matter because they ‘shape how we understand ourselves
and our society’ and thus the question of who gets to make cultural prod-
ucts is a profoundly relevant one. In this sense, products can be read to
incorporate the object, activity, or rite of our definition of culture, but the
word itself has broader notions of economic wealth. A pattern in which
the privileged are almost exclusively able to allocate value in the cultural
sphere means that programming and making may become a feedback
loop, potentially excluding audiences from cultural activity, as reflected in
the downturn of cultural participation referenced in the Warwick
Commission report (Neelands et al. 2015), creating a recursive cycle of
apathy. Cultural production from an unrepresentative group of producers
may reinforce the disenfranchisement of certain groups. The appropria-
tion by dominant groups of cultural production associated with minorities
often changes or dilutes the meanings of important signifiers, becoming
“part of an ideological process that designates non-white groups as infe-
rior” (Hesmondhalgh and Saha 2013, p. 184). This is also a process
through which cultural forms lose their ‘authentic value’ (Throsby 2001).
Material Culture and Embodied Meaning

The study of material culture expands on earlier readings about tacit and
embodied symbols in objects, showing how the aesthetics of the everyday
may be valuable in uncovering social structures and the knowledge trans-
fer within them. Thorpe uses the notion of ‘indwelling’ to explain the
difficulties of articulating tacit and embodied knowledge: “dwelling in a
set of physical skills or theoretical presuppositions, one is through them
aware of the external world and cannot at the same time be focally aware
of these skills or assumptions. One assimilates one’s fundamental assump-
tions to the body in the same way that a tool or a probe can become an
extension of the body” (Thorpe 2001, p. 24). This difficulty is further
complicated when we consider the fluid nature of material culture; for
example, Seremetakis describes material culture as a form which is neither
stable nor fixed, but inherently transitive, demanding connection and
completion by the perceiver (Seremetakis 1994, p. 7). An example of this
nebulous nature of meaning within material culture may be illustrated by
tacit forms of knowledge such as specific forms of dance being passed
down between migrants and their second-generation children, whose per-
ception of the embodied meaning of certain movement is altered by their
removal from its contextual origin.
Barthes (1977) also writes extensively on the identity of signifiers and
takes an inclusive approach to objects having semiotic significance, vari-
ously discussing everyday decisions, including meal choices, furniture, and
clothing as a language, using the example of a sweater representing “long
autumn walks in the woods” (Barthes 1967, p. 43, cited in Layton 2006,
p. 32). However, Layton (2006) argues that affording symbolism to such
a range of objects is imprecise. He questions the reach and significance of
certain associations: “But to whom does this sweater have association?
Possibly just Barthes and his dog!” (Layton 2006, p. 32). In this sense, it
is important that objects not only have personal meaning, but represent
mutually intelligible systems, thus fulfilling the earlier definition of culture
as having meaning to a community bound by shared experience.
With this in mind, there may be power in material culture, whether this
consists of personal objects or daily processes, to reveal patterns and com-
monalities in hidden cultures. These forms may include, but not limited
to, cooking (Petridou 2001; Farquhar 2006), textiles (Lerpiniere 2013),
domestic design (Drazin 2001; Miller 2001; Conkey 2006), or clothing
(Schneider 2006). To capture the tacit and embodied meanings in such
modes of culture, sensory and phenomenological methodologies fre-

quently appear in literature. Lerpiniere (2013) cites Ashworth in using the
‘Fractions of the Lifeworld’ method, to attempt to build a holistic picture
of human experience. These fractions—discourse, project, sociality, tem-
porality, selfhood, embodiment, and spatiality—contribute to the articula-
tion of the flow of tacit knowledge and invisible skills in social groups.
The benefits of analysing material forms to better understand hidden
culture are twofold. Firstly, we may reveal personal and emotional connec-
tions with the objects which allow producers to explain meaning that has
previously been impossible to articulate, thus beginning to codify sym-
bolic meanings for non-dominant communities and understand how indi-
viduals comprehend and engage their physical and social environments in
everyday life, evoking interpretative techniques.
Secondly, the study of material culture may begin to uncover and artic-
ulate structures of power which may explain why certain cultural forms
remain hidden. Giard’s (1980) study of female practice in the domestic
kitchen shows some evidence of how subjugation may affect the value
placed on certain cultural forms. Despite frequently referring to the ‘cre-
ative ingenuity’ of the women in the study and the sensual nature of the
cookery process, Giard also reveals the implied tension in routine without
recognition: “yes, women’s work is slow and interminable” (Giard 1980,
p. 159). Within this duality, Giard recognises that the language and knowl-
edge of routine cookery is passed on almost through osmosis, reflecting
the idea that tacit knowledge is only transferable through contact and
demonstration (Gertler 2001; see also Highmore 2004; Asheim et al.
2017), and thus becomes invisible to those not required or expected in the
proximity of certain activity. By elucidating the value in these invisible yet
transformative routines, the material can be a vehicle for beginning to
challenge existing structures.
Subculture and Low Culture

In considering how power can obscure the view of cultural forms, one may
consider how popular—mainstream or sometimes commercial—culture is
located within power structures, and what signifiers exist within such
modes of culture. Bourdieu posits that popular culture is “despised by the
rich precisely because of its ‘easiness’” and describes the “refusal of …
everything which offers pleasures that are too easily accessible” (Bourdieu
2010, p. 486). While the rich intertextual readings of popular culture and
subcultures in theory counter this stance (Hebdige 1991; Hall 1993;
McRobbie 1994), certain areas of mainstream culture embrace their divi-
sive nature. The term ‘low’ culture is problematic as perspective may vary
along lines of education, class, race, and gender, amongst other factors.
Hunt describes low culture as a product of “permissive populism”, which
is characterised by its resistance to rehabilitation and deification of “the
good-bad object” (Hunt 1998, p. 18). This category might include cul-
tural objects which are considered kitsch, camp, or tasteless. These may
remain hidden as their symbolic meaning is not easily codified in light of
widely held values.
Remaining hidden can become part of what gives subcultures legiti-
macy. In Notes on Camp (Sontag 1964), Susan Sontag discusses her con-
flicting feelings about camp culture: “I am strongly drawn to Camp, and
almost as strongly offended by it”, while noting that this intrigue stems
from the historical position of camp as hidden: “to talk about camp is to
therefore betray it”. In this sense we see that some cultural forms benefit
from their invisibility: in subsequent years, camp has been embraced, but
early proponents of the culture needed to avoid prosecution and persecu-
tion to pass on the embodied meaning in its associated practices. On sub-
cultures, Hebdige mirrors Seremetakis (1994) on material cultures in
noting that the meaning of subculture is always in dispute, as “the tensions
between dominant and subordinate groups can be found reflected in the
surfaces of subculture” (Hebdige 1991, p. 2), showing how subcultures
may shift between visibility and legitimacy depending on wider social con-
texts. Fiske, on the other hand, frames subcultures as a genuine protest
movement, by which “the subordinate make their own culture out of the
resources and commodities provided by the dominant system” (Fiske
1989, p. 15).
However, while subcultures are deliberately transgressive, and charac-
terised by signifiers of a dual or fragmented identity to escape various
obligations and shed workaday identities (Chaney and Goulding 2016), to
participate in subcultures often requires ‘extraordinary consumption’,
such as attendance at costly festivals, purchase of specific items of dress,
and other visual signifiers. Subcultural signifiers such as dress are signifiers
of ‘extraordinary selves’ but also remain a culture of conformity and com-
monality and can bestow a certain anonymity. They can deceive, mislead,
or, alternatively, reveal more than they hide as representations of a tran-
scendent reality (ibid.). Materiality legitimises the subculture and its

values, which may be seen to invalidate Marxist readings of the movement
as in this respect the cultural form cannot be a site of protest, but merely
of an alternative mode of consumption. Hebdige (1991) does, however,
note that mundane objects, including safety pins (as a proxy for punk and
anarchist tendencies), tubes of Vaseline (used by the queer community),
may act as cultural signifiers with a symbolic dimension. Mainstream dis-
missal or disdain for these objects is part of what makes them sources of
value and totemic items. This recalls Lash and Urry’s (1994) postmodern-
ist reading of the cultural object as central to the circulation of informa-
tion. This duality demonstrates the difficulty of codifying the tacit symbols
which identify subcultures and other hidden cultural forms.
Building on these useful conceptualisations of hidden culture, and
drawing on the earlier definition of culture, hidden culture might begin to
be defined as:
a cultural entity within a community of practice, whose embodied meaning

remains in some sense uncodified.
• Entities may be invisible to dominant societal groups because power

structures obscure the explicit meaning of their symbolism, or because the
embodied meaning subverts mainstream values.
• Entities may be unacknowledged by their producers as holding meaning,
either because intrinsic knowledge has not been considered, or because
dominant narrative excludes the cultural form.
• Entities may be consciously hidden by their creators to preserve authentic-
ity, avoid harm, or circumvent appropriation.
The notion of a cultural entity encompasses the ‘object, activity or rite

resulting from or in a transformative process’ of the broader definition of
culture, thus still incorporating semiotic and contextual meaning of a
breadth of cultural products and processes. The word entity is used
because it conveys something more than artefact (something which results
from action) and implies the richness of quiddity while also being a recog-
nisable and therefore usable term for research purposes. The inclusion of
the term community of practice embodies the notion of hidden cultures as
created by networks that hold tacit or symbolic knowledge, perpetuated
through knowledge enablers, invoking the spatial and relational nature of
hidden cultures.
A Hidden Culture Approach to Value Capture

In extending formerly held notions of culture to assume a wider concep-
tualisation which houses often marginalised or voiceless communities, we
open up the possibility of finding cultural value in inherent practices, and
in tacit cultural norms which may influence regional or national behav-
iours. Rather than enhancing the morals of the individual, cultural pro-
cesses and products are fundamental in forming our values system, both
on an individual level and collectively. This, however, should not discount
the importance of individual experience, especially when analysing the
impacts and influences of various modes of culture. The follow-up scoping
project to the wider AHRC cultural value research project notes that
accounts from individuals should be held “at the heart of our thinking”
(Kaszynska 2018, p. 4). This implies the real need for more suitable quali-
tative models to effectively convey the value of cultural activity.
To begin to conceptualise a model for capturing and valorising hidden
culture, it seems imperative to find a way of documenting and valuing
these activities and understanding as fully as possible authentic practices
and interpretations. There are important insights here from public gover-
nance in understanding notions of ‘public value’. In public governance,
‘intangible value’ has formed the basis of a model for analysing the public
value of cultural events in the Italian city of Ferrara, and given primacy to
structural, human, relational, empathetic, and evolutionary values.
However, in the empirical study of Ferrara, respondents felt that intangi-
ble value did not serve them, and preference was given to economic and
social benefits of events. What may be taken from this research is not a
rebuttal of non-economic approaches; rather that approaches need to look
deeply into the meaning and symbolism attached to community events in
shaping the identity of the city. The study nevertheless is useful in illustrat-
ing how power imbalances caused by removed policymaking can disguise
embodied meaning and value, and also serves as a reminder to spatial ele-
ments and relationship networks in a model. The idea of evolutionary
value may also be important in understanding how value builds and is
shaped by a longer history of events and cultural values.
Much of the public value literature focuses on a scorecard approach to
measuring value (Smith 2004; Talbot 2011; Ćwiklicki 2016) and appears
to detail ‘how to produce’ value (Smith 2004; Papi et al. 2018), providing
what is arguably a toolkit for policy makers to make the case for a pre-
scribed set of accepted cultural (or other public) forms. The premise
behind a model for hidden culture, however, is quite the opposite: an

acknowledgement that the value already exists, and needs to be uncovered
and communicated, or more deeply unpicked and understood.
In 2012, the Western Australian government commissioned a frame-
work specifically for the arts, which acknowledged that process is a key
element of cultural value, that authenticity is a factor in ascertaining the
value of cultural entities, and that previous models of valuing cultural
forms lacked transparency and may have perpetuated a hierarchy which
privileged certain art forms over others (Chappell and Knell 2012).
However, the subsequent model developed places value and reach in a
closed loop with impact. The subjectivity of these terms and the emphasis
on the abstract impact are what can be argued to hide many cultures in the
first place. As such it seems sensible to argue that any model of hidden
culture moves away from ‘making a case’ for certain cultural forms and
towards a more open-ended value model.
To suitably extract the parameters and to qualify the significance of hid-
den culture, one must shape a common language and currency, build a
collective intention about the ways in which hidden cultures may create
value, and shape an evidence base that includes tools and resources that
will allow producers and participants in hidden cultures to better capture
the value they create. The model below (Fig. 2.1) begins to frame these
terms and may be applied to research design and case studies.
The intention here is to use the model to open up new avenues of
debate about suitable but nuanced measures and proxies of the model to
inform new research design on the creative economy. The model evokes
interpretative approaches and in particular phenomenological, sensory,
visual and digital techniques, to elicit meaning previously difficult to artic-
ulate. It also emphasises the role of participatory methods in the creative
economy to give an authentic voice to hidden communities who have
never been given the opportunity to express themselves before. In this
sense we may begin to understand the value of hereto tacit cultural forms
which are strongly symbolic for communities and individuals. Looking to
environmental sociology and drawing upon the Citizen Sense project
(Gabrys 2014, 2017) in which the public evidence pollution to argue for
improved infrastructures of care, a Hidden Culture approach might seek
to allow participants to provide their own data independently, through
digital media, to document their everyday cultural experience and begin
to articulate the symbolic value in their communities.
Fig. 2.1 Hidden culture

The model also seeks to articulate cultural forms which are identifiers
for communities and individuals. Methods might usefully foreground
objects, which participants may not consider significant out of context,
but are central to certain experiences, and by exploring the role of place in
everyday practice. To elicit suitably rich case study data in uncovering both
tacit knowledge and the spatial-relational aspects of hidden culture,
research may then draw upon methods including sensory readings of the
city (e.g. Degen and Rose 2012), phenomenological readings of material
cultural forms (e.g. Lerpiniere 2013), walking methods (e.g. de Certeau
1984; Mould 2015), phenomenological walking methods (e.g. Kusenbach
2003), ethnography, interviews, and photo elicitation (e.g. Harper 2002).
References
ACE. (n.d.). Why Culture Matters [Online]. Retrieved from https://www.
artscouncil.org.uk/why-culture-matters.
Asheim, B., Grillitsch, M., & Trippl, M. (2017). Introduction: Combinatorial
Knowledge Bases, Regional Innovation, and Development Dynamics. Economic
Geography, 93(5), 429–435. https://doi.org/10.1080/00130095.2017.
1380775.
Bakhshi, H., & Cunningham, S. (2016). Cultural Policy in the Time of the Creative
Industries. London: Nesta.
Barthes, R. (1977). Image Music Text. London: Fontana Press.
Bathelt, H., Malmberg, A., & Maskell, P. (2004). Clusters and Knowledge: Local
Buzz, Global Pipelines and the Process of Knowledge Creation. Progress in
Human Geography, 28(1), 31–56.
Belfiore, E. (2018). Whose Cultural Value? Representation, Power and Creative
Industries. International Journal of Cultural Policy. https://doi.org/10.1080
/10286632.2018.1495713.
Belfiore, E., & Bennett, O. (2007). Rethinking the Social Impacts of the Arts.
International Journal of Cultural Policy, 13(2), 135–151.
Bennett, T., Savage, M., Silva, E., Warde, A., Gayo-Cal, M., & Wright, D. (2009).
Culture, Class, Distinction. London: Routledge.
Berger, J. (2008). Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin.
Bourdieu, P. (2010). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste.
London: Routledge.
Chaney, D., & Goulding, C. (2016). Dress, Transformation, and Conformity in
the Heavy Rock Subculture. Journal of Business Research, 69, 155–165.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.07.029.
Chappell, M., & Knell, J. (2012). Public Value Measurement Framework: Valuing
and Investing in the Arts—Towards a New Approach. Government of Western
Australia [Online]. Retrieved from http://www.dca.wa.gov.au/Documents/

New%20Research%20Hub/Research%20Documents/Public%20Value/
DCA%20PVMF%20Valuing%20and%20Investing%20in%20the%20Arts%20
4.10.12_.pdf.
Conkey, M. (2006). Style, Design and Function. In C. Tilley, W. Keane, S. Kuchler,
M. Rowlands, & P. Spyer (Eds.), Handbook of Material Culture. London: Sage.
Creative Australia. (2013). National Cultural Policy [Online]. Retrieved January
21, 2019, from https://www.nck.pl/upload/attachments/302586/cre-
ativeaustraliapdf2.pdf.
Crossick, G., & Kaszynska, P. (2016). Understanding the Value of Arts & Culture.
The AHRC Cultural Value Project. Swindon: Arts & Humanities
Research Council.
Ćwiklicki, M. (2016). Comparison of Public Value Measurement Frameworks.
Zarza ̨dzanie Publiczne (Public Governance), 1(35), 20–31 [Online]. Retrieved
from SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2804296.
de Certeau, M. (1984). The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Degen, M. M., & Rose, G. (2012). The Sensory Experiencing of Urban Design:
The Role of Walking and Perceptual Memory. Urban Studies, 49(15),
3271–3287. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098012440463.
Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport. (2016). The Culture White
Paper [Online]. Retrieved January 21, 2019, from https://www.gov.uk/gov-
ernment/publications/culture-white-paper.
Drazin, A. (2001). A Man Will Get Furnished: Wood and Domesticity in Urban
Romania. In D. Miller (Ed.), Home Possessions: Material Culture Behind Closed
Doors. Oxford: Berg.
Eagleton, T. (2000). The Idea of Culture. Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons.
Farquhar, J. (2006). Food, Eating, and the Good Life. In C. Tilley, W. Keane,
S. Kuchler, M. Rowlands, & P. Spyer (Eds.), Handbook of Material Culture.
London: Sage.
Fiske, J. (1989). Understanding Popular Culture. Boston: Unwin Hyman.
Florida, R. (2014). The Creative Class and Economic Development. Economic
Development Quarterly, 28(3), 196–205.
Gabrys, J. (2014). Programming Environments: Environmentality and the Citizen
Sensing in the Smart City. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space,
32(1). https://doi.org/10.1068/d16812.
Gertler, M. (2001, June 12–15). Tacit Knowledge and the Economic Geography of
Context or The Undefinable Tacitness of Being (There). Paper Presented at the
Nelson and Winter DRUID Summer Conference, Aalborg, Denmark.
Giard, L. (1980). Doing-Cooking. In M. de Certeau, L. Giard, & P. Mayol (Eds.),
T. J. Tomasik (trans.), The Practice of Everyday Life, Volume 2: Living and
Cooking (pp. 149–247). Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press.
Hadjinicolaou, N. (1978). Art History and Class Struggle (L. Asmal, trans.).
London: Pluto Press.
Hall, S. (1993). What Is This ‘Black’ in Black Popular Culture? Social Justice,
20(1–2), 104+.
Hall, S. (1997). Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices.
The Open University.
Hardy, K. (2012). Unsettling Hope: Settler-Colonialism and Utopianism. Spaces
of Utopia: An Electronic Journal, 2(1), 123–136.
Harper, D. (2002). Talking about Pictures: A Case for Photo Elicitation. Visual
Studies, 17(1), 13–26.
Hebdige, D. (1991). Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Routledge.
Hesmondhalgh, D., & Saha, A. (2013). Race, Ethnicity, and Cultural Production.
Popular Communication, 11(3), 179–195. https://doi.org/10.1080/154057
02.2013.810068.
Hewison, R. (2014). Cultural Capital: The Rise and Fall of Creative Britain.
London: Verso.
Highmore, B. (2004). Homework: Routine, Social Aesthetics and the Ambiguity
of Everyday Life. Cultural Studies, 18(2–3), 306–327.
Hofstede, G. (2011). Dimensionalising Cultures: The Hofstede Model in
Context. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(1). https://doi.
org/10.9707/2307-0919.1014.
Hunt, L. (1998). British Low Culture. London: Routledge.
Johnson, B., Lorenz, E., & Lundvall, B. (2002). Why All This Fuss About Codified
and Tacit Knowledge? Industrial and Corporate Change, 11(2), 245–262.
https://doi.org/10.1093/icc/11.2.245.
Kaszynska, P. (2018). Cultural Value Scoping Project. Arts and Humanities
Research Council.
Kusenbach, M. (2003). Street Phenomenology: The Go-Along as Ethnographic
Research Tool. Ethnography, 4(3), 455–485.
Landry, C. (2000). The Creative City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators. London:
Earthscan.
Layton, R. (2006). Structuralism and Semiotics. In C. Tilley, W. Keane, S. Kuchler,
Lazzeretti, L., & Vecco, M. (2018). Creative Industries and Entrepreneurship.
Paradigms in Transition from a Global Perspective. Edward Elgar.
Lerpiniere, C. (2013). One Wedding, Two Cultures, Four Outfits: The
Phenomenological Exploration of Fashion and Textiles. The Journal of Textile
Design, Research and Practice, 1(1), 27–41.
McGuigan, J. (2006). The Politics of Cultural Studies and Cool Capitalism.
Cultural Politics: An International Journal, 2(2), 137–158. https://doi.
org/10.2752/174321906778054574.
McRobbie, A. (1994). Postmodernism and Popular Culture. London: Routledge.

Miller, D. (Ed.). (2001). Home Possessions: Material Culture Behind Closed Doors.
Oxford: Berg.
Mould, O. (2015). Urban Subversion and the Creative City. London: Routledge.
Neelands, J., Belfiore, E., Firth, C., Hart, N., Perrin, L., Brock, S., et al. (2015).
Enriching Britain: Culture, Creativity and Growth: The 2015 Report by the
Warwick Commission on the Future of Cultural Value. The University
of Warwick.
Oakley, K., & O’Brien, D. (2016). Learning to Labour Unequally: Understanding
the Relationship Between Cultural Production, Cultural Consumption and
Inequality. Social Identities, 22(5), 471–486. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350
4630.2015.1128800.
Papi, L., Bigoni, M., Bracci, E., & Deidda Gagliardo, E. (2018). Measuring Public
Value: A Conceptual and Applied Contribution to the Debate. Public Money &
Management, 38(7), 503–510. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2
018.1439154.
Petridou, E. (2001). The Taste of Home. In D. Miller (Ed.), Home Possessions:
Material Culture Behind Closed Doors. Oxford: Berg.
Polanyi, M. (1958). Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy.
London: Routledge.
Schneider, J. (2006). Cloth and Clothing. In C. Tilley, W. Keane, S. Kuchler,
Scottish Government. (2019). A Culture Strategy for Scotland [Online]. Retrieved
from https://consult.gov.scot/culture-tourism-and-major-events/culture-
strategy/.
Seremetakis, C. N. (1994). The Senses Still: Perception and Memory as Material
Culture in Modernity. Boulder: Westview Press.
Skeggs, B., & Loveday, V. (2012). Struggles for Value: Value Practices, Injustice,
Judgment, Affect and the Idea of Class. The British Journal of Sociology,
63(3), 472–490.
Smith, R. F. I. (2004). Focusing on Public Value: Something New and Something
Old. Australian Journal of Public Administration, 63(4), 68–79.
Sontag, S. (1964). Notes on Camp. Partisan Review [Online]. Retrieved from
https://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Sontag-NotesOnCamp-
1964.html.
Talbot, C. (2011). Paradoxes and Prospects of ‘Public Value’. Public Money &
Management, 31(1), 27–34.
Thorpe, C. (2001). Science Against Modernism: The Relevance of the Social
Theory of Michael Polyani. British Journal of Sociology, 52(1), 19–35.
Throsby, D. (2001). Economics and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Trompenaars, A., & Hampden-Turner, C. (1998). Riding the Waves of Culture:

Understanding Cultural Diversity in Global Business. New York: McGraw Hill.
Warde, A., Wright, D., & Gayo-Cal, M. (2007). Understanding Cultural
Omnivorousness: Or, the Myth of the Cultural Omnivore. Cultural Sociology,
1(2), 143–164. https://doi.org/10.1177/1749975507078185.
Williams, R. (1971). Culture and Society 1780–1950. London: Pelican.
Williams, R. (1989). Culture Is Ordinary. In Resources of Hope: Culture,
Democracy, Socialism (pp. 3–14). London: Verso.
Wolff, J. (1993). The Social Production of Art. London: Macmillan.
PART II
The Creative Self

CHAPTER 3
Defining Excellence: Value in Creative

Degrees
Pinky Bazaz
Introduction
This chapter considers the value worth of skills/training in cultural and
creative sectors. Specifically, it considers the personal and societal value
of creative degrees, which have come under intense public scrutiny in
recent years as part of a changing public attitude to higher education.
In the UK, perceptions of value in higher education are also framed
within a wider context of debate about value for money from public
expenditure, returns on investment from personal financing of educa-
tion, and the utility of degrees within the wider society and economy
(Last 2017). Reviewing what value means in the context of creative
degrees therefore comes at a time of wider transformation of higher
education, continued paradigmatic shifts in central government policy
and changing attitudes to widening participation from society, much of
which have been shaped by the media. Within this operating context in
the UK have come institutional changes in universities, most notably,
P. Bazaz (*)
Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
e-mail: pinky.bazaz@ntu.ac.uk

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_3
48 P. BAZAZ
the arrival of self-financing of student fees, and with it student loans,

rises and caps in fees. More recently, there has been the introduction of
the National Office for Students (OfS) in 2017 with a remit to develop
greater transparency in how student fees are spent and how degrees are
providing real value for money. The Teaching Excellence Framework
(TEF) in the UK, introduced as a measure of university performance,
is also being promoted as a tool for student choice, with the conse-
quence that universities are under mounting pressure to demonstrate
their overall societal worth.
As consumers, students now occupy a changing position in the edu-
cation system with inevitable comparisons drawn between ‘worth’ of
learning and economic ‘costs’, vis-à-vis potential salary (as measured
by the LEO Survey). Drawing on Rokeach (1973), value in this chap-
ter is considered as an integrated belief system or ‘terminal value’,
which individuals maintain through social and personal interrelations
and through ‘instrumental values’, and accordingly are inherently sub-
jective. This contrasts with a more objective interpretation of value
based on merit or monetary returns (see debate by Tuulik et al. 2016).
As a result, the chapter draws extensively on the notion that value is a
set of “standards, which guide and determine the actions and attitudes
towards objects and situations, based one’s self to others” (Rokeach
1973, p. 23). This is especially pertinent in conducting a qualitative
and interpretativistic research on creative degrees as is done here,
which reflects on individual and differential performance and attain-
ment, leading to discussion about outcomes of learning at higher edu-
cation level between groups of different students. Within this vein, the
chapter notes and examines the differential performance and attain-
ment of White and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) stu-
dents, and draws on the case study of De Montfort University to
examine perceived differences in the value of (creative) education for
BAME students. The chapter draws on the university’s empirical data
collected through its ‘Freedom to Achieve’ project, charged with
reducing the attainment gap for BAME students, which also examines
how the relationship between the student and institution can be linked
to attainment and therefore in turn degree value. The chapter begins
by examining the growth and perceived societal value of the creative
economy, and the role of creative education within that by drawing on
the area of design teaching at De Montfort University.
3 DEFINING EXCELLENCE: VALUE IN CREATIVE DEGREES 49
The Creative Economy

As noted in Chap. 1, in monetary terms, the UK’s creative industries are
worth circa £95bn annually, with design noted as being pivotal to £85.2bn
of wealth, as measured by gross value added1 (Benton et al. 2018). Indeed,
Landry (2011) notes how economies over the last 20–30 years have
evolved around quality, design, innovation and creativity. It might be
argued then that with the (monetary) value of the design economy so
high, the value placed on creative and, for example, design training and
design degrees is accordingly high. The introduction of the TEF in the
UK has certainly underscored the importance of demonstrating value in
creative education and as Hadida (2015) notes, there has been significant
effort expended in recent years on defining and measuring value and per-
formance in the creative industries, which includes a range of commercial,
social and corporate values. And yet societal values remain mixed.
The Creative Industries Federation report on Creative Diversity (CIF
2017) suggests that diversity in creative business, including design, cor-
relates with economic success more than any other business area.
Furthermore, it suggests diversity and success are linked inextricably
through the positive impact diversity can have on organisational perfor-
mance. As Lyaton argues ‘strongly diverse organisations attract talent,
strengthen customer orientation, increase employee satisfaction and
enhances decision making’ (ibid.), which resonates with wider thinking
that diversity can be propulsive in: ‘crafting and capturing value’ and
developing ‘new business models’ (see Svejenova et al. 2015), ‘developing
new roles and routines’ leading to service innovation (Barthes 1990;
DeFillippi 2015; DeFillippi et al. 2007), creating ‘new cultural landscapes’
through new symbolic codes (Jones et al. 2005), and having spill over
effects elsewhere in the economy (Potts and Cunningham 2010). As such,
embracing diversity has been seen as a positive development that adds to
organisational and monetary value. Howkins (2001) pushes the claim fur-
ther in asserting that ‘creative traits’ unlock wealth, which he frames as
‘the economics of the imagination’ and the emergence of what had earlier
been termed the ‘culturization’ of the whole economy (Lash and Urry
1994). Notwithstanding these arguments, there is also considerable evi-
dence to question whether creative thinking and skills do indeed result in
1
GVA is the value of all goods and services produced in an economy less intermediate
consumption.
50 P. BAZAZ
higher wages (Gabe 2011), and whether this can produce adverse ‘dynam-
ics of stardom’ for some individuals in a company (Currid-Halkett 2015),
profound labour market inequalities between demographic groups
(Menger 2015) and diseconomies in companies through sunk costs
(Bakker 2015), which create long-term impacts beyond the cre-
ative rhetoric.
Lee (2014) makes the point that one of the key drivers of the growth
of the UK creative industries is an educated population who place value
on cultural goods. Through this, he argues, the creative sector can foster
growth in ancillary sectors; effectively equating production with con-
sumption and creating a Keynesian demand management approach to the
burgeoning creative economy. Following this logic, there is an obvious
interplay between educational levels of creative sector employees, diver-
sity within the industry (including widening participation), and the
growth trajectory of the economy. However, despite diversity often being
cited as a key attributor to economic competitiveness within the creative
industries, this is yet to reflect the socio-economic composition of the
creative workforce (Granger 2017), university attainment or career devel-
opment (Hunt et al. 2015; Cousin and Cureton 2012). Thinking specifi-
cally about design, it is interesting to note that whilst the design economy
employs an above-average number of BAME individuals (13% compared
to 11% for the UK—Benton et al. 2018), the statistics amount to a sad
indictment of the creative and cultural economy of the UK. Commenting
on differential degree attainment in the UK between BAME and white
students, the vice chancellor of Kingston framed “the great hidden shame
of the higher education system” (Ross et al. 2018, p. 104), whilst Arts
Council England concede that a below national average representation of
BAME employees in the arts was pivotal in the decision to link diversity
of arts organisations to continued funding through the ACE portfolio
(Balzagette 2014).
The Role of Creative Education

To maintain its leading reputation, the creative industry must look to sup-
port the supply of creative individuals through the provision of effective
and valuable design education. Benton et al. (2018) state that design
employees often have a degree as their highest qualification, with 57%
holding a degree (in 2016) compared to the UK average of 34%. And
given that the definition of the creative industries is based on “individual
creativity, skill and talent” who have the potential to “create wealth and
jobs through developing intellectual property” (DCMS 2010, p. 1), the
process and place of nurturing talent, in this case the higher educational
institutions (HEIs) should take ownership for developing industry ready
individuals. Comparably this supports the expectation that design and cre-
ative sector employees need to have a formal education at degree level or
higher, demonstrating a formal degree stills hold value within the creative
sector. There are unique skills developed during the higher educational
experience alongside the awarded qualification, which often are intangi-
ble. The softer skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, social skills
and interactions are some of the sought-after and derisible skills for the
future of work (see Nesta 2017; Benton et al. 2018; Dean 2015). The
report published by the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
(DCMS 2016) also shows the combined DCMS sectors employ an equal
amount of degree and non-degree holders; however, the employment of
degree holders is above that of the UK average. Therefore, there is an
implied value of holding a formal degree education within the creative
sector. To which, one notes the (creative) Industry’s demand for ‘innova-
tive thinkers’ who are able to problem-solve, which is a core skill in cre-
ative (higher) education. This further implies HEIs are fundamental to
help shape the success of the BAME students within the creative industry.
Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Students and Differential

Degree Outcomes
With the value of degrees heavily aligned to outcomes, students who attain
good honours (either a first or 2:1 classification) are significantly more
likely to find graduate employment (Broecke and Nicholls 2007; Miller
2016). However, this is not always the case for BAME students where it is
still widely known that domiciled BAME students are less likely to achieve
a degree, gain a first or upper second or move on to graduate employment
or study, or obtain employment in comparison to their white counterparts
(see HEFCE 2015). Statistics from the Equality Challenge Unit (ECU)
(ECU 2017) show that in 2015/2016, the gap was largest in England,
where four-fifths (78.8%) of white qualifiers received a first/2:1 compared
with three fifths (63.2%) of BAME qualifiers. In other words, this is a
15.6 percentage point gap. In contrast, the BAME attainment gaps in
Scotland and Wales were 8.6 and 8.5 percentage points, respectively (ECU
2017). The report further highlights a larger attainment gap for BAME
52 P. BAZAZ
students studying non-science, engineering and technology (SET) sub-

jects, such as creative, art and design degrees. However, to dissect the idea
of degree value the complexity of differential degree outcomes and the
attainment gap must be acknowledged. Figure 3.1 shows the differential
outcomes for BAME students and the fluctuation of the gap over a ten-year
period. Whilst it shows an overall increase in levels of attainment for both
white and BAME students there is no significant reduction in the ethnic gap.
Broecke and Nicholls (2007) further explain in their seminal report
that, “being from a minority ethic community (was) still statistically signifi-
cant in explaining final attainment” (p. 3). The study surveyed 65,000 stu-
dents and controlled for prior attainment subject of study, age, gender,
disability, deprivation index (as a proxy of socio-economic background),
type of HE institution attended, type of level 3 qualifications mode of
study, term time accommodation and ethnicity. A report conducted by the
Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE 2015) sup-
ported these findings with their own study of more than 280,000 graduat-
ing students across the UK in 2013–2014, noting an attainment gap of
16% (reduced to 15% when controlling for entry qualifications, age, dis-
ability, gender, subject studied, previous school type and the institution).
Critically, however, neither study provided explanation why students from
% of Good Honours
UK Domiciled First Degree Qualifiers
100.0
90.0
80.0
70.0
60.0
50.0
40.0
30.0
20.0
10.0
0.0
2003/0 2004/0 2005/0 2006/0 2007/0 2008/0 2009/1 2010/1 2011/1 2012/1 2013/1
4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4
white % 63.1 63.8 64.7 65.5 66.4 67.2 67.9 69.5 71.5 73.2 75.6
bme % 45.9 46.0 45.9 46.9 48.1 49.2 49.3 51.1 53.8 57.1 60.4
Gap 17.2 17.8 18.8 18.6 18.3 18.0 18.6 18.4 17.7 16.1 15.2
Fig. 3.1 Degree attainments, by ethnicity (2003–2014). (Source: Based on data

from HEFCE 2015)
different backgrounds who are receiving the same education at a higher

education institution fail to achieve similar attainment in terms of degree
honours. Although a complex area with multiple factors impacting on
degree outcomes, the two pieces of work from Broecke and Nicholls in
2007 and HEFCE in 2015 suggested differential outcomes could be
explained partially by the relationship between the student and the institu-
tion. If true, this would suggest a critical need for higher education institu-
tions to take responsibility for fostering an environment, which nurtures
change. As highlighted in both studies, relationships are a method to
change and remove opportunities of disadvantage. It seems apparent then
that institutions need to take active measures to remove barriers (visible,
hidden, perceived), which impact BAME student success and prevent them
from developing to their full potential (Berry and Loke 2011).
The Educational Experience: Understanding the Contemporary

Creative Student
To understand the perceptions around degree value it is important to con-
sider current student values and how well current pedagogical practices
align to the burgeoning ‘Generation Z’. This is a generation qualitatively
different from earlier generations; they are those who have been born
within the technology revolution or the fourth industrial revolution
(Seemiller and Grace 2017; Hope 2016). These are students who are born
into the information age with information beyond imagination accessible
at their fingertips and often just a click away (ibid.), and who, as a result,
display creative self-sufficiency and a global outlook, and have unique
demands and expectations about the university experience (Bhopal and
Pitkin 2018; Hussain et al. 2008).
Some of these students may never have known any different yet we
often expect them to respond to education and pedagogical practices
designed by the previous generation, with outmoded tools and mentali-
ties. As educators we need to adapt and evolve with the subtle and in some
cases not so subtle generation changes. For example, Generation Z are a
collective community who look to do better and are motivated through
social good. As stated by Seemiller and Grace (2017), the ‘we’ centred
mentality is what underpins their societal expectations, behaviours and
values. This is a generation who has been exposed to the hard reality of
global warming; an unstable economy and the impact of climate change
and yet through the digital medium come together to make a difference.
54 P. BAZAZ
Movements such as ‘#MeToo’ and ‘#BlackLivesMatter’ are evidence that

this is a generation who are intolerant of injustice; they believe in equality
and fairness for all. Considering these driving factors, it is a must that the
educational system must reflect on current teaching behaviours and pre-
pare to teach collective community who strive for results.
To contextualise the differences in learning requirements it is impor-
tant to understand the development of the key terms; digital natives and
digital immigrants. Digital natives sit under the wider umbrella of
Generation Z and Y. Generation Z are those born after the millennium
(Palfrey and Gasser 2008) and Generation Y are essentially young people
and children born between 1980 to 2000. These are now the students
within the higher Educational systems. Digital immigrants are often those
born prior to 1980 and can be referred to as Generation X and have
accepted digital technology. They are able to use it even though they may
not be as confident as the natives (Prensky 2001). The term digital natives
was coined by Marc Prensky, a US technologist leading research into the
impact of digital culture within education and who has been writing about
the digital natives since 2001. He believes digital natives have “an innate
confidence in using new technologies” (Selwyn 2009, p. 365). This is a
generation who are plugged into digital devices, confident users of the
Internet and have immersed themselves into a digital social world: which
they are dependent on so understand it to be the norm. Generation Z are
defined by the technology surrounding them and as digital natives are
accustomed to ‘digitally juggling’ their daily lives. They are immersed in
the digital social world which is integrated into their lives seamlessly,
engaging across multiple platforms. This generation of digital learners sur-
passes the previous cohort due to their digital experience and technological-
enriched upbringing. Many of the traits of Generation Z are also shown to
be common traits found in creative sectors; for example, Rittner (2017)
argues creative collaborations happen outside of the classroom, therefore
creating spaces where software, design skills and innovative ideas are actu-
alised. This stands in marked contrast to so-called millennials and poses
the question ‘if this generation can learn from one another, acquire new
skills or improve existing ones through a digital environment in real time,
do they need a creative degree?’ Active learning does not necessarily need
to take place in real time or on physical campuses, but rather digtail spaces
create an active global community where problems can be addressed and
solutions found.
So simply Generation Z learn, both individually and collectively. This is
a generation that learns from hands-on application and applies principles
in real-life scenarios. As described by Seemiller and Grace, they “need to

be actively doing the learning to obtain the most information” (2017,
p. 22). Their capability to access and consume information through the
touch of a button or a click is exemplified by Richtel, who states “in one
recent year (2008), the average person consumed three times as much
information each day as he/she did in 1960” (see Helding 2011), and this
has changed the way they think. However, for BAME students the creative
and digital heuristic is even more complex. It could be argued that the
learning community needed to support learners in learning something for
themselves is hindered for BAME students through impeded reflections of
themselves, a sense of belonging and fair representation within the creative
environment (Hunt et al. 2015; Bhopal and Pitkin 2018; Grace and
Gravestock 2009).
The Learning GAP: How We Are Taught

and Who We Are Taught By
To discuss the opportunities to reduce the challenges faced by BAME
students in the creative sector, typical art and design pedagogy must be
understood. Traditional teaching of art and design has its origins in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (Souleles 2013) when artisan crafts such
as blacksmith and carpentry were taught by a master to an apprentice. This
teaching practice remains at the heart of design teaching today. In con-
temporary forms it is seen through individual tutorials with ‘expert’ tutors
or lecturers who advise and teach students fundamental design skills to
become experts within their desired fields. Design skills are often taught
through repetitive practice following the guidance of expert tutors and
individual tutorials are designed to “demonstrate skills to improve aspects
of the learners’ work” (Souleles 2013, p. 250). This method of learning is
often compared to the ‘sitting-by-Nellie’ method and has been criticised
by academics such as Swann (in Souleles 2013, p. 250), who believes it
does not challenge the intellectual development of the learner. To qualify,
the design process typically takes place in a controlled studio-type environ-
ment, where projects are developed through a series of inquiry-based
activities to encourage creativity. This reinforces the ‘sitting-by-Nellie’
approach, where mimicking of the expert opinion and expectation is
encouraged rather than nurturing of independent authority. Souleles
(2013) continues to highlight Swann’s judgement that the “quality of
critical inquiry is more valuable than the quantity of the repetitive
performance orientated projects” (2013, p. 250). It is this method of
56 P. BAZAZ
critical inquiry which is now highly attractive to employers who are look-
ing for graduates who are prepared “to be agile and adaptable, with the
right mind-set of lifelong learning” (Fearn 2008, p. 17).
The master and apprentice approach still has significance for Generation
Z learners who as previously noted by Seemiller and Grace prefer to be
taught through observation and application. However, it also draws atten-
tion to who the ‘master’ or teacher is and emphasises the issue of fair
representation of the staff within HEIs. According to the ECU in
2015–2016 only 8.9% of UK staff and 28.3% of non-UK staff were from
a BAME background (ECU 2017). In contrast the report published by
the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS 2016)
showed in 2016, BAME employees made up 11% of the 32,422 people
working in the creative industries, which is an increase of 5.8 percentage
points from the position in 2015. Cautiously, one might surmise that the
creative sector has made progress in terms of BAME representation. The
lack of representation within Higher Education is further perpetuated by
the fact that only 0.6% of UK professors are black (ECU 2017) and
although as the literature suggests the ‘diversity deficit’ does not have
direct causal link to student outcomes (HEFCE 2015) the lack of promi-
nent role models or in some cases the invisible BAME role models further
highlights the challenges faced within the academic sector. In an environ-
ment of white leadership, higher educational environments can look to
building a representative curriculum as an intrinsic way of adding/creat-
ing value for students of both white and minority backgrounds. In fact, it
is imperative to create an inclusive teaching environment, which fosters
key skills of collaboration, understanding difference and designing beyond
one’s self. This is supported by Singh’s (2009) research, which explains
that learning through methods that are comfortable and reflective of self
contribute to student attainment and a sense of belonging. He found that
academics have a considerable amount of influence in creating a truly
reflective and diverse curriculum. This then further accentuates that if
design environment is culturally inclusive through staff representation and
reflective contents it enables students from BAME backgrounds to feel
represented, to see visible role models and aspire to be part of the creative
industries. As Fearn (2008) explains students expect to learn through
methods they are comfortable with, such as those familiar to self. This
presents a huge barrier for academic staff, who are not necessarily r eflective
of the student body or trained to a level where BAME individuals are fully
understood.
Hard and Soft Creative Skills

Whilst it has previously been stated that individual creativity is the human
contribution to the creative industries, the skills required to facilitate cre-
ative thought and innovative concepts, the skills taught must be appreci-
ated. The key skills of idea generation are often linked to creative thinking
and/or innovative concepts which are difficult to quantify as often the
product or outcome is the measure of success. As outlined in Benton et al.
(2018), design graduates are equipped with highly desirable skills needed
in the creative sector such as critical thinking and the independent critical
voice, which are a fundamental aspect of higher education teaching (Dean
2015). Furthermore, McWilliam and Haukka (2008) state developing the
creative workforce is not based solely on inherent creativity, but also on
the capabilities of the learning environment and skills such as intuition,
insight and problem-solving which can be taught; however, Guile (2006)
is adamant that these are not occurring with higher education. Simply
teaching students how to mimic their tutors has not evolved to reflect the
new way learners think or the changes of the digital age, which is creating
graduates who are often unable to act as independent creative thinkers.
This is supported by industry professionals who also believe “higher edu-
cation for not preparing students adequately for the current labour mar-
ket, and thus continuously highlighting students’ lack of transferable
skills” and increasing the disparity between industry and HE (Succi and
Canovi 2019, p. 1).
These skills are not taught through isolation but rather through collabo-
ration and this itself is a method of ‘soft’ added value. As Burt (in McWilliam
and Haukka 2008, p. 653) explains, “people are connected to groups
beyond their own can expect to find themselves delivering valuable ideas
seeming to be gifted with creativity”. He likens creativity to an import-
export business where concepts which may seem mundane to one group
are perceived as highly valuable to another. Simply put, this highlights that
working with people different to yourself can help to produce more cre-
ative skill sets and ultimately, outcomes. In other words, diversity equates
to a highly creative environment where diverse ideas are invaluable and
have the opportunity to be interpreted differently and reapplied to produce
value. However, understanding the tangible and intangible value of an idea
is difficult, and as Burt (ibid.) explains, the value of ideas is not always
immediately seen and the value may only be identified once the idea has
been transported to another location. This concept of ‘delayed value’ can
58 P. BAZAZ
be applied to a creative degree, as often the value of ideas or creative think-

ing grows with experience and application. Therefore, the tangible measure
is delayed to later stages of career progression. Now if considered for
BAME individuals where they are less likely to progress into senior posi-
tions, the value of the education or degree is not delayed but rather devalued.
Student Identity and Voice (Value of Identity

and Knowledge Diversity)
To unravel the complexity of the BAME student experience, it seems rea-

sonable to highlight the need for student learning styles and subsequent
expectations to be openly discussed. De Montfort University through the
Freedom to Achieve project are co-creating with students to understand the
wider contributing factors that the student body feel could be areas of
improvement to help students’ attainment grow and subsequently increase
the perceived value. At a co-creation event held in February 2018 and
attended by 117 individuals (students and staff) across all 4 faculties of the
university,2 60 students were able come together to develop ideas and
actions to BAME learning and attainment. Two areas were noted as being
critical to De Montfort University: the importance of relationships, and a
need for increased visibility and access to BAME role models, both of which
supported Singh’s (2009) findings that although the ‘diversity deficit’ can-
not be quantified as a direct causal factor to differential outcomes it is nev-
ertheless a contributing factor to a different student experience. As one
delegate noted “role models offer relatable inspiration” whilst another
noted “having role models can provide critical motivation to strive, to
achieve, and to believe”. Several delegates also noted ‘the power of negative
portrayals of BAME, which could lead to feelings (perceptions) of exclusion’.
Five key areas of work were highlighted through the event and through
research with staff and students:
• Relationships with staff and peers

• Teaching and learning
• Development opportunities
• Community
• Exclusion
2
Faculties of Business and Law, Health and Life Sciences, Arts, Design and Humanities
and Faculty of Technology.
These five themes might also be viewed as softer aspects of the educa-
tional experience and potentially where the intangible value is created. As
shown in Fig. 3.2, elements which BAME students highlighted as action
points are arguably different to degree measures. The importance of these
themes highlights measured metric of the educational experience, such as
the TEF or league tables are not the key motivators or the most influential
for a BAME individual’s higher educational experience. In this case 45% of
all references throughout the event related to BAME students’ relation-
ships on campus. In particular students called for greater representation in
the role models available. But as can be seen from the findings and
literature, making positive changes in these areas to create a more inclusive
university experience could become a method to change the perceived
value of degrees.
Fig. 3.2 Values attributed to degrees, student perspective vs. higher educational
measures
60 P. BAZAZ
Conclusion: Value for All

In bringing together these disparate parts, one might conclude that the
value of a creative degree is difficult to measure as the value of the degree
is multiplex, shaped by a variety of factors and social spaces, is longitudi-
nal, and cannot be measured in the same way across different disciplines.
Nevertheless, there is some evidence to support the notion that the uni-
versity experience and the relationships formed during the journey are
significant factors contributing to the worth or value of a degree, whilst
also noting that the notion of value can be interpreted differently for
minority groups. As noted earlier, and drawing from Rokeach (1973),
terminal values are inherently individual and therefore subjective (e.g. one
person’s sense of accomplishment may differ to another’s) and whilst the
chapter has not attempted to map these, there is a sense that perceptions
and value bases for BAME groups may differ from other demographic
groups by virtue of the learning and employment experience—in both
creative industries and other parts of the economy. Whilst it has been
noted that the situation within the creative industries has improved for
BAME groups in recent years and is now on the political agenda, the posi-
tion starts from a low performance base. From this point of view, BAME
students experience both a risk of an attainment gap in learning and a
diversity gap in career development, creating complex perceptions of value
of learning and degrees and a double negative connotation.
As Fig. 3.3 denotes, it is the role of the educational institutions to rec-
ognise differences in value, the factors that contribute to personal value
and dispel myths around the value of creative degrees. They must along-
side the creative industries actively take ownership of the political debate
and promote their successes to the BAME community. This can be
achieved through a series of small steps. For some institutions it must
begin by taking action to increase the equality of opportunity, understand-
ing the differences of a diverse student body, and creating a curriculum
which is representative of and builds positive relationships with BAME
individuals. This will help to promote positive role models from diverse
backgrounds, which are seen in the academic and professional environ-
ments. The creative potential of a student is the real value of a degree and
the value of creative thinking cannot be measured by metrics and salary
potential alone. As stated earlier (Benton et al. 2018) the value of creative
thinkers across industries outside of the creative sector is increasing. Rather
than marketing the cost of a higher education we should be promoting the
Fig. 3.3 Value measure attributed to degrees. (Factors contributing to perceived

degree value for BAME students adapted from Rokeach (1973) List of Terminal
Values)
value of lifelong learning and the key skills developed. These are the skills
which are developed during education and demanded from the creative
industry and beyond. In turn this creates a closed value loop, which cele-
brates diversity and sits as the base of an interchangeable world which has
flexibility to respond to the needs of a changing student body and require-
ments of a progressive digital world.
References
Bakker, G. (2015). Sunk Costs and the Dynamics of Creative Industries. In
C. Jones, M. Lorenzen, & J. Sapsed (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Creative
Industries (pp. 351–385). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Balzagette, P. (2014, December 8). Diversity in Leadership. Speech by Sir Peter
Balzagette, Chair of Arts Council England. Arts Council England.
62 P. BAZAZ
Barthes, R. (1990). The Fashion System. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Benton, S., Miller, S., & Reid, S. (2018). The Design Economy: The State of Design
in the UK. Design Council. Retrieved from https://www.designcouncil.org.
uk/sites/default/files/asset/document/Design_Economy_2018_exec_
summary.pdf.
Berry, J., & Loke, G. (2011). Improving the Degree Attainment of Black and
Minority Ethnic Students. Higher Education Academy and Equality Challenge
Unit. Retrieved from http://www.ecu.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/external/
improving-degree-attainment-bme.pdf.
Bhopal, K., & Pitkin, C. (2018). Investigating Higher Education Institutions and
Their Views on the Race Equality Charter. University and College Union. Retrieved
from https://www.ucu.org.uk/HEIs-and-the-Race-Equality-Charter.
Broecke, S., & Nicholls, T. (2007). Ethnicity and Degree Attainment. DfES
Research Report No RW92. London: DIUS. Retrieved from http://webar-
chive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130401151715/; http://www.education.
gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/RW92.pdf.
CIF. (2017). Creative Diversity. London: Creative Industries Federation.
Cousin, G., & Cureton, D. (2012). Disparities in Student Attainment. HEA.
Retrieved from https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/projects/
Worlverhampton%202010%20DISA%20Final%20Report.pdf.
Currid-Halkett, E. (2015). Trading Places: Auctions and the Rise of the Chinese
Art Market. In C. Jones, M. Lorenzen, & J. Sapsed (Eds.), Oxford Handbook
of Creative Industries (pp. 171–183). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
DCMS. (2016). Creative Industries: Focus on Employment. London. Retrieved
from https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/
uploads/attachment_data/file/534305/Focus_on_Employment_
revised_040716.pdf.
Dean, C. (2015). Developing the Next Generation of Creative Leaders. Design
Management Institute (DMI), 26(3), 44–49.
DeFillippi, R. (2015). Managing Project-Based Organization in Creative
Industries. In C. Jones, M. Lorenzen, & J. Sapsed (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of
Creative Industries (pp. 268–283). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
DeFillippi, R., Grabher, G., & Jones, C. (2007). Introduction to Paradoxes of
Creativity: Managerial and Organizational Challenges in the Cultural Economy.
Journal of Organizational Behavior, 28, 511–521.
ECU. (2017). Equality in Higher Education: Statistical Report 2017. Equality
Challenge Unit.
Fearn, H. (2008a, August 14). Grappling with the Digital Divide. Times Higher
Education. Retrieved December 29, 2018, from https://www.timeshighered-
ucation.com/.
Fearn, H. (2008b, November 27). The Class of 2020. Times Higher Education,
pp. 32–37.
Gabe, T. M. (2011). The Value of Creativity. In D. E. Andersson, A. E. Andersson,
& C. Mellander (Eds.), Handbook of Creative Cities (pp. 128–145).
Edward Elgar.
Grace, S., & Gravestock, P. (2009). Inclusion and Diversity: Meeting the Needs of
All Students. New York: Routledge.
Granger, R. C. (2017). The Sustainability of Creative Cities: Lessons from Leicester
and London. Leicester: DMU.
Guile, D. (2006). Access, Learning and Development in the Creative and Cultural
Sectors: From ‘Creative Apprenticeship’ to ‘Being Apprenticed’. Journal of
Education and Work, 19(5), 433–453.
Hadida, A. (2015). Performance in the Creative Industries. In C. Jones,
M. Lorenzen, & J. Sapseed (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Creative Industries
HEFCE. (2015). Differences in Degree Outcomes: The Effect of Subject and Student
Characteristics. Issues Paper 2015/21. Bristol: HEFCE. Retrieved from http://
www.hefce.ac.uk/media/HEFCE,2014/Content/Pubs/2015/201521/
HEFCE2015_21.pdf.
Helding, L. (2011). Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants: Teaching and
Learning in the Digital Age. Journal of Singing, 68(2), 199–206.
Hope, J. (2016). Get Your Campus Ready for Generation Z. Student Affairs
Today, 19(7), 1–7.
Howkins, J. (2001). The Creative Economy: How People Make Money from Ideas.
London: Penguin.
Hunt, V., Layton, D., & Prince, S. (2015). Diversity Matters Report. McKinsey &
Company. Retrieved from https://assets.mckinsey.com/~/media/857F4401
09AA4D13A54D9C496D86ED58.ashx.
Hussain, J. G., Scott, J. M., & Hannon, P. D. (2008). The New Generation:
Characteristics and Motivations of BME Graduate Entrepreneurs. Education +
Training, 50(7), 582–596.
Jones, C., Anand, N., & Alverez, J.-L. (2005). Manufactured Authenticity and
Creative Voice in Cultural Industries. Journal of Management Studies,
42(5), 893–899.
Landry, C. (2011). A Roadmap for the Creative City. In D. E. Andersson, A. E.
Andersson, & C. Mellander (Eds.), Handbook of Creative Cities (pp. 517–536).
Edward Elgar.
Lash, S. M., & Urry, J. (1994). Economies of Signs and Space. London: Sage.
Last, J. (2017, October 3). It’s Time to Dispel the Myth That Creative Arts
Degrees Are Cheap to Run. The Guardian. Retrieved July 6, 2018, from
https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2017/oct/03/
dispel-myth-creative-arts-degrees-are-cheap-to-run.
Lee, N. (2014). The Creative Industries and Urban Economic Growth in the UK.
Environment and Planning A, 46(2), 455–470.
64 P. BAZAZ
McWilliam, E., & Haukka, S. (2008). Educating the Creative Workforce: New
Directions for Twenty-First Century Schooling. British Educational Research
Journal, 34(5), 651–666.
Menger, P.-M. (2015). The Market for Creative Labour: Talent and Inequalities.
In C. Jones, M. Lorenzen, & J. Sapsed (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Creative
Industries. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Miller, M. (2016). The Ethnicity Attainment Gap: Literature Review. Widening
Participation Research & Evaluation Unit. The University of Sheffield.
Retrieved from https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.661523!/file/
BME_Attainment_Gap_Literature_Review_EXTERNAL_-_Miriam_
Miller.pdf.
Nesta. (2017). Nesta’s Work in the Creative Economy, Arts and Culture. London.
Retrieved from https://media.nesta.org.uk/documents/nestas_work_in_the_
creative_economy_arts_and_culture-2017.pdf.
Palfrey, J. G., & Gasser, U. (2008). Born Digital: Understanding the First
Generation of Digital Natives. New York: Basic Books.
Potts, J., & Cunningham, S. (2010). Four Models of the Creative Industries.
Journal of Cultural Science. Brisbane: QUT.
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon. MCB
University Press, Vol. 9, No. 5.
Rittner, J. (2017). Teaching Diversity in Design. Design Management Review,
28(2), 16–18.
Rokeach, M. (1973). The Nature of Human Values. London/New York: Free Press.
Ross, F., Tatum, J., Livingstone, J., Livingstone, A., Beacock, O., & McDuff, N.
(2018). The Great Unspoken Shame of UK Higher Education: Addressing
Inequalities of Attainment. African Journal of Business Ethics, 12(1), 104–115.
Seemiller, C., & Grace, M. (2017). Generation Z: Educating and Engaging the
Next Generation of Students. About Campus: Enriching the Student Learning
Experience, 22(3), 21–26.
Selwyn, N. (2009). The Digital Native—The Myth and Reality. Aslib Proceedings,
Institute of Education, University of London, London, UK, Vol.
61(4), 364–379.
Singh, G. (2009). Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Students’ Participation in
Higher Education: Improving Retention and Success: A Synthesis of Research
Evidence. York: HEA. Retrieved from https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/sites/
default/files/BME_synthesis_FINAL.pdf.
Souleles, N. (2013). The Evolution of Art and Design Pedagogies in England:
Influences of the Past, Challenges for the Future. International Journal of Art
& Design Education, 32(2), 243–255.
Succi, C., & Canovi, M. (2019). Soft Skills to Enhance Graduate Employability:
Comparing Students and Employers’ Perceptions. Studies in Higher
Education, pp. 1–14.
Svejenova, S., Slavich, B., & Abdelgawad, S. (2015). Creative Entrepreneurs: The
Business Models of Haute Cuisine Chefs. In C. Jones, M. Lorenzen, &
J. Sapsed (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Creative Industries (pp. 184–199).
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Swann, C., & Young, E. (Eds.). (2002). Re-inventing Design Education in the
University, Proceedings of the Perth International Conference. Perth: School of
Design, Curtin University of Technology.
Tuulik, K., Õunapuu, T., Kuimet, K., & Titov, E. (2016). Rokeach’s Instrumental
and Terminal Values as Descriptors of Modern Organisation Values.
International Journal of Organizational Leadership, 5(2), 151–162.
CHAPTER 4
Problematising Philanthropy in the UK

Cultural Sector
Jennie Jordan and Ruth Jindal
Introduction
Value in the arts world is a complex area. This chapter raises the question
of value in the context of culture, cultural policy and cultural democracy.
It is a pertinent question in the UK as, since the financial crisis of
2007–2008, governmental funding policies have acted to narrow and
reduce direct state subsidy for the arts, introducing policies to promote
private philanthropy as an alternative. This paradigm shift reimagined cul-
tural services, previously conceived as merit goods similar to educational
provision, as private and market services (Wu 2003). Definitions of merit
depend on non-financial value judgements, or ‘taste’ in the case of culture.
Bourdieu (1984 [1979]) argued taste was socially constructed and used to
reinforce social hierarchies. Who decides whether opera is worth more
than graffiti art? Throsby (2001) distinguished between economic defini-
tions of value, which he considered individualised, and cultural concep-
tions of value, which he argued were inherently social. This dichotomy
points to a tension at the heart of a public cultural policy that aims to
J. Jordan (*) • R. Jindal

e-mail: jjordan@dmu.a.uk; rjindal@dmu.ac.uk

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_4
68 J. JORDAN AND R. JINDAL
create a greater reliance on funding from private individuals. Does shifting

resource dependency from the state to individuals or corporations reduce
culture’s social role? If it does, what are the values prioritised in public
funding of culture that are being replaced, in this case in the UK, and what
are the values prioritised by philanthropic donors? Assuming these are dif-
ferent, what are the consequences for cultural producers, and the culture
they produce?
Hadley and Belfiore (2018) identify debates around cultural value: who
has access, participates and is represented by public arts provision, as the
defining cultural policy crisis of the times? This crisis has resulted in ten-
sions between the paternalistic cultural subsidy model institutionalised
within the Arts Council and geographically biased towards London, fluc-
tuating political ideologies and a generational turn demonstrating a
renewed interest in equity and democratic participation. These are suc-
cinctly summed up in the Movement for Cultural Democracy’s manifesto:
Culture, as it has been, can be the preserve of the privileged few or instead, it
can be the building block that strengthens our democracy, celebrated as a basic
human right, helping to create a world where all people are free to enjoy the
benefits of self-expression, access to resources and community. (Movement for
Cultural Democracy 2018)
The argument here is for culture as a democratic right rather than a

privilege for those who can afford it. For not-for-profit arts organisations
this febrile political context, played out against a backdrop of declining
public funding and concurrent reduction in the number of public funding
bodies, has raised significant managerial and ethical questions about how
best to fulfil their charitable missions. Although their business models had
for many years been a hybrid mixture of public funding, sales, and spon-
sorship, austerity combined with the new philanthropy policy moved the
balance further away from public sources, raising the question: does a
greater dependence on commercial or philanthropic resources necessarily
imply a concomitant change in underpinning values?
While there is a growing cultural policy literature relating to cultural
value in cultural policy (e.g. Arts and Humanities Research Council 2014;
e.g. Wood 2017), there is little research into the lived experiences of arts
managers attempting to navigate the shifting sands caused by the drive
towards an American style of cultural funding based on individual giving
rather than public subsidy. This chapter seeks to fill that gap. It is based on
4 PROBLEMATISING PHILANTHROPY IN THE UK CULTURAL SECTOR 69
research undertaken by the authors as participant observers of Leadership

for the Future (LftF), a two-year capacity-building programme across the
East Midlands of England aimed at promoting philanthropic fundraising
in the charitable arts sector (2014–2016). It explores cultural organisa-
tions’ responses to an American-style not-for-profit business model and
asks to what extent private giving was incorporated or resisted, and
whether there is evidence the new approach to cultural funding has
changed the nature of organisations’ approaches to questions of taste,
access or participation. A range of responses was identified amongst cul-
tural managers and board members from those who welcomed of the idea
of diversifying income streams to outright opposition, and these discrep-
ancies illuminated shifting patterns in how the arts are valued in the UK.
The study starts with an outline of the policy context in the UK and the
values incorporated within it, then introduces Leadership for the Future.
The authors were both involved in this programme, one as an administra-
tor and one as a member of a participating company’s board. The research
combines this participant observation with analysis of the programme’s
published outcomes. It highlights cultural differences in attitudes to the
arts as charities between the UK and US, discusses the implications of
these different values for implementing philanthropy policies across
England, identifies and considers the repercussions of narrowing and
reducing public funding at the same time as increasing private funding on
questions of taste and cultural democracy.
Policy and Social Context

As both culture and policy are spatially and temporally localised, it is nec-
essary to start with a brief history of cultural funding policies and para-
digms in England in order to understand the underpinning value systems
that inform policy implementation. Between 1949 and 1979 the arts in
the UK were considered merit goods which citizens should be able to
access whatever their financial circumstances or wherever they lived in the
country. Consequently, arts organisations received governmental funding
to ensure they could tour and offer free or reduced price tickets. These
funds were administered by the Arts Council of Great Britain (and its
decedents Arts Council England [ACE], Wales, Northern Ireland and
Creative Scotland) and local government. Hall and Back (2009) identified
a shift in UK society during the 1980s, which he attributed to the Thatcher
government’s (1979–1990) desire to reduce the size of the state’s
responsibilities. Privatisation of services meant taxes could be reduced,

fulfilling a small government, pro-market, individual choice agenda. A
1977 report by conservative think tank the Bow Group argued hybrid-
funding models, including a limited amount of public subsidy supple-
mented by commercial sponsorship and entrepreneurial trading, would
reduce bureaucracy and “help to develop an independence of style in art-
ists, curators, directors and authors” (Brough 1977, p. 2), making arts
organisations more financially stable and increasing cultural choice. The
policy sought to liberate artists from the social constraints implied by pub-
lic funding, with its focus on collectivised social, spiritual or historical val-
ues. In contrast the market would provide a variety of investment sources
to support a multiplicity of artistic tastes.
Three direct policy initiatives were introduced: tax breaks for commer-
cial sponsors; development of the Association for Business Sponsorship of
the Arts (ABSA, later Arts and Business), a sponsorship ‘dating agency’;
and a Business Sponsorship Incentive Scheme to match business dona-
tions (Quinn 1998). The tax breaks (tax forgone) and match funding
(subsidy) effectively took choice about which art forms and organisations
were supported out of public hands and gave it to private corporations.
Combined with cuts to the Arts Council and local government during the
1980s, this had a distorting effect on arts funding as cultural policies are
highly situated. The chief executive of Arts and Business (1983–2012)
pointed out London-based arts organisations received 80 per cent of all
business sponsorship (Warwick Commission on Cultural Value 2015,
8:48–11:35) so the effects of the policy were felt differently in different
places. In the UK most businesses have their head offices in the South East
of England and most ‘national’ arts organisations, those with the highest
profiles to loan to sponsors, are based in London. Nevertheless the policy
persisted and soliciting sponsorship became a normalised, if inequitably
distributed, part of cultural fundraising practices throughout the 1990s
and 2000s alongside bidding for Arts Council and National Lottery grants
(Gilmore 2013).
In 2010 David Cameron’s Coalition Government came to power and
implemented its austerity agenda. For the arts world this meant three
things: immediate cuts to the Arts Council’s grant-in-aid, which was par-
tially absorbed by reducing the Arts Council’s own costs through cutting
staff and reducing its regional offices; amalgamation of public bodies
responsible for different areas of cultural administration and funding,
known as the ‘bonfire of the QUANGOs’; and partially by direct cuts to
arts organisations themselves. Jeremy Hunt, then Culture Secretary,

announced public arts subsidies would have to be supplemented by greater
private donation. He introduced a policy to encourage cultural philan-
thropy, quoting Winston Churchill’s distinction between economic and
social values: “we make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we
give”. It was, Hunt said, an “ambitious aim for this country to combine
the best of US-style philanthropic support with the best of European-style
public support” (2010). Philanthropy was presented as less marketised
than commercial sponsorship, as the value of donation lies in personal
aesthetics, spiritual beliefs, social responsibility or a desire to connect artis-
tic authenticity rather than financial return. However, unlike democratic
public policies funded through taxation, it is, in the end, an individual’s
personal choice that determines whether they donate or not.
In America philanthropy, rather than public subsidy, has formed the
main basis of funding for most local and national arts organisations. This
model of giving developed over a long period and is widely understood
within society. There, the arts are considered a suitable recipient of charity
as part of a well-developed culture of civic responsibility that includes ‘giv-
ing back’ to your community and philanthropic fundraising is highly pro-
fessionalised (Silber 1998). In the UK, although arts organisations have
professional marketing and sponsorship departments, individual giving
has remained a small proportion of cultural funding. Indeed, research by
the Charities Aid Foundation (2018) found the arts received only 2 per
cent of charitable donations in the UK 2017, indicating few donors per-
ceived the sector as a suitable beneficiary. In addition, austerity measures
had impacted on public services more readily perceived as worthy causes
such as health and education, so arts organisations were in competition for
philanthropic income with organisations in those sectors.
Despite these historical differences in attitudes to the arts as merit
goods rather than charitable causes in the UK, the DCMS rolled arts phi-
lanthropy out as a core part of its cultural policy. It implemented changes
to the tax system to encourage private donation. Gift aid was used to give
an extra 25 per cent to beneficiary charities from tax foregone and donors
who paid higher rates of income tax were able to reduce their own bills at
the same time. This was an attempt to change donor attitudes. Alongside
this ACE launched Catalyst, a £70 million scheme to help build profes-
sional fundraising capacity in the sector by match funding charitable dona-
tions to arts organisations. This carrot was backed up by a stick. In its
annual assessment of its core National Portfolio group of clients the Arts
Council introduced a measure that assessed reliance on just one source of

funding, however secure and whether or not it enabled the company to
fulfil its aims, as a high risk factor and reason for disinvestment. So a failure
to find additional donors would also lead to a loss of public funding.
This policy took place against a background of declining public fund-
ing. The Arts Council imposed a 6.9 per cent funding cut in 2010, and
there was a 17 per cent decline in local authority investment in arts and
culture between 2010 and 2016 (Harvey 2016). There was also a reduc-
tion in the number of funding bodies they could apply to as the Arts
Council, which already ran the National Lottery funds aimed at the cul-
tural sector, merged with the Museums and Libraries Association in 2011.
So arts managers’ choices were limited: increase income from trading, find
commercial sponsors or develop more charitable donations. None of these
were easy options, particularly outside London and the South East.
The East Midlands, the site of this chapter’s case study, was particularly
vulnerable. In addition to a relative lack of high-net-worth individuals liv-
ing in or connected to the region, it had historically received a low ratio of
arts funding from both the Arts Council and the National Lottery’s arts
fund (Stark et al. 2013). This led Cultivate, an ACE-funded cultural and
business development organisation in the East Midlands, to develop a
strategy to try and develop fundraising skills in the region.
Leadership for the Future
Cultivate’s first action was to host a conference, Please Give Generously: the
art of philanthropy, in April 2011 focused on fundraising and philanthropy.
The keynote speaker was Dame Stephanie Shirley, the UK’s founding
Ambassador for Philanthropy and a philanthropist committed to giving
away her personal fortune during her lifetime. Arts managers heard about
the way philanthropists want to be approached and how organisations
could align their core activities to be more attractive to individual givers.
Dame Stephanie was adamant: ‘philanthropy in the area of arts and culture
is to complement government funding, not act as a substitute for it’ and
that ‘giving is a social and cultural activity not merely a financial transac-
tion’. However, she also commented, to audible gasps in the room, “I’m
the same as most philanthropists in that I give, and only give, to projects
and organisations on a reciprocal basis. By which I mean that my satisfac-
tion exactly repays my gift”. So, while philanthropic donation was not a
direct financial investment in the way sponsorship is, there was an
e xpectation of reciprocated value: donation for personal satisfaction, how-

ever the individual donor defines it. Rather than merit goods valued for
their long-run social benefits and therefore state-funded, philanthropic
donation required arts organisations to understand their value for indi-
vidual potential donors, as well as their commercial value for sponsors.
This shift raised some important issues that have been little considered.
Although there is evidence it had not been effective at broadening audi-
ences in terms of class or ethnicity (Brook et al. 2018), the state, through
the Arts Council, had prioritised social values of equitable access and par-
ticipation, cultural education and talent development, alongside artistic
excellence. These issues may or may not be areas of value for an individual
sponsor or donor who would, under the new policy, be calling the tune.
It was clear from the conference there would be practical and cultural
difficulties implementing the model. In spite of Jeremy Hunt’s comments
that he did not advocate ‘importing a US model wholesale into the UK’
(Hunt 2010), the appeal of the American cultural philanthropy model was
evident. Cultural giving per capita in the US was £37 a year compared to
£6 in the UK (Hunt 2010). It was argued changing attitudes to giving to
the arts, as with the development of the sponsorship policies in the 1980s
had shown, required arts organisations to lead the way by professionalis-
ing their fundraising. Consequently, Cultivate proposed a skills develop-
ment programme to support 20 organisations of varying size in the East
Midlands as they attempted to implement the new policy.
Leadership for the Future ran from 2014 to 2016. It provided one-on-
one, in-depth support to participating organisations relating to fundrais-
ing, marketing, artistic planning, strategic business planning, company
and charity law, intellectual property and board development. The fund-
raising element of the programme, and the focus of discussion in this
chapter, was based on The Cycle (Kaiser and Egan 2013), a strategic plan-
ning model for not-for-profit arts organisation in the US founded on fun-
draising and governance techniques used by American cultural
organisations. The emphasis was on enabling managers and their trustees
to support their organisations to identify the resources necessary to create
cultural opportunities. This included fundraising from trusts and founda-
tions as well as sponsorship, developing trading opportunities and maxi-
mising existing resources such as intellectual property or buildings. Kaiser
was known in the UK cultural sector as the executive who turned around
the Royal Opera House in the 1990s, reversing its historic deficit and
growing support from public and private sectors. He then ran the Kennedy
Center in Washington for a decade before launching the DeVos Institute

of Arts Management at the University of Maryland in 2010. The Institute
had translated its approach successfully across international boundaries
previously and Kaiser had himself worked in London, so no difficulties
were anticipated in applying The Cycle approach in the UK.
Twenty organisations were recruited, each with a turnover over
£40,000. There was a competitive recruitment process which sought
organisations at a point of change, and consequently open to new ideas
and ways of working. Participating companies were urban, rural and
coastal; ticketed venues and touring companies; they included a small
press, festivals, galleries, major venues and consortia. Each organisation
brought up to five members of staff or board members but the programme
aimed for consistent participation from the CEO, chair of trustees (or
equivalent) and key marketing and fundraising personnel as The Cycle
aimed to change the relationship between boards and professional arts
managers within the organisations.
Participating organisation was asked to develop one-year and two-year
objectives for strategic business planning, fundraising, marketing and
audience development plus one additional area of importance to the
organisation (e.g. information technology management, financial plan-
ning or capital campaign planning). One-to-one support from a mentor
provided the opportunity to tailor the programme to the needs of each
organisation. Success was judged by the satisfactory completion of these
agreed benchmarks, and progress throughout the programme was cap-
tured using the DeVos Institute’s Cycle Audit, a self-assessment survey
for organisations to reflect on growth in key areas: longer term artistic
planning; institutional strategic marketing (rather than short-term cam-
paign marketing); strategic planning; board development and engage-
ment; fundraising and management. The Cycle advised organisations
planned ahead for 3–5 years, with fundraising being taken for the organ-
isation’s institutional charitable mission rather than campaigns for spe-
cific shows or projects. The idea was to encourage donors to value the
organisation’s charitable aims, rather than the instrumentalised relation-
ships sponsorship policies had encouraged, or the focus on cultural
democracy intrinsic to public subsidy. Although each of these was
addressed, board development and fundraising were found to be those
where most tension emerged between DeVos’ approach and some
Leadership for the Future’s participants. It became clear that cultural dif-
ferences between The Cycle’s perception of the role of charity trustees
and the value system institutionalised in the UK’s charitable sector were
fundamentally different. Figure 4.1 summarises the British values assimi-
lated within each funding stream.
While Hunt (2010) may not have advocated wholesale US models,
these were the cognate examples available and the LftF programme
aimed—among other leadership training—to develop capacity for philan-
thropic giving in a UK context. The Cycle model conceived of arts organ-
isations as part of communities of place or interest with board membership
being awarded to community members who donated or sourced the most
income. Although Kaiser felt the phrase misrepresented a relationship
between boards and cultural organisations which should be about the art
not money, a model commonly known as ‘give, get or get off’, and this
conception appeared to have more traction than the programme organis-
ers anticipated. Charity governance in the UK had traditionally seen trust-
ees’ role as combining the voice of the beneficiary community and
custodianship of the organisation’s values, making a contribution though
their expertise rather than financially. Fundraising was a function of the
executive rather than trustees. Private giving as a means of maintaining
funding, therefore, required fundamental shifts in the way arts organisa-
tions conceived of their value. Rather than socialised merit goods to
Philanthropic donation Earned income (trading)

• Individual satisfaction of donor • Maximising physical and IP
• Belief in charitable aims assets in the market
• 'Giving back'
• Economic/individual
• Individual/social
Public funding Commercial sponsorship

• Cultural democracy • Commercial investment in
• Equitable access and brand strategies
participation • Activating consumer
relationships
• Cultural/social
Arts organisation
aesthetic, social, • Economic/individual
historical,
symbolic, spiritual
and/or authenticity
values
Fig. 4.1 Characteristic values inherent in cultural funding sources

compare with education, philanthropists valued art with a personal or

symbolic connection. This might be a connection to a place, such as where
they grew up, or a beneficiary community they particularly associated
with. DeVos recommended building these connections by gradually devel-
oping deeper relationships. First perhaps seeing a show, workshop or exhi-
bition, then becoming a ‘friend’ or ‘member’, later being invited to join
the board. At each point, the financial contribution expected increased.
Board membership was predicated on a board member’s ability to ‘give,
get or get off’. In the UK charity trustees have historically and legally been
viewed as volunteers who use their skills and experience to ensure the
charity carries out its charitable purposes (The Charity Commission 2018).
In the arts sector trustees have not traditionally been expected to directly
donate money and there was evident discomfort expressed. One LftF
board member, an experienced charity manager, expressed frustration
with the programme’s identification of board members as donors:
I haven’t got any money. No one I know has got any money. If that’s what the
board is for, then I don’t know why I’m here…
This idea of trustees as primarily financial investors is at odds with the

governance duties expressed by the Charity Commission, and the implied
contract this trustee had signed up for. Another trustee explained she was
going to leave the board she had been a member of after more than
10 years’ service because the pressure to donate was so great:
I was asked to join the board because I had some experience in charity manage-
ment. I was asked to commit time and expertise, there was no expectation of
giving money. I do give money to charity—but I give to charities I can’t help in
other ways. Now every board meeting I feel pressured to either donate myself or
start hassling my friends and family. I feel my skills and experience are no lon-
ger valued, so have decided to resign. I am worried, though, that boards will
soon be full of people who are there because they’ve bought their place, not people
who know about the art form, or can speak for the beneficiary community.
This trustee clearly felt personally uncomfortable about the new role
for trustees advocated by the programme. She also expressed concern
about the potential narrowing of representation if board membership was
predicated on a trustee’s financial commitment rather than a sense of
social responsibility and the relevant skills necessary to guide a charitable

organisation.
Some organisations, including trustees, were more open to the con-
cept. At least two of LftF’s 20 participating organisations implemented
policies where board members have to make an annual donation. Junction
Arts’ website, for example, states:
We are delighted to announce that we have an all-giving board. Our trustees

are totally committed and supportive of delivering the core vision of Junction
Arts and have individually donated towards achieving our aims. (2018)
Financial donation is a signal of commitment to the organisation’s

charitable aims, and is used to reassure others of their shared belief in the
charity’s vision. These two examples aside, the majority of participants
showed some level of reservation about the approach. Some felt it would
lead to less culturally and socially diverse, less democratically accountable
boards. Others were less ideologically concerned, but felt they lacked the
skills and capacity to overcome the region’s disadvantages and the wider
lack of awareness that arts organisations were charities.
Whatever their reservations, as the philanthropy policy had been initi-
ated at a time of severe cuts to public funding, there was an urgent need
to find alternative sources of income. As one board member commented:
Where before when we were discussing our plans, it was all about the artistic
ideas and what audiences the shows were for, now the first thing we talk about
is whether or not the show is commercial or if anyone can think of a sponsor or
donor who might be interested. If we don’t think a show will break even and we
can’t get it funded in advance, we have to cut it from the programme. It’s too
risky now.
Where public funding had allowed some artistic experimentation, the

cuts experienced left many of the smaller organisations, already operating
to full capacity and without resources to fall back on in the shape of a back
catalogue or building, struggling to adapt. Some argued diverting
resources into fundraising activities that required new staff and entirely
new skill sets was not the best use of their assets in an environment where
the arts were not widely perceived as suitable cases for charitable giving.
Others recognised that diversifying income and developing private giv-
ing, as a means of maintaining (at least) a status quo in funding, required
fundamental shifts in leadership and governance. According to one

participant:
This is the area in which the programme has had the most transformational
effect […] I think we have changed the culture at [the organisation] to ensure
all staff feel that individual giving is part of the future and that we cannot rely
on the campaign office to do this for us. (DeVos Institute of Arts Management,
November 2016, p. 36)
In this organisation, philanthropy was discussed at senior management

team meetings at least once a month and believed there had been a change
in organisational culture so that all staff members understood “it is about
cultivating family and potential donors across all our visitors” (ibid.). This
was a relatively large organisation with an established campaigns office, so
had some in-house expertise to draw on. Similarly, another large organisa-
tion noted:
We have always operated a mixed funding model in our six years as a charity,
but more acutely than ever we need to be proactive in an approach that sees the
sources of that funding change dramatically. One thing that is really clear now
to me and my team is that we have to change the platform upon which we com-
municate our value to our place and people.
This was not the case for smaller, less well-resourced participants. When
asked at the end of the two-year programme about how their plans for
fundraising from individuals were, three replied:
“The short answer to this is that we are still formulating our approach.”
“We are still in the research phase.”
“This area is still in development.”
For the majority, there had been some change in attitudes and attempts
to cultivate philanthropic donors. However, if judged on actual money
raised, Leadership for the Future could claim little success.
Progress throughout the programme was captured using a self-
assessment survey for organisations to reflect on growth in artistic plan-
ning, marketing, strategic planning, board development and engagement,
fundraising and management. Data from 16 participants who completed
these audits formed the basis of the programme’s evaluation for Arts
Council (DeVos Institute of Arts Management, November 2016).
The programme claimed to have contributed to an aggregate increase
of 10 per cent from individual donors and corporate sponsors and earned
income. Individual giving increased by £30,777 and corporate sponsor-
ship by £79,243. At the same time, public funding decreased by £387,442,
leaving a fundraising gap of £277,422 across the 16 organisations that
completed the audit. In fact, eight organisations reported no contribu-
tions from individuals, indicating disparities between those with resources
such as customer databases or venues to invite potential donors to and
capacity such as staffing or fundraising expertise, and those without.
Earned income such as selling tickets and corporate hires of venues
increased by a lower percentage, just 7 per cent, but this amounted to
£287,545, filling the funding gap caused by the reduction in public sub-
sidy and leaving a net gain of £10,123 (ibid.). The relative effectiveness of
trading points to arts organisations’ comparative comfort with entrepre-
neurial approaches, evidence perhaps of the success of policies of the 1980s
in embedding market values within the sector.
The evaluation highlighted board development, which it defined as
shifting the culture of boards from advisory governance to philanthropic
ownership as the “greatest remaining challenge” (ibid., p. 2). Only two of
the participating organisations had received donations from board mem-
bers, despite the focus on this throughout the programme. The organisa-
tions themselves identified lack of financial and human resources to
implement fundraising strategies and the East Midlands region’s relative
lack of philanthropic donors as their primary barriers.
Problematising Philanthropy in Cultural Policy

The post 2010 roll out of philanthropy programmes was, like the sponsor-
ship policies of the 1980s, a political attempt to create a shift in relations
between the state and social goods. Rather than direct funding from taxes,
the objective was for corporations or individuals to choose which arts
organisations to support. This required a fundamental change in the ways
in which artists and cultural managers conceived of their organisations
and, as importantly, a shift in attitudes to charitable giving within to the
arts. On both occasions, the policy implantation was accompanied by car-
rots and sticks; cuts in government subsidies; tax breaks for sponsors and
donors and match-funding incentives for arts organisations.
Cultivate’s Arts Council–supported capacity-building programme was

an acknowledgement of the need for organisational change and skills
development within cultural organisations to balance the wider cultural
change the Government hoped its incentives would catalyse.
Three groups of barriers to the philanthropy policy emerged during
LftF: geographical inequalities in wealth distribution and structural
inequalities in the arts sector in the UK, and cultural differences in atti-
tudes to charitable donation between the US and the UK.
The UK’s economy is heavily skewed towards London and the South
East, a fact mirrored in arts funding generally (Stark et al. 2014; Clark
2013). According to the Arts Council’s own figures for 2014/2015
London-based organisations accounted for two-thirds of total private
investment, leaving just £120 million for the other regions. About half of
this private investment was from individual donations (MTM 2016). The
national survey found a median change in earned income of 30 per cent
or £18,568.
In contrast, while LftF’s respondents reported a similar increase in con-
tributions from individuals (31 per cent), this was the aggregate amount
across the programme’s participants. It was skewed by one donation of
£25,000, and the median increase was, in fact, just £76.00. This in no way
made up for the nine per cent overall decrease in income from trusts,
foundations and public funds, amounting to over £0.5 million lost. Over
half of the participants said they felt the regional ecology was a significant
barrier to them increasing donations (DeVos Institute of Arts Management,
November 2016). As equitable access was identified as a key element of
public subsidy, the decline in governmental funding streams points to the
potential of further growth in regional inequality unless policies or pro-
grammes are put in place to ensure philanthropic donors are directed out-
side London.
Similarly, structural issues within the arts sector were an additional fac-
tor. Not all organisations are as well situated to implement individual giv-
ing campaigns as others. Large organisations and venues found it much
easier to attract donors. Thirty-one per cent of LftF’s respondents reported
an increase in the total number of new individual donors. Among these
organisations, increases ranged from 2 donors to 688 donors, resulting in
an aggregate increase of 889 new donors. This increase was primarily
attributed to just 2 of the 20 organisations. The first organisation ran a
new online giving campaign. The second organisation launched a dona-
tion system that allowed them to track donations received. Most of the
other arts organisations did not have the luxury of a sales force or comput-
erised customer relationship management system. Some were community
arts organisations working with disadvantaged groups; others were tour-
ing companies so might visit a town only once every couple of years mak-
ing it difficult to build relationships. Venues, by contrast, had historically
received more investment and had box office systems they could mine to
find potential donors.
The Arts Council itself emerged as a structural problem. One LftF par-
ticipant manager said the first thing potential donors asked was, “have you
asked the Arts Council?” Similarly, some potential donors who wanted to
support the arts did not have the relevant connections or felt unsure how
to assess quality so approached the Arts Council for advice. As the sole
democratic body with primary responsibility for culture between 1946
and 1992 when the Department for National Heritage was established,
the Arts Council is well known even outside the sector. Its role was per-
ceived as part of the welfare state and it was, therefore, the first point of
call for arts considered merit goods. Sponsorship and philanthropy were
both sold as policies to diversify funding so should, in theory, have weak-
ened the Arts Council’s hegemonic role. However, its influence proved
stronger than Arts and Business, which was closed as an independent
organisation in 2011. There was no attempt to set up a similar dating
agency for philanthropists, leaving the task of changing societal attitudes
as to whether the arts are a suitable recipient for charitable giving to indi-
vidual arts organisations themselves. As the first Catalyst match-funding
programme had a £12 million underspend and was consequently signifi-
cantly scaled back in 2015, it appears cultural differences between the US
and the UK were too embedded to be overcome in this way, certainly so
far (Richens 2015).
Conclusions
This chapter opened by asking if shifting resource dependency from the
state to individuals or corporations reduced culture’s social role and what
the consequences for cultural democracy might be if it did. Evidence from
the Leadership for the Future programme indicated there is a significant, if
largely unstated, difference in how the arts are perceived between the UK
and the US. In the UK, the arts have traditionally been publically funded
as merit goods and have developed values aligned with public policies such
as promotion of equitable access. In America a culture has developed
where there is an expectation of individual giving to local and regional

charities perceived as benefiting civic pride and communal bonding as well
as health, education and economic need.
What was clear during the Leadership for the Future programme was,
despite democratic accountability, there were significant inequalities evi-
dent between the East Midlands and other regions, particularly London
and the South East and within the East Midlands itself. In addition to its
historically low share of arts funding, the East Midlands is also amongst
the poorest regions in the country, so has few head offices or high-net-
worth potential donors. These inequalities were exacerbated by the phi-
lanthropy programme as it is highly profitable companies and richer
individuals who benefit most from tax breaks, and larger arts organisations
which have the capacity to hire fundraisers. The policy of match funding
lacked the necessary flexibility to account for local difference as well as the
national differences between the UK and US.
An additional area of concern highlighted was philanthropy as privatisa-
tion of cultural policy. Tax breaks are tax foregone and, as Stephanie
Shirley so eloquently put it, she donated to projects because they gave her
personal satisfaction. If those happened to all be in London, so be it. The
question then arises, where is democratic accountability in the spending of
public money. Who chooses whose culture to support? Replacing funding
allocated by democratic public bodies with tax breaks and match-funding
incentives is a policy of cultural privatisation. Rich individuals or company
directors can enforce their taste by picking and choosing the arts organisa-
tions they want to fund. At the same time, austerity meant philanthropists
were themselves under pressure to plug funding gaps caused by cuts across
public services while the Arts Council and local authorities had their grant-
in-aid from national government severely reduced. As the organisation
tasked with making and delivering arts and culture to audiences and com-
munities, LftF’s participants were in the frontline; less money meant fewer
shows or workshops, less touring or smaller exhibitions. But even if the
policy had been rolled out without the cuts, it would have caused some
displacement of activity. Fundraising required time to build and maintain
relationships and LftF companies generally had little spare staff capacity.
There is an irony that the least well-resourced institutions involved in the
policy implementation were the ones being asked to drive changes to atti-
tudes to charitable giving within wider society.
And it was the question of charitable values that emerged as the thorni-
est problem during the programme. With two organisations as exceptions,
trustees expressed significant unease at the ‘give, get, get off’ model. One
interviewee had, in fact, decided to get off, feeling her expertise was no
longer valued by an organisation she had been involved with for a decade.
Another was concerned about the narrowing effect such expectations
would have on who could participate as board members, while a third
discussed the pressure to evaluate the organisation’s programme in terms
of financial risk rather than artistic quality.
This policy was implemented quickly at a time of economic crisis and
consequently has been subject to little public debate. Seven years in, some
consequences are becoming visible. However, the impact of rebalancing
public, private and corporate funding for the arts on geographical and
social equity, and the relative importance of individual economic and
socialised cultural values, are significant areas ripe for further research.
References
ARHC. (2014). The Cultural Value Project: Exploring How We Think About the
Value of Arts and Culture to Individuals And Society. London: Arts and
Humanities Research Council.
Bourdieu, P. (1984 [1979]). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of
Taste. London: Routledge.
Brook, O., O’Brien, D., & Taylor, M. (2018). Panic! Social Class, Taste and
Inequalities in the Creative Industries. Retrieved May 17, 2018, from http://
createlondon.org/event/panic2018/. Arts Emergency.
Brough, C. (1977). As You Like It: Private Support for the Arts. London: Bow.
CAF. (2018). UK Giving 2018: An Overview of Charitable Giving in the UK.
Retrieved May 7, 2018, from https://www.cafonline.org/docs/default-
source/about-us-publications/caf-uk-giving-2018-report.pdf. Charities Aid
Foundation (CAF).
Clark, N. (2013). Regional Arts Left with London’s Crumbs as Spending Cuts Bite,
Warns Harriet Harman. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/
arts-entertainment/art/news/regional-arts-left-with-londons-crumbs-as-
spending-cuts-bite%2D%2Dwarns-harriet-harman-8684010.html.
Devos. (2016, November). Leadership for the Future Cycle Audit Aggregate
Results. Washington, DC: DeVos Institute of Arts Management.
Gilmore, A. (2013). Cold Spots, Crap Towns and Cultural Deserts: The Role of
Place and Geography in Cultural Participation and Creative Place-Making.
Cultural Trends, 22(2), 86–96.
Hadley, S., & Belfiore, E. (2018). Cultural Democracy and Cultural Policy.
Cultural Trends, 27(3), 218–223.
Hall, S., & Back, L. (2009). At Home and Not at Home: Stuart Hall in
Conversation with Les Back. Cultural Studies, 23(4), 658–687.
Harvey, A. (2016). Funding Arts and Culture in a Time of Austerity. London:
New Local Government Network (NLGN).
Hunt, J. (2010, December 8). Philanthropy Keynote Speech. European Association
for Philanthropy and Giving Conference, London. Full Text, Department for
Culture, Media and Sport.
Junction Arts. (2018). About Us. Retrieved from https://junctionarts.org/
about/.
Kaiser, M. M., & Egan, B. E. (2013). The Cycle: A Practical Approach to Managing
Arts Organizations. Brandeis: University Press.
Movement for Cultural Democracy. (2018). Manifesto for Cultural Democracy.
Retrieved from http://culturaldemocracy.uk/.
MTM. (2016). Private Investment in Culture Survey 2012/13, 2013/14, 2014/15.
Retrieved from https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/down-
load-file/Private_investment_culture_report_Nov_2016.pdf.
Quinn, R. M. (1998). Public Policy and the Arts: A Comparative Study of Great
Britain and Ireland. Ashgate Publishing Ltd.
Richens, F. (2015). Mixed Success for Catalyst as Scheme Is Scaled Back. Retrieved
from https://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/news/mixed-success-catalyst-
scheme-scaled-back.
Silber, I. (1998). Modern Philanthropy: Reassessing the Viability of a Maussian
Perspective. In W. James & N. J. Allen (Eds.), Marcel Mauss: A Centenary
Tribute (pp. 134–150). New York: Berghahn.
Stark, P., Gordon, C., & Powell, D. (2013). Rebalancing Our Cultural Capital—A
Contribution to the Debate on National Policy for the Arts and Culture in
England. Retrieved from www.theroccreport.co.uk. GPS Culture.
Stark, P., Gordon, C., & Powell, D. (2014). The PLACE Report; Policy for the
Lottery, the Arts and Community in England. Retrieved from http://www.
gpsculture.co.uk/place.php. GPS Culture.
The Charity Commission. (2018). Charity Trustee: What’s Involved (CC3a).
Retrieved from https://www.gov.uk/guidance/charity-trustee-whats-involved.
Throsby, D. (2001). Economics and Culture. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
Warwick Commission. (2015). Enriching Britain: Culture, Creativity and Growth.
University of Warwick. ISBN 978-0-9570404-8-9. Retrieved from https://
warwick.ac.uk/research/warwickcommission/futureculture/finalreport/war-
wick_commission_final_report.pdf.
Wood, E. (2017). The Value of Events and Festivals in the Age of Austerity. In
K. Lindberg et al. (Eds.), The Value of Events (pp. 10–35). Oxford: Routledge.
Wu, C. (2003). Privatising Culture: Corporate Art Intervention Since the
1980s. Verso.
CHAPTER 5
Value Definition in Sustainable (Textiles)

Production and Consumption
Claire Lerpiniere
Introduction
This chapter explores the notion of value within the context of the process
and products of textile design, and to some extent the transformative pro-
cess implied through production. This provides an invaluable lens for
exploring the unique qualities and types of value that textile designers
engage with, especially where pure designs are militated by the need to
develop solutions for tackling industrial and societal issues such as envi-
ronmental sustainability. These values are framed here as forms of capital
which are conceptual, cultural and material, forms which a textile designer
draws upon and imbues with their own expertise to create intellectual
capital in terms of ideas, qualities and design. In the context of sustain-
ability, the future economic, ecological and human sustainability of the
global textiles industry requires the full utilisation of the textile designer’s
intellectual capital.
The term ‘textile’ is used throughout this chapter, rather than ‘fabric’
or ‘cloth’, as both ‘textile design’ and ‘textiles’ can not only represent the
C. Lerpiniere (*)
e-mail: clerpiniere@dmu.ac.uk

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_5
86 C. LERPINIERE
actions of creating a material through knitting, weaving and fusing fibres,

but also reference the processes, techniques and finishes that constitute its
production. Without textiles, the creative industries of fashion, architec-
ture, interior design, automotive and transport design would be unrecog-
nisable. Textile design is practised within specific cultural and industrial
contexts, and is described through a specific terminology developed over
centuries of tradition and practices (see Denton and Daniels 2002; The
Textile Institute 2018). ‘Textiles’ also makes reference to the technologies
and industries of printing, embroidery, finishing, embellishment and sur-
face manipulation which are applied to fabrics for decoration or improved
performance. In this way the term ‘textiles’ is positioned as a material, as
an industry and as a unique set of interlinking cultures and traditions of
practice. The value a textile designer brings to the creative and cultural
industries is typically tacit (Polanyi 1966) and embodied, but these skills
are a key part in the research and development, design, production and
supply chains of many industries (see Kane and Philpott 2013, 2016), and
thus this chapter has broader resonance for wider issues of production and
the creative and cultural economy.
The chapter is organised as follows. Beginning with an exploration of
sustainability in textiles, the chapter then examines what value means in
the context of textiles, and how this shapes textiles design and production
under a broader imperative of environmental sustainability.
Sustainability
Sustainability in the textile design context relates to an emerging and
urgent awareness of the effect of human activities on the human and eco-
logical environment, and is discussed within this chapter in relation to the
fashion industry. De Montfort University’s sustained approach to impact
is key to the university’s work as articulated in its commitment to public
good and its selection as a designated ‘hub’ for achieving (SDG 16) the
United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—the first uni-
versity to be chosen as such.1 In the context of textiles, sustainability
relates to the use of environmentally sustainable materials and processes,
as well as disrupting current models of manufacturing towards more
1
De Montfort University is a hub for Goal 16, ‘Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions’,
and has been asked to take the lead in engaging universities across the globe in its work to
support refugees.
5 VALUE DEFINITION IN SUSTAINABLE (TEXTILES) PRODUCTION… 87
socially and economically responsible (as well as ethical) production meth-

ods, which speak to wider goals of carbon neutral production, peace and
justice. Challenges include: waste creation and disposal, resource deple-
tion, climate change and emissions, air, earth, or water borne pollution
and effluents, water and land availability and security, and the challenges
and opportunities of globalisation, which can either alleviate human pov-
erty through gainful employment or enforce exploitative business models
which oppress individuals and lock people into destitution (Ellen
MacArthur Foundation 2017; Fletcher 2008; Remy et al. 2016). These
challenges are addressed within the 17 UN Sustainable Development
Goals for 2030, a set of global goals to improve both human experience
and the natural environment (UN 2018). Each goal in turn can be seen as
relating to aspects of textile design practice and production. Of particular
relevance to textiles are SDG 5 (Gender Equality), SDG 8 (Good Jobs and
Economic Growth), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production),
SDG 13 (Climate Action), SDG 14 (Life Below Water) and SDG 15 (Life
on Land) (UN 2018). As global cultures are increasingly built around
consumption as a defining characteristic, textile design researchers can
help mediate the pace and focus of this consumption, moving it from
unsustainable practices toward circular or regenerative economies (Ellen
MacArthur Foundation Website 2017), and from mass fast-paced con-
sumption, to slow, thoughtful consumption (Fletcher 2018).
Such challenges will increasingly require interdisciplinary or transdisci-
plinary (Piaget 1972) approaches in order to develop transitions toward
sustainable futures within the textiles industry, and textile designers have
an increasingly important role to play within this, due to their specific
competencies and skills. In this context, sustainable growth and innova-
tion will need to develop upon the textile designer’s ability to direct their
practice within the context of environmental resources and human sus-
tainable development, through employing and developing on their
embodied, tacit knowledge bases. One potential approach to this is
through engaging with research and practice within the emerging field of
‘Transition Design’, which is practised by transdisciplinary teams who
focus on solving particular problems in order to transition towards sus-
tainable futures. In this chapter, this approach will be discussed in relation
to the development of sustainable models of textile design, particularly for
the fashion industry. To develop strategies which address these issues, tex-
tile designers must bring their knowledge capital to such teams and embed
sustainable development and production approaches within industry and
88 C. LERPINIERE
consumer practices (Andersen and Earley 2014; Sherburne 2009; Fletcher

2008; Blackburn 2009; Fletcher and Tham 2014).
Cultural Capital and Value

Textiles are globally ubiquitous, and their development and use transcend
cultural, historical and geographical boundaries, particularly when made
into fashion garments (Harper 2012b; Schneider and Weiner 1989;
Schoeser and Boydell 2002). Textiles and textile designers contribute
value through multiple layers of processes and activities, developed over
time through the cultures of textile design education and design for man-
ufacture (Entwistle 2000, p. 1; Gale and Kaur 2004). The textile design
process requires the designer to draw upon their cultural, material and
conceptual capital, which enables them to design technically or aestheti-
cally relevant and marketable textiles. Such capital arises through a layered
and nuanced set of skills: the manual dexterity acquired through crafts
practice; the ability to draw upon honed critical judgement skills to direct
colour, proportion, motif and layout choices; and the ability to under-
stand consumer desires and markets. Textile designers not only need to be
able to draw, repeat and create designs for development into fabrics, wall-
papers and accessories, but to understand the ‘technical and business
worlds of textile processing, marketing, communications and distribution’
(Thackara 2015, p. 89).
Established research subjects and paradigms which intersect with textile
design investigate and advance the aesthetic, industrial and scientific devel-
opment of textiles (Braddock Clarke and O’Mahony 2005), or focus on
textiles as objects in material culture (Candy 2005; Banerjee and Miller
2003). Research within scientific or industrial domains has focused on
value creation through innovation via the qualities, structures and func-
tions of textiles, or new applications or adaptations of existing processes
and techniques within the field. These develop textiles which problem-
solve or enhance performances, particularly within the domains of fibre,
yarn, colouration and fabric production, and result in knitted, woven and
non-woven textiles for development into products. The focus of these
textiles includes the innovations created through interdisciplinary or
research, or fusing techniques. Examples include pairing digital approaches
with traditional crafts (Bowles and Isaac 2009; Kane et al. 2016; Akiwowo
2016), developing fabrics which use nanotechnology (Braddock Clarke
and O’Mahony 2005, p. 6), or using enzymes as coloration agents (Shen
et al. 2018). These textile design approaches are inherently imbued with
tacit cultural or conceptual value, which the designer selects or capitalises
upon in order to create a relevant and useful textile for product develop-
ment and product enhancement, thus creating market capital and value.
The cachet of a luxury woven cashmere or couture embroidery on light-
weight silk enhances the appearance and enjoyment a garment conveys
and adds value through material and conceptual value, and aesthetic val-
ues, to both an individual garment and the fashion brand as a whole.
Material Capital and Value

Material capital is measurable, but much of the value a textile designer
brings to society is tacitly embedded within the processes and concept
development of the design. As textile design occurs for fast-paced and
rapidly evolving or market-responsive industries (as seen in fashion design),
understanding of both value and values in relation to design has become
more than an optional extra for textile designers, and should form a key
part of the education of textile designers. In particular, value and values
function as drivers for understanding the ways consumer behave when
making purchasing and consumption priorities or activities, in many dif-
ferent ways.
For instance, the use value versus the exchange value of a textile when
converted into a garment can be measured against its market or sale value,
as an individual unit which contributes towards the £28 billion the fashion
industry directly contributes to the UK economy annually (British Fashion
Council 2016). The values which a textile can facilitate and come to
embody include enhanced social relationships, a change to a sense of iden-
tity, a link with a memory or occasion, or an affiliation or loyalty to a
brand, and the brand values it represents. This is particularly the case with
evocative brands with a distinctive set of brand values associated with
them, such as People Tree, Levi’s, Gucci or Chanel. The established fields
of branding and marketing in relation to fashion understand the consumer
as adopting the ‘brand values’ when making purchasing decisions (Posner
2015). This is particularly key at the luxury end of the textiles market,
where provenance, geographical links and artisanal craftsmanship intersect
to differentiate from the lower market sectors, and provide perceptions of
quality and heritage (Collins and Weiss 2015). Increasingly, consumers
express not only their sense of identity through conspicuous consumption
or brands, but in wearing clothing which aligns with their own identity or
90 C. LERPINIERE
position (as discussed in Chap. 6), their ethical values or principles they
wish to communicate via their clothing through an alignment with a
brand, such as People Tree or Birdsong. Large corporations now realise
that sustainable and responsible production form part of the ethical and
brand values they must communicate, and that engaging with sustainable
practices ‘protect and augment’ their reputations, particularly with
younger consumers (Fletcher 2014, p. xv).
The material value embodied within the textile designer arises through
varied steps, gained through a lengthy process of education in design
research, development and manufacturing techniques. However, much of
this knowledge remains tacit. This is partly due to a historical bias towards
the view that other forms of design and material culture are viewed as
rigorous and befitting academic study, but fashion and textiles have had an
‘image problem’, which has not been acknowledged widely within the
discourse (Tseelon 2001, p. 435) but is slowly improving.
The global challenges posed by the need to redesign the fashion and
textiles industry will require not only technical and design knowledge but
an understanding of how to situate fashion and textiles within theoreti-
cally informed positions. Firstly, through the textile designer’s under-
standing of the structures, processes and properties of fibres and fabrics,
and their surface decorative or performance treatments, but also through
their awareness of the potential for manipulation and creation into prod-
ucts and outcomes. This expertise will become increasingly key as a type of
tacit knowledge required in order develop marketable solutions to press-
ing environmental issues in relation to textiles; such as the finite nature of
resources, issues around energy consumption and climate change, and the
human or social impacts of fashion production on its workers. The textile
designer’s power is in their sourcing and development of fibres into mate-
rials for industry, particularly fashion, and their selection of processing
techniques, such as dye classes or the materials used in embellishments.
Textile designers are loci for key selection points and sourcing of materials
within the fashion supply chain, and as such, they are a ‘starting point for
change’ (Fletcher 2014, p. 7). How fibres and fabrics are created and
sourced will become an increasing area of focus for brands, manufacturers
and consumers expressing their ethical positions, and this requires textile
designers who can use their particular skill sets and competencies to
respond to this.
Circular Textiles and Value Creation

One proposed scenario for balancing clothing production with finite
resource management is a closed loop, or the adoption of ‘circular design’,
in which the end of the life of the garment or product is considered at the
point of its conceptualisation, without loss of resources through waste
sent to landfill. This is conceptualised as a new framework for production,
the Circular Economy. This approach, championed by the Ellen MacArthur
Foundation Website (2017), is becoming increasingly recognised within
the industry as an ideal, but provides huge challenges for industry as it will
disrupt and change current economic models and chains of production,
which can be complicated and hidden from view. The challenge to embed
circular design principles in the textile and fashion design supply chains
extends beyond simplistic, unilateral or isolated solutions to making fash-
ion sustainable. Simplistic approaches, such as an emphasis on ‘natural
fibres’ over ‘synthetic fibres, can result in one problem being substituted
by another, or in focusing consumers on an area of production which is
less problematic, and green-washing over a far more pressing issue.
Developing truly sustainable fashion and textile production and supply
chains requires an awareness of the impacts of entire product lifecycles,
including, ‘cultivation, production, manufacturing, distribution, con-
sumer laundering, reuse and final disposal’ (Fletcher 2014, p. 9). This
approach requires the specialist knowledge of fibre and fabric which textile
designers possess, for example, on whether to design fabrics which should
be recycled, upcycled or composted at their end of life, and this must be
built into the design process at the start of the design cycle, not worked
around at the end, where fabric and fibre shredding and recovery end in
poor-quality textiles mostly destined to landfill (see Remy et al. 2016).
Responsible production is also dependent upon an appreciation of the
context of the manufacturing of these fibres into fabrics, and then gar-
ments, and an understanding of the effects of a particular process in a
particular location. For example, whereas polyester production from oil to
final fabric is energy-intensive, it uses minimal water in its production, so
could potentially suit production in countries with high sunlight but low
water, as an alternative to cotton production. Or other alternatives to oil-
based synthetic fibres could be sourced, such as ‘Ingeo’, which uses a
corn-derivative to create a fibre which uses between 62% and 68% less fos-
sil fuel in its production, and wind power–generated electricity, resulting
in 80–90% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than traditional polyester
92 C. LERPINIERE
production (Burke 2008, p. 58). However, responsible production would

look at the opportunity costs of corn growth, and whether the land it is
grown upon is needed for local food production, or if its growing creates
water scarcity affecting local people.
Innovative approaches and fibre developments are implicitly linked
with not only corporate social responsibility in relation to production, but
with understanding the values a brand expresses to the consumer.
However, until they are developed into desirable textiles for use in manu-
facturing, such innovations cannot attend to pressing industrial economic
sustainability issues, and require the interpretation, aesthetic and develop-
mental skills of the textile designer to create covetable, desirable textiles
with longevity. There is also a growing awareness that the combination of
finite global resources and a huge increase in the numbers of garments
people own will necessitate a restructuring of the entire fashion and tex-
tiles industry, including all of the different value and supply chains. For
example, the explosion of the fast fashion industry in the early 2000s pro-
duced an increase in the number of garments individuals were buying,
with a third as many garments purchased in 2006 than in 2002, and
women owning four times as many clothes as in 1980 (Allwood et al.
2006). A reasonable supposition is that current models of production and
consumption must be disrupted to achieve this.
Design as a Professional and Tacit Value

The design methods and practices of textile design are largely acknowl-
edged as underexplored in the literature (Kane and Philpott 2013; Tseelon
2001; Hodges et al. 2007; Igoe 2010; Harper 2012a; Hemmings 2015),
yet are ever more relevant given the urgency to disrupt the industry as a
result of environmental and sustainable imperatives. Textile designers are
often characterised as providing an unacknowledged or ‘hidden’ service
within the design process, whose work is obscured by the wider brands or
products their designs and fabrics produce (Briggs-Goode and Townsend
2011, p. xxiii). There is also the hidden element of textile design within
the wider creative industries—whereby design methods and practices of
textile design are tacit and to some extent unacknowledged and underval-
ued in shaping other creative sectors. I would argue here that textiles
designers require resituating in a broader economic and societal context,
as now, more than ever, the value of the textile designer is in their ability
to develop models and concepts of consumption, to design new solutions
and approaches in the industry. As Goett (2016) notes, textile knowledge

engages all the senses, and this sense of the hand processes and craft of the
textile designer, combined with conceptual thinking, contributes to what
has been conceptualised as ‘textiles thinking’, a distinct subset of design
methods research (Kane and Philpott 2013). In this way, the activities of
textile design are “distinctive” and ‘guided by emotive, haptic, sensorial
and tactile qualities’ (Valentine et al. 2017, S966).
While it is seemingly difficult to conceptualise such knowledge, the
value a textile designer brings to the design industry is increasingly depen-
dent on explicitly setting out to capitalise on these qualities and create a
marketable, commercial product that uses ethical and sustainable princi-
ples of manufacturing. Emerging sustainability contexts which a textile
designer must be aware of will require textile designers to pull together
disparate approaches, competencies and skills, in order to address some of
the most pressing requirements of industries, particularly for problem-
solving and considering the entire production and consumption cycle of a
garment, from growing or polymerising a fibre, through to where a gar-
ment ends up after its owner discards it, most often landfill at this point
(Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2017).
The unwritten physical and embodied application of textiles processes
and techniques is key to textile design practice. The weight to put on a
squeegee as it pulls through a screen, the tension a warp yarn requires
when threading up a loom and the force with which to attach a bead to a
fabric when embroidering are difficult to interpret via the written or picto-
rial form. As Conroy notes:
The craftsperson becomes tranced by sensual physical processes, getting lost

in making, in repetitive but varying techniques of twisting thread, knitting,
looping, twining crocheting, almost entering that infant world of sensation
and iteration. (2016, p. 361)
This ‘world of sensation and iteration’ is part of the tacit, embodied

knowledge of learning a crafts process, whereby an instructor will physi-
cally demonstrate a technique, encouraging the student to adjust the
direction or application of force, in order to develop sensitivity to the limi-
tations of their crafts medium for themselves. In this way, the knowledge
of making transfers from one maker to the next generation. This embod-
ied world of sensorial experience is reflected in the experience by consum-
ers of textiles and is often the key driver in the selection of one garment
94 C. LERPINIERE
over another, particularly with regard to the tactile, sensory feeling of the
textiles within a garment (DeLong et al. 2012).
Research within the aesthetic or design historical domains of textiles
explores the context which arises through understanding a textile’s history
or use, including decoding and articulating their social, cultural, political
and geographic origins that textile can embody. Both approaches, scien-
tific or design historical, can research and discuss key discourses around
textiles as artefacts of material culture, whereby the materiality of the tex-
tile is articulated through varied conceptual frameworks which are part of
the vocabulary of textile design. Though these values attributed to textiles
describe the social agency their use creates for anthropologists and design
historians researching materiality and the ways in which textiles and dress
create a sense of identity across global cultures, understanding this funda-
mentally human approach to textiles is key to tackling the huge disruption
and social impacts of fast fashion and the unsustainable nature of the
industry as it is currently constructed. Key to this is understanding textiles
as an embodied ‘situated bodily experience’ (Entwistle 2000, p. 5). This is
the case whether wearing soft pyjamas at the end of a day or dressing in a
formal gown for a public event.
Through the experience of wearing clothing, sitting on upholstered
furniture, or lying under a soft blanket, textiles create a sense of space
through their function as a ‘second skin, which prodigiously enhances our
pleasure in the first’ (Graves 2002, p. 49). This embodied, interactive
experience can lead to the creation of a personal relationship between a
textile experience and an individual. This relationship first arises through
the processes of making, which arise through what has been described as
‘textile thinking’, a distinct subset of ‘design thinking’ (Kane and Philpott
2013). Such thinking, which is an emerging body of knowledge within the
field, slowly following hundreds of years of practice, creates ‘an embodied
relationship with materials, characteristic of making, has the effect of acti-
vating specific kinds of thinking’ (Pajaczkowska 2016, p. 79).
This type of tacit knowledge has been proposed as occurring through
nine forms within the cultures of textiles, creating a ‘challenge for the
traditional distinctions between the technical skills of making and the
intellectual skills of understanding, knowing and authoring’. These forms,
‘felting, spinning, stitching, knotting/knitting, weaving, plaiting, drap-
ing, cutting and styling’ (Pajaczkowska 2016, p. 80) are phrased in such a
way to focus on the ‘verbs’ of textile design, rather than the ‘artefacts’ or
‘nouns’ created by the processes and techniques, and therefore imply value
construction through a transformative process. Textile design is the mid-

dle step in a creation process, as textile designers produce objects that are
often in the process of becoming something else: clothing, airplanes,
upholstered furniture. This conceptualisation of textiles as a part of a pro-
cess is reflected in Pajaczkowska’s (2016) ‘textiles toolbox’ of 9 ‘processes
of the body’ which marry doing with thinking, in order to bridge the gap
between theory and practice. Pajaczkowska calls upon the knowledge and
experience of practitioners to be used to throw light on theoretical and
historical critical positions of textiles, in order to enable the ‘agency’ of
textiles to be clearer. This agency occurs not only through the interaction
with a textile, but through the curatorial processes of owning, consuming
and caring for a textile or garment, in the ‘post-consumption’ phase. Lury
(1996) describes ‘post-consumption’ rituals in terms of the personalisa-
tion of an artefact, as a means of reassigning its meaning from that of the
manufacturer or retailer, to that of an individual’s own world. These ritu-
als are the means by which an anonymous object—often the product of a
distant, impersonal process of mass manufacture—is turned into a posses-
sion that belongs to someone and speaks to them, ‘Possession, in this view,
is not a static state, but an activity’ (Lury 1996, p. 12).
In this sense, the human relationship with a textile, particularly in the
form of a garment, produces an understanding of the performance of
wearing or caring for a garment as engaging the emotional and experien-
tial domains. Understanding and appreciating these affective domains is
key to encouraging a sense of a relationship between an individual and a
garment, so it is cherished, cared for, mended and kept. This ‘agency’ in
the textile will become ever more urgent in the growing awareness of the
impossibility of maintaining the status quo in current design and manufac-
turing practices.
Fast Fashion in the Anthropocene

Though not explicitly anthropological in their disciplinary self-
identification, the current generation of textile designers who are develop-
ing processes and concepts in order to nudge or develop consumption
approaches towards more sustainable models is in effect using ethno-
graphic approaches to explicitly record tacit and embodied knowledge.
For example, Kate Fletcher’s concept of the ‘Craft of Use’, part of the
‘Local Wisdom’ (2018) project, encourages users to curate and connect
with their clothing, through recording and emphasising the nature of the
96 C. LERPINIERE
processes of washing, mending, and caring for clothing. This is intended

to create a sense of the value of each garment, opposite the model of fast
fashion, with its ‘take, make, dispose’ approach to production, whereby
natural resources are taken, made into garments, then destined for landfill
(Ellen MacArthur Foundation Website 2017). To set this into context, a
recent study by Barnardos has indicated that a garment is considered ‘old’
by the consumer when it has been worn three times, and on average, a
garment is discarded after seven wears (Barnardo’s 2015). A report for the
management consultancy McKinsey has this to add about the current,
very recent, state of the fashion industry in the US alone:
Thanks to falling costs, streamlined operations, and rising consumer spend-

ing, clothing production doubled from 2000 to 2014, and the number of
garments purchased each year by the average consumer increased by 60%.
(Remy et al. 2016, p. 2)
The concept of a new era of human intervention on the planet has been
proposed, as a means to consider how humans have entered planetary and
geological timeframes. As commonly known, geological time is divided
into epochs which measure shifts in structures and shapes, such as the
Jurassic or Cetaceous periods. The current era, the Holocene, has been
suggested as being superseded by another, more human-centric epoch,
which has been proposed as the ‘Anthropocene’. Though this remains a
concept which is still under current debate by geologists, its use has
entered common parlance around sustainable futures, and several dates
which mark the beginning of this new era have been proposed, most in
alignment of the date with the ‘Great Acceleration’ in human resource
use, and corresponding increases in pollution and greenhouse gas emis-
sions, which puts the date within the second half of the twentieth century
(Lewis and Maslin 2015a, b; Steffen et al. 2011).
The Anthropocene is defined as a period whereby humans are having
an unparalleled effect on the planet’s environment, geology and biological
systems, whereby ‘humankind has become a global geological force in its
own right’ (Steffen et al. 2011, p. 843). The concept of Anthropocene has
the potential to galvanise and direct thought towards the potentially cata-
strophic consequences of reaching the limits of the earth’s finite resources.
As Lewis and Maslin note:
To a large extent the future of the only place where life is known to exist is
being determined by the actions of humans. Yet, the power that humans
wield is unlike any other force of nature, because it is reflexive and therefore
can be used, withdrawn or modified. More wide-spread recognition that
human actions are driving far-reaching changes to the life-supporting infra-
structure of Earth may well have increasing philosophical, social, economic
and political implications over the coming decades. (Lewis and Maslin
2015a, p. 178)
The role of the design industry, particularly its traditional position as

persuading people to buy more and discard their objects before they are
worn or finished in order to replace them with new things, is at odds with
the increasing awareness of the earth’s resources as rapidly depleting and
finite. Such an understanding requires a new model of design, as has been
widely discussed in the examination of creating sustainable design systems
for fashion and textiles, such as the circular economy (op cit). A rejection
of business as usual is increasingly prevalent in the fashion and textiles
research subjects, with the literature increasingly looking at a disruption of
the status quo in order to shift industry practices towards ‘systemic change’
(Delong and Black 2018). Such systematic change will require a shift in
fibre selection, fabric development, textile design practices, fashion design
practices, buying and supply chain transparency, care of garments, and
models of consumption and models of ownership, and such disruption
requires team efforts to push it through.
Transition Design
Technology and innovation have been discussed in the context of the
value they contribute to textile design, and how a technological focus
strives to produce novelty and innovative solutions to design problems. In
sociological and ethnographic approaches to textiles, an artefact is posi-
tioned as a meme of global culture, whereby the textile enables people to
socially engage and develop ‘domains of meaning’ through the exchange
and consumption of a textile, displaying and enforcing social hierarchies
and affiliations through dress and adornment (Schneider and Weiner
1989, p. 3). These domains of meaning increasingly also relate to the
domains of value, particularly brand values, which a fashion brand demon-
strates, and which consumers align themselves with. The creative thinking
and skills which textile designers specifically possess have been proposed as
98 C. LERPINIERE
more of an ‘opportunity for innovation’ in terms of disruption of manu-

facturing towards sustainable models (Padovani and Whittaker 2017,
p. 2). In particular, artisanal skills or creating sustainable pilot programmes
within SMEs (ibid.) or within small teams in larger multinationals such as
H&M (Andersen and Earley 2014) are noted as having the flexibility of
scale and the swiftness of response required to be innovative drivers for
sustainability.
As Jefferies notes (2016, p. 9), 25 years ago textile theorists were con-
cerned with gendered and textile arts readings of textiles, 10 years ago
textiles began to be conceptualised as bodies of practice, and the current
paradigm shift concerns the ‘artist-as-researcher’, the ‘theorist as artist’
and ‘performing as curator’. As noted, one of the issues that textile design
researchers must overcome is the often fractured or disaggregated nature
of research on the subject, due to the inherent differences between the
knowledge base of process and technique and the knowledge base of con-
cept and design necessary for undertaking the subject (Hodges et al. 2007,
p. 324). Therefore, exploring the subject requires researchers to situate
themselves within the ‘limitless’ (Hodges et al. 2007, p. 324) possibilities
for design which could occur within the varied contexts of the industrial,
scientific, design and cultural sectors which intersect with fashion and tex-
tile design. Hodges et al. propose that these can be overcome through
three objectives for the future development of the subject’s research.
These are: situating the subject within the philosophical domain, review-
ing and identifying approaches to inquiry that are anticipated to be essen-
tial for the future exploration of the field, and becoming transdisciplinary,
through adopting methods and epistemologies from other disciplines, but
simultaneously ‘sharing’ subject expertise as part of ‘give and take of being
openly transdisciplinary’ (Hodges et al. 2007, p. 343). Transdisciplinarity
in terms of design research enables interdisciplinary teams of researchers,
such as fashion designers, textile designers, product designers, anthropol-
ogists, psychologists and material scientists, to work together with experts
outside of academia, to draw upon varied cultures and bodies of knowl-
edge, harnessing varied expertise to explore and solve the issues of
sustainability and textiles. Such value identification and creation in relation
to textiles are essential for the future survival of the industry within the
context of finite resource depletion. ‘This knowledge and the new skillsets
transition designers will inform must be integrated from areas such as
science, philosophy, psychology, social science, anthropology and the

humanities and will therefore challenge existing design paradigms’ (Irwin

et al. 2015a, p. 12).
This approach draws from many different theories and paradigms,
many of which are of relevance and increasing interest within the fashion
and textiles and sustainable futures. In particular, ‘Everyday Life Discourse’
(Irwin et al. 2015a, p. 3) relates to the need to observe and consider
everyday, ordinary life and interactions as a means to develop new models
and paradigms for sustainability. The quotidian experience of wearing a
garment, such as a favourite T-shirt, would be one example which could
be drawn from textile design, particularly with regard to laundry behav-
iours, care and mending activities, as the application of these renders the
garment long-lasting or not.
Transition design draws on the concept of ‘transition’ from ecology, in
order to explain how ‘complex ecosystems sustain themselves over long
periods of time’. Under external stressors, ecological systems transition
towards other forms or structures in order to survive (Irwin et al. 2015a,
p. 4). This model of behaviour adeptly describes how textiles and fashion
are undergoing a sudden realisation that resources are finite and uses a
‘heuristic model to characterise four different but interrelated and mutu-
ally influencing areas: (1) vision, (2) theories of change, (3) mindset/
posture and (4) new ways of designing’ (see Irwin et al. 2015a). This
echoes current, disparate approaches to the field, in terms of developing
sustainable solutions to the problem of current models of fashion and
textile production, particularly that of fast fashion.
Lindstrom and Stahl (2016) note that in common with other design
fields, ‘new ways of knowing’ are required within textile design as a sub-
ject—they use the metaphor of ‘patchworking’ to describe a ‘collective
making of a patchwork of different kinds of knowledge, experiences, his-
tories and anticipations in relation to ways of living with technolo-
gies’ (p. 5).
This approach takes concepts from actor-network theory and material
semiotics relating to the material turn within cultural studies, whereby
artefacts are seen as co-existing with humans, and influencing behaviours
and attitudes, and concepts of feminist materialism. Transition design pro-
vides a model which reflects how textile designers can take a key role in the
disruption to the established orders and industries of fashion and textiles
created by global environmental challenges. As such, transition design
transcends not only individual disciplines, but extends beyond the acad-
emy to situate problems, and solutions, to sustainable futures in different
100 C. LERPINIERE
communities of expertise, including social groups, political movements

and biological or natural systems, to find solutions to complex global,
ecological and social problems. The objective of such teams is to ‘provide
designers with new tools and methodologies to initiate and catalyse transi-
tions towards more sustainable futures’ (Irwin et al. 2015a, p. 6).
Emotional Design
As Donald Norman suggests in his seminal work (2004), feeding user
experience back into the design process is key not only for improving the
design and function of pieces but also for eliciting an emotional response
to designed objects and understanding how brand loyalty arises. A com-
mon view in emotional design research is that success in design practice is
limited within paradigms of design research in which the world of objects
is viewed as separate to the world of people, rather than as an intercon-
nected mode of existence (Norman 2004; Aldrich 2004, p. 368). Within
this field, holistic design tools that generate and measure experiential and
sensory data have been developed, as a means for understanding the pro-
cesses within the cycle of consumption: ‘buying, using and owning prod-
ucts’ (Desmet et al. 2009, p. 1).
Within textile and fashion design, emotional design methods are less
common, though increasingly used within smart textiles applications and
industrial textile design (see Bang 2009; Baurley et al. 2007). Textiles can
become ‘repositories of deeply valued personal memories’ (Taylor 2002),
and many emotional designers situate design theories within phenomeno-
logical philosophy in order to describe processes of design and design
evaluation via embodied, affective frameworks. Transition design teams
can capitalise on such knowledge, particularly with regard to textiles and
fashion, to encourage a ‘slow fashion’ consumption of garments, new
models of ownership, such as renting and returning garments and design
activist events, which stage ‘sewing circles’ of repair and exchange of gar-
ments, rather than buy and discard models (Fletcher 2018) for value cre-
ation and intellectual capital exchange.
Phenomenology
Another transition design concept, ‘Goethean Science and Phenomenology’
(Irwin et al. 2015a, p. 4), understands the part in relation to its whole, in
common with phenomenological theory and practice, looking at growth,
maturation and demise as part of a holistic system in its entirety. It could

be argued that ‘fast fashion’ is such a holistic, phenomenological system,
whereby the experience of fast fashion, at first exciting and innovative, has
already begun to pale, as consumers turn away from the quick fix of fast
fashion towards other models of consumption and better-quality, ‘slower’
fashion. This turn away from fast fashion cannot come quickly enough, as
current models for dealing with fast fashion garments when no longer
required by consumers, through disposal or recycling, are not sufficient
and result in three-fifths of all clothing being sent to landfill or incinerators
globally (Remy et al. 2016, p. 5). The concept of phenomenology is also
relevant for exploring the individual’s user experience of a garment. The
phenomenological and existential understanding of a garment as an
embodied user experience is something the vocabulary of textiles addresses:
drape, handle, flexibility, wear, hue and thickness are all key experiential
descriptors which have quantitative and qualitative measures, which col-
lectively contribute to the experience of a textile (Blanco 2014; Franklin
2014; Lerpiniere 2013). Phenomenology is a field which, though not
often explicitly connected to textile design, is at the core of what textile
designers do: add value to a garment, interior or product through the
qualities that are embodied within and experiences created by the fabric or
textile. Textiles are a nexus for thoughts, processes, feeling and end prod-
ucts, and require research and design methods which are sympathetic to
this in order to be successful. Such existential readings and theoretical
perspectives on textiles will also become increasingly important to under-
standing the longevity of a garment, as a means of moving away from a fast
consumption and disposal model of fashion.
Transition design produces results which embed a designed object
within a wider societal influence or behaviour. Textile designers, through
their training, are ideally equipped for engaging with societal problems
from the micro (the performance of a fibre) to the macro (global supply
chains and sourcing) and must increasingly use this knowledge to influ-
ence and direct sustainable and responsible choices across the entire textile
sourcing, design development and supply chain.
Conclusion
As has been discussed in this chapter, textile design is going through a
period of disruption and transition, which it is argued will need to change
further to address wider issues of sustainability. Within this context,
102 C. LERPINIERE
e mergent research in ‘textiles thinking’, as a distinct but discrete subject

area aligned with ‘design thinking’, has produced many striking new
approaches to teaching, pedagogy, research and scholarship.
In terms of societal value, if textile design researchers and practitioners
are to direct and develop changes from within, they must be proactive
within their discipline to develop existing thinking or techniques, which
have the capacity to address key issues around sustainability. The skills a
textile designer has at their disposal include understanding of fibres and
fabrics, of craft and design principles, of methodologies for successful team
work within interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary teams, for concept and
idea generation, and of resilience when faced with difficulties. For exam-
ple, a textile designer must work with and interpret the needs of fashion,
medical, interior, automotive and industrial designers and architects,
drawing upon a sophisticated range of qualities and attributes in order to
be successful. The textile designer must engage with other professionals
within the creative and cultural industries, and learn not only the technical
and aesthetic competencies required to design a textile for a particular sec-
tor or manufacturer, but also work within teams. In this way, most textile
designers in industry develop communicative skills, as they have to suc-
cessfully collaborate with fabric technologists, chemists, colourists, gar-
ment technologists, fabric sourcers, licensing designers, fashion buyers,
colour forecasters and production technologists and machinists. They
must interpret and transcend not only the needs of the customer and their
lifestyles, but also the technical constraints of budgets, dyes, seasons and
fast output times, and stay within the critical paths of their manufacturing.
Increasingly, this complex web of activities must take place within the con-
text of making sustainable choices in terms of fibres and fabrics, consider-
ation of design contexts and consumer preferences, such as ethical
considerations, and ensuring manufacturing processes are environmentally
and humanly sustainable. In view of these complex skill needs, in this
chapter the designer, as one area of creative work, is conveyed as a profes-
sional value but one in which there is potential for wider societal value, by
addressing larger social issues such as sustainability. In this chapter then,
the issue of sustainability has provided an invaluable lens through which to
view and ascribe value to textile designers as one subset of the creative
industries with complex professional competences, and a higher (social)
value as a connector (and nexus) of skills to tackle wider societal issues. In
this way, the chapter emphasises the societal worth inherent in a profes-
sional means of working.
References
Akiwowo, K. (2016). Garment ID: Textile Patterning Techniques for Hybrid
Functional Clothing. In F. Kane, N. Nimkulrat, & K. Walton (Eds.), Crafting
Textiles in the Digital Age (pp. 103–120). London: Bloomsbury.
Aldrich, A. (2004). Body and Soul: The Ethics of Designing for Embodied
Perception. In D. McDonagh et al. (Eds.), Design and Emotion (pp. 365–372).
London: Taylor and Francis.
Allwood, J. M., Laursen, S. E., De Rodriguez, C. M., & Bocken, N. M. (2006).
Well Dressed? The Present and Future Sustainability of Clothing and Textiles in
the UK. Cambridge: Cambridge University Institute of Manufacturing. Online.
Retrieved August 20, 2018, from http://www.ifm.eng.am.ac.uk/resources/
sustainability/well-dressed/.
Andersen, K., & Earley, R. (2014). Design Thinking for Sustainability: A Case
Study of a Research Project Between Hennes and Mauritz and Textiles
Environmental Design. 20th Annual International Sustainable Development
Research Conference, Norwegian University of Science and Technology,
Trandheim, Norway, June 18–20 2014.
Banerjee, M., & Miller, D. (2003). The Sari. Oxford: Berg.
Bang, L. (2009) Triads as a Means for Dialogue About Emotional Values in Textile
Design. Proceedings from the 8th European Academy of Design Conference – 1st,
2nd & 3rd April2009, The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland.
Barnardo’s. (2015). Once Worn, Thrice Shy! British Women’s Wardrobe Habits
Exposed. Press Release, Barnardo’s Website. Online. Retrieved June 30, 2018,
from http://www.barnardos.org.uk/news/press_releases.htm?ref=105244.
Baurley, S., Brock, P., Geelhoed, E., & Moore, A. (2007). Communication-Wear:
User Feedback as Part of a Co-Design Process. Lecture Notes in Computer
Science, 4813(2), 56–68.
Blackburn, R. (2009). Sustainable Textiles: Life Cycle and Environmental Impact.
Cambridge: Woodhead Publishing and the Textile Institute.
Blanco, F. J. (2014). Revealing Myself: A Phenomenological Approach to My
Underwear Choices Through the Years. Critical Studies in Mens’ Fashion,
Intellect, 1(2), 117–131.
Bowles, M., & Isaac, C. (2009). Digital Textile Design (Portfolio Skills). London:
Laurence King.
Braddock Clarke, S., & O’Mahony, M. (2005). Techno Textiles 2. London: Thames
and Hudson.
Briggs-Goode, A., & Townsend, K. (2011). Introduction. In A. Briggs-Goode &
K. Townsend (Eds.), Textile Design: Principles, Advances and Applications (pp.
xxiii–xxxxv). Oxford: Woodhead Publishing.
Burke, M. (2008). Green Couture. Chemistry World. Online. Retrieved November
6, 2018, from http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/Issues/2008/March/
GreenCouture.asp.
104 C. LERPINIERE
Candy, F. (2005). The Fabric of Society: An Investigation of the Emotional and

Sensory Experience of Wearing Denim Clothing. Sociological Research Online,
10(1), 124–140.
Collins, M., & Weiss, M. (2015). The Role of Provenance in Luxury Textile
Brands. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management,
43(10/11), 1030–1050. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJRDM-07-2014-0091.
Conroy, D. W. (2016). Textile Technologies and the Sensorial Turn: Editorial
Introduction. In J. Jefferies, D. Wood Conroy, & H. Clark (Eds.), The
Handbook of Textile Culture (pp. 359–366). London: Bloomsbury Academic.
DeLong, M., & Black, S. (2018). Ten Years of Fashion Practice. Fashion Practice:
The Journal of Design, Creative Process and the Fashion Industry, 10(3),
257–261. https://doi.org/10.1080/17569370.2018.1509484.
DeLong, M., Wu, J., & Park, J. (2012). Tactile Response and Shifting Touch
Preference. Textile, 10(1), 44–59.
Denton, M., & Daniels, P. (2002). Textile Terms and Definitions (11th ed.).
Manchester: The Textile Institute Publishing.
Desmet, P., van Erp, J., & Karlsson, M. (2009). Design and Emotion Moves.
Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.
Ellen MacArthur Foundation. (2017). A New Textiles Economy: Redesigning Fashion’s
Future. Online. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from https://www.ellenmacarthurfoun-
dation.org/publications/a-new-textiles-economy-redesigning-fashions-future.
Ellen MacArthur Foundation Website. (2017). Circular Economy: Concept.
Online. Retrieved September 10, 2018, from https://www.ellenmacarthur-
foundation.org/circular-economy/concept.
Entwistle, J. (2000). The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress and Modern Social History.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Fletcher, K. (2008). Sustainable Fashion and Textiles Design Journeys.
Oxon: Rutledge.
Fletcher, K. (2014). Sustainable Fashion and Textiles. London: Routledge.
Fletcher, K. (2018).Craft of Use. Retrieved October 1, 2018, from http://kate-
fletcher.com/projects/craft-of-use/.
Fletcher, K., & Tham, M. (Eds.). (2014). The Routledge Handbook of Sustainability
and Fashion. London: Routledge.
Franklin, A. (2014). Phenomenal Dress! A Personal Phenomenology of Clothing.
Clothing Cultures, 1(1), 83–91(9).
Gale, C., & Kaur, J. (2004). Fashion and Textiles: An Overview. Oxford: Berg.
Goett, S. (2016). Materials, Memories and Metaphors: The Textile Self Re/col-
lected. In C. Hallet & A. Johnston (Eds.). (2014).Fabric for Fashion: The
Swatch Book. London: Laurence King.
Graves, J. (2002). Symbol, Pattern and the Unconscious: The Search for Meaning.
In M. Schoeser & C. Boydell (Eds.), Disentangling Textiles: Techniques for the
Study of Designed Objects (pp. 45–54). London: Middlesex University Press.
Harper, C. (2012a). Introduction: Patch One. In C. Harper (Ed.), Textiles:

Critical and Primary Sources: Volume 1 History and Curation (pp. vi–xxi).
London: Berg.
Harper, C. (2012b). Introduction: Patch 2. In C. Harper (Ed.), Textiles: Critical
and Primary Sources: Vol 2. Production (Including Sustainability) (pp. viii–
vxxi). London: Berg. History/Curation. London: Berg, pp. xiii–xxvi.
Hemmings, J. (2015). Introduction. In J. Hemmings (Ed.), Cultural Threads:
Transnational Textiles Today. London: Bloomsbury.
Hodges, N., Delong, M., Hegland, J., & Thompson, M. (2007). Constructing
Knowledge for the Future: Exploring Alternative Modes of Inquiry from a
Philosophical Perspective. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal,
25(4), 323–348.
Igoe, E. (2010). The Tacit-turn: Textile Design in Design Research. Duck Journal
for Research in Textiles and Textile Design, 1(1), 1–11.
Irwin, T., Kossoff, G., Tonkinwise, C., & Scupelli, P. (2015a). Transition Design:
A New Area of Design Research, Practice and Study That Proposes Design-Led
Societal Transition Toward More Sustainable Futures. Retrieved August 20,
2018, from http://design.cmu.edu/sites/default/files/Transition_Design_
Monograph_final.pdf.
Irwin, T., Kossoff, G., & Tonkinwise, C. (2015b). Transition Design Provocation.
Design Philosophy Papers, 13(1), 3–11. Retrieved September 20, 2018, from
https://doi.org/10.1080/14487136.2015.1085688.
Jefferies, J. (2016). Editorial Introduction. In J. Jefferies, D. Wood Conroy, &
H. Clark (Eds.), The Handbook of Textile Culture (pp. 3–17). London:
Bloomsbury Academic.
Kane, F., & Philpott, R. (2013). Textile Thinking for Sustainable Materials.
Presented at Making Futures 2013, 26th–27th September 2013, Plymouth.
Kane, F., & Philpott, R. (2016). Textile Thinking: A Flexible, Connective Strategy
for Concept Generation and Problem Solving in Inter-disciplinary Contexts. In
T. Marchand (Ed.), Craft Work as Problem Solving – Ethnographic Studies of
Design and Making (pp. 235–256). Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate.
Kane, F., Nimkulrat, N., & Walton, K. (2016). Introduction. In F. Kane,
N. Nimkulrat, & K. Walton (Eds.), Crafting Textiles in the Digital Age
(pp. 1–14). London: Bloomsbury.
Lerpiniere, C. (2013). One Wedding, Two Cultures, Four Outfits: The
Phenomenological Exploration of Fashion and Textiles. Journal of Textile
Design Research and Practice, 1(1), 27–41.
Lewis, S., & Maslin, M. (2015a). Defining the Anthropocene. Nature,
519, 171–180.
Lewis, S., & Maslin, M. (2015b). A Transparent Framework for Defining the
Anthropocene. The Anthropocene Review, 2(2), 128–146.
106 C. LERPINIERE
Lindstrom, K., & Stahl, A. (2016). ‘Patchworking Ways of Knowing and Making.
In J. Jefferies, D. Wood Conroy, & H. Clark (Eds.), The Handbook of Textile
Culture (pp. 65–78). London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Lury, C. (1996). Consumer Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Norman, D. (2004). Emotional Design: Why We Love (Or Hate) Everyday Things.
New York: Basic Books.
Padovani, C., & Whittaker, P. (2017). Sustainability and the Social Fabric: Europe’s
New Textile Industries. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Pajaczkowska, C. (2016). Making Known: The Textiles Toolbox – Psychoanalysis
of Nine Types of Textile Thinking. In J. Jefferies, D. Wood Conroy, & H. Clark
(Eds.), The Handbook of Textile Culture (pp. 79–96). London:
Bloomsbury Academic.
Piaget, J. (1972). The Epistemology of Interdisciplinary Relationships. In
Interdisciplinarity: Problems of teaching and reserach in universities, Centre of
Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) (pp. 127–139). OECD.
Polanyi, M. (1966). The Tacit Dimension. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Posner, H. (2015). Marketing Fashion: Strategy, Branding, and Promotion (2nd
ed.). London: Laurence King.
Remy, N., Speelman, E., & Swarz, S. (2016). Style That’s Sustainable: A New Fast
Fashion Formula. Retrieved from https://www.textilepact.net/pdf/publica-
tions/reports-and-award/style_thats_sustainable_a_new_fast-fashion_for-
mula_mckinsey_and_company_october_2016.pdf.
Schneider, J., & Weiner, A. (1989). Cloth and Human Experience. London:
Smithsonian Institute Press.
Schoeser, M., & Boydell, C. (2002). Introduction. In M. Schoeser & C. Boydell
(Eds.), Disentangling Textiles: Techniques for the Study of Designed Objects
(pp. 2–8). London: Middlesex University Press.
Shen, J., Prajapati, C., Smith, E., & Kane, F. (2018). Enzyme-Based Biotechnology
for Textile Coloration and Surface Pattern. Proceedings of the 91st Textile
Institute World Conference, 23–26 July 2018, Leeds, UK.
Sherburne, A. (2009). Achieving Sustainable Textiles: A designer’s perspective.
In R. S. Blackburn (ed) Sustainable Textiles (pp. 3–32). https://doi.org/
10.1533/9781845696948.1.3.
Steffen, W., Grinevald, J., Crutzen, P., & McNeill, J. (2011). The Anthropocene:
Conceptual and Historical Perspectives. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
Society, 369, 842–867.
Taylor, L. (2002). Decoding the Hierarchy of Fashion and Textiles. In M. Schoeser
& C. Boydell (Eds.), Disentangling Textiles: Techniques for the Study of Designed
Objects (pp. 67–80). London: Middlesex University Press.
Textile Terms and Definitions. (2018). The Textile Institute. Online.Retrieved
October 20, 2018, from wwww.ttandd.org. Last Updated August 13, 2018.
Thackara, J. (2015). How to Thrive in the Next Economy: Designing Tomorrow’s

World Today. London: Thames and Hudson.
‘The Economic Value of the UK’s Fashion Industry in 2015’. (2016). The British
Fashion Council. Online. Retrieved October 31, 2018, from http://www.brit-
ishfashioncouncil.co.uk/uploads/files/1/J2089%20Economic%20Value%20
Report_V04.pdf.
Tseelon, E. (2001). Masquerade and Identities: Essays on Gender, Sexuality and
Marginality. London: Routledge.
UN. (2018). What Are the UN Sustainable Development Goals?. United Nations.
Online. Retrieved September 10, 2018, from https://www.un.org/sustain-
abledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/.
Valentine, L., Ballie, J., Bletcher, J., Robertson, S., & Stevenson, F. (2017).
Design Thinking for Textiles: Let’s Make It Meaningful. Design for Next 12th
EAD Conference Sapienza University of Rome 12–14 April 2017, pp. S964–
S976. https://doi.org/10.1080/14606925.2017.1353041.
CHAPTER 6
A Cloth to Wear: Value Embodied

in Ghanaian Textiles
Malika Kraamer
Introduction
Today the majority of the Ghanaian economic, political and aristocratic
elites wear the latest fashion in colourful Kente, the hand-woven rayon or
cotton cloth often full of motifs. When the Asantehene, king of the Asante
made a historical visit and met the Okyehene, king of the Akyem on 23
August 2018, it was done so with one of the most lavish displays of Kente.
Kente, as the most valuable cloth from Ghana, is the primary focus of this
chapter, which examines the embodiment of cultural value in a particular
kind of textiles and the way in which the societal worth is expressed and
imbued within the cloths. The chapter considers in particular the historical
and, to some extent, fashion significance of these cloths, as well as the
complexity of their role as an indicator of national, regional West African
and black diaspora identities and (competing) ethnicities.
Economic and cultural value is a socially constructed phenomenon. For
example, prices of cultural goods are not a direct measure of value; at best
M. Kraamer (*)
Research and Collection, MARKK (Museum am Rothenbaum),
Rothenbaumchaussee, Hamburg, Germany
e-mail: malika.kraamer@markk-hamburg.de

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_6
110 M. KRAAMER
they are an indicator (Throsby 2001). Furthermore, belief in the value of

an artistic work is part of the reality of the production and consumption of
that artwork (Bourdieu 1993, p. 36), and cultural value is multiple and
shifting. In this vein, the chapter will look at the cultural consumption of
Kente as an exclusive good over the last two centuries in Ghana (known as
‘Gold Coast’ and ‘Upper Slave Coast’ during colonial times). Cultural
consumption can ‘be interpreted as a process contributing both to the
present satisfaction and to the accumulation of knowledge and experience
leading to future consumption’ (Throsby 2001, p. 24). I argue that the
economic, cultural and social value embodied in these prestige textiles has
changed not only over time but also in different (adjoining) areas. In ana-
lysing the multiple and shifting cultural value of Kente, both in a temporal
and a geographical sense, and following loosely some of the constituent
elements as proposed by Throsby (2001, pp. 28–29), particular attention
will be given to the intertwined social, historical and aesthetic value given
to Kente. For example, the value of Kente partly stems from its cultural
references to the past and it belongs in the domain of fashion with innova-
tion in Kente design laying at the heart of its perceived aesthetic value,
therefore surpassing Eurocentric binary concepts of tradition ver-
sus modernity. This produces apparently conflicting spaces in which cloth
is embedded in a sense of continuity and identity with the past (historical
and social value) whilst creative expectations of customers and supply
chains connote complex relationships between occasion, identity, self-
representation, and fashion trends as aspects of cultural value.
Production, Customers and Cloth Use

To understand the value of Kente cloth, one needs to understand how it
is produced in specific locations and how it has moved ‘through genera-
tions of history—a history that has changed their features and composi-
tion and seen an array of competing and contested claims around them’
(Boateng 2014). These textiles also carry embedded stories of wealth,
prestige and family ties.
Production of Kente Cloth

Kente is made in southern Ghana and Togo, comprising of narrow hand-
woven strips sewn together to form a cloth. This way of constructing a
textile can be found throughout West Africa, but the specific design con-
stellations in Kente makes it one of the best-known textiles and dress from
6 A CLOTH TO WEAR: VALUE EMBODIED IN GHANAIAN TEXTILES 111
this part of the world. It is a high-status cloth that gives work to hundreds
of weavers, plays a large role in regional, national and pan-African identi-
ties, and is exported in large quantities to other parts of (West) Africa,
Europe and especially to the United States where African Americans have
been using Kente in growing numbers in the last fifty years.
Kente is often divided between Asante and Ewe textiles, dividing the
cloth along ethnic categories. However, two of the three main weaving
centres are in the Ewe-speaking region, but the aesthetic and social inter-
relationships between all three centres are both independent and interde-
pendent and historically co-evolved. The main three weaving centres are
found in (1) several villages around Kumasi, the capital of the former
Asante Kingdom, including Bonwire and Adanwomase in the Ashanti
Region, in the middle of Ghana1; (2) villages in the Agotime area, includ-
ing Agotime-Kpetoe, Agotime-Abenyirase and Agotime-Akpokofe, form-
ing part of the Volta Region in Ghana; and (3) many villages in the
southern Volta Region, especially along the Keta lagoon, including
Agbozume and Anlo-Afiadenyigba, along the eastern coast of Ghana.
Customers and Cloth Use

We know little about the way people dressed in the former Gold and Slave
Coasts before the 1500s, but the use of cotton increased in the 1600s.
Textiles were probably reserved for elite groups at first but gradually
developed into everyday dress of common people until the widespread use
of machine-manufactured clothes (along the coast since the 1800s but not
prevalent in some parts of modern-day Ghana until the 1900s). Dress for
economic and political elites became more elaborate with the introduction
of new materials and techniques. This included the use of red thread
unravelled of European and Indian cloth, obtained in exchange for enslaved
people and gold, and more complicated techniques opened up new design
possibilities (Rømer 2000 [1760], p. 36; Bowdich 1966 [1819]; Isert
1992 [1788], p. 92). Reflecting on the production and wearing of Kente
in the 1700s, Rømer notes:
Some … subjects were able to spin cotton, and they wove bands of it, three
fingers wide. When twelve strips long were sewn together it became a
‘Pantjes’ or sash. One strip might be white, the other one blue or sometimes
there were red ones among them. Opoku bought silk taffeta and materials
I use Asante to refer to the Asante State and the Asante ethnic group, a subgroup of the
1
Akan, and Ashanti to refer to the administrative Ashanti Region in contemporary Ghana.
112 M. KRAAMER
of all colours. The artists unravelled them so that they obtained large quanti-
ties of woollen and silk threads which they mixed with their cotton and got
many colours. (Rømer 1760 [2000], p. 36)
In the twentieth century, especially post-independence, new users of

colourful Kente, in particular rayon textiles with non-figurative motifs,
were rising throughout Ghanaian middle classes in the capital and other
large cities. Europeans and Americans, particularly collectors and African
Americans, also began to acquire them.
Cloth Use
At many civic, personal and ceremonial occasions, Kente is worn by many
people, with festivals being notable occasions (see Fig. 6.1). Whilst some
festivals are historical, dating back to at least the seventeenth century, oth-
ers are newly established like the late twentieth century initiated Kente
Fig. 6.1 Two chiefs at

the 1999 Kente Festival
in Bonwire (Ashanti
Region) in two different
rayon textiles with
weft-float designs typical
of the late 1990s.
(©Photograph by Malika
Kraamer, Bonwire
(Ghana), 1999)
Fig. 6.2 Weaver Andrus Sosu in his loom while speaking to a customer in
Agortorme (upper part of the Keta lagoon in the coastal area of the Volta Region).
(©Photograph by Malika Kraamer, Agortorme (Ghana), 2018)
festivals in Bonwire and Agotime-Kpetoe, two of the three main weaving

places in southern Ghana.
A man generally uses an uncut hand-woven textile wrapped around the
body, and a woman wears an upper and lower wrapper. Since indepen-
dence in 1957, it has also been sewn as a skirt and top for women, locally
known as a kaba, and it has been used for many dress accessories (see
Kraamer 2005, p. 188; Richards 2016, p. 19). Walking in these colourful
textiles wrapped around the body is always eye-catching, such as can be
seen in the procession of chiefs, queen mothers and other court officials to
a festival ground. Since the second half of the twentieth century, Kente
114 M. KRAAMER
Fig. 6.3 Women and men exchanging greetings at the 2018 Agbamevorza, the
Kente Festival, in Agotime-Kpetoe (Volta Region). Some women wear two uncut
wrappers; others are dressed in a Kente sawn into a kaba. Some men wear a bata-
kari and others wear a Kente cloth wrapped around the body. (©Photograph by
Malika Kraamer, Agotime-Kpetoe (Ghana), 2018)
also figures prominently in the worlds of politics, fashion and design (see
Kraamer 1996; Ross 1998). The wearing of Kente by African Americans
grew exponentially in the 1990s, only to decline in the twenty-first cen-
tury (Rabine 2002, p. 11). Using the wrappers as daily dress has been
uncommon since the late twentieth century. The only exceptions are some
women who may use an (old) wrapper in the village as a skirt or to carry a
child and many people in southern Ghana, wearing gowns made from
hand-woven strips, called batakari which originated from northern Ghana
(see Fig. 6.3), which has been fashionable from the 1990s onwards for
daily and occasional wear (Quarcoopome 1993, pp. 193–202; Kraamer
2005, p. 191).2
2
A batakari or fugu is the historical dress form of the north of Ghana.
Geographical Differences and Economic Value

Patronage and restrictions on the use of Kente differed significantly
between the Asante Empire (1701–1898) and the large number of ‘states’,
sometimes comprising just a few villages, in the Ewe-speaking region. The
Asante Empire stimulated the weaving of more expensive textiles, includ-
ing the extensive use of silk, for the king and aristocracy. It played a vital
role in sustaining and supporting the strong hierarchical organisation of
this most powerful political and military state in the region. Weavers stood
under royal patronage and control. Only the Asantehene, the Asante King,
and his nobility were allowed to wear colourful Kente, and some cloth
could not be worn with the same design as the Asantehene when he was
present at an occasion (Rattray 1927, p. 234; Johnson 1979, pp. 60–63).
These restrictions had a direct consequence for the creative production of
the cloth as it limited production and the variety of cloth woven, raising
the social worth of the cloth and what it denoted. Thus, Kente was associ-
ated in this area strongly with royalty, and the value of Kente was directly
connected to the wearer of the cloth. With the exile of the Asantehene in
1897 by the British to the Seychelles and the rise of new economic elites,
these restrictions dwindled.
In contrast, Kente woven in the Ewe-speaking region of Ghana and
Togo had no limitations in place on its use as there was no single, large
royal court (Johnson 1978; Kraamer 2009), but their cost restricted use
to economic and political elites in the area and throughout West Africa as
many textiles were exported through the wholesale Kente market in Keta.
Weavers mainly explored design possibilities in cotton. Partly due to the
different weaving centres and the lack of restrictions on what to produce
for whom, the variety of textiles woven has been greater than in the Asante
Empire, a situation that continues until today.
Thinking specifically about the cloth, those with the most complicated
techniques and newest designs are also the most expensive with high mon-
etary value. This can be understood to some extent by the production
methods of Kente. The process of unravelling (cotton and silk) yarns in all
weaving centres and reincorporated in locally woven textiles means that
the value of the cloth reflects not only the importance of labour cost, as
complicated techniques greatly increases production time, but also the
value of the import, of scarcity, as well as wider cultural values of conspicu-
ous display and a premium given to innovation in design. Furthermore, in
the case of Asante, the restrictions placed on Kente, to wear specific Kente
on specific occasions, by specific people conspired to construct a contrived
116 M. KRAAMER
value. One might argue therefore that the cultural value of Kente in this
period and region was constructed from both a production and consump-
tion viewpoint; highly complex and entangled with royalty in one region,
while design innovations and conspicuous display in the entire area can
only be understood in the context of acquiring surplus wealth and new
goods facilitated by the slave trade and labour by enslaved people.
Constructing and Problematising Value in Kente

In the context of Ghana, the division of arts/crafts has no real value in the
(recent) past, and today only in an urban context that took-in a (European-
arrived) framework of crafts versus arts.
In analysing and deconstructing the long value history of Kente cloth,
as an example of an African creative industry in situ, it is important to
note that the Asante Empire in which some of the Kente developed was
one of the wealthiest kingdoms in West Africa. In more recent times, as
Rabine demonstrates (2002, p. 25), Kente production forms part of
transnational African fashion networks, characterised by small-scale pro-
duction, in which creative energy operates within a framework of eco-
nomic oppression. It therefore offers another way to understand value
creation away from constructs that shape ideas of value in a contemporary
European context.
Economic Value
Economic value certainly played a pivotal role in historical wearing of
cloths, beyond the obvious royal exclusions, but the notion of economic
and monetary transactions needs to be contextualised by the characteris-
tics of time and place. When one speaks of ‘economic value’, it is not only
the issue of finding suitable proxies but of understanding the basis of trade
in Ghana until recently. Barter has been pervasive for several centuries and
has been the basis of paying for tributes in crops and goods, including
cloth. Cowries have been the main currency, but in many places of West
Africa, cloth strips were used as currency, as was the case north of the
Asante, which to some extent reflects the prestigious value of the cloth.
Johnson (1970) notes the use of ‘cowries3 as a currency, capable of adapta-
3
Cowries in use came either from the Maldive Islands or the East African Coast (Johnson
1970, pp. 17–18).
tion to the specific needs of the West African trade’ (p. 17). They func-
tioned for centuries as currency before they lost their value with the
introduction of European currency and during subsequent periods of
inflation.
In contrast to the West, where textiles played a major role in industrial
transformation and in propelling the industrial revolution when produc-
tion moved from handloom to machine-powered loom (Zack-Williams
2002, p. 135), in West Africa, including Ghana, the colonial powers tried
not only to marginalise local manufacturing but also to subvert local cul-
tivation of cotton (Picton and Mack 1989, p. 31; Zack-Williams 2002,
p. 136). According to Zack-Williams, the production of raw materials in
West Africa in the colonial era ‘resulted in the stultified growth of manu-
facturing’ (2002, p. 136). In post-colonial time, the production of local
textiles continues to have a relatively high labour input in the production
process, in which most of the technological innovations (continue) to take
place in the absence of power devices (Zack-Williams 2002, pp. 136–137).
In the last few decades, mainly European and North American merchants
purchase items of cultural specificity, including Kente, to sell to ethnically
conscious consumers. These new merchant capitalists, by entering the
process after production, have no impact on the development of produc-
tion techniques, so that ‘the value of these items is premised precisely on
… the fact that they are handmade’ (Zack-Williams 2002, p. 143).
Changing Value
The value of Kente alters over time and in different social contexts. The
weaving of Kente is continuously changing, with many types of textiles
produced at any point in time. It is a practice handed down over centuries
and developing constantly as weavers incorporate, re-configure, adapt and
further develop elements of Kente and other textile traditions. Furthermore,
weavers continuously experiment with leftover materials, producing an
astonishing diversity of patterns and types of cloth. This continuously
changing tradition, which, as many African fashion systems, redefine the
tradition/modernity binary as ‘it was used by missionaries, colonialists
and anthropologists to oppose an Africa deemed traditional in the sense of
primitive and static to a modern Europe as transmitter of enlightened val-
ues’ (Rabine 2002, p. 10), is as much part of dress-as-fashion, with pro-
cesses of self-referential change, as dress to mark gender, class, status or
role in complex ways.
118 M. KRAAMER
Everyday Value
Whilst Kente thus far has been positioned as an exclusive cloth, others
might use plain-weave Kente, with the cloth providing intrinsic value for
special occasions, for example, a wedding, ‘the outdooring’ of a child or
the visit of an important person.4 The cutting of Kente to saw into a kaba,
a trend that only took off on a much wider scale in the twenty-first cen-
tury, is a clear demonstration of wealth. It means it adheres not only to the
last fashion in designs, although using older types of Kente is acceptable,
but also in the latest fashion in a kaba outfit as well as making a statement
that one can afford to cut into a Kente, even when that means it is not
possible to wear it anymore in the future, due to change in body shape.
Kente has also been used as wall hangings, tablecloths, placemats or
pieces of cloth on which to lay a corpse in state. Since the 1960s they have
also been transformed into many accessories, such as hats, shoes, jewellery
and ties, initially outside Ghana and Togo, but since the 1980s within
Ghana and, to a lesser extent Togo among the urban middle classes
(Kraamer 1996). In the United States individual Kente strips have become
especially popular as part of academic and liturgical robes, for example, as
part of a gown at graduation ceremonies (Kraamer 1996, p. 112; Ross
1998). The bulk of textiles remain, however, intended as wrappers for
men and women for the local and West African market.
In thinking about the implications of local patronage for the nature of
these textile traditions, one might ask about aesthetic and historical value.
As Picton (1992) notes: “Each tradition has its history, a history that must
take account of the nature of the tradition itself. Traditions vary enor-
mously in their creative expectations. Some are certainly conservative in
that the replication of existing forms is expected. Other traditions permit
and perhaps encourage exploration in form and medium; it is within such
traditions that we can expect to find innovative development. Even the
most conservative tradition is rarely static, however, and some paradoxi-
cally enable change by denying its existence” (p. 39). Local patronage,
through its tradition of expectations, is often stronger as a controller of
quality, yet at the same time it allows more for innovation within a tradi-
tion than would foreign demand. Foreign demand is often contaminated
by ideas of authenticity, hence fixing it ethnographically, in a recent past.
4
An ‘outdooring’ is the ceremony when a person, for instance a child, new initiate or new
chief, appears in public. It is often the end of a ritual and the most festive time of a ceremony.
It is an occasion that continues to be a common practice throughout southern Ghana.
Local patronage therefore often stabilises the survival and development of

an art tradition. Local patronage’s influence on quality is also exemplified
in the southern Ewe distinction between ‘home cloth’, cloth produced on
commission, and ‘market cloth’, cloth woven for the wholesale Kente
market catering to traders from further afield, denoting high and lower
quality textiles, respectively.
Dress, Fashion and Identity

The choice of a particular cloth is often related to a complex mix of iden-
tity, tradition, aesthetics, available sources, occasion, status, fashion trends
and wealth. One way to study the relationship between social identity and
textiles is to look in detail at the use of these fabrics in relation to the way
that particular identities are achieved in wearing these cloths. An individ-
ual hardly ever uses an Asante or Ewe Kente just to make a particular state-
ment about his or her social identity. This is a simplistic statement still
often found in the literature (e.g. Eicher 1995; Rabine 2002, p. 12). First
of all, there is the general expectation that the body should be covered.
Second, there can be many factors determining why someone buys or
wears a certain kind of cloth, including availability of disposable income,
taste, fashion, status, and the links between generations, families or larger
identity groups. Lastly, the wearer could make allusions associated with
status, identity, gender and ethnicity at various times. Particular colours,
shapes and certain (combinations of) motifs may have a value that associ-
ates the wearer with the possession of great wealth, with status and/or
with a certain kind of group. Textiles can have a political or ritual signifi-
cance: to clothe the dead, to mark an event of significance or as a gift to
help forge and maintain social relationships (Picton and Mack 1989).
Wearing a particular textile can also be simply idiosyncratic. The rela-
tion between textile use and social identity is complex. Different kinds of
identities co-exist in any individual and community. Ethnicity, town, vil-
lage, royal and chiefly status, age, kinship, gender, occupation, education,
religion and marriage may each provide particular sources of identity.
Different identities are manifested in different occasions and are not there-
fore static. In West Africa, ethnic identity as articulated today has often
been related to the experience of colonial rule, a newly defined identity
used as a means of contesting that rule or an identity inspired by mission-
aries and/or colonial officials. The emergence of an Ewe identity is a good
example. Out of political motivation, the stress on Ewe ethnicity was espe-
120 M. KRAAMER
cially strong in the middle of the twentieth century, but it seems that since
then, there has been more of a process of fragmentation. There is no one
single textile that has been used by the whole Ewe group to portray an
Ewe identity, which belies a complex ethnic and linguistic history. Thus,
the boundaries of linguistic or ethnic groups are not coterminous with the
kinds of textile used on particular occasions. Wearers are more concerned
with enacting a certain social position and fashion statement within their
community than an ethnic identity through the use of these fabrics. This
is especially apparent during festivals. Most of the Ewe chiefs and queen
mothers put on bright, strongly colour-contrasting cloths preferably in a
newly woven non-figurative design. To further support this, nineteenth-
and twentieth-century photographic collections indicate that coastal
people on the Ivory, Gold and Slave Coast were using textiles produced in
southern Ghana and Togo (Kraamer 2005). Although the production
centres of the distinct traditions were (and to some extent still are) local-
ised, the use of these textiles was, and is, not confined to one particular
group. For example, since the 1800s, Ga and Baule chiefs have been using
both Asante and Ewe textiles, Krobo and Akan people also have been
using Ewe textiles, and textiles woven by Ewe and Asante weavers have
been used further away, including different groups in the Niger Delta of
Nigeria (Eicher and Erekosima 1987; Aronson 1982). The newest fashion
today among the urban and chiefly elite throughout southern Ghana is for
Kente influenced directly by cloth from western Nigeria. When Ewe weav-
ers moved back and forth between Ghana and Nigeria, since the early
1990s, they not only influenced Nigerian textiles but introduced new
techniques and designs into Kente when re-adapting to the Ghanaian mar-
ket on their return. Therefore, whilst it can be said that proximity of a
textile-producing centre has resulted in a predominant use of textiles from
that centre, the examples cited show that the distribution of cloth pro-
duced in a particular weaving centre is not confined by weavers’ and con-
sumers’ perceptions of ethnic identities.
Cloth has sometimes played a more direct role in marking a socio-
ethnic identity, as is the case in late nineteenth-century Yoruba dress, but
it can be argued that in the struggle for and emergence of new indepen-
dent African states, it played a greater role in nationalistic tendencies and
therefore marking a socio-political identity. At the end of the nineteenth
century Yoruba dress was a point of discussion amongst the Lagos intelli-
gentsia in the context of colonial rule (Echeruo 1977) and this intellectual
activity ‘helped to constitute the early stages of “cultural work”’ (Peel
1989) in ‘realising a novel sense of collective identity as Yoruba’, which at
once expressed a possible relationship between dress and a collective iden-
tity expressed around an idea of a Yoruba nation (see Clarke 1999). In
Ghana, however, Kente was not used specifically in developing an ethnic-
ity, but it was configured in nationalistic discourses. Nationalists before
independence and the political elite afterwards wore Kente to align with
influential groups whilst also to demonstrate cultural esteem of their own
heritage (Kraamer 2005; Ross 1998). Early nationalistic intellectuals in
the coastal area, like John Mensah Sarbah, an influential lawyer, con-
sciously wore Kente on important occasions, as did Kwame Nkrumah
when he came to power in 1957. Nkrumah made the wearing of Kente
part of his philosophy of African personality at the beginning of the 1940s
(see Ross 1998). After becoming Prime Minister in 1957, Kente became
the official dress for ambassadors and was widely used by other politicians,
creating a boom in the production of Kente. Fosu (1993) notes the pos-
sible wearing of such cloth as an emphatic expression of decolonisation
with ‘stress placed on the intrinsic value of local traditions over the inferi-
ority of African races supposed through colonisation’. His pan-African
activities also influenced the use of Kente by other African leaders and
African Americans (Kraamer 2005). After the coup in 1966, the leaders of
subsequent military regimes used military outfits in public, but the use of
Kente by politicians under civil governments has remained popular until
today. Even through changes of government and military regime, Kente
has kept its status of political dress with the connotation, among many
others, of the cultural richness of Ghana (Kraamer 1996).
Since the 1990s, the origin of Kente became highly debated in Ghana
framed in ethnic terms, even when in practice many continued to wear
cloth based on fashion choices rather than presumed ethnic ‘authenticity’.
The Nkrumah era favoured a style of Kente which in the 1950s was mainly
associated with Asante cloth, rayon textiles in contrasting colours with
non-figurative motifs. Since then, this style developed and changed in all
three weaving centres, and one could argue that today it has become a
true Ghanaian Kente style (see Kraamer 2006, 2012, 2020; Kraamer and
Barnes 2018).
122 M. KRAAMER
Dress Versus Cloth in Social Identity and Value
Dress and Fashion
Another approach to the relation of textile use and social identity, fol-
lowed by several authors on African textiles, is to focus on dress, rather
than textiles, as a marker of identity (e.g. Eicher 1995; Hendrickson 1996)
and, more recently, the use of a fashion lens to study dress ensembles (e.g.
Rabine 2002; Rovine 2015). Joanne Eicher (1995) defines ‘ethnic dress’
as ‘the body modifications and supplements that mark the ethnic identity
on an individual are ethnic dress’ (1995, p. 1). As she argues, ethnic dress
is never static; sometimes just details of dress become critical points of
distinction between two ethnic groups and ranks within a group, and
makes the point that gender issues are also always present (Eicher 1995).
As much as these last statements can be taken for granted, her presump-
tions are somewhat problematic. When people dress for a specific occa-
sion, even when that dress configuration is specific to a particular group,
this should not be taken necessarily as a people ‘marking their ethnicity’.
Moreover, discourse on West African dress assumes too often that the
relationship between dress and ethnicity is unproblematic (e.g. Sumberg
1995, pp. 165–181; Eicher and Erekosima 1995, pp. 162–164; and Renne
1995, pp. 117–137), and yet there are multiple reasons why people dress
up. In the literature, stress is laid on the wearing of certain textiles to forge
a link with previous generations. Yet, as noted earlier, differences in dress
between neighbouring groups are sometimes determined by economic
history—for example, the coastal Kalabari managed to gather more wealth
over time than their inland neighbours, the Nembe (Sumberg 1995). As
further support, consider the way chiefs all over southern Ghana, Togo
and the Ivory Coast use a whole set of regalia that does not differ greatly
from one area to another, except in the richness of the material used.
Although it has been argued that these regalia have an Asante origin, they
were already in use by many other groups during the nineteenth century,
as noted earlier (Quarcoopome 1993). Even when ethnicity seems to be
relevant, such as the use of a T-shirt worn under a male Kente cloth by the
coastal Akan (e.g. Fanti), but no shirt worn by the inland Akan (e.g.
Asante), this difference may have emerged for climatic reasons rather than
traditions. Therefore, to assume ethnicity as the dominant or sole para-
digm is highly problematic. It seems more credible to argue that the wear-
ing of textiles is more a matter of taste, status and social position. The
choice is also informed by a person’s sense of propriety for a specific event

in relation to his or her available resources. Members of the elite in the
Ewe-speaking region, and throughout southern Ghana, desire textiles that
they consider to be ‘modern’, frequently requesting this from weavers as
such. Modern in this context denotes that which is in some way new, that
is, cloth incorporating new designs, new colour combinations, new kinds
of materials or even completely new types of textiles. As a response, weav-
ers have taken up this general appreciation for new textiles in different
ways, looking to repeat details of specific designs and experiment with new
colour combinations. They also augment the design possibilities made
available by the wide range of existing techniques and through the use of
an increasing range of threads, such as rayon, ‘lurex’ and polyester.
Innovation and Patronage
Hand-woven textiles are used at many social events in Ghana. They are
often used alongside African printed cloth. The local patronage for these
textiles is strong. Customs have changed, some have diminished and new
demands have developed. Hand-woven textiles continue to be used, how-
ever, to demonstrate wealth, enact social identity, forge a link with the past
and exhibit personal taste and sense of fashion, within a context of com-
petitive display. Kente cloths are used particularly in events that mark dif-
ferent stages of the life cycle and also figure at festivals and in some
religious services.
The use of cloth is, however, rarely more specific than needing to be
hand-woven, being a relatively individual choice. This choice is the out-
come of a complex set of factors according to the wealth, status, esteem,
taste and fashion of the person involved. The decision may also depend
simply on what textiles somebody owns. Sometimes a new cloth is ordered,
a decision that depends not only on money, but also on the perceived
importance of the occasion, and the respect a person wishes to pay it.
Then there is the individual evaluation of what is appropriate for a specific
occasion. Even textiles whose name would seem to direct a person to wear
the cloth on a certain occasion, such as Easter Sunday, are used on other
occasions. There are a few exceptions to this free choice, such as the wear-
ing of a particular cloth by young Agotime women in front of festival
procession and (in the past) puberty rites. The only restriction that cus-
tomers have in their choice of textile is in colour preference for certain
occasions: white as one of the many possible colours in a (printed or hand-
124 M. KRAAMER
woven) textile on joyful occasions such as the birth of a child, bright

colours on celebrations and dark colours on funerals.
Wearing a textile with a new design is highly valued and status can be
acquired through the demonstration of wealth. A cloth commission is
often phrased in terms of asking for a modern textile. Customers, though
receptive to new developments, leave the initiative to the weavers. This
lack of specificity regarding patterns therefore leaves weavers free to
explore their medium. Replication of textiles in fashion at a particular time
is therefore the norm in the daily life of most weavers. Still the general
premium placed on novelty stimulates weavers to experiment. It allows
Kente traditions to develop in many directions. The creativity of weavers,
even within very limited means of experimentation, is facilitated by the
wide range of techniques known to weavers, the training of weavers in
copying any kind of cloth sample and the lack of concern for ‘authenticity’
in relation to textiles.
Conclusion
This chapter has analysed the changing values associated overtly and
implicitly in the use of Kente in all its complexities. Whilst often argued to
be a strong indicator of ethnicity, and even discussed in these terms in
recent times, in this chapter it is shown that Kente in past and present
underscores in much more complex ways social identities and a sense of
fashion, rather than ethnicity. In this chapter, it is argued that the use of
Kente across ethnic groups and different interrelated weaving centres
weakens the argument in the literature about ethnic dress. Rather, the use
of Kente as formal dress at key occasions, such as a festival, church service
or wedding, serves to reinforce the role of dress-as-fashion as well as dress
in cementing complex and changing combinations of social identities in
this part of the world. This is clearly pronounced when wearing cloth dur-
ing times of post-colonial re-assertion such as in the aftermath of national
independence, the visiting of foreign dignitaries or the election of new
political leaders.
The second area of discussion in the chapter focused on problematising
value when drawing on mainstream constructs such as economic value or
cost, in social spaces where monetary transactions are imbued with wider
power and class dynamics. Monetary value related to production cost plays
only some role in the take-up of Kente, apart from indicating of disposable
income by the growing middle classes in urban areas. Rather, the use of
‘intrinsic value’, drawing on Throsby (2001) and considering actual value

as opposed to market value, allows for wider consideration of a mixture of
aesthetic, historical, economic and cultural value of the cloth. These
aspects play a role not just in contemporary, but also in historical use, and
allow for understanding the wider international take-up of these textiles as
well as the shifting temporal and geographic values embedded in Kente.
The tendency towards continuous innovation in designs, techniques and
materials used, reveals the wider importance of artistic value and creates
new dynamics for weavers, which suggests longevity of this ongoing fash-
ion tradition.
References
Aronson, L. (1982). Popo Weaving: The Dynamics of Trade in Southeastern
Nigeria. African Arts, 15(3), 43–47, 90–91.
Boateng, B. (2014). Adinkra and Kente Cloth in History, Law, and Life. Textile
Society of America 2014 Biennial Symposium Proceedings: New Directions:
Examining the Past, Creating the Future, Los Angeles, California, September
10–14, 2014. Retrieved October 15, 2018, from http://digitalcommons.unl.
edu/tsaconf/932.
Bourdieu, P. (1993). The Field of Cultural Production. Edited and Introduced by
Randal Johnson. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bowdich, T. E. (1966 [1819]). Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee.
London: Frank Cass.
Clarke, D. (1999). Aso Oke: The Evolving Tradition of Hand-Woven Textile Design
Among the Yoruba of South-Western Nigeria. Ph.D. Thesis, School of Oriental
and African Studies, University of London, London.
Echeruo, M. J. C. (1977). Victorian Lagos: Aspects of Nineteenth Century Lagos
Life. London; New York: Macmillan; Holmes and Meier.
Eicher, J. B. (1995). Introduction: Dress as Expression of Ethnic Identity. In J. B.
Eicher (Ed.), Dress and Ethnicity: Change Across Space and Time. Oxford: Berg.
Eicher, J. B., & Erekosima, T. V. (1987). Kalabari Funerals: Celebration and
Display. African Arts, 21(1), 38–45. 87–88.
Eicher, J. B., & Erekosima, T. V. (1995). Why Do They Call It Kalabari?: Cultural
Authentication and the Demarcation of Ethnic Identity. In J. B. Eicher (Ed.),
Dress and Ethnicity: Change Across Space and Time. Berg: Oxford.
Fosu, K. (1993 [1986]). 20th Century Art of Africa (2nd rev. ed.). Accra:
Artists Alliance.
Hendrickson, H. (Ed.). (1996). Clothing and Difference. Embodied Identities in
Colonial and Post-colonial Africa, Body, Commodity, Text. Studies of Objectifying
Practices. Durham; London: Duke University Press.
126 M. KRAAMER
Isert, P. E. (1992 [1788]). Letters on West Africa and the Slave Trade. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Johnson, M. (1970). The Cowrie Currencies of West Africa. Part I. The Journal of
African History, 11(1), 17–49.
Johnson, M. (1978). Technology, Competition and African Crafts. In C. Dewey
& A. G. Hopkins (Eds.), The Imperial Impact. Studies in the Economic History
of Africa and India. London: Athlone Press for the Institute of
Commonwealth Studies.
Johnson, M. (1979). Ashanti Craft Organisation. African Arts, 13(1),
60–63, 78–82.
Kraamer, M. (1996). KleurrijkeVeranderingen. De Dynamiek van de
Kentekunstwereld in Ghana. M.A. Thesis, Kunst- en Cultuurwetenschappen,
Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Rotterdam.
Kraamer, M. (2005). Colourful Changes: Two Hundred Years of Social and Design
History in the Hand-Woven Textiles of the Ewe-Speaking Regions of Ghana and
Togo (1800–2000). Ph.D. Thesis School of Oriental and African Studies.
London: University of London.
Kraamer, M. (2006). Origin Disputed. The Making, Use and Evaluation of
Ghanaian Textiles. Afrique: Archéologie & Arts, 4, 53–76.
Kraamer, M. (2009). A Textile to Wear: Kente Cloth from Ghana. In B. Gardi
(Ed.), Woven Beauty. The Art of West African Textiles. Basel: Christoph
Merian Verlag.
Kraamer, M. (2012). Challenged Past and the Museum: The Case of Ghanaian
Kente. In S. Dudley et al. (Eds.), The Thing About Museums: Objects and
Experience, Representation and Contestation (pp. 282–296). Abingdon:
Routledge.
Kraamer, M. (2020). Politics of Kente Cloth. In L. Taylor, et al. (Eds.), Creating
African Fashion Histories. Indiana University Press [forthcoming].
Kraamer, M. & Barnes, A.J. (2018). Unplaced Heritage: Making Identity through
Fashion. In S. Watson, J.A Barnes & K. Bunning (Eds.) A Museum Studies
Approach to Heritage (Leicester Readers in Museum Studies) (pp. 598–618).
Abingdon: Routledge.
Peel, J. D. Y. (1989). The Cultural Work of Yoruba Ethnogenesis. In E. Tonkin,
M. McDonald, & M. Chapman (Eds.), History and Ethnicity (pp. 198–215).
London; New York: Routledge.
Picton, J. (1992). Tradition, Technology, and Lurex: Some Comments on Textile
History and Design in West Africa. In History, Design, and Craft in West
African Strip-Woven Cloth. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution.
Picton, J., & Mack, J. (1989). African Textiles (2nd ed.). London: British
Museum Press.
Quarcoopome, N. O. (1993). Rituals and Regalia of Power: Art and Politics
Among the Dangme and Ewe, 1800 to Present. Ph.D. Thesis, UCLA Art History,
University College Los Angeles, Los Angeles.
Rabine, L. W. (2002). The Global Circulation of African Fashion. Oxford;

New York: Berg.
Rattray, R. S. (1927). Religion and Art in Ashanti. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.
Renne, E. P. (1995). Becoming a Bunu Bride: Bunu Ethnic Identity and Traditional
Marriage Dress. In Dress and Ethnicity: Change Across Space and Time
(pp. 117–137). Oxford: Berg.
Richards, C. (2016). “The Models for Africa”: Accra’s Independence-Era Fashion
Culture and the Creations of Chez Julie. African Arts, 49(3), 8–21.
Rømer, L. F. (2000 [1760]). The Coast of Guinea. (K. Bertelsen, Trans.). Legon:
Institute of African Studies.
Ross, D. H. (Ed.). (1998). Wrapped in Pride. Ghanaian Kente and African
American Heritage, UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History Textiles Series.
No. 2. Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History.
Rovine, V. L. (2015). African Fashion, Global Style: Histories, Innovations, and
Ideas You Can Wear. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Sumberg, B. (1995). Dress and Ethnic Differentiation in the Niger Delta. In J. B.
Eicher (Ed.), Dress and Ethnicity: Change Across Space and Time (pp. 165–181).
Oxford; Washington DC: Berg.
Throsby, D. (2001). Economics and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Zack-Williams, A. B. (2002). Merchant Capitalists and Textile Consumption in
West Africa. In M. Schoeser & C. Boydell (Eds.), Disentangling Textiles.
Techniques for the Study of Designed Objects (pp. 135–143). London: Middlesex
University Press.
PART III
Collective Creative Spaces and

Processes
CHAPTER 7
Intercultural Entrepreneurship in Creative

Place-Making
David Rae
Introduction
This chapter explores microcultural and intercultural entrepreneurship in
relation to the creative economy and place-making. Framing small groups
of people who share common values, beliefs, behaviours, heritage and lin-
guistic resources as ‘microcultures’, the chapter develops a conceptual
framework that illustrates how cultural value is created through entrepre-
neurial activities within microcultures (termed as intracultural), between
microcultures (intercultural) and in relation to the macroculture. This is
used to explore inter- and intracultural innovation and value creation in
two case studies: Leicester in the UK and Cape Breton in Canada.
The chapter argues that processes of learning, interaction and cultural
exchange can enhance intercultural understanding and shape entrepre-
neurial behaviours across cultural boundaries, leading to enhanced cul-
tural and economic value and innovation. It explores the role of
microcultures and intercultural entrepreneurship beyond the generalised
D. Rae (*)
e-mail: david.rae@dmu.ac.uk

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_7
132 D. RAE
term of the cultural economy, by recognising the diversity of cultural

relations and activities, embedded in and produced by and through a myr-
iad of ethnic groups, communities, organisations and other social collec-
tives. It concludes that the application of a microcultural framework
provides useful insights in understanding cultural entrepreneurship (CE)
and, specifically, that intercultural innovation has significant potential for
enhancing cultural value in the context of creative place-making.
Culture and Its Role in Entrepreneurship

Whilst DiMaggio (1997) describes the movement from thinking of a
‘seamless web’ of culture to recognise its complexity, fragmentation and
multiculturality, there remains a tendency to take culture as a unified
theoretical concept or construct, rather than acknowledging the distinct
contributions of many diverse, highly differentiated, competing and
complementary communities, discourses and languages. The terms ‘cul-
tures’ or ‘cultural diversity’ more accurately express the pluralism of
these activities. In support, Hofstede (2001, p. 9) views culture as ‘col-
lective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of
one group or category of people from those of another’. In cultural the-
ory, there are established discourses debating the roles of cognition, cau-
sation and cultural toolkits (DiMaggio 1997; Swidler 1986);
practice-based theory (Bourdieu 1990; Swidler 2001); and cultural fram-
ing (Cornelissen and Werner 2014), for example. These overlap wider
discourses on organisational culture, including the use of organisational
narratives of identity and explanation (Czarniawska 1998, 2004), and
the contributions of narratives and storytelling (Polkinghorne 1988;
Hjorth and Steyaert 2004) deployed to understand community-level his-
tories and organisations.
The intersection between culture, creativity and entrepreneurship is
highly pertinent to this study (Gehman and Soublière 2017). Culture is
used to describe the characteristics and production of activities in the cul-
tural economy and related industries, in which economic, policy and dif-
ferent ideological contributions are expected (Hesmondhalgh 2002;
Henry and de Bruin 2011). Gehman and Soublière (2017) have suggested
the emergence of a ‘third wave’ of cultural entrepreneurship, as cultural
making, which refers to processes of value creation across multiple reper-
toires and registers of meaning, supplementing antecedents of making and
deploying culture.
7 INTERCULTURAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN CREATIVE PLACE-MAKING 133
Introducing Microcultures
The significance of small cultural groups has been researched in relation to
cultural organisational literature (e.g. Fine and Hallett 2014; Leonardi
2011; Bolon and Bolon 1994). Recognising this, related terms such as
‘subculture’, ‘co-culture’ and ‘microculture’ are used to define small and
recognisably distinct groups who share a common set of values, beliefs and
behaviours, who possess a common history, and use a common verbal and
nonverbal symbol system, similar to, but varying subtly from, the domi-
nant culture (Banks 1994; Nieuliep 2017). This may describe an ethnic,
linguistic, geographic, faith or place-based group, or a combination of
these, which expresses the distinctive characteristics of a definable group of
people, possibly within a limited geographical area or within an organisa-
tion, belief or identity system, and which may share cultural characteristics
with one or more macrocultures.
However, microculture is not synonymous with ethnic identity, since
ethnicity is a given, albeit important aspect of cultural identity, whilst
other aspects are more mutable. The many finer distinctions of, for exam-
ple, faith, gender, sexual orientation, locus, membership and other aspects
of sectionality are relevant in defining microcultural identity. As ethnic
categories are relatively broad, a microculture can exist both within or
across ethnic groups. For example, people of Indian ethnic origin in
Britain may come from a Gujarati or other background; from East Africa;
may be of Hindu, Sikh, Moslem, Jain or Christian faith; and may have a
caste group. These, and other variables, would affect their microcultural
identity (Jivraj and Finney 2013).
As a result, whilst the term ethnic minority entrepreneurship has been
widely used (e.g. Ram and Jones 2008), the term ‘minority’ is, arguably,
becoming less applicable in cities where there is no longer a majority
ethnic group, and all groups are in effect minorities, whilst also belonging
to a microculture. In this sense, the concept of idioculture has also been
used to develop understanding of small-group cultures (see Fine 1979;
Fine and Hallett 2014; Bolon and Bolon 1994). Fine, for example, defines
an idio (from Greek for ‘own’) as ‘a system of knowledge, beliefs, behav-
iours, and customs shared by members of an interacting group to which
members can refer and employ as the basis of further interaction’ (Fine
1979, p. 734), which emerges from effective interaction by a group to
address a problem or shared interest. Fine identifies five criteria to be met,
which explain how a ‘cultural item’ is selected to form part of a group’s
134 D. RAE
idioculture: that it be ‘perceived as Known, Usable, Functional, and

Appropriate in terms of the group’s status system and Triggered by some
experienced event’ (Fine 1979, p. 738). Fine’s idiocultural categories can
be used as a tool for analysing cultural groups and activity, whilst the cul-
tural creation process can assist in understanding how products reach a
wider audience (Fine 1979, p. 738).
The idiocultural approach reconceptualised ‘subculture’ within a sym-
bolic interactionist framework, showing subcultural variations, cultural
changes and the diffusion of cultural elements. By clarifying ‘subculture’ as
a process involving the creation, negotiation and diffusion of cultural items,
it provided a framework for research on subcultures (Bolon and Bolon
1994), whilst ‘Interlocking’ group memberships through weak social struc-
tures (Granovetter 1985) provides a conceptual basis for understanding
how cultural content can be defined and transformed through inter-group
negotiation. This conceptual basis has obvious applications for thinking
further about place-making in large, multicultural cities (see e.g. Markusen
and Gadwa 2010) whilst also providing a rich framework for considering
the role of culture in value creation for cultural entrepreneurship.
Microcultural and Intercultural Enterprise

DiMaggio (1997, p. 283) argued for cultural studies which enable under-
standing of the complex relationships between culture and social struc-
ture, integration between micro and macro, and cognitive and material
perspectives. In studying organisations, culture has been widely problema-
tised and investigated from the perspective of understanding the prevail-
ing systems of identity, meaning, behaviour and discourse in workplaces as
organisations (e.g. Czarniawska 1998, 2004; Watson and Harris 1999). In
relation to cultural value creation, innovation has moved from a concern
simply with the ‘bright shiny things’ of technology-led novelty produc-
tion, to reflect much wider processes of open and social innovation, intro-
ducing aspects of co-creation involving different actors and audiences, and
diverse forms of diffusion (e.g. Chesbrough and Bogers 2014). The con-
tributions of learning; responsible, social and ethical entrepreneurship;
female and network perspectives have developed a conception of entrepre-
neurship which is collective and societal as well as individualistic.
Contributions such as effectual entrepreneurship (Sarasvathy 2001) and as
an educational philosophy of shared value creation which includes multi-
ple types of value (Lackéus 2016, 2018) indicate a shift in emphasis from
economic to social, which has strengthened since the financial crisis of

2008 (Rae 2015).
Attention to microculture in creative entrepreneurship is useful, where
novelty and innovation are increasingly derived from small, local, hitherto-
undiscovered ‘new voices’ (of artists, writers and performers), as well as
introducing those traditions to a wider audience. A micro-level perspective
can assist in understanding both how activities of learning, innovation,
entrepreneurship and cultural activity occur, and their relationships with
meso- and macro-level organisations. To illustrate how this ecology works,
a multi-level perspective is proposed in Fig. 7.1.
The existence of microcultures as a structuring method presupposes
there being a macroculture of recognisable national, political, institu-
tional and normative symbols, practices, processes and governance.
Connecting the macro- and micro-levels there is generally a recognisable
meso-level, or shared culture, through which ideas are diffused, dis-
courses, norms and practices evolved, negotiated and distributed. This
may manifest itself at a regional or city level, for example, as in the cases
later described.
Introducing the conceptual map for intercultural entrepreneurship in
Fig. 7.1, microculture is framed by a set of categories (Cornelissen and
Werner 2014), including identity and heritage, locus, discourse and cul-
tural practices, each of which can be subdivided. Identity is likely to be
Fig. 7.1 Value creation through intercultural entrepreneurship

136 D. RAE
both self and socially applied, and may reflect not only a shared familial
name, but also aspects of the heritable traditions and beliefs which pro-
duced the shared identity (Tajfel and Turner 1979; Weber and Dacin
2011). None of these relationships are static, even where parts of the cul-
tural map are declining, such as in depleted communities. Social and other
forms of digital media enable sharing of cultural discourses and resources,
leading to both innovation and synthesis into the mainstream.
The locus is the group’s identification with a geographic location as
‘home’. This may simply be a specific area or place; however migrant
groups, for example, may well see their country or place of ethnic origin
as ‘home’ through extended family groups as well as their current location
or ‘place’. Locus is a powerful anchoring concept in cultural identity and
clearly offers a connection with creative place-making.
The microcultural discourse is composed of the shared linguistic
resources, signs, symbols and meaning-making which are used within the
group in everyday exchanges to form and maintain their culture. The cul-
tural practices of the group are ways in which the discourse is used, for
example in events with symbolic and social meaning, performances and
production of cultural works. Social and other forms of digital media
enable sharing and diffusion of cultural discourses and resources, leading
to both innovation and synthesis into the mainstream.
These four broad categories are used in description, analysis and com-
parison of microcultural groups and their cultural production. Also, the
five idiocultural categories from Fine (1979) may be used at an even more
specific level to define how a cultural item (such as a project, product or
event) forms part of the microculture, and how it may be diffused beyond
it. So, for example, value-creating cultural activities such as events and
performances, innovative products and business ventures may be analysed
in this way.
Intracultural entrepreneurship describes a business activity targeted
within its own cultural group. Intercultural entrepreneurship takes place
when a business extends its market, employees, staff, investors, suppliers
or distributors beyond a single microculture or community, working with
two or more cultural groups. This is often necessary for growth ‘into the
mainstream’ or meso-culture. Understanding what is valued, and why, is
necessary to attract and create value. Intercultural entrepreneurship spans
boundaries between cultural groups to create wider value than is possible
in one culture. The concepts of the intercultural enterprise as a business,
and intercultural entrepreneurship as an activity, are important in human

economic and social development, because they create cultural links
through business exchange, which generate deeper cultural understanding
and trust over time.
An organisation with founders from different cultural groups can be
an intercultural enterprise. In some cosmopolitan cities, such as New York
or London, this is normal and unremarkable, but is not yet so globally.
An intercultural enterprise, to be sustainable and effective, must be
acceptable in the cultures within which it operates, and its own norms,
values, discourse and practices must therefore be accepted, even com-
fortable, for all its stakeholders. This requires cultural leadership, fluency
and sensitivity, both to create trust and to avoid unintentional offence to
different groups. Intercultural entrepreneurship requires higher levels of
such skills than those operating in just one culture, though to be com-
petitive, the latter increasingly need to appeal and work effectively across
cultural boundaries.
Entrepreneurship is concerned with creating and marketising value
from opportunities, by stimulating demand, organising resources to meet
this and capturing the value produced. In intercultural entrepreneurship,
value propositions of what is valued, why and how, often differ, even sub-
tly, between cultures. Understanding and translating these shifts in mean-
ing is an essential skill. Value creation and sharing have multiple modes:
social, cultural, aesthetic and environmental as well as financial and eco-
nomic (Rae 2015; Lackéus 2016, 2018). The model includes a simple
value-creation cycle, attracting and creating multiple forms of value; shar-
ing these by means of diffusion; and retaining and distributing value
within the community and other stakeholders. There is an increasing rec-
ognition that value is co-created, blurring distinctions between producers
and consumers, and that value created should be shared between
those involved.
Institutional entrepreneurs may play roles in leading cultural groups, or
in boundary-scanning innovations which can strengthen, or indeed
weaken, intercultural and inter-level activities (Thornton and Ocasio
2008). Cultural leadership, community organisation and institutional
agency are enablers of intercultural entrepreneurship, where they are well
developed and supportive, but can be inhibitors if they are not. Using
digital media to diffuse news and user or community responses to the
innovation helps to reinforce and extend value creation.
138 D. RAE
Microcultural Enterprise Leading

to Value Creation
The two mini-cases represent places in which entrepreneurial initiatives

within microcultural groups have extended across community boundaries
to result in intercultural value creation, which has also shifted the identity
of the place to become known for its intercultural enterprise.
The cases are framed through structuring the four categories of micro-
culture in Fig. 7.1, of: identity, locus, discourse, cultural practices and
intercultural value creation. This aids comparison and interpretation of the
cases in relation to the model. The two cases are Leicester as a multicul-
tural city in the UK, and the second, Cape Breton, a rural district on
Canada’s eastern province of Nova Scotia.
Case 1: Leicester as a City of Intercultural Enterprise

Leicester is one of the most culturally diverse cities in Britain. According
to the 2011 Census, no single ethnic group has an overall majority. White
British (45%) and Indian (28%) are the largest ethnic groups, the wider
population comprising a diverse mix of ethnicities, including White Other
(5%), Asian Other (4%), African (4%) and Pakistani (2%) (Jivraj and Finney
2013). The figures mask the impact of migration and settlement in
Leicester, which has transformed the city socially, culturally and economi-
cally from the 1970s onwards. A major contribution was from East African
Asians, over 20,000 of whom settled in Leicester. Many who arrived as
children went on to establish their own enterprises, creating what became
a network of successful, mature and intercultural businesses. Other signifi-
cant migrant groups came from other African countries including Somalia,
Nigeria and Kenya and from India, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe
(Runnymede Trust 2012).
Leicester has two universities, the University of Leicester and De
Montfort University (DMU). Both have a strong international outlook,
but DMU was adopted by many migrant families as a study choice, with
the University’s outreach strategy to recruit students from families with-
out a background of higher education attracting a diverse mix of students.
Combined with an ambitious international recruitment strategy, this has
resulted in a very diverse student population from over 130 countries and
including many ethnic and cultural groups.
One of DMU’s strategic themes is to create and apply knowledge to

further global societal and economic development. Its International
Strategic Framework (2016) described ‘an international community where
students and staff from diverse backgrounds and cultures learn from and
enrich each other’s experiences’. This is supported by a range of interna-
tional initiatives, branded #DMUglobal, which has supported a global
student mobility programme of international study experiences for over
7000 students in more than 60 countries since 2014 including Brazil,
India, China and the USA. Square Mile India supports student projects in
India working on development with highly disadvantaged communities.
The strategy aims to embed international experiences at all levels of
teaching and learning. Intercultural and language learning, international
students and staff mobility, project and technology-based learning, and a
global outlook on transnational education partnerships and research net-
works, student competencies and case-based learning materials are all fea-
tures of the strategy, together with an institutional commitment to the
United Nations’ Strategic Development Goals. DMU itself has trans-
formed its city campus into a dramatic space, dominated by the Vijay Patel
building for the creative arts and humanities.
Access to higher education provides a channel to social and professional
mobility. First-generation Indian migrants, from Uganda, for example,
often took whatever economic opportunities they could find after arriving
in the UK, but many left behind successful business or professional lives
and encouraged their own children to study for higher qualifications and
to build their own careers. This has been a factor behind the growth of an
intercultural professional and business middle class which is manifested in
both entrepreneurial and large organisations.
Students come to a university from their native microcultures, whether
these be an English rural farm or an Indian or Chinese city, bringing their
identities, discourses and cultural preferences and practices. People world-
wide have deeply rooted habits, likes and dislikes. Food culture is an exam-
ple, there being a few things more upsetting than being unable to obtain
and consume one’s preferred foods in a strange environment. This can
create tensions (university restaurants not providing rice for Chinese stu-
dents, for instance) as well as opportunities for food entrepreneurs to open
specialist shops and cafes to cater for them.
Food culture is one of the great sources of innovation, introducing new
choices and exposure of ‘native’ and other cultures to the new tastes.
140 D. RAE
There is always an appetite to sample new tastes, ingredients and styles of

cooking from different traditions, which are then shared, copied and
fused. The specialist microcultural market alone may be too small, so the
business needs to attract a wider customer group. So, for example, as
Vietnamese, Thai and Sri Lankan curry restaurants start up and attract
wider customer groups, they become part of the city’s meso-culture.
Leicester has experienced a growing and changing small business economy
for many years, characterised by small independent retailers, food outlets,
textile, garment and manufacturing and service businesses. Initially, ethnic
minority-founded micro- and small businesses met the distinctive needs of
concentrated groups of ‘co-ethnic’, mainly South Asian populations, in
sectors such as food and retailing.
Ram and Jones (2008) commented on the ‘breakout’ practices of ethnic
small and medium-sized enterprises to reduce dependence on ethnic mar-
kets and to establish mainstream market-oriented businesses, for example,
through curry houses serving an ethnic product to a non-local market.
Whilst many businesses were stuck in declining market sectors, such as
textiles and convenience retailing, some were able to innovate and break
into new areas of the economy, such as technology, food packaging, print-
ing, property, legal and financial services. The ambition of such businesses
was to enter the ‘mainstream’ market and a number have been successful in
doing so. This involves bridging cultural boundaries to ‘mainstream’ mar-
kets as any other business. As one family-owned printing business explains:
‘by moving beyond a local market of other ethnic minority small firms, we
can build up a base of customer prepared to pay higher margins for higher-
quality and larger volumes of work, enabling the firm to reinvest in new
digital technology printers’ (see Rae 2005). Other minority firms with an
international orientation, such as those in the Somali community, used
their diasporic networks at transnational levels to access valuable resources
and markets for entrepreneurial activities, an approach described by Jones
et al. (2010) as ‘superdiversity’. The strong diasporic networks of other
communities in South Asian, African and Central/Eastern European coun-
tries have made this an increasingly adopted approach to both international
and intercultural development of such businesses.
The Leicestershire region has over 10,300 creative sector businesses
located in the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership (LLEP)
area with 33,000 workers, representing one of the largest creative agglom-
erations nationally (Granger 2017) but with an above national-average
representation of micro-businesses (96.8%). It is increasingly evident that
the growth of Leicester’s business diversity from different communities,

combined with the development of the creative industries district and the
development of rich, cultural amenities such as the Curve theatre and
Phoenix arts cinema has contributed to a change in Leicester’s cultural
identity and by extension, cultural value production (CREATE 2016).
Uniquely for its size in the UK, it has developed an internationalised and
intercultural creative city. Enterprises such as Indian culture festival organ-
iser Darbar and a range of fashion and textile designers exemplify the
intercultural creative enterprises. An exploration of Leicester as a creative
city (Granger 2017) expressed concerns about the inclusivity of the cre-
ative economy for aspirant entrepreneurs from all ethnic minorities, and its
prospects for economic impact from its concentration in low-rewarding
sectors such as apparel. However, there is a growing demand from stu-
dents and graduates from diverse cultural groups to start creative ventures.
Case 2: Celtic Colours, Cape Breton, Canada

In Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, a ceilidh is not generally a barn dance
requiring a piper, caller, jigs and reels. The Scots settlers fleeing the eigh-
teenth century forced clearances of their homes in the Highlands and
Islands brought their simpler tradition of a social gathering in a home—a
kitchen party.
The ceilidh exemplifies the interculturality of this challenged little
island, located at the remote Northern tip of Nova Scotia, on the
Canadian Atlantic coast, and utterly peripheral to the Federation. Its brief
history was that Unama’ki (‘The land of fog’) was inhabited from time
out of mind by the Aboriginal Mi’Kmaq people, whose deep understand-
ing of the land and waters enables them to live by fishing from the birch-
bark canoes they built, to make tepees to live in, clothes to wear and to
share rich oral traditions of culture, storytelling, community rituals and
order, based on the wisdom of their elders. European fishermen discov-
ered the island in the 1500s which was contested in subsequent centuries
by Scots, English and French colonisers. The French entreatied the
Mi’Kmaq people, introducing them to Catholicism, but after the island
fell to British colonialism, the French were permitted to resettle under
British rule. The Mi’Kmaq were less fortunate, later being deprived of
their lands, ways of life, heritage and language, mainly by Scots settlers
and English laws. The draconian goals of Canadian Aboriginal policy
were to ‘cause Aboriginal peoples to cease to exist as distinct legal, social,
142 D. RAE
cultural, religious, and racial entities in Canada’ (Truth & Reconciliation

Commission 2015). The island under British dominion became a naval
and later industrial centre as deep coal reserves were mined. Iron and
steelworks were built in a bid to become ‘the Pittsburgh of Canada’. Yet
the growing industrial population of Scots, Irish and later middle-Euro-
pean settlers were subject to brutal exploitation and repression, before
the industrial economy collapsed in the latter twentieth century. The
island then struggled to reinvent itself in a context of economic and social
decline, depopulation and erosion of its national role and identity. Its
principal means of creating a new identity and meaning has been cultural,
building on enduring qualities of stoic persistence, community, hard
work and creative expression.
The island provides a locus to explore intercultural innovation and
entrepreneurship. There is a ‘Caper’ meso-culture formed of interactions
between numerous diverse microcultures, which is constantly affected by
its interactions with the macroculture of federal Canada and the dominant
North American influences of US corporations, economic and political
actions. The microcultures are framed by their ethnic and linguistic identi-
ties; faith group memberships; economic activities; cultural participation
and production; and leadership. The microcultures can be explored at vil-
lage or community level through their ethnic heritage. The Mi’Kmaq
Band communities are on tribal reserves, the largest being Membertou in
the urban region and Eskasoni on the inland sea. After centuries of oppres-
sion, they were granted and increasingly assert rights of self-determination.
Membertou has become the third largest employer and the fastest grow-
ing community in the urban region. Its leadership is enabled by their eco-
nomic model of community entrepreneurship, providing new employment,
housing, health care and education for the growing, young population
(Membertou 2016). Yet Membertou is at heart a community of inter-
related expanded families, using recurrent patronyms such as Christmas,
Marshall, Paul and Googoo. The renaissance of Mi’Kmaq culture is a
remarkable story of growing confidence from great adversity.
Family and locus are also essential aspects of the numerous ‘settler’
communities. The French Acadians live in coastal settlements such as
Cheticamp and Arichat, where fishing, farming and tourism are the prime
industries. These are cheerfully and culturally distinct from the Scotian
settlements, with their architecture, business, cultural norms and music
recalling Atlantic French villages and forming part of the Francophone
family of Maritime Canada. The Scots-Irish ‘Capers’ became the d ominant
cultural group, arising from diverse roots. Many of the original Scots were
Gaelic-speaking migrants from the Highland clearances and even now pat-
ronyms of MacDonald, Macleod and MacNeil are ubiquitous. They were
joined by later Scots and Irish settlers as adversity led to migration. The
first settlers claimed the best waterfront lands with later settlers scrabbling
for the poor backwoods. Today, the cultural distinctions between the rural
and farm-based communities and the former industrial and mining settle-
ments in the urban region are as pronounced as serenity and squalor.
Smaller numbers of later twentieth-century settlers brought their own cul-
tures, including workers from Poland, Ukraine, Italy, Lebanon; and
Dutch farmers.
Faith and church membership is significant, Catholicism being the larg-
est group, formed from diverse affiliations. When the Polish Catholic
church burnt down in 2014, the small community worked fiercely to raise
funds and rebuild it. There are Protestant, Orthodox, Jewish and Muslim
faith groups, progressively smaller than the Catholic communities, but
symbolically and socially important forms of cultural identity.
Cultural participation and production are economically vital in relation
to innovation and entrepreneurship for the island to offer more than its
physical resources and geographical location on the shortest Atlantic
crossing. There are cultural institutions and factors which can either enable
or constrain entrepreneurial development. These include the roles of gov-
ernment and education institutions, leadership, community action and
technology. These are largely formal and institutionally sanctioned at the
meso- and macrocultural levels. However, the role of informal activism
through community organisation, or agency, is significant at microcultural
levels, especially where institutional policies fail to resolve the effects of
economic and demographic decline in depleted communities (Johnstone
and Lionais 2004).
The philosophy of collective action, exemplified by the New Dawn
approach of ‘gathering together smart people to look at problems and
come up with new solutions’ (MacSween 2015) addresses and chal-
lenges institutional constraints by creating new institutions and logics.
Where this activism spans cultural boundaries to become intercultural, it
can have much greater multiplier effects than within one community.
The case explores an example of intercultural innovation which
responded to the discourse of economic and demographic decline and
limited institutional ability to respond to these challenges (One Nova
Scotia Commission 2014).
144 D. RAE
The Celtic culture of music, dance and hospitality became recognised

as one of the Island’s most distinctive features. In 1997 a voluntary group,
led by Joella Foulds, promoted the first ‘Celtic Colours’ festival, promot-
ing folk culture events at venues across the Island during the colourful Fall
season. The mission of the Festival Society is ‘To promote, celebrate and
develop Cape Breton’s living Celtic culture and hospitality by producing
an international festival during the fall colours that builds relationships
across Cape Breton Island and beyond’. The festival grew in popularity,
attracting visitors internationally and engaging artists and communities
across the Island in staging concerts, dinners, craft and market events
(Scott and Pelley 2004). By the 22nd festival in 2018, the festival lasted
9 days with 315 events across the Island, organised by over 110 commu-
nity organisations. These had expanded far beyond the ‘Celtic’ and
included a growing number of Mi’Kmaq and Acadian cultural and hospi-
tality events which embodied intercultural performances and organisa-
tions. This attracted support from institutions in the Province and
island-wide to organise and promote the Festival. The public and busi-
nesses’ support enabled the Festival to include a paid staff base and Board
of Directors, becoming a significant cultural institution in its own right.
This required great persistence by the Festival founder in enabling the
transition from informal to formal organisation. The economic contribu-
tion, estimated at well over CA$11 million in direct spending per year, and
more in additional income, triggered the federal government to invest
over $1 million in a project to expand the reach of the event.
Celtic Colours illustrates the movement from an informally organised
intercultural event at micro-level, to one which grew in its reach and scale
to achieve meso- and macro-level institutional significance in symbolic,
organisational and economic terms. By embracing events and communi-
ties from across all the Island’s cultures, especially the indigenous people,
it repositioned the whole Island’s identity of place as an international des-
tination for intercultural tourism and experiences.
Discussion: Towards Intercultural Entrepreneurship

This chapter has examined what microcultural entrepreneurship is, and
how microcultural activity can create greater value and become sustainable
through intercultural entrepreneurship. Secondary to this, the chapter
also posed the question about how intercultural entrepreneurship might
contribute to creative place-making.
Microcultural and intercultural entrepreneurship are new terms but

they express long-present phenomena in human development and civilisa-
tion. Microcultural entrepreneurship describes how creative expression
within a small community or group is translated into ‘value’, in the mul-
tiple forms of aesthetic expression through performance or artefact, traded
financial or economic value, and social collectivity. But if restricted to the
audience or market within its own community, the level of interest is likely
to be limited and may not be sustainable as an enterprise, as distinct from
simply being a performer or maker. However, creative expression within a
microculture is a wellspring for the flow of new ideas which can reach their
potential by being shared with other cultures, for example, through a per-
formance or festival such as Celtic Colours.
These acts of cultural exchange, in which audiences, artists and organis-
ers mingle and share experiences and ideas, are a manifestation of intercul-
turality. Once the creative production is shared across more than one
culture, attracting a wider audience and generating greater value, it
becomes intercultural entrepreneurship. This may be simple to describe,
but when we view the sharing and deepening of cultural exchanges in this
way, it can help to make sense of how cultural production from one com-
munity can ultimately become a ‘world’ cuisine, style of music, drama, art
or costume.
The theoretical roots of this approach are quite diverse, including
DiMaggio (1997), Fine and Hallett (2014) and Hesmondhalgh (2002).
Gehman and Soublière (2017) introduced a helpful conceptualisation of
three perspectives on CE, of making culture (1.0), deploying culture (2.0)
and cultural making (3.0). Microcultural entrepreneurship can be equated
with CE 1.0, whilst the process of deploying across more than one cultural
group reflects 2.0, and seeing intercultural entrepreneurship as a distrib-
uted and intertemporal or continuing process, is clearly related to the ‘cul-
tural making’ in relation to wider market opportunities of 3.0.
Enabling cultural production to reach an increasing and sustainable
audience or market, potentially worldwide, requires mediation across cul-
tures, alignment with institutional structures, such as media and distribu-
tive industries, intellectual property protection and licensing, financing
and so on. The dynamics of value creation and sharing and the enablers of
leadership, organisation and agency are all required in creating sustain-
ability and scale for the enterprise.
This chapter has also explored intercultural entrepreneurship in the
context of (creative) place-making. Even in the digital world, place matters.
146 D. RAE
Cultural production has a belonging to its roots and locus, which invest it
with symbolic and shared social value. Place also provides the locus for
people to meet and share cultural experiences. The two cases describe very
different loci in which intercultural entrepreneurship has become a signifi-
cant source of value for the communities. In both cases, it has attracted
new creative producers, entrepreneurs, organisers and sources of finance
and institutional support. In this process, the identity of the place itself has
been reshaped. The Leicester of 2018 is very different from the Leicester
of thirty years before. Leicester has become a unique city in the UK for its
cultural diversity, its international connections and the growing interac-
tion between its intercultural business community and its creative indus-
tries. In comparison, Cape Breton, a little-known and remote island in
Atlantic Canada, has been able to extend its Celtic Colours festival to
include the diverse island cultures, notably the indigenous Mi’Kmaq peo-
ple with their own cultural heritage and entrepreneurial resources. This
co-created interculturality has enabled the festival to become a signature
attraction for the island and an act of creative place-making which has
repositioned it as an international cultural destination.
The cases are examples, and others could equally have been selected,
because the phenomenon of intercultural entrepreneurship contributing
to creative place-making is more widespread than might be imagined.
Even from Markusen and Gadwa’s initial work (2010), communities as
diverse as Arnaudville, Louisiana and San José, California, exemplify the
contribution of interculturality to creative place-making. As town and city
centres are increasingly challenged by trends such as online retailing, the
interaction of intercultural entrepreneurship and creative place-making
may offer a means of regenerating urban centres and districts for new
activities of cultural making which draw on the diversity of local and
migrant communities.
As indicated in the cases and discussion, intercultural entrepreneurship
can offer a valid and relevant direction for entrepreneurship. It is socially
inclusive, reflecting and valuing participation from all ethnic, sectional and
cultural groups, whether from within a host country or who are attracted
to it. It recognises that greater value can be created by working across
cultural boundaries than within just one. It promotes intercultural appre-
ciation and sensitivity, behaviours which are increasingly required in busi-
ness, public and personal lives. It enables people and groups to move from
positions of geographical or cultural peripherality to offer innovation in
mainstream markets (Rae 2017). Intercultural entrepreneurship seeks to
understand, appreciate and compare differing methods and models of

entrepreneurship at the micro-level, through which people from differing
cultural backgrounds can learn, innovate and trade between microcul-
tures. Intercultural entrepreneurship can therefore be viewed as a process
of social enquiry, which aims to appreciate the entrepreneurial values and
practices of different groups, to develop bridging skills to facilitate work-
ing together, and as an area for new (economic) value generation.
References
Banks, J. (1994). Multiethnic Education: Theory and Practice. Needham Heights,
MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Bolon, D. S., & Bolon, D. S. (1994). A Reconceptualization and Analysis of
Organizational Culture. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 9(5), 22. 1–8.
Bourdieu, P. (1990). The Logic of Practice. Oxford: Polity Press.
Chesbrough, H., & Bogers, M. (2014). Explicating Open Innovation: Clarifying
an Emerging Paradigm for Understanding Innovation. In H. Chesbrough,
W. Vanhaverbeke, & J. West (Eds.), New Frontiers in Open Innovation
Cornelissen, J., & Werner, M. (2014). Putting Framing in Perspective: A Review
of Framing and Frame Analysis Across the Management and Organizational
Literature. Academy of Management Annals, 8, 181–235.
CREATE Welcome to Leicester, A City for the Creative Industries. (2016).
Leicester City Council. Retrieved from https://www.leicester.gov.uk/
media/179632/creative.pdf.
Czarniawska, B. (1998). A Narrative Approach in Organization Studies. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Czarniawska, B. (2004). Narratives in Social Science Research. London: Sage.
De Montfort University. (2016). International Strategic Framework.
Leicester: DMU.
DiMaggio, P. (1997). Culture and Cognition. Annual Review of Sociology,
23, 263–287.
Fine, G. A. (1979). Small Groups and Culture Creation: The Idioculture of Little
League Baseball Teams. American Sociological Review, 44, 733–745.
Fine, G. A., & Hallett, T. (2014). Group Cultures and the Everyday Life of
Organizations: Interaction Orders and Meso-Analysis. Organization Studies,
35(12), 1773–1792.
Gehman, J., & Soublière, J.-F. (2017). Cultural Entrepreneurship: From Making
Culture to Cultural Making. Innovation: Organization & Management,
19(1), 61–73.
Granger, R. C. (2017). The Sustainability of Creative Cities: Lessons from Leicester
and London. Leicester: De Montfort University.
148 D. RAE
Granovetter, M. (1985). Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of

Embeddedness. American Journal of Sociology, 91(3), 481–510.
Henry, C., & de Bruin, A. (2011). Entrepreneurship and the Creative Economy:
Process, Practice & Policy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Press.
Hesmondhalgh, D. (2002). The Cultural Industries. London: Sage.
Hjorth, D., & Steyaert, C. (2004). Narrative and Discursive Approaches in
Entrepreneurship. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Hofstede, G. (2001). Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. New York:
McGraw Hill.
Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future. (2015). Final Report of the Truth
& Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Government of Canada, Montreal.
Jivraj, S., & Finney, N. (2013). Geographies of Diversity in Leicestershire, Centre
on Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE), Manchester. Retrieved February 10, 2018,
from http://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/institutes/code/briefings/localdy-
namicsofdiversity/geographies-of-diversity-in-leicestershire.pdf.
Johnstone, H., & Lionais, D. (2004). Depleted Communities and Community
Business Entrepreneurship: Revaluing Space Through Place. Entrepreneurship
& Regional Development, 16(3), 217–233.
Jones, T., Ram, M., & Theodorakopoulos, N. (2010). Transnationalism as a Force
for Ethnic Minority Enterprise? The Case of Somalis in Leicester. International
Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 34(3), 565–558.
Lackéus, M. (2016). Value Creation as Educational Practice – Towards a New
Educational Philosophy Grounded in Entrepreneurship? Thesis for Doctorate
in Engineering. Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Lackéus, M. (2018). “What is Value?” – A Framework for Analyzing and
Facilitating Entrepreneurial Value Creation. Uniped, 41(1), 10–28.
Leonardi, P. (2011). Innovation Blindness: Culture, Frames, and Cross-Boundary
Problem Construction in the Development of New Technology Concepts.
Organization Science, 22(2), 347–369.
MacSween, R. (2015). Address to the Conference on Community Economic
Development, Cape Breton University, Sydney, Nova Scotia, 10 July 2015.
Markusen, A., & Gadwa, A. (2010). Creative Placemaking, a White Paper for The
Mayors’ Institute on City Design, Markusen Economic Research Services and
Metris Arts Consulting. Retrieved July 1, 2018, from https://www.arts.gov/
sites/default/files/CreativePlacemaking-Paper.pdf.
Membertou Annual Report ‘We have arrived’. (2015–2016). Membertou Band
Council, Sydney, Nova Scotia.
Nieuliep, J. (2017). Intercultural Communication: A Contextual Approach. Los
Angeles, CA: Sage.
Now or Never: The Report of the Nova Scotia Commission on Building Our New
Economy. (2014). One Nova Scotia Commission. Nova: Scotia.
Polkinghorne, D. (1988). Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences. New York:

SUNY Press.
Rae, D. (2005). Entrepreneurial Learning: A Narrative-Based Conceptual Model.
Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 12(3), 323–335.
Rae, D. (2015). Opportunity-Centred Entrepreneurship. London: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Rae, D. (2017). Entrepreneurial Learning: Peripherality and Connectedness.
International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research, 23(3), 1–19.
Ram, M., & Jones, T. (2008). Ethnic Minorities in Business, the Small Enterprise
Research Team. Milton Keynes: Open University Business School.
Runnymede. (2012). Leicester Migration Stories. London: Runnymede Trust.
Sarasvathy, S. (2001). Causation and Effectuation: Toward a Theoretical Shift
from Economic Inevitability to Entrepreneurial Contingency. The Academy of
Management Review, 26(2), 243–264.
Scott, J., & Pelley, R. (2004). Cape Breton’s Celtic Colours International Festival:
Building Social and Economic Capital Island-Wide Through a Cultural
Social Enterprise Initiative, Presented at: “Fostering Entrepreneurship in
the Rural Creative Economy,” CAURA Conference, Kingston, ON, 25–27
November 2010.
Swidler, A. (1986). Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies. American
Sociological Review, 51, 273–286.
Swidler, A. (2001). What Anchors Cultural Practices. In R. Theodore, K. K.
C. Schatzki, & E. Von Savigny (Eds.), The Practice Turn in Contemporary
Theory (pp. 74–92). New York: Routledge.
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1979). An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict.
The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations, 33, 47.
Thornton, P., & Ocasio, W. (2008). Institutional Logics. Chapter 3. In
R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, T. Lawrence, & R. Meyer (Eds.), The Sage Handbook
of Organizational Institutionalism (pp. 99–129). London: Sage.
Watson, T. J., & Harris, P. (1999). The Emergent Manager. London: Sage.
Weber, K., & Dacin, T. M. (2011). The Cultural Construction of Organizational
Life. Organization Science, 22, 286–298.
CHAPTER 8
Co-creative Third Space, Maker Space

and Micro Industrial Districts
Rachel Granger
Introduction
In this chapter, hidden value, which is embedded in co-produced and
socio-industrial work settings, is outlined and discussed. While the chapter
draws on the tacit aspects of creativity that are hidden from public view, as
one dimension of Parsons’ hidden culture model discussed in Chap. 2, here
it is drawn upon to depict the valuable way creativity emerges from infor-
mal and collegial interactions and settings. Bourdieu (1977) notes that
individual actions and relations are never entirely contained since they are
influenced by context and experiences, which ultimately drive wealth. This
is particularly pertinent in this chapter, which explores the way in which
creative workers operate and the intensification of co-creative sensibilities,
which might be framed as creating new socio-economic forms, something
that is only beginning to be acknowledged as changing in the literature and
in policy, but is very much in evidence in creative practice. The chapter
argues that the way in which creative work takes place w arrants particular
R. Granger (*)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_8
152 R. GRANGER
attention, given that potentially, it alters the way in which we conceive of

the micro scale of the creative economy, and of creative spaces, cities and
work, as well as challenging conventional thinking on economic value.
Drawing on the empirical cases of co-creative design in Copenhagen,
this chapter begins to frame co-creation, and new ways of working, as
significant for harnessing value in the creative economy. In recent years,
Copenhagen has become something of an international exemplar for co-
creation, and indeed the very principles of working together, sharing and
socialising are arguably at the heart of Danish way of life—espoused in
Hygge and Janteloven. In Denmark, collaboration and co-creation have
become a favourable way of working in creative, design, art and digital
media fields, as they align with wider aspirations to democratise institu-
tional settings and also acknowledge audiences as more than just passive
recipients, allowing the production of valuable (experiential) knowledge
and ideas.
Drawing on the example of Underbroen, one of Copenhagen’s most
notable maker spaces, the chapter examines whether value in the creative
economy is more a product of the setting in which it occurs and its gover-
nance structure, than the physical combination of factor inputs. In think-
ing about ways of producing in creative disciplines and acknowledging
from the outset the importance of knowledge and skills, the chapter starts
by considering the structural and spatial dimensions of the creative econ-
omy, which gives primacy to social interaction as a primary factor input.
Having established social interactions as a fundamental part of creative
work, the chapter then considers the role of innovation systems and locali-
sation economies in driving creative activities and spaces. Through this,
people and settings are positioned as key contributing factors to value
creation in the creative economy. Rejecting the more popular ‘Helix’
model as a suitable framework, the chapter draws on social capital as a
significant driver of localisation economies in the creative economy. The
chapter frames the informality and governance structures of Underbroen
in Copenhagen, as leading to the creation of a ‘third space’ and also a
micro ‘industrial district’, which are argued to have broader resonance to
the creative economy. The flexibility and informality of work that take
place at Underbroen are cited as highly valuable to the production and
exchange of creativity, supporting the thesis that the value of creative prac-
tice is less about the outputs produced by practitioners and more, the
social space through and by which creativity occurs.
8 CO-CREATIVE THIRD SPACE, MAKER SPACE AND MICRO INDUSTRIAL… 153
Structural and Spatial View

of the Creative Economy
Understanding the role that places and settings can play as creative ecosys-
tems is marked out by structural and spatial praxis. Creative cities, for
example, can be conceived of as the most recent permutation of the post-
industrial form, and as such are framed as structural and spatial manifesta-
tions of advanced capitalism. Bell’s (1973) vision of a post-industrial
society as a hub of knowledge-driven services tied to universities/learning,
offers a prescient view of the creative economy as a productive socio-
structural and socio-spatial economic force. The creative city discourse in
particular notes the wider forces at play in a creative ecosystem (see e.g.
Florida 2001; Landry 1999; and Howkins 2001) as well as place attributes
such as a cityscape and the social spaces located there, which collectively
positions people, networks and social capital central to wealth creation. A
more recent expression of the dialectic between social, economic and
space in the context of creative discourse can be found in the New
Economic Geography around spatial economic impact (NEG1) and the
role of agglomeration externalities (NEG2). One might conclude there-
fore that the creative economy is a socio-economic and socio-spatial econ-
omy since it relies on factors of production constructed through and by
unique socio-spatial relations and networks, leading to the proposition
that creative value is tied irrevocably to networks and (social) space. Given
that active creative spaces are primarily those through which creative value
is constructed, a reasonable supposition is that a successful creative ecosys-
tem could also be viewed as an innovation system.
An innovation system has been defined variously as ‘the network of
institutions whose activities and interactions initiate, import, modify and
diffuse new technologies and new economically useful knowledge’
(Freeman 1987; Lundvall 1992; Nelson 1993; Metcalfe 1995) and which
determines the rate and direction of technological learning (Patel and
Pavitt 1994a). Implicit is the role of different actors and institutions and
the trilateral relationship between universities, businesses and government
(OECD 1997). The OECD notes, in particular, the role of tacit knowl-
edge or know-how exchanged through informal channels, and the codi-
fied knowledge found in publications, patents and other sources (OECD
1997, p. 7) in enabling an innovation system. The key mechanisms for
knowledge flows include joint industry research, public/private sector
partnerships, technology diffusion and movement of personnel.
154 R. GRANGER
The Triple Helix Model

The explicit transfer of knowledge from a university to industry found in
a Triple Helix has been noted as being especially useful in accelerating
learning in innovation systems more generally (Viale and Camposall’Orto
2002). Helix models are predicated on a university’s technology-learning-
innovation nexus and the trilateral relationship between a university,
industry and government as the three key agents (Etzkowitz 1994;
Leydesdorff and Etzkowitz 1998). Helixes carve out a specific role for
universities given the primacy of knowledge and research as capital for
economic growth. Businesses (industry) provide the entrepreneurial drive
to exploit this, while government provides the regulatory framework and
financial support to enable new knowledge to be brought to the market.
As society has become more interactive, the role of other partners and the
scope of spheres to be included in the innovation-generating process of a
Helix have been increasing over time (Cavallini et al. 2016). The more
recent conception of a Quadruple Helix and Quintuple Helix connotes
the number of institutional partners and functions. Quadruple Helixes
include the role of civil society and media as a key intermediary (see Arnkil
et al. 2010; Carayannis and Campbell 2010), while a Quintuple Helix
incorporates aspects of sustainability (Grundel and Dahlström 2016) or
investment (Granger 2017). Collectively, these different interests enable
the type of ‘discursive knowledge enabling’ (Leyesdorff 2018) in sectors,
which combined with push and pull factors drive territorial innovation and
industry specialisation.
Although the notion of Helixes is now well accepted in research and
policy circles, the Helix model poses several problems in the context of the
creative economy. The dichotomy between a Helix’s trilateral partnership
stands in contradistinction to the empirical behaviour and characteristics of
creative practitioners. Unlike in scientific disciplines, creativity is rich in
tacit and symbolic knowledge and requires very specific (face-to-face)
transaction spaces (Asheim and Coenen 2005), and the formal knowledge
transfer presupposed in a science-based Helix is simply unable to navigate a
creative landscape where actors perform multiple roles (as producers, con-
sumers, intermediaries). The clear and often formal demarcation between
spheres and actors found in Helix models is also incompatible with the
more fluid structure and organisation of creative industries, where social
spaces are more intertwined and knowledge transfer can be more informal
and multiplex (see Hesmondhalgh 2018; Banks and Hesmondhalgh 2009).
In addition, the idea of research-intensive universities engaging in novelty

production in creative spheres is incongruous with the very essence of cre-
ative activity, which can evolve over time, often in unexpected ways, and in
which innovation is highly consumer- and style-orientated. In other words,
value in the creative economy is often tied to quality rather than quantity
(Baudrillard 1968), such that creative activities that favour heterogeneity
rather than exploiting scientific discovery through economies of scale, tend
to drive new market value and behaviour. As a result, the distinction
between the main players (university, industry, customer, producer) and
what is and isn’t creativity and knowledge in context becomes more unclear.
Localisation Economies
While the notion of a Triple Helix then can be argued to sit uncomfort-
ably with the creative practices of a creative economy, there are some
aspects of the Helix model such as interoperability of people and institu-
tions that resonate more generally. A Helix model infers place-based
advantages of an industry as a result of institutional interactions, the con-
ferred advantages of which—the agglomeration externalities—have
become the cornerstone of contemporary thinking on economic growth.
Drawing on Hoover (1948), it is argued that economies of scale pro-
duce place-based advantages in cities (urbanisation economies), which
derive from the location of specialist institutions, suppliers, office space
and a ready supply of labour and other factor inputs. In other words, that
the critical mass of resources or economies of scale found in cities produce
inherent benefits. Localisation economies by contrast, represent the intan-
gible benefits that arise when companies and practitioners gather together
and interact, and where advantages accrue from shared resources, includ-
ing suppliers, and exchange of ideas. In this sense, localisation economies
refer to the advantages of socio-space in general and emerge from the
‘traded and untraded interdependencies’ between companies and actors
(see Storper 1997), which build to create powerful places and have
explained differences in industrial growth patterns (see also Cismas et al.
2010). Johnston et al. (2000) assert the key localising forces of agglom-
eration economies as deriving principally from the ‘socialness’ of human
activities, facilitated in part by geography but fundamentally sociocultural.
Thus the value of geographical localisation appears to lie in the face-to-
face contact, the social and cultural spaces, which underpin alliances,
156 R. GRANGER
f orging trust and reciprocity, and in developing norms and rules of behav-
iour, which lead to distinct patterns of knowledge exchange and innova-
tion—in other words, a combination of proximity and propinquity.
Elsewhere these same ideas have been conveyed in the notion of local
‘buzz’ (Bathelt et al. 2004), ‘sticky’ interrelationships (Markusen 1996)
and as discussed later, social capital. As such, localisation economies repre-
sent a ‘nexus of untraded interdependencies’ and while it is true that
‘localisation is dynamic and not a static process’ (Johnston et al. 2000,
p. 459) and that places can develop histories of localised cultures, which
create path- dependent behaviour, they nevertheless provide a useful
framework for depicting spatially uneven development, using a vocabulary
that speaks to the social and proprietary nature of the creative economy. In
short, it provides a more nuanced framework for analysing the creative
economy rather than the more formal and economic Helix models.
The Working-Learning-Social Nexus

of Creative Spaces
In the remainder of this chapter, sociocultural attributes of place, as a

driver of localisation economies, are framed as a micro nexus of socio-
learning and working that shapes different trajectories of creative perfor-
mance. In previous studies, interdependencies and localisation economies
have been used to denote differences in performance at a macro regional
level (see Storper 1995) but here are applied to the micro scale of workers,
projects and small work settings.
Untraded interdependencies imply reliance, trust, reciprocity, and, ulti-
mately, forged relationships. Interdependency is therefore tied manifestly
to human behaviour. However, in innovation systems dealing with highly
artistic forms such as arts, design, graphic media, music and so on, which
Asheim and Coenen (2005) term ‘symbolic knowledge systems’ and
Cooke (Cooke and Schwartz 2012, Cooke et al. 2014) terms a ‘creative
innovation system’, the emphasis is on the aesthetics of the setting as well
as the people who occupy it. This is because, the aesthetics and atmo-
sphere of a place, and the presence of certain people and their behaviours,
dictate the way in which signs and symbols are conveyed and interpreted,
in a way that gives meaning and value. Asheim notes the need both for
essential creative and interpretative skills to access and make sense of
these signs (know-how), as well as the process of socialisation to access
‘potential collaborators with complementary specialisation’ (know-who)
(Christopherson 2002; in Asheim and Coenen 2005, p. 9), which, when

combined with broader aspects of status, authenticity, power, atmospheres,
cultural connotations and so on, create highly complex spaces for cultural
and creative work to develop as an innovation system.
Baudrillard (1968) notes, for example, the added dimension of the sta-
tus of people—and the inclusion of some people with certain status—
which infers value and also offers a code of decipherable signs, which
allows knowledge to become universal, and which fundamentally consti-
tutes a socialisation (p. 194). The mere fact that an object has belonged to
a famous or powerful individual or group can infer value. Similarly, the fact
that an idea has emerged—or more precisely, been created—through a
group of people with status is likely to infer a greater sense of value in
terms of credibility. As such there is fascination by what has been created,
its uniqueness, how the creativity occurred, and that it is inimitable. These
matters appear to hold greater fascination than those of economic utility,
for example, who owns the idea, and its immediate financial worth.
In other parts of the literature, some of these same ideas and connec-
tions between people and settings, have been considered within the con-
text of absorptive capacity (Cohen and Levinthal 1990; Zahra and George
2002), denoting largely organisational spaces with prior related knowl-
edge and the way they assimilate and use new knowledge.1 This is also true
of intermediaries (Bourdieu 1984; O’Connor 2015; Perry 2019) in the
sense of key individuals, organisations and, increasingly, communities with
status that mediate and dictate the direction of new knowledge. Thus
untraded interdependencies in several of the creative industries could be
argued to be heavily dependent upon, not only the presence of key people,
but also a social setting that facilitates absorption, assimilation and transfer
of creative capital through the presence of certain people and certain prior
knowledge.
Asheim’s Synthetic-Analytical-Symbolic knowledge classification
(Table 8.1) draws similarities with Cooke’s wider observations about
learning by doing and feedback loops, in so far as they both imply a central
role for social interaction, and particularly in Cooke’s (2012) work on
creative regions, underscores the importance of a territorial competence/
skills base, which reinforces the idea of people and settings. In thinking
1
Research on memory development suggests that accumulated prior knowledge increases
the ability to put new knowledge into memory (the acquisition of knowledge) as well as the
ability to recall and use it.
158 R. GRANGER
Table 8.1 Analytical, synthetic and symbolic knowledge systems (Asheim and
Coenen 2005)
System Location and nature of knowledge base
Analytical Scientific knowledge produced in formal R&D units such as universities or

research institutions. Knowledge codified into papers and patents to feed
radical innovations and new scientific discoveries (Asheim and Coenen 2005;
Asheim 2007; Moodyson et al. 2008)
Synthetic Scientific knowledge assumed in an analytical system—Local engineering
knowledge rather than internationally novel/prestigious R&D. New
knowledge emerges form ‘learning by doing’, where companies solve
problems by drawing on existing knowledge/discoveries, with new clients
(Asheim 2007; Asheim and Hansen 2009).
Symbolic New knowledge from recombining knowledge in new ways. Heavily
dependent on tacit knowledge, crafts, and youth/street culture and
border community skills, with knowledge located in, and developed
through, face-to-face interactions. Highly dependent on aesthetic attributes
(cf. cognitive abilities) such as design and images with a shift towards ‘sign
value’ of ideas (Lash and Urry 1994). Requires face-to-face presence and
absorptive capacity of ‘embeddedness’ (p. 8) to access, interpret, absorb and
transmit certain images, designs, artefacts, sounds, style and so on (Asheim
and Coenen 2005).
through the merits of combining knowledge and skills to create heteroge-

neity in a symbolic knowledge base, a locality must display both a diverse
competence base and also extensive social capital (proximity, or embed-
dedness), especially in a relational and cognitive form (Nahapiet and
Ghoshal 1998; Granovetter 1985; Boschma 2005).
Socialisation and Social Capital

Social capital has been defined as ‘the networks together with shared
norms, values and understandings that facilitate co-operation within or
among groups’ (OECD 2007; Putnam 2001), which can represent actual
and potential resources to bring to bear on a situation or locality (Bourdieu
1986; Coleman 1988; Nahapiet and Ghoshal 1998). Thus social capital
resides in relationships, and as argued earlier, relationships are constructed
through socialisation and exchange, in certain settings, such that the pat-
tern of linkages and wider notions of trust, reciprocity and cooperation
built through them, are the very foundations for social capital. Nahapiet
and Ghoshal note ‘what we observe is a complex and dialectical process in
which social capital is created and sustained through exchange and … in

turn, social capital facilitates exchange’ (1998, p. 250). However, as they
go on to argue, ‘social capital facilitates the development of intellectual
capital by affecting the conditions necessary for exchange and combina-
tion to occur’. This point is especially important in any consideration
about creative practice and value, as if true, the value of creative practice is
located not merely in the practitioners and their outputs but by the very
presence of key individuals, the setting in which this takes place, and the
conditions needed to create these. The involvement of certain individuals
then, is decisive in shaping the unique knowledge offered and created
through a social setting (the delivery), as well as providing the primary
vehicle for assimilation and exchange of knowledge to take place. In other
words, key individuals provide both a mechanism for knowledge develop-
ment and exchange (as an input), and also shape the actual knowledge
outputs of social capital.
The idea, however, that social capital is a universalism or more specifi-
cally a universally beneficial resource is not borne out by the literature or
practice, for example, ‘social capital that is useful for facilitating certain
actions may be useless or harmful for others’ (Coleman 1990, p. 302).
Building on Moran and Ghoshal (1996), Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998)
identify four conditions needed for exchange and combination of capital/
resources in the pursuit of new knowledge. These comprise: (1) opportu-
nity for exchanging resources; (2) parties anticipating value from combin-
ing resources; (3) motivation to exchange resources; and (4) capability to
combine resources. They go on to outline three different dimensions of
social capital that work in different ways to produce and feed into different
conditions for combination and exchange of intellectual capital:
Structural social capital provides the physical means and opportunity
for knowledge to be shared and combined through, for example, the avail-
ability of networks, ties, organisational links. The cognitive dimension,
provides the shared codes (e.g. language) and narratives necessary to com-
bine knowledge from different sources, and might be understood as the
technical context and skills (or absorptive capacity) for knowledge
exchange to occur. Finally, the relational dimension provides the soft insti-
tutions such as trust, norms of behaviour, obligations and identification
that are necessary for opportunities to be realised, by providing the means
and motivation for social exchange. Drawing on Bourdieu (1986), rela-
tional social capital appears to be shaped in particular by other social attri-
butes, which Bourdieu works into his theory of Habitus. In his work,
160 R. GRANGER
Bourdieu argues sociopolitical contexts or ‘dispositions’ as structures of a

particular environment, such as class, family, tribe or even educational or
political allegiance, as well as economic capital can restrict or extend pos-
sibilities for structural and relational social capital, and may even shape
cognitive social capital by producing different languages and shared narra-
tives. As Bourdieu (1977, p. 83) notes, capital is contextual and can ‘cre-
ate different translations of the same sentence’, which affects social and
economic trajectory. While Nahapiet and Ghoshal’s (1998) work as well as
Bourdieu’s provides a useful explanatory framework for understanding
organisations as knowledge systems, and highlights the importance of
relationships in knowledge development, further empirical exploration
would be constructive in applying these ideas more generally in the cre-
ative economy, and also in thinking how this affects the micro scale of
creative work.
Structural, Cognitive and Relational Dimensions

of Social Capital
Copenhagen Creative Economy

Drawing on social capital theory, the chapter now considers the conditions
needed for knowledge development and exchange using the case study
area of Copenhagen. Copenhagen is the capital city of Denmark (pop.
778,000), and a significant metropolitan area in the Øresund Region
(including Skåne in Sweden), which acts as a leading economic hub in
Europe. Copenhagen’s size—a large city by international standards—
belies what is regarded as a leading international economy, characterised
by high growth, and a high degree of equality and welfare. Greater
Copenhagen (pop. 1.83m) has one of the highest wage rates in the world,
owing to its concentration of research and development activities, high
growth business clusters and higher level skills. Greater Copenhagen is
home to multiple financial institutions and international headquarters, as
well as clusters in IT, Life Sciences/ Biotechnology, Pharmaceuticals,
Design, and Clean Technology and Smart Cities.
Copenhagen’s industrial structure explains demand trends for skilled
workers. In marked contrast to the position 20 years ago, its current mix
of high growth sectors and clusters have boosted the rate of tertiary educa-
tion to around 50 per cent of the local population, compared to 40 per cent
for Denmark as a whole (Statistics Denmark 2018), and 55 per cent for
research and technology sectors (Eurostat 2018). There is also a notice-
ably good framework for entrepreneurship in Copenhagen, which is
ranked second in the EU’s regional entrepreneurship and development
index (REDI = 78), and investment in research and development is higher
in Copenhagen than elsewhere in Northern Europe (R&D accounting for
4.7 per cent of GDP) (Copenhagen Task Force 2018). The combination
of skills, entrepreneurship and investment in R&D are important factors,
which when coupled with a design mindset, provide context to
Copenhagen’s creative growth in recent years. The city’s creative econ-
omy has acted as a pull on European graduates, and as a result, the city
looks set to establish itself as one of Europe’s leading metropolitan areas,
economically and socially. The city’s prevalence of ‘labs’, alluding to its
multiple technology and living lab spaces, its co-working spaces, and its
culture of open problem-solving and co-design, as well as experimental
and innovative behaviour are a product of both the current economic
strengths of the city and key contributing factors to its growth and
reputation.
There are currently 33 labs, 2 science parks, and 17 maker spaces that
are located in Copenhagen, but more than 100 organisations that provide
dedicated space for co-working, co-design of new ideas, hacking, proto-
typing and incubating. While the functions and precise characteristics of
these organisations vary markedly, and in some cases overlap (Fig. 8.1),
there is a sense of an experimental and alternative ecosystem in Copenhagen
that is supporting knowledge development and innovation in the city,
much of which operates in the creative economy.
Fig. 8.1 Copenhagen

creative ecosystem, by
units (2019)
162 R. GRANGER
Copenhagen’s Lab Movement

Labs are research entities, user-centred, open and innovative, and often
referred to as user research labs. Operating both in specific sectors or ter-
ritorial contexts, they integrate research and innovation processes, with
public-private-people partnerships. Labs draw on the expertise of diverse
stakeholders and users to test out ideas, problem-solve and co-design proj-
ects. Maker spaces, on the other hand, allow people to gather to co-create,
share resources, learn and network. They provide a physical space, often a
workshop, for making objects using an array of shared tools and machines,
and are aligned closely with Fab Labs, which provide facilities for indus-
trial grade fabrication, and bring together the ideals of making and open
source. Hacker spaces feed a more social demand for makers by bringing
together people with shared interests (such as design, machining, digital
art, gaming, electronics) to meet, socialise and collaborate.
Over time the different characteristics of fab labs, maker spaces and
hacker spaces (also DIY Bio Spaces) have converged, and more recently
cut into the growing ‘lab movement’ to create diverse spaces for learn-
ing, making, sharing, researching and experimenting, often producing a
set of open source designs and shared ideas. The concept of ‘maker cul-
ture’ brings together these diverse interests and functions in an umbrella
term, which denotes open, experimental and highly skilled spaces, which
drive learning and innovation in a territorial context. Davies (2017) is at
pains to stress that the maker movement is not just about technologies,
start-ups and innovation but about the kind of citizens we are expected
(and need) to be. As she notes: the movement is timely and is a neces-
sary part of ‘this particular socio-economic moment’ (p. 11), implying
that maker spaces and labs are a key constituent of a new socio-eco-
nomic form.
Maker spaces and innovation labs are a common feature of the indus-
trial landscape in Copenhagen, which supports its high growth and inno-
vation image. There are some organisations such as Space 10, which
operate exclusively as labs, producing programmes that explore macro
issues such as food sustainability and design of cities, and work to
problem-solve and co-design new ideas, sometimes using high-profile
international partners. Labs such as Space 10 bring together researchers,
stakeholders, communities and industrial partners in a strategic way to
raise and address macro concerns. In contrast, there are some organisa-
tions such as Rainmaking Loft that combine co-working spaces with
incubation activities, to support a range of commercial interests around

enterprise, and graduate start-ups, and are especially popular in the cre-
ative sectors. Operating in between, are a plethora of organisations and
activities that combine different making, learning, sharing, researching
and co-working functions. One of these, Underbroen, established in
2016 as a maker space and local production lab combines all of these dif-
ferent functions. It therefore provides an interesting lens on knowledge
development in action; providing an insight into the role of social capital,
and identifying the conditions needed for knowledge development and
exchange to occur.
Underbroen Maker Space and Production Lab

Over the course of 35–48 months, the author met with Underbroen on
six occasions, during which time a series of semi-structured, unstructured
and non-participant observations were made with key staff and members.
In 2015–16, the city of Copenhagen conducted a study on the ‘maker
movement’ and noted three sub-movements in operation:
• Zero-to-Maker Movement—providing introductory technical know-

how for the general population to use new technologies and
design methods.
• Maker-to-Maker Movement—sharing ideas within spaces.
• Maker-to-Market Movement—for those with existing skillsets look-
ing to commercialise new ideas and skills.
In a landscape dominated by several maker spaces, Underbroen was

established with the specific remit to grow the ‘maker-to-market’ move-
ment in Copenhagen, under the banner of an ‘Urban Production Lab’.
The premise was to combine craftsmanship in the city, with broader design
skills and processes, and new technologies, to grow local small-scale pro-
duction. Localised production has an important role to play environmen-
tally, feeding into the circular economy and the Fab City agenda. As the
city of Copenhagen noted, Underbroen was ‘a new way of trying to
develop collaboration between companies, organisations, and the maker
space movement…[with] a huge potential for value creation for all part-
ners’ (Holst 2016).
Start-Up Incubation—Collaborating with Beta Factory from 2018,
Underbroen has been able to develop in multiple areas of fabrication,
164 R. GRANGER
including wood, metal, plastics, lasers, 3D printing and CNCs,2 with

industrial-level machinery and tools, which bring together an array of
stakeholders (freelancers, businesses, education, hobbyists). Collaboration
has provided the opportunity and machinery to provide ‘tomorrow’s
manufacturing workshop’ in the city (Rasmussen 2018) with a range of
technical facilities for prototyping work and small-scale manufacturing,
but drawing on the community-level maker space model (which is open,
learning, sociable and affordable), to enable entrepreneurs and businesses
to stay agile. With flexible monthly membership rates between £100 and
£400, Underbroen serves a diverse membership that supports small-scale
production, offers informal incubation (freelancers, microbusinesses) as
well as providing ongoing learning.
Diverse Membership—Underbroen’s membership is diverse and also
constantly changing. There are currently 38 members, with 26 makers
with business activities and around five to six ‘Gurus’, who act as in-house
experts in certain areas or on certain machines. A programme of commu-
nity activities during 2016–17 (e.g. plastics recycling, kayak building)
raised awareness and support of Underbroen, and as a result, initial mem-
bership included hobbyists, members of the public with environmental
goals, students wanting to learn new skills and aspiring graduate busi-
nesses needing incubation support. By 2018 however, Underbroen had
reached a critical mass of membership, and Beta Factory moved to new
premises to concentrate on wood manufacturing, with a larger floor space
for machines, and space for start-ups to undertake small-scale manufactur-
ing. Beta Factory is also able to source industrial grade machinery at low
cost, to support those members who wish to transition to larger-scale pro-
duction. While Underbroen’s membership was initially affected by Beta
Factory vacating the Underbroen workshop, its current membership has
recovered and now attracts a following of carpenters, CNC specialists, art-
ists, designers, as well as being home to ‘Chip Chop’, a popular Danish
SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) designing bespoke shelving.
Underbroen’s membership base brings together a range of technical skills
and experience, so that new members receive in-kind training in a manner
that resembles ‘on-the-job’ training in large organisations or ‘learning by
doing’ (Polanyi 1966, 1974; Cooke and Schwartz 2012). The diversity of
2
Computer numerical control (CNC) refers to the automated control of machine tools
and 3D printers through computers. A CNC machine processes metal, wood, plastic, and so
on by following the instructions set out in a computer program.
its membership provides a wealth of knowledge both for internal (mem-

ber) benefit, as well as external problem-solving in a manner described by
Asheim and Coenen (2005) as a synthetic knowledge base.
Innovation—Underbroen’s reputation for problem-solving, which
arises from this diverse knowledge base, has been key to attracting an
increasing number of commercial members, including large and
multinational companies, in what could be viewed as a new phase of its
development. Unlike many community-level maker spaces, Underbroen
has an impressive array of strategic links, including Blox Hub (home to
300 companies and research institutes), Space 10 (the IKEA-funded urban
lab), Bang & Olufsen, Delta, the Danish Architecture Centre (DAC),
national music and film festivals, museums and the international Fab City
movement. In other words, Underbroen is embedded as a key stakeholder
in an array of music, hardware, electronics, design, creative/cultural and
environmental fields, and positioned as a space for product and service
innovation. Examining why Bang & Olufsen’s own research unit ‘Create’
would take out long-term residencies at Underbroen for its researchers,
one interviewee states: There is a palpable fizz of ideas at Underbroen, which
arises from play and from nerds enjoying solving technical problems. It is dif-
ficult to replicate this in a dedicated research environment in the commercial
sector, where there are different pressures and targets to perform. The differ-
ent skills that can be sourced at Underbroen from different disciplines, in
addition to members’ different experiences offers a more refreshing approach
to solving a problem. I mean, it is different…exciting…not necessarily tech-
nically superior. And this can be powerful for spurring innovation by getting
a fresh perspective. Another interviewee comments: We play in the fields we
work in. It is not a typical office or factory job; it’s more like a vocation and
way of life. Like a gamer, we are at the very edge of our field, and interested
in, if not already operating, on the very latest ideas in our areas. We love to
experiment. We love to have fun. Everyone knows that. We have a reputation
for it. Commercially, that’s very attractive. What we have here is a pool of
skills accessible to any of our members and for a business wanting to tackle a
technical problem or bottleneck in their operations, which is preventing
growth, this is a hyper appealing characteristic. From this view, it is clear
that Underbroen’s diverse membership, and setting of diverse skills,
enables ‘Doing, Using, Interacting’ or the DUI mode of innovation
(Lundvall 1992; Jensen et al. 2007), which is viewed as open innovation
when the user perspective is embedded. While Bang & Olufsen could be
positioned as the archetypical Science Technology Innovation (STI)-mode
166 R. GRANGER
knowledge base, given its extensive resources for scientific development

through its Create Team, Underbroen could be viewed as a DUI base,
with considerable resources devoted to doing (making), using and inter-
acting between members.
Play—The idea of socialising and Underbroen as a playful space emerges
through several interviews with members and visitors. During interviews,
the words ‘fun’, ‘enjoy’, ‘relaxed’ and ‘satisfying’ have been used frequently
alongside ‘learning’, ‘making’, ‘working’. Eleven interviewees explicitly
describe Underbroen as a ‘community’ and three as a ‘family’. Although
no attempt was made to introduce facial expression analysis into the inter-
views, the researcher nevertheless found strong similarities in facial expres-
sion between people interviewed, regardless of their role at Underbroen,
their craft or discipline, and other biographic features. Drawing on Ekman
and Froesen (1982), the interviewees reveal a strong sense of ‘happiness’
in their connection with the space, with additional positive emotions
expressed, suggesting ‘amusement’, ‘contentment’ and ‘excitement’.
Several interviewees laughed or smiled during discussion, and when
observed, several gave ‘felt smiles’ (real laughing), reinforced by direct eye
contact between each other, mirroring, physical proximity, and the types
of non-verbal movements (back slapping, hugging, touching), all of which
communicated close social interest and enthusiasm.
Socialisation and Shared Narratives—Looking at the semi-fixed mate-
rial in the kitchen area at Underbroen and the back room, as well as the
informal discussions that take place there, and some of the project work,
there is a clear sense of shared interest around music. Several of the mem-
ber ‘makers’ met at music festivals, and had a social relationship based on
gigs that predate the maker space relationship. Their clothes imply a cur-
rent interest in rock music, and ties to the music and festival scene. In
addition, several of the early shared projects at Underbroen emerged from
contracts with Roskilde Rock Festival (building wooden sets and gate-
ways), with the staff and prominent makers making references to the
annual festival at Roskilde. Several individuals also made reference to the
‘maker festival’ in Copenhagen, an annual maker and craft festival, with
one member of staff also working part time as the festival manager for
‘Maker Copenhagen’. These strands of music and maker interests weave
through work projects at Underbroen, through informal discussions that
take place there, and by underpinning patterns of socialisation among its
members. For example, although Roskilde Festival is a major music festival
covering several genres of music (rock, pop, electronic, reggae, hip hop,
world), Underbroen members reference it frequently in the context of

‘Danish Rock’ and ‘Cowpunk’.3 At several points, members have all dis-
cussed the design qualities of the new ‘Ragnarock’ Museum at Roskilde,
bringing together shared interests in music and design, with architectur-
ally informed discussions about its iconic gold-studded design.
During interviews and also through observation, Underbroen’s mem-
bers have made explicit reference to its ‘Maker Mindset’, which is an indi-
vidual rather than collective attribute but has been used to distinguish
Underbroen from other co-working, craft and design spaces in the city.
Rasmussen (2018) argues that the most important feature of a maker
mindset at Underbroen, is that when ‘members have an idea, they act on
it and bring it to life, and perhaps use it to change the world’. In that
sense, he sees the key characteristics of experimenting with also being fear-
less, risk aversion and social innovation. He also emphasises the collective
characteristics of the maker mindset, which could be viewed more in terms
of the responsibilities of the community in which makers are based. Makers
actively want to know what others think to aid their learning and refine-
ment process and to accept mistakes. Embracing mistakes provides a basis
for moving forward and growing, and also for self-reflection. Thus the
maker mindset encourages feedback loops by bringing together curiosity,
contribution (of self and others), with reflection for creating value. As
Rasmussen (2018) argues ‘it is more than a desire for a member to tinker
and play with an idea, or to improvise; it is an open approach and shared
responsibility which is more a way of doing things’. ‘Having this mindset
opens doors but it also allows makers to connect easily and quickly with
each other in a deep way, without needing years to establish a solid friend-
ship bases’ (ibid.). In this sense, a maker mindset provides a unifying
thread that connects members, acts as an unspoken code, and as a com-
munity of practice, which some members refer to with pride. Its open and
collective attributes provide the basis for socialisation, and therefore acts
as a key platform for knowledge combination and exchange. As one inter-
viewee notes: ‘What attracted me here was the maker mindset, which is ver-
balised explicitly. What I’ve noticed is that there’s a critical link between
maker mentality and the effort-driven rewards circuit. Makers are commit-
ted to, but also get a buzz from engaging with others, sharing actions, con-
3
For example, discussing the music of ‘Queens of the Stone Age’ and ‘D-A-D’, against the
recent festival line-ups ‘Bring me the Horizon’, ‘Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever’, ‘Rebecca
Lou’, ‘Crack Cloud’.
168 R. GRANGER
tributing an idea or solution. They are generally hands-on. When all of the
parts are linked, there’s a flow of energy so that we all feel engaged by our
actions, and feel alive. When actions produce a result for one member, that
others can see and touch, there is a collective sense of well-being that results in
effort-driven rewards.’
As an observer, the music connections provide a thread that pulls
together the varied interests of the Underbroen community; effectively
bringing together disparate interests in the arts (graffiti), architecture,
laser cutting, electronics and CNCs, 3D printing, plastics, metal and
wood. The music and festival scene provides a shared narrative and lan-
guage, creating its own social spaces between these different crafts that
serve to distinguish between insiders and outsiders. The maker mindset by
definition is inherently open and receptive, provides relational proximity,
which when combined with music metaphors and codes provides a socially
charged and open environment for learning, and for knowledge combina-
tion and exchange. These same shared narratives also extend outside of
the organisation, connecting Underbroen to the City of Copenhagen
(through Mikkel C.K. Holst, the Head of Creative Growth) and
Copenhagen Maker (through Stine Broen Christensen the Manager of
Copenhagen Maker) who both share interests in music and making. Both
have acted as key supporters of Underbroen. One might observe how
these relational ties that provide structure and unification to the member-
ship of a maker space also facilitate ties with other individuals, which begin
to explain strategic links across the city, and arguably significant in under-
standing Underbroen’s strategic and elevated role in the city’s creative
economy. A reasonable supposition is that the inclusion of key people with
status in a community, facilitated by shared narratives and beliefs, can be
powerful in raising the status of an organisation and its work.
Flexible Production—While the maker mindset at Underbroen could be
argued to enhance performance by linking member motivation with prod-
uct innovation and feedback loops, the organisation’s informal and flexible
governance provides for wider efficiency savings. Members use Underbroen
in markedly different ways, at different times. Students might use the
space for quick access to machines, to complete assignments or to learn
new techniques, reflected in short-term membership. Hobbyists might
use workshop space and machines in the evenings or at weekends, depend-
ing on their free time, while freelancers or micro businesses use the space
on a regular basis. While students and hobbyists might use the space as
more of a learning resource, freelancers can use the space to secure short-
term work, and micro businesses to produce work at affordable commer-

cial rates. The membership arrangements are sufficiently flexible to
accommodate all of these needs, and the resulting membership base serves
the maker space well in terms of providing for diversity and crossover.
It has become commonplace for individual makers to draw on the
diverse membership at Underbroen as a ready supply of skilled labour to
fulfil contracts, and to access advice and crafts for more complex projects.
When used in this way, Underbroen provides a useful resource, which
could be described as a localisation economy. Denmark’s culture of
‘Flexicurity’ lends itself to this short-term hiring, which is supported by
the trust built up through the maker space environment. More recently,
members have begun to work together to use the diverse skills base of the
maker space more proactively, and implying more of an (un/traded) inter-
dependency. Rasmussen (2018) cites examples of groups of makers com-
ing together to bid for local work as an informal ‘collective’, which allows
individual freelancers or micro businesses to compete with the same com-
mercial advantages as SMEs with larger workforces, while retaining free-
lancer agility and lower costs by operating from the maker space. Where
different skillsets can be introduced at different stages of the order/pro-
cess, Underbroen has been able to facilitate individual makers to come
together for short periods of time, to create a vertical disintegration of
production reminiscent of industrial districts. In this way, Underbroen is
able to provide an overarching structure for diverse skillsets and practitio-
ners to come together to work on shared projects, which allows for econo-
mies of scope, and replicates the flexibility and advantages found in
industrial districts but without formal economic ties. As Rasmussen (2018)
argues: ‘This is a key element of encouraging localised production. The more
we can work together to provide flexible and responsive solutions to local busi-
ness, the more the maker space can create value in the local economy.’
Analysis and Discussion
In the case study of Underbroen, there are multiple examples of social
capital in operation. The building itself and its membership arrangements,
provides a structural mechanism for knowledge to be shared and com-
bined in a small workshop area. Shared projects provide a supplementary
space for members to come together to combine knowledge and skills,
and as Underbroen develops more strategic links in the city, there are
greater opportunities for members to make use of structural ties with
170 R. GRANGER
other organisations. The Space’s close ties with the Blox Hub offer obvi-
ous opportunities for accessing the very latest technology. Cognitive prox-
imity is achieved through shared narratives and language emanating from
their common maker mindset, shared interests in music, and also from
socialising in bars and at festivals. This provides a unifying force for bring-
ing together disparate interests, crafts, and for bringing together actors
with markedly different socio-economic circumstances. Relational
proximity is achieved predominantly through members’ maker mindset
and their shared values, particularly in terms of social innovation. While
the maker mindset provides a hidden code or culture for working, which
acts out as an obligation to help fellow members with new ideas and proj-
ects (e.g. testing prototypes, offering advice), one finds examples of mem-
bers borrowing resources (materials, personal equipment), and asking for
feedback, sourcing technical skills from others, and which over time builds
into a reciprocal and interdependent relationship between members,
which can spur ongoing knowledge exchange.
In thinking further about Nahapiet and Ghoshal’s (1998) conditions
for knowledge exchange and combination, Underbroen provides a unique
environment for working, which to some extent addresses all of the condi-
tions for social capital. The informal and community nature of Underbroen,
which is shaped in part by its founder members and the Space’s manager,
provides a structure for exchanging resources. The design of the shared
workshop and the open kitchen area provide a physical opportunity for
knowledge exchange and combination to occur, but opportunities are also
created from the softer spaces and rules of engagement, for example, the
mandatory training for new members, which allow for introductions with
different experts and machines, the visual references to members from the
member polaroids framed on one wall of the main workshop area, and the
information board, which details social outings. Soft rules of engagement
help to create a sense of community at Underbroen, which lays out an
environment for further exchange of resources. The limitations on space
at Underbroen mean that larger projects are placed on the main workshop
floor, and this also encourages advice and input from other members,
given that they are constant visual reminders.
In conventional commercial settings, Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998)
assume actors consider the potential value from combining resources such
as skills, before being motivated to do so. This is because combinations of
resources can produce new products and services that have unique intel-
lectual property and therefore market value. In Underbroen, the embed-
ded maker mindset acts implicitly, as the modus operandi so that members
are actively motivated to support each other by providing additional craft
skills and experiences, by offering input on designs, and feedback to sup-
port problem solving. Underbroen’s open source values also encourage
co-design of new products and joint problem solving. Given the manda-
tory training then, there is a sense that all members have at least a basic
foundation of skills and therefore capability to absorb and make use of
different permutations of knowledge exchange there.
Through the case study, the different dimensions of social capital as
well as the conditions needed for social capital are seen to be facilitated by
social space and the sociocultural attributes that create that space. Drawing
on Lefebvre (1974/1992), one might argue that Underbroen’s social
space or community is a (social) product, which is constructed and shaped
by the people (or members) that use it, and which also serves as a ‘tool of
thought and action’ and a mode of production. Underbroen’s space is also
a means of control (see Lefebvre 1992, p. 26), dictating which organisa-
tions it has strategic links with, which arises from its members, their shared
narratives and codes and their status.
The case study also highlights the way in which Underbroen as a maker
space continues to evolve as a new socio-economic form. Underbroen
operates as a lab that experiments by combining skills and knowledge; as a
maker space that produces new products; as a co-working space that pro-
vides affordable and open spaces as well as machinery; and as a learning
space that encourages new skill and knowledge development. Underbroen’s
informal governance and strong sense of socialisation, which is reinforced
by shared interests around music, and making, provide the conditions
needed for social capital (the opportunity, the motivation, the capability)
while also offering a ‘third’ space (Lefebvre 1991; Soja 1996). That is, it
offers a space that is both real (work) and imagined (intellectualised),
where members work, learn and socialise (live), and which is a social,
informal, hybrid, which Soja (1996, p. 70) argues ‘challenges all conven-
tional modes of thought and taken-for-granted epistemologies’. Critically,
this ‘thirding’ of space provides a different way of conceiving of space and
its relationship with capitalist production, which challenges conventional
thinking of where and how creative value is produced.
In a similar way, the manner in which member makers at Underbroen
(i.e. microbusinesses) have come together to organise work draws paral-
lels with an ‘Industrial District’ and draws on agglomeration economies.
The concept of a district was first used by Alfred Marshall to describe
172 R. GRANGER
aspects of industrial organisation in a location where specialised workers

and companies live and work, and are actively involved in the produc-
tion of a distinctive product, and has been used to denote the advan-
tages of, for example, the Third Italy and Spain (Becattini et al. 2009).
According to Pyke and Sengenberger (1992), industrial districts can be
divided into three main categories: (1) production of a final product;
(2) implementation of several phases towards a final product; (3) busi-
nesses that operate in other sub-sectors but contribute work to a verti-
cally integrated product. Here it conveys a micro space containing a
number of practitioners producing similar products, and working in dif-
ferent fields but coming together on a product through a series of spe-
cialised phases, for example, the different stages of wood production,
laser cutting, electronics, CNC and 3D printing required to produce a
commercial speaker system.
On one level, this type of collective working could be viewed as
Underbroen evolving and adapting to the commercial landscape in which
it operates, and in a way that supports its members. Another view might
imply a new creative space where practitioners create value in hyper flexi-
ble spaces, sometimes interdependently and sometimes independently, but
which allows for different economies of scope. At a time when academic
and policy focus on the creative economy remains dogmatically fixed on
economic value and in understanding how to remove barriers to access
and growth, this chapter offers something new, in starting to conceive of
changing creative forms and of the inherent benefits of informal social
creative settings (Table 8.2).
Table 8.2 Characteristics of creative capital, Underbroen (2016–2019)

References
Arnkil, R., Järvensivu, A., Koski, P., & Piirainen, T. (2010). Exploring Quadruple
Helix Outlining User-Orientated Innovation Models. Interreg IVC Programme.
Commission of the European Communities.
Asheim, B. (2007). Differentiated Knowledge Bases and Varieties of Regional
Innovation Systems. Innovation, 20(3), 223–241. http://dx.doi.
org/10.1080/13511610701722846.
Asheim, B., & Coenen, L. (2005). Knowledge Bases and Regional Innovation
Systems: Comparing Niche Clusters. Research Policy, 34(8), 1173–1190.
Asheim, B., & Hansen, H. K. (2009). Knowledge Bases, Talents, and Contexts:
On the Usefulness of the Creative Class Approach in Sweden, Economic
Geography, 85(4), 425–442.
Banks, M., & Hesmondhalgh, D. (2009). Looking for Work in Creative Industries
Policy. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 15(4), 415–430.
Bathelt, H., Malmberg, A., & Maskell, P. (2004). Clusters and Knowledge: Local
Buzz, Global Pipelines and the Process of Knowledge Creation. Progress in
Human Geography, 28(1), 31–56.
Baudrillard, J. (1968/1996). The System of Objects. Translated by James Benedict.
New York: Verso.
Becattini, G., Bellandi, M., & De Propris, L. (Eds.). (2009). A Handbook of
Industrial Districts. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Bell, D. (1973). The Coming of the Post Industrial Society. New York: Basic Books.
Boschma, R. A. (2005). Proximity and Innovation: A Critical Assessment. Regional
Studies, 39(1), 61–74.
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste.
London: Routledge.
Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education (pp. 241–258). New York:
Greenwood.
Carayannis, E. G., & Campbell, D. F. J. (2010). Triple Helix, Quadruple Helix
and Quintuple Helix and How Do Knowledge Innovation and the Environment
Relate to Each Other? A Proposed Framework for a Trans-disciplinary Analysis
of Sustainable Development and Social Ecology. International Journal of Social
Ecology and Sustainable Development, 1(1), 41–69.
Cavallini, S., Soldi, R., Friedl, J., & Volpe, M. (2016). Using the Quadruple Helix
Approach to Accelerate the Transfer of Research and Innovation Results to
Regional Growth. Brussels: Committee of the Regions, European Commission.
Christopherson, S. (2002). Why Do Natonal Labor Market Practices Continue to
Diverge in the Global Economy? The ‘Missing Link’ of Investment Rules.
Economic Geography, 78, 1–20.
174 R. GRANGER
Cismas, L., Miculescu, A., & Otil, M. (2010). Current Trends of the Regional
Development Policy in the European Union. The Development of Competitive
Agglomerations of Cluster Type. Annals of the University of Petrosani,
Economics, 10(2), 99–110.
Cohen, W. M., & levinthal, D. A. (1990). Absorptive Capacity: A New Perspective
on Learning and Innovation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35(1), 128–152.
Coleman, J. (1990). Foundations of Social Theory. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.
Coleman, J. S. (1988). Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital. The
American Journal of Sociology, 94, S95–S120.
Cooke, P. (2012). Knowledge Economy Spillovers, Proximity, and Specialization.
In B. T. Asheim & M. D. Parrilli (Eds.), Interactive Learning for
Innovation (pp. 100–111). London: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.
org/10.1057/9780230362420_5.
Cooke, P., & Schwartz, D. (Eds.). (2012). Creative Regions: Technology, Culture,
and Knowledge Entrepreneurship. London: Routledge.
Cooke, P., Heidenreich, M., & Braczyk, H. (Eds.). (2014). Regional Innovation
Systems (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
Copenhagen Taskforce. (2018). Copenhagen – A Leading Metropolis for
Sustainable Growth, Innovation and Talent. Retrieved from https://
www.kk.dk.
Davies, S. R. (2017). Hackerspaces – Making the Maker Movement. Cambridge:
Polity Press.
Ekman, P., & Froesen, W. V. (1982). Measuring Facial Movement with the Facial
Action Coding System. In P. Ekman (Ed.), Emotion in the Human Face (2nd
ed., pp. 178–211). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Etzkowitz, H. (1994). Academic-Industry Relations: A Sociological Paradigm for
Economic Development. In L. Leydesdorff & P. Van den Besselaar (Eds.),
Evolutionary Economics and Chaos Theory: New Directions in Technology Studies
(pp. 139–151). London: Pinter.
Eurostat. (2018). Tertiary Education Statistics. Retrieved from https://ec.europa.
eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Tertiary_education_statistics.
Florida, R. (2001). The Rise of the Creative Class. New York: Basic Books.
Freeman, C. (1987). Technology Policy and Economic Performance: Lessons from
Japan. Pinter Pub Ltd.
Granger, R. C. (2017). The Sustainability of Creative Cities: A Comparative
Analysis of Leicester and London. Leicester: CURA.
Granovetter, M. S. (1985). Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem
of Embeddedness. American Journal of Sociology, 91, 481–510.
Grundel, I., & Dahlström, M. (2016). A Quadruple and Quintuple Helix
Approach to Regional Innovation Systems in the Transformation to a Forestry-
Based Bioeconomy. Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 7(4), 963–983.
Hesmondhalgh, D. (2018). The Cultural Industries. 4th ed. London: Sage.
Holst, M. C. K. (2016). Head of Creative Growth, City of Copenhagen. In

Personal Communication, Underbroen, 14 June 2016.
Hoover, E. M. (1948). The Location of Economic Activity. New York: McGraw Hill.
Howkins, J. (2001). The Creative Economy. London: Penguin.
Jensen, M. B., Johnson, B., Lorenz, E., & Lundvall, B.-Å. (2007). Forms of
Knowledge, Modes of Innovation and Innovation Systems. Research Policy,
36(5), 680–693.
Johnston, R. J., Gregory, D., Pratt, G., & Watts, M. (Eds.). (2000). The Dictionary
of Human Geography (4th ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.
Landry, C. (1999). The Creative City. A Toolkit for Innovators. London: Earthscan.
Lefebvre, H. (1974). La Production de l’Espace. Paris: Anthropos.
Lefebvre, H. (1991). The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell.
Leydesdorff, L., & Etzkowitz, H. (1998). The Triple Helix as a Model for
Innovation Studies. Science and Public Policy, 25(3), 195–203.
Leyesdorff, L. (2018). Synergy in Knowledge-based Innovation Systems at
National and Regional Levels: The Triple-Helix Model and the Fourth
Industrial Revolution. Journal of Open Innovation, 4(2). https://doi.
org/10.3390/rs2061549.
Lundvall, B.-Å. (Ed.). (1992). National Innovation Systems: Towards a Theory of
Innovation and Interactive Learning. London: Pinter.
Markusen, A. (1996). Sticky Places in Slippery Space: A Typology of Industrial
Districts. Journal of Economic Geography, 72(3), 293–313.
Metcalfe, S. (1995). The Economic Foundations of Technology Policy:
Equilibrium and Evolutionary Perspectives. In P. Stoneman (Ed.), Handbook of
the Economics of Innovation and Technological Change (pp. 409–512). Oxford:
Blackwell.
Moodyson, J., Nilson, M., & Henning, S. M. (2008). Clusters in Time and
Space: Understanding the Growth and Transformation of Life Science in
Scania. CIRCLE 2008/04, Lund University. http://wp.circle.lu.se/upload/
CIRCLE/workingpapers/200804_Moodysson_et_al.pdf.
Moran, P., & Ghoshal, S. (1996). Value Creation by Firms. In J. B. Keys & L. N.
Dosier (Eds.), Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings (pp. 41–45).
Nahapiet, J., & Ghoshal, S. (1998). Social Capital, Intellectual Capital and the
Organizational Advantage. The Academy of Management Review,
23(2), 242–266.
Nelson, R. R. (Ed.). (1993). National Innovation Systems: A Comparative Analysis.
New York: Oxford University Press.
176 R. GRANGER
OECD. (1997). National Innovation Systems. Paris: OECD.

OECD. (2007). Insights into Human Capital: How What You Know Shapes Your
Life. The Power of Knowledge. Paris: OECD.
Patel, P., & Pavitt, K. (1994a). The Nature and Economic Importance of National
Innovation Systems. STI Review 14. Paris: OECD.
Patel, P., & Pavitt, K. (1994b). National Innovation Systems. Why They Are
Important, and How They Might Be Measured and Compared. Economics of
Innovation and New Technology, 3, 77–95.
(Eds.), Cultural Intermediaries Connecting Communities. Revisiting Approaches
to Cultural Engagement (pp. 119–132). London: Palgrave.
Polanyi, M. (1966). The Tacit Dimension. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago.
Polanyi, M. (1974). Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-critical Philosophy.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago.
Putnam, R. D. (2001). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American
Community (pp. 22–23). New York: Touchstone.
Pyke, F., & Sengenberger, W. (Eds.). (1992). Industrial Districts and Local
Economic Regeneration. Geneva: International Institute for Labour Studies.
Rasmussen, A. N. (2018). Underbroen Manager. In Personal Communication,
Underbroen, Copenhagen. 17 April 2018.
Soja, E. (1996). Thirdspace. Journeys to Los Angeles and Other-and-Imagined
Places. Oxford: Blackwell.
Statistics Denmark. (2018). Tertiary Education. Retrieved from https://www.dst.
dk/en/Statistik/emner/uddannelse-og-viden/befolkningens-uddannelsessta-
tus/videregaaende-uddannelser.
Storper, M. (1995). The Resurgence of Regional Economies, Ten Years Later: The
Region as a Nexus of Untraded Interdependencies. European Urban and
Regional Studies, 2(3), 191–211.
Storper, M. (1997). Territories, Flows, and Hierarchies in the Global Economy. In
K. R. Cox (Ed.), Spaces of Globalization: Reasserting the Power of the Local
(pp. 19–44). New York: Guilford.
Viale, R., & Camposall’Orto, S. (2002). An Evolutionary Triple Helix to
Strengthen Academy-Industry Relations: Suggestions from European Regions.
Science and Public Policy, 29(3), 154–168.
Zahra, S. A., & George, G. (2002). Absorptive Capacity: A Review,
Reconceptualization and Extension. Academy of Management Review,
27(2), 185–203.
CHAPTER 9
Cultural and Creative Districts as Spaces

for Value Change
Jennifer Garcia-Carrizo and Rachel Granger
Introduction
This chapter considers the notion of value appropriation embodied in
physical space, as well as the process through which value is constructed
through space. Drawing on the case study of the Ouseburn Valley in the
North East of England, this chapter examines the value that comes from
the development of a place, as well as the value embodied in a place as site
of activism, and the notoriety of a locale’s brand. The chapter positions
the Ouseburn Valley as a cultural and creative district in the North East of
England and a primary space for local activism.
The chapter is organised in three parts. The first part looks at the role of
activism in conceptual terms and provides a backdrop to the examination
of the Ouseburn Trust in the second section, which details how a group of
J. Garcia-Carrizo
Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain
e-mail: jennigar@ucm.es
R. Granger (*)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_9
178 J. GARCIA-CARRIZO AND R. GRANGER
volunteers have transferred the Ouseburn Valley in Newcastle from a site of

industrial dereliction to a vibrant creative and cultural district within
30 years. The chapter then considers what activism means in conceptual
and practical terms. In the third section, the chapter considers whether the
creative and cultural activities of the district and the redevelopment of the
Valley have value socially and whether this amounts to activism or urban
revitalisation, with a potential risk of cultural-led gentrification.
The chapter therefore considers:
• The meaning of value as a spatially and community-embodied form

• The process of value appropriation through redevelopment
• Spaces of activism
• Areas as sites of aesthetic meaning and notoriety branding, and a
primary conduit for value creation
Activism
Activism has traditionally been understood as a set of efforts aimed at pro-
moting, preventing or directing social, political, economic or environmen-
tal reforms. Activism entails writing letters to newspapers, and concerted
political campaigns, boycotts, street marches or strikes. In fact, forms of
activism are so broad that any activity that has the purpose of ‘making a
change at a political, economic, social or spatial level, and tied to the con-
certed actions of people’, can be considered as such (Brain 2004, p. 6)
touching on aspects of identity, democracy, social movements and cam-
paigns, to stronger aspects of defiance, rebellion, disobedience and
violent acts.
There is now broad consensus that in the second half of the twentieth
century, electoral turnout and political party membership in the developed
world, as traditional indicators of activism, have encountered a steady sec-
ular erosion, whilst rising education and literacy, as well as wealth in devel-
oping countries, have been associated with wider political turnout. In that
sense, activism aligned to democracy and democratic actions implies a
reduced activism in many parts of the world at the same time as rising
activism in other areas. Here Norris (2002) makes the point that other
forms of activism have grown during this time and need to be taken into
account: ‘demonstrations, signing petitions, and consumer boycotts have
become more common since the mid-1970s and engagement in new
social movements have flowered in affluent nations, suggesting an
9 CULTURAL AND CREATIVE DISTRICTS AS SPACES FOR VALUE CHANGE 179
evolution, transformation and reinvention of civic engagement’, whilst

political democracy has been in decline (p. 4). In turbulent times, activism
increases and people experiment with other forms of action, and the digi-
tal revolution has introduced even more opportunities for cyber-political
activism (Hill and Hughes 1998) and transnational activism (Tarrow
2005). Whilst people have become disengaged from traditional channels
of participation, there is stronger evidence of ‘everyday acts of defiance’,
which relate more to identity and social movements (Baumgardner and
Richards 2000, p. 283) and to the use of the internet and social media as
a primary route of political communication and action, as for example
feminism and the #MeToo Campaign during 2018. In this sense, it seems
a reasonable supposition to argue that the collective cause in some parts of
the world is now within easier reach, which here we relate to Boebel’s
(2007) assertion that the distinction between ‘being an activist’ and ‘doing
activism’ has been weakened in recent years.
This idea of a new era or type of citizen activism forms the basis of the
discussion in this chapter about the Ouseburn Valley’s creative and cul-
tural district as a space for activism and value appropriation.
Within the debate about activism it is clear that non-violent forms of
activism can manifest through different forms and here we give consider-
ation to ‘artivism’, literally art-based activism (see Schuler 2008) as a valu-
able form of activity, and which includes, inter alia, murals, storytelling
within campaigns, theatre, (struggle) songs and other spoken word and
literature. As previous research has shown (Zoran 2011; Nossel 2016),
‘artivism’ is an especially rich transformative method for changing our
minds or inspiring us, with a view to taking on new perspectives or to rei-
magine the world in which we live. For this reason, artivism has been
presented typically as arts-based activities that work with individuals to
educate, to inspire or to transform. In this chapter, we introduce arts-
based spatial change as another type of artivism. Whilst artivism is a well-
established area of discourse, tied implicitly to spaces of democracy, which
actively assume change—in other words, as a tool for incurring a change
in a spatial area—artivism has never been considered before as a spatially
embodied tool in its own right. In other words, we outline artivism as a
creative reuse of space, which can be conceptualised as a process of organ-
ised activity. To do so, we draw on Martin’s (2007) assertion that to count
as (non-violent) activism, an action ‘needs to go beyond conventional
behaviour’. As such, the chapter considers the value appropriation possible
through arts-based activism in a locale, which leads to the creative reuse
and urban conversion of the landscape in a city, and acts as a principal cata-
lyst and conduit for broader economic, political and social change in the
environment in which it is integrated. The chapter considers whether such
action is conventional in form and to what extent this captures unconven-
tional demographic groups.
Cultural and creative districts as the primary spaces discussed in this
chapter can be understood as places of ‘high culture’ where a set of eco-
nomic (companies), non-economic (non-governmental organisations,
foundations) and institutional (municipalities, councils, etc.) actors make
an active decision to use shared resources (artistic, cultural, social, envi-
ronmental) for collective and creative action (see Lazzeretti 2008). In
general terms, cultural and creative districts are recognisable as small and
localised spaces in a city, which act as catalysts for marginalised areas
through an active process of revitalisation, making them both liveable and
valuable (Roselló and Wright 2010; UNESCO 2016). In this chapter, the
importance of cultural and creative districts as spaces for activist move-
ments is examined, with the Ouseburn Valley drawn upon as a case study
through which activism is implemented.
Adopting a grounded theory approach, fieldwork was conducted in the
North East of England between August 2017 and August 2018, entailing
face-to-face interviews with nine key contacts in creative and cultural insti-
tutions. In the field, brochures and corporate information related to the
cultural district of the Ouseburn Valley have also been analysed (along
with semi-fixed data collected in situ) using a range of qualitative tech-
niques. This data was collected through different observation episodes
developed between August 2017 and February 2018 in the Ouseburn
Valley and by taking photographs of the different spaces that confirm its
surroundings.
The Ouseburn Valley Area

Taking the Ouseburn Valley—the cultural and creative district of Newcastle
Upon Tyne—as the central axis of this chapter, the following sections
detail first its fundamental characteristics, including historical position, as
a basis for analysing it as a site of activism. It then situates recent and cur-
rent developments within the broader value context of the city and wider
community, in which economic, social and political changes are occurring,
and as a basis for considering the unconventional nature of activism
in the area.
The Ouseburn Valley area refers to the Ouseburn River Valley, a small
tributary of the main river of the city of Newcastle Upon Tyne, the river
Tyne. Newcastle Upon Tyne is situated some 280 miles north of London,
and 100 miles south of Edinburgh, in Scotland. The issue of geographical,
political and economic peripherality is, therefore, key to understanding
the context of the area and the rationale for community-led activism. The
Ouseburn Valley is a 20 minutes’ walk from Newcastle city centre. The
Tyne tributary is located in the eastern part of the city and is crossed by
three impressive bridges. The name of Ouseburn Valley makes special ref-
erence to the southern part of the Valley, the ‘Lower Ouseburn’, which is
currently the main space for culture and creative industries within
Newcastle. However, it has taken more than 30 years of work in the area
to revitalise and rehabilitate it.
At the end of the twentieth century, the decline of heavy industry in the
area (glass, coal mining and ceramics) as part of a wider process of dein-
dustrialisation in England resulted in mass unemployment and redundant
industrial workplaces in the Ouseburn Valley. By the early 1980s, the val-
ley showed signs of abandonment with former factories and warehouses
falling into widespread disuse, and as a result, the local area gained a repu-
tation as being both poor and dangerous. Unemployment at this time
stood at 34 per cent for the city (1987) compared to 9.7 per cent for the
UK (Nomis 2018), with male unemployment only second nationally to
the most deprived neighbourhoods of Liverpool. The valley area and so-
called East and West Ends of the city had the highest crime rates in the
country and chronic problems of poverty and disorder, which reached
crisis levels during the 1980s, and whose notoriety culminated in the 1991
Meadow Well and Benwell riots in Newcastle. The large-scale disorder and
criminal damage of the riots highlighted the severe social and economic
situation of communities throughout Newcastle, and the prevalent com-
munity disaffection. In this sense, the onset of new funding throughout
the 1990s, starting with the City Challenge and several rounds of the
Single Regeneration Budget, was seen as a government response to the
urgent needs being faced by Newcastle residents, which had been to some
extent failed by the £140 m investment through the Tyne and Wear
Development Corporation (TWDC) from 1987 onwards.
Historically, the onset of heritage-led regeneration and the establish-
ment of key sites of cultural and leisure activity as a basis for creating
dynamic and competitive locations can be traced to a series of early activi-
ties in the Ouseburn in the early 1980s. It is notable because of the level
of local community engagement and activism, which underpinned the

work, and in marked contrast to the top-down experience of other areas of
Newcastle and other cities at that time. In 1982, Mike Mold bought the
36th building of Lime Street, which has now become the backbone of the
Ouseburn Valley Cultural and Creative District. Mold, in collaboration
with other third sector agents, occupied the upper part of this building,
establishing it as the headquarters of the Bruvvers Theatre Company, and
renting the rest of the building to local artists at competitive below-market
prices (Ouseburn Trust 2012). Thanks in part to the geographical loca-
tion of the Ouseburn Valley, near the centre of the city, his idea was well
received by the public.
Five years later, in 1987, the newly established Ouseburn Working
Group (now the Ouseburn Trust and the Ouseburn Futures), led by Rick
Anderson, Norman Povey and George Allison, played a pivotal role in
developing and gaining strategic support for an economic and social plan
for the area which set out priorities for the ‘transformation and rehabilita-
tion’ of the Ouseburn Valley within a wider city context (Ouseburn Trust
2012). This ten-year revitalisation plan prioritised the restoration of the
former Toffee Factory and the demolition of local damaged and contami-
nated spaces (Ouseburn Trust 2018a). Whilst work began modestly, the
process of transformation in the area was catalysed with the formation of
the Ouseburn Trust, a third sector organisation charged with ‘caring and
monitoring the cultural and economic development of the Ouseburn
area’. This organisation, initially under the name The Ouseburn
Partnership, received £2.5 m of funding in 1997 from a combination of
public sources, led by Newcastle City Council.1 In this same year, the first
Ouseburn Festival took place in order to encourage and support the devel-
opment of the area (Ouseburn Trust 2012), and had a transformative
effect on the process of change and management in the area, as well as
galvanising local support and volunteering.
The working team was transferred to number 53 of Lime Street between
2002 and 2005 (now 53–55), and this played a key role in the establish-
ment of the Ouseburn Trust by providing a key site for directing local
activism. The responsibility for the management of the Victoria Tunnel
was also passed to the de facto Trust in 2011. The Victoria Tunnel, the
1
Under a series of regeneration schemes, funded by government sources including English
partnerships (latterly One North East), Single Regeneration Budget and SRB Challenge
Fund, English Heritage, TWDC, and Newcastle City Council.
nineteenth-century Grade II listed colliery waggon way, is the most

important historical and industrial heritage site in the Valley and arguably
one of the most important heritage sites in the city of Newcastle.
Through these early activities, the Ouseburn Valley is recognisable
today as a vibrant cultural and creative district, now home to several key
cultural sites, including Seven Stories, the National Children’s Library, the
Victoria Tunnel, Glasshouse Bridge, the Old Flax Chimney, Star and
Shadow Cinema, Holy Biscuit Gallery and creative industries housed in
the old Toffee Factory, Northern Print, Digilab and Hoults Yard. We
argue that this festival and the early work of the Trust and Bruvvers
Theatre Company were a key step in securing activism from unconven-
tional groups in the local area.
Cultural and Creative Districts

and the Ouseburn Valley
Whilst it is true that Lazzeretti (2008) defines cultural and creative dis-
tricts as those spaces of a high cultural and creative level where a set of
actors use shared resources in order to develop a common project, it is
important to note other characteristics highlighted by others authors. Of
notable importance are Wansborough and Mageean (2000) who indicate
that cultural and creative districts are spaces that usually appear in the cen-
tre of urban areas, meaning that they are easily integrated into the urban
environment and that their actions have an important impact on their
local city through local presence and visibility of activities. This is certainly
true of the Ouseburn Valley, whose cultural and creative district is
10–15 minutes’ walking from the city centre of Newcastle (Fig. 9.1).
Wansborough and Mageean (2000) go on to note that such districts
are typically multi-use environments in which spaces for cultural and lei-
sure consumption appear, alongside sites of cultural production and work
environments. As shown in Table 9.1, the Ouseburn Valley is home to
both cultural consumption (e.g. local heritage, art gallery and library, res-
taurant and pub), which fits seamlessly into sites of cultural and creative
production (e.g. Northern Print, Toffee Factory creative start-ups).
Districts such as the Ouseburn are therefore attractive for diverse audi-
ences and demographic groups with different interests and needs, which
we argue has been pivotal in securing local activism from unconventional
demographics in the area (see Table 9.1).
Fig. 9.1 Map of the city centre of Newcastle Upon Tyne (rectangle), which
includes the Ouseburn Valley (circle). (Source: Own elaboration from Google
Maps 2018)
The characteristics of such spaces also contribute actively to local iden-

tity (see Montgomery 2003) through the incorporation of local works or
locally produced elements that can reinforce heritage, local values and
community roots. There are three notable examples of this in the Ouseburn.
Firstly, some projects in the Ouseburn such as ‘The Toffee Factory’
(housing creative industries), the trio of biscuit-based art establishments
(The Holy Biscuit, The Biscuit Tin Studios and The Biscuit Factory, the
largest independent contemporary art and craft gallery in the UK), The
Kiln and Arch2 have used traditional names as a nod to the former indus-
trial use of space in the area. The unconventional retention of industrial
names that link with the area’s industrial heritage such as Maynards sweet
factory (‘Toffee Factory’) and the Victorian biscuit factory and warehouse
(‘Biscuit Factory’ and ‘Biscuit Tin Studios’) are important actions that
reinforce heritage and local pride in an area and bring in new groups and
actions into artivism. That said, it is interesting to note the practice of
selective industrial naming, and the use of more positive aspects of indus-
trial heritage—there are no references, for example, to the area’s links with
lard production, animal slaughter and so on.
Secondly, there have been concerted efforts to retain elements of indus-
trial activity in the built environment such as sympathetic constructions
Table 9.1 Cultural production and consumption in the Ouseburn Valley

Primary Organisations Target audience
purpose
Bar & Arch 2 Young, middle-aged

restaurant Artisan Food lovers
Cook House Food lovers, older demographic
Cumberland Arms Pub Visitors, younger demographic
Ernest Younger demographic, students
Hotel de Vin Food lovers, executives, luxury
demographic
The Bake—Lebanese Younger demographic, food
lovers
The Cluny Pub Younger demographic, students
The Free Trade Younger demographic
The Kiln Younger demographic
The Ship Inn Younger demographic
The Tanners Arms Younger demographic
The Tyne Bar Younger and middle-aged
demographic
Art Biscuit Factory Art lovers, visitors
Seven Stories Library & Museum Children, visitors
Star & Shadow Cinema Cinema-goers, live music lovers,
art lovers
The Holy Biscuit—Art Gallery Art lovers, artists, schools,
cross-section of public
Construct—Bandstand, Music space Proposed
Business Biscuit Tin Studios Art Studios Artists, freelancers
Chilli Studios Musicians, mental health groups
Cobalt Studios Young artists, crafts, middle-aged
Digilab Photography Freelancers, start-ups
Hoults Yard Creative workspace, freelancers
Toffee Factory Creative workspace, freelancers
Hybrid Chilli Bizarre—Art Café, Gallery Art lovers, visitors, middle-aged
Northern Print—Print Studio, Gallery SMEs, art lovers, visitors
The Ouseburn Farm—education, café, Children, disability groups,
volunteering centre elderly groups, visitors
Third sector Ouseburn Parks Cross-section local population
Blackfriars Church—sports, culture Immigrants, disadvantaged
people, families
Recycle Your Furniture Crafts and arts groups, green
population
St Dominic’s Church Religious groups
Stepney Bank Stables Younger demographic, visitors
The Cycle Hub Younger demographics, sport
lovers
Victoria Tunnel Cross-section, visitors
Source: Own elaboration

using former industrial sites and warehouses as, for example, The Kiln,
Arch2, The Toffee Factory and The Biscuit Factory. In fact, several inter-
viewees alluded to the ‘huge local effort’ to conserve industrial elements
in the landscape, such as the famous chimneys (Fig. 9.2), traditional floor
surfaces in Leighton Street and street furniture, at greater local cost. Such
attempts have also been noted by the Heritage Lottery Fund and through
regional architectural awards, which have been important factors in the
continued designation of the area as the Lower Ouseburn Conservation
Area and bringing in new people. As two interviewees noted, the Ouseburn
Trust has become a key local agent which reports on historical, industrial
and heritage value and works with the City Council to defend the conser-
vation area, some of which also sits in a designated wildlife corridor and
the Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage Site.
The work of Ouseburn Futures and the Ouseburn Trust in developing
a CD of oral history (‘Sound bites’) and a photographic archive for wider
educational and community use has also been an important activity for
Fig. 9.2 Different industrial chimneys in the Toffee Factory at the Ouseburn
preserving local activities and history, reinforcing local identity and roots
whilst also tied to local value-creation. This is reflected, for example, in the
highly successful crowdfunding campaigning and local support for the
‘Construct’ project, which will reinsert a bandstand into the local area and
revitalise the space between the arches of the viaduct; bringing the viaduct
into the centre of activities in the area. The project also entails a reinter-
pretation of a Victorian musical kiosk (involving the two universities in the
city: Newcastle University and Northumbria University). Thus, it is an
indication of the extent of local support and value being created through
local conservation and activism in the Valley.
Thirdly, there have been several attempts to use local artists and busi-
nesses in local activities, which have heightened the visibility of local works
in the community whilst also reinforcing local ownership. For example,
local artists (Hannah Scully, Luke Sellars, Danny McConway, Ernie Paxto)
have been active in painting local street furniture and bollards, whilst other
projects have created murals on local buildings (Fig. 9.3), which have
provided the Valley with its own identity, whilst also becoming a local
features in their own right.
Fig. 9.3 Local bollards and murals

Cultural and Creative Districts as Spaces

for Activism
Citizen engagement is key to the development of activism (Schwartz

2017) and, in this sense, cultural and creative districts are environments in
which diverse and, to some extent, unconventional agents can develop
local activities to strengthen their local commitment. These activities
developed at a local level can scale their effects at national and suprana-
tional levels, meaning that local effects can be mainstreamed to have a
wider impact (see Schuler 2008). However, it should be noted that activ-
ism does not always stand for the activists’ actions (Permanent Culture
Now 2018). Participation in cultural districts such as the Ouseburn
Valley—whether as local resident, as consumer, as producer—can create
unintentional activists, that transform the local environment uncon-
sciously. Geddes (1915) makes the point that activism is concerted, with
an emphasis on doing, with the notion that actions exerted at the local
level will have effects at a global level. As such, activism is about concerted
action to improve the political and economic situation of the district in
which they are developed, and also help to build local identity and a sense
of belonging to the local community (Brain 2004). In other words, whilst
local action might contribute to local activism, it cannot be considered as
activism unless preconceived as a concerted politically motivated action
and raises the issue of when grassroots action becomes ‘doing activism’
(Boebel 2007).
Whilst the Ouseburn Valley is often cited as an exemplar of local activ-
ism, there are many activist actors that play a role, both consciously and
unconsciously. These range from companies, to institutions, foundations
and other types of charities made up of volunteers. Whilst diverse, all of
them, have developed a series of activities that in the long term, have
managed to revitalise the previously deteriorating and decaying urban
area of the Valley, and in doing so improved levels of satisfaction in
employment, social inclusion, cultural diversity and sustainability. The
cultural and creative district of the Ouseburn Valley stands as a space in
which the voice of each citizen has a place and in which each of them can
develop their projects equally, thus making the cultural economic level of
the city to grow.
This district has managed to involve those sections of the population
that have often been seen as less visible or out-of-reach such as the elderly,
immigrants and disabled people, and this according to Matarasso (1997)
will help to foster an increase in social cohesion. There are three types of
actors or activists in the Ouseburn Valley that warrant further discussion,
and are framed as mini case studies or unconventional activists.
Actor 1: Ouseburn Trust and the Involvement of Older Volunteers

The Ouseburn Trust is a charity formed by locals and based at the centre
of the Ouseburn Valley. It is in charge of ensuring diversity, social inclu-
sion and sustainability in the district and connecting all those actors who
work in it. The Ouseburn Trust was first mooted in 1993 from the con-
cern of a group of citizens for the care and development of the Ouseburn
Valley and was consolidated in 1996 as a limited company and later as a
registered charity (Cross 2016).
The Trust has pursued the mixed-use regeneration of the Valley as an
urban village and the preservation of its heritage. Besides, it has the main
objective of making the City Council take decisions which would take into
account the citizens’ needs. It stands as a system of cultural governance
that promotes and adopts inclusive, participatory and representative deci-
sions. Also, it fosters a participatory planning approach, which as UNESCO
notes is critical in the sustainable development of a cultural district
(UNESCO 2005). This was reinforced in an interview in which one of the
interviewees indicated that ‘the greatest attributes of the Trust was in its
ability to “manage” culturally and creatively the sustainable development
of the district’, and through these actions could be rightly seen as an activ-
ist (Interviewee 1).
In addition, the Trust develops a wide variety of activities, some of
which are seen as less conventional community or arts activities. These
range from the responsible and sustainable management of a large part of
the Ouseburn Valley’s spaces, to the administration of the Victoria Tunnel,
one of the City’s significant attractions. Likewise, the Ouseburn Trust is
responsible for the development of a fund and a historical archive that col-
lects, gathers and researches the local history of the district, and which is
disclosed through talks, tours and publications. In order to ensure the
cultural and social diversity of the district, the Ouseburn Trust offers a
wide range of activities, which involve different demographic groups. For
example, visits to the Victoria Tunnel are designed for families, schools
and the adult public, making the same heritage element attractive to dif-
ferent audiences by offering different activity programmes. The Ouseburn
Trust has also prioritised intra-generational equality, and made the unusual
Fig. 9.4 Local tours. (Source: Lesley Turner, Admin & Communications Officer,
Ouseburn Trust)
step of prioritising older demographics in leading the association; allowing

them to express and narrate their experiences and memories in the area
through the organisation of conferences and tours offered weekly. In
them, the oldest local public and retirees can regain enthusiasm and feel
useful by leading a group of different visitors willing to learn from them
(Fig. 9.4).
Actor 2: The Ouseburn Farm

The Ouseburn Farm was established in 1976 by a group of locals in the
heart of the Ouseburn Valley district as a charitable foundation supported
by anonymous donations from local citizens and companies. It is a space
where animals are raised but also stands as a farm school where children
can learn about nature and animal husbandry. The farm has a cafeteria-
restaurant, which develops programmes to support a wide range of dis-
ability groups, including sheltered work opportunities for those with
learning disabilities. As one interviewee who works at the farm notes, ‘the
farm provides a fantastic opportunity to integrate and support local peo-

ple, who might otherwise be excluded from a typical cultural and creative
district’ (Interviewee 2). In this way, the farm space and wider valley offer
a clear example of a sustainable micro-environment in which all actors are
involved in a win-win situation. Disability groups receive additional sup-
port from the farm and valley, whilst the visibility of disabilities in the
district creates an inclusive environment, which serves to educate and
transform perceptions of disability with other groups accessing other cul-
tural attractions, especially younger demographics. The positioning of a
farm in the heart of a thriving cultural and creative district is unconven-
tional in many respects.
Activist 3: Chilli Studios and Chilli Bizarre

Chilli Studios, formerly known as Newcastle and Gateshead Art Studio
(NAGAS), provides a number of creative services and opportunities for
people who are experiencing mental health issues or other factors that may
lead to social exclusion. In this sense, its team of creative professionals and
support workers aim to engage people creatively through different art
forms, to promote their inclusion, develop their skills and help them build
resilience and well-being.
Chilli Bizarre, as a spin-out, is an ethical art café where artists from
Chilli Studios can display and sell their work. All profits are fed back into
Chilli Studios to support their charitable mission in offering a safe artistic
space for their community of artists, musicians and makers. As with the
Ouseburn Farm, Chilli Studios and Chilli Bizarre promote the social
inclusion of hard-to-reach groups by using arts to develop skills and well-
being and to promote social dialogue between these groups and the wider
community, and in this way play an active role in securing unconventional
groups and activities into a mainstream cultural district.
The Value in the District Brand and Its

Brand Notoriety
Looking now at the Valley’s image, it is possible to interpret recent activi-
ties in the district as a type of brand-refresh and place marketing activity.
In business, a brand image generates a unique set of ideas and feelings in
people it is aimed at. To retain a competitive edge, larger companies
periodically modify or completely replace (refresh) their brand through
changes to images, relaunch and so on. In urban areas, the same processes
are used as part of wider place marketing campaigns and city rebranding
exercises. Glasgow’s ‘Miles Better’ campaign in 1982 was used as a delib-
erate rebranding exercise by Struthers Advertising to re-imagineer Glasgow
as a destination for tourism, visitors and investment, and was arguably one
of the world’s earliest and most successful city rebranding exercises, which
changed the public’s consciousness of Glasgow away from football hooli-
ganism and alcohol abuse to an appealing cosmopolitan city.
District rebranding can have a number of benefits on the ground.
Firstly, competition between urban places to attract new investment, visi-
tors and even residents has led to a mainstreaming of branding and place
marketing as part of regeneration strategies, and is a critical response to
the emergence of ‘identikit’ cities, visitor destinations and even cultural
districts, as a hegemonic urban renewal model. In these cases, additional
branding activities are used to highlight unique selling points of a locality
to an aspirational group. They are also an acknowledgement of the role of
‘civic boosterism’ (Logan and Molotch 1987) and the role of investing in
the aesthetics of an area to rebrand and to draw in further interest and
investment. In many ways, rebranding acts as a means of refreshing the
public’s feeling about a locality and to reinvent itself as a viable proposi-
tion—a safe and welcoming place. For example, Barcelona’s place market-
ing ahead of the 1992 Summer Olympics focused on the perception of the
beach area of the city as safe and appealing places of interest, which were
used also to open up new products to locals as much as they were visitors,
for example, beaches. In that sense and again drawing on Barcelona, care-
ful rebranding can play a role in engendering civic pride and in uniting a
city or group of people around a public project or locality and engender-
ing a sense of local ownership and pride. Barcelona’s place marketing
activities around the introduction of a new (local) verb ‘Ravalejar’ (Ravalear
in Spanish) to highlight changes in the character of the once notorious
and seedy Raval District speaks of attempts to reassert pride in an area
without losing any of its identity and personality, whilst at the same time,
opening it up to a new demographic cohort. In other words, it is being
used as an unconventional activity to bring in new users.
District rebranding in this sense is used as part of the repertoire of
actions in urban regeneration to help discard negative imagery of a specific
locale or industrial past. Whereas industrial areas were once framed as out-
puts of the past and seen as sites of ‘wicked problems’ (Rittel and Webber
1973) connected to severe economic and social deprivation, high levels of
crime and unrest, vandalism and public disorder, pollution and a lack of
civic amenities, they are now branded as resources for the future—for resi-
dents, for visitors, for investors. In the Ouseburn, rebranding and revitali-
sation are framed as the primary routes for enabling social change and
fostering pride and activism in an area, which have brought in new, often
unconventional, demographics into grassroots action.
In the Ouseburn Valley, there are some clear uses of rebranding and
place marketing in recent developments of the cultural and creative dis-
trict, some of which could be cited as unconventional cultural activities
ties to community activism. The use of industrial names, retention of
industrial features in local architecture and reuse of spaces, and even the
use of historical and industrial activities in new events and spectacles (e.g.
festivals, Victorian kiosks, bandstands), and archiving activities (e.g. oral
histories and photographic archives) serve to transform the perception of
a once-dangerous area. On the one hand, these examples have been cited
as exemplars of community activity, with wider engagement of the local
people but on the other have acted as the main tool for securing activism,
including local volunteering and financing. As one interviewee at Chilli
Studios, the redeveloped business space in the Valley remarks ‘this kind of
place gives me a sense of meaning and value in life … it makes me proud
of living in a city like this’ (Interviewee 4).
It is interesting to note that since April 2018, the Ouseburn Trust has
focused on the revival of the use of the ‘Ouseburn brand’, in part spurred
by the marketing activities of the City Council, but also to denote a sense
of local ownership. The logo (Fig. 9.5), comprising an ‘O’, has been inter-
Fig. 9.5 Logo from the Ouseburn Valley and its variation to ‘Made in the
Ouseburn’ campaign. (Source: Ouseburn Trust 2018b)
preted differently by local people, and resonates with different perceptions

of the area—from a paintbrush stroke for artists, a coffee ring (or beer) for
those who use local pubs and cafés or denoting the sound of delight when
people discover the Valley. As the Trust states, ‘it brings us all together and
we invite you to use it to declare your allegiance to the Valley’ (Ouseburn
Trust 2018b, p. 1).
The Ouseburn Trust’s campaign, ‘Made in Ouseburn’, is as much
about selling local activism to the local population as it is about celebrat-
ing local successes:
Ouseburn has a long history of making things—starting with glass then pot-
tery, canvas, lead, engines, toffee… The evidence is still all around us in the
buildings and the names, even if re-used for other purposes now. And it is
still in many ways a working valley making an amazing variety of things—all
sorts of art, beer, websites, furniture, music, bread … but often not easily
visible to visitors and passers-by. Over the summer we’d like to showcase as
many of the things currently being Made in Ouseburn as we can fit into our
Victoria Tunnel Visitor Centre (55 Lime Street) as a free exhibition.
(Ouseburn Trust 2018b)
In some cities, place re/branding has created sites of contestation

because marketing essentially changes the character and feel (in some cases
transmorphs the geography) of a place, leading to cultural-led gentrifica-
tion and a new incoming population. It can be difficult to create a brand
that convinces every stakeholder—residents, locals, tourists, companies,
foundations, institutions, investors, and so on—each with different per-
ceptions and aspirations of an area, and yet in Ouseburn, the logo is being
adopted by cross-sections of the local population.
The logo and place marketing of the area has brought with it a unity of
approach and a legitimation of local redevelopment and activism.
Meanwhile, other parts of renewal in the city, for example, Grange Town,
have resulted in local developers being at odds with the local population.
From the interviews with local people, the redevelopment of the Ouseburn
into a creative and cultural district is reigniting a sense of local pride in the
local area. Thus, this activity is enhancing and enriching, rather than
removing value from the local area. That said the redevelopment of the
Ouseburn as a site of investment by external agencies represents the next
stage in the process, which may incur different value sets.
Conclusions
Several aspects of the Ouseburn Valley have been highlighted as being
untypical of creative and cultural districts found in other parts of the cre-
ative economy and discussed in the mainstream policy and academic litera-
ture. The location of a farm and the inclusion of unconventional
demographic groups such as older volunteers, individuals with learning
and physical disabilities, and those with mental health issues are seldom
positioned at the centre of a thriving creative and cultural district as has
been done in the Ouseburn Valley. Local ownership and financing of
unconventional cultural activities, such as murals, local street furniture,
archives, bandstands and Victorian kiosks, speak of local pride and identity
in the area, but also a sense of collective action, found in local activism
literature. Drawing on Martin (2007), we argue here that what is being
presented in the Ouseburn amounts to (non-violent) form of activism that
‘goes beyond conventional behaviour’ as much as it does local revitalisa-
tion and brings with it inherent local value. As such, we argue that arts-
based activism in the Ouseburn not only has led to creative reuse and
urban conversion of a former industrial landscape, but also has acted as a
principal catalyst and conduit for broader economic, political and social
changes by local activists, which draws on Brain’s (2004) understanding of
activism as an ‘everyday act of defiance’ tied to local identity and social
progress (see Baumgardner and Richards 2000). As such, we argue that
these sorts of activities taking place in the Ouseburn represent both
cultural-led regeneration and also represent legitimate forms of ‘being an
activist’ and ‘doing activism’ in a contemporary context. Both provide
inherent value to local people. Supporting cultural and creative districts as
spaces for the development of activism helps to transform cultural policies,
defend the rights of artists, give a voice to civil society, stimulate the expor-
tation of cultural goods and services, promote digital arts and even formu-
late a national culture plan (UNESCO 2005, p. 5).
We identify three prominent forms of activism in the Ouseburn Valley:
1. Many activities in the Ouseburn can be identified as being ‘non-

violent activism’ because they are designed to change society with-
out violent means. Several activities prioritised by the Ouseburn
Trust target marginalised groups and seek to provide support and
central involvement in the district by these groups, using a variety of
public and private funding channels.
2. As outlined in Table 9.2, several activities developed in the Ouseburn

Valley can be recognised as taking the form of social activism (based
on inclusion of marginalised groups), health activism (based on
inclusion of people with mental or physical issues), ‘artivism’ (based
on promoting art, culture and young artists) and environmental
activism (related to green spaces and their promotion).
3. Several activities found in the Valley have effects, which can be scaled
up or have ‘repercussions’ in the city in which it is inserted by gen-
erating wider economic, social and environmental benefits for
Newcastle Upon Tyne (see McCarthy 2005).
What has been presented in the Ouseburn Valley is a space with direct
cultural and creative value, primarily economic and social in nature, and
typical of former industrial spaces with a new creative and cultural use.
What is also presented in the Ouseburn case study is a creative and cultural
district with wider social value, used as a site for local activism, enabling
local change and bringing together unconventional activities and groups.
In this sense, the Ouseburn Valley is as a space in which integration and
Table 9.2 Activists in the Ouseburn Valley

Entity Main activity developed Kind of activism
developed
Chilli Studios Art and music studio space Social activism

Health activism
Cobalt Studios Studio space Social activism
‘Artivism’
Northern Print Print working studio workshop and ‘Artivism’
not-for-profit gallery
The Ouseburn Farm school and cafeteria-restaurant. Social activism
Farm Activities of work insertion, volunteering Health activism
and work with disabled people. Green area Environmental activism
The Ouseburn Volunteering and cultural and environmental Social activism
Trust activities Environmental activism
Recycle Your Craft & Arts. Green area Environmental activism
Furniture
Seven Stories Library and museum Social activism
Health activism
St. Dominic’s Religious space, church Social activism
Church
The Holy Biscuit Art Gallery Social activism
social cohesion, equality and the dissemination of democratic and social

values are supported (Larrañaga Rubio 2016, p. 126). Different actors,
whether local businesses, marginalised groups or stakeholders, are being
transformed into activists who coordinate a range of health and social
activism through everyday acts of defiance, creating new social and eco-
nomic value and change in a community (UNESCO 2014, p. 30).
References
Baumgardner, J., & Richards, A. (2000). Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism,
and the Future. New York: Farror, Strauss and Giroux.
Boebel, C. (2007). I’m Not an Activist, through I’ve Done a Lot of It. Doing
Activism, Being Activist and No ‘Perfect Standard’ in a Contemporary
Movement. Social Movement Studies, 6(2), 147–159.
Brain, D. (2004). Placemaking and Community Building [Oral Presentation].
University of Miami School of Architecture. Florida, March, 2014.
Cross, D. (2016). Ouseburn Trust. A Short Story. Retrieved from www.ouseburn-
trust.org.uk/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=ab2b173c-724e-472a-8ff1-
a422cacfe297.
Geddes, P. (1915). Cities in Evolution. New York: Harper.
Hill, K. A., & Hughes, J. E. (1998). Cyberpolitics: Citizen Activism in the Age of
the Internet. London: Rowman and Littlefield.
Larrañaga Rubio, J. (2016). Las industrias creativas en los Países Nórdicos y en
España. In K. Baggethun, J. Larrañaga Rubio, & J. J. Fernández-Sanz (Eds.),
Crisis Económica e implantación de la Sociedad de la Información (pp. 124–144).
Salamanca: Comunicación Social.
Lazzeretti, L. (2008). El distrito cultural. In V. Soler (Coord.), Los distritos indus-
triales (pp. 327–351). Almería: Fundación Caja Mar.
Logan, J. R., & Molotch, H. L. (1987). Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of
Place. London: The University of California Press.
Martin, B. (2007). Activism, Social and Political. In G. L. Anderson & K. G. Herr
(Eds.), Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Justice (pp. 19–27). Thousand
Oaks: Sage.
Matarasso, F. (1997). Use or Ornament? The Social Impact of Participation in the
Arts. Stroud: Comedia.
McCarthy, J. (2005). Promoting Image and Identity in ‘Cultural Quarters’: The
Case of Dundee. Local Economy, 20(3), 280–293.
Montgomery, J. (2003). Cultural Quarters as Mechanisms for Urban Regeneration.
Planning Institute of Australia National Congress, 31 March–2 April.
NOMIS. (2018). Official Labour Market Statistics of 1987. Retrieved from www.
nomisweb.co.uk.
Norris, A. (2002). Democratic Phoenix. Reinventing Political Activism. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.
Nossel, S. (2016). Artivism or Arts Utility in Activism. Social Research: An
International Quarterly, 83(1), 103–105.
Ouseburn Trust. (2012). A Celebration of 30 Years of Ouseburn Regeneration.
Newcastle Upon Tyne: Northern Design.
Ouseburn Trust. (2018a). Our Story. Retrieved from www.ouseburntrust.org.uk/
our-story.
Ouseburn Trust. (2018b). Ouseburn Valley News. The Newsletter of the Ouseburn
Trust | April 2018. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Ouseburn Trust.
Permanent Culture Now. (2018). Introduction to Activism. Retrieved from www.
permanentculturenow.com/what-is-activism.
Rittel, H. W. J., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a General Theory of
Planning. Policy Sciences, 4, 155–169.
Roselló, P., & Wright, S. (Eds.). (2010). Guía práctica para mapear las Industrias
Creativas. London: British Council: Unidad de Economía Creativa.
Schuler, D. (2008). Liberating Voices: A Pattern Language for Communication
Revolution. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Schwartz, J. (2017). Politically Active? 4 Tips for Incorporating Self-Care.
U.S. News. Retrieved from www.health.usnews.com/health-care/for-better/
articles/2017-02-27/politically-active-4-tips-for-incorporating-self-care.
Tarrow, S. (2005). The New Transnational Activism. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
UNESCO. (2005). Invertir en creatividad. Tranformar las sociedades. Programa
de Desarrollo de Capacidades de la Convención de 2005. Paris: Programa de las
Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD).
UNESCO. (2014). Informe sobre la economía creativa. Edición Especial 2013.
Ampliar los caunces de Desarrollo Local. Paris: PNUD.
UNESCO. (2016). Cultura, futuro urbano. Informe Mundial sobre la Cultura
para el Desarrollo Sostenible. Paris: PNUD.
Wansborough, M., & Mageean, A. (2000). The Role of Urban Design in Cultural
Regeneration. Journal of Urban Design, 5(2), 181–197.
Zoran, P. (2011). Spaces of Democracy: Art, Politics and Artivism in Post-Socialist
City. Romanian Political Science Review, 11(4), 1551–1582.
CHAPTER 10
Silent Design and the Business Value

of Creative Ideas
David Heap and Caroline Coles
Introduction
In Chap. 3, the value of the design industry was noted as being especially
valuable in an economic context in the UK. Generating £85.2 bn in wealth
in 2016, growing around 5 per cent per year and accounting for 99.6 per
cent of all new jobs (Design Council 2018), design has become synony-
mous with value creation in the cultural and creative economy. Benton
et al. (2018) make the point that the influence of ‘design’ goes well beyond
the creative industries into, for example, the aerospace and automotive
industries, banking and other professional services, implying that design is
integral to the future economy (see Design Council 2017), as well as being
integral to value creation more broadly across the economy, in which it now
accounts for seven per cent of all wealth as measured by Gross Value Added
(GVA). To some extent, this is reflected in the per capita wealth of design-
D. Heap (*)
e-mail: david.heap@dmu.ac.uk
C. Coles
Aston University, Birmingham, UK
e-mail: c.coles1@aston.ac.uk

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_10
200 D. HEAP AND C. COLES
ers—an average of £50,328 in 2017—which exceeds other areas of accoun-

tancy and finance, and which typically dominate sector analyses in the UK
(see Design Council 2018, p. 6). In this chapter, we reflect on why design
is so valuable to the creative economy and indeed most economic sectors,
as well as problematising the dilemmas that are presented by the design
industry where idiosyncratic behaviour of design processes and design
working jar with mainstream schema for valorising creativity or design in
the work place. In this chapter and drawing on the case example of (furni-
ture) design, the tensions between the notion of ‘Silent Design’ and that of
the more commercially orientated ‘intellectual property’ are exposed and
discussed.
The chapter begins by exploring the historical evolution of the design
industry in the UK before examining the economic imperatives of design
processes. The case example of furniture design is drawn upon to under-
score the tacit, subtle and often multiplex characteristics of design func-
tions and design working, which are framed as pivotal to the success of
design in the UK, but in more commercial respects sit uncomfortably
within a mainstream value framework presented through price and intel-
lectual property. As we conclude, the dominance of design-led value cre-
ation in a contemporary context calls for more suitable proxies of value
creation and more nuanced apparatus and research techniques.
The UK Design Industry

The UK has a long history of design, which stretches back over centuries,
but its formal recognition and value has been more recent through the
formalisation of the National Council for Industrial Design, established by
Churchill in 1944. The Council became an important source of public
pride in UK cultural design, and in the post-war period, as an important
stimulant for national investment. By the 1970s and early 1980s, there
was a renewed economic interest in British design as a key factor driving
innovation in businesses, and by extension in building commercial com-
petitiveness at a time of national manufacturing decline (see Corfield
1979), drawing remarkable similarities with the celebration of design by
both Churchill in 1944 and later Tony Blair’s ‘Cool Britannia’ (1997).
Amongst other things, Corfield’s report emphasised the importance of
design to adding value to products, which he defined in terms of technical
performance, styling, reliability, durability, safety and ease of use/mainte-
nance (see Walsh et al. 1992). Corfield framed these added value elements
of design as ‘quality issues’, arguing that companies who concentrated on
10 SILENT DESIGN AND THE BUSINESS VALUE OF CREATIVE IDEAS 201
quality (cf.
quantity/mass production) would meet customer require-
ments more successfully and thus be more competitive in the long run.
Corfield’s statements draw similarities with the Finniston Report (UK,
1980; see also Williams 2007) which although concerned primarily with
the state of the British engineering profession (in transition) also high-
lighted the positive economic impacts of design-led innovation leading to
a seminar held by Margaret Thatcher, the then prime minister at Downing
Street in 1982. Under the banner of ‘Product Design and Market Success’,
a wide range of successful British designers, captains of industry, educa-
tionalists and government ministers considered and promoted British
design, with Thatcher (1982a, b) arguing ‘British competitiveness would
never extend globally if it forgot the importance of good design’:
By ‘design’ I do not just mean ‘appearance’. I mean all the engineering and
industrial design which goes into a product from the idea stage to the pro-
duction stage, and which is so important in ensuring that it works, that it is
reliable, that it is good value, and that it looks good. In short, it is good
design which makes people buy products and which gives products a good
name. It is essential to the future of our industry. (Thatcher 1982b)
Thatcher’s use of design as a key industrial tool resonates with the New
Labour Government of 1997–2010, under Tony Blair, and its use of cre-
ative industries (‘Cool Britannia’) as a strident policy area, in which
‘design’ and the ‘creative economy’ co-evolved. Whilst Churchill and
Thatcher had both framed design as a key policy vector for growing the
economy in the national interest (a feature also present during 1997–2003),
the new Labour Government for the first time drew wider public interest
in the value creation associated with other nebulous and hidden aspects of
arts and culture, arguing that these should be part of the mainstream and
emerging new economy (see DCMS 2001). In practice, the new Labour
approach was an intensification of Thatcher’s policies developed through-
out the 1980s, but the explicit promotion of ‘design thinking’ as a valu-
able and new aspect of the economy from 1997 onwards reflects a new
attitudinal approach to its role and a move away from engineering value
into objects towards value potential in a wider range of activities, espe-
cially services.
In collaboration with the Design Council (formerly Council of
Industrial Design, and named The Design Centre from 1956), the New
Labour Government launched an initiative in the form of a competition,
to find the best of British design, which would come to furnish the
Millennium Dome in London from 2000. Of the 4000 or so products and
services entered into the competition, 1012 were ultimately awarded the
coveted ‘Millennium Product Status’ and promoted as exemplary British
designs. As Blair stated:
These are world-beating designs that will help improve the quality of our
lives and give economy the edge over our competitors. (Blair 1998)
Utterback et al. (2006) note in their research that only 19 per cent of
the companies awarded the Millennium Product Status had an in-house
designer, a design team, or engaged a consultant designer. In other words,
81 per cent of the products and services promoted as the best of British
design were in fact not designed by designers. This is all the more remark-
able given the shift in thinking at this time towards ‘Design Management’
and the primacy of design within business—involving communication
between the different departments in an organisation (e.g. production,
finance, marketing, sales) to synthesise design information from the incep-
tion of a product through to its eventual completion (see Jerrard and
Hands 2008).
Although often seen as suffering somewhat from a perceived lack of
clarity in definition,1 the philosophies of design management from the
1980s onwards were nonetheless championed by the Design Management
Unit of the London Business School through a series of influential lectures
and seminars by Peter Gorb. Gorb was a firm believer in the strategic
importance of design (management) and saw the structured control of
design in organisations as a vital and frequently underutilised resource that
adds value to a business (see Jerrard and Hands 2008). For example, Peter
Gorb and Angela Dumas investigated the ‘organisational place of design’
from 1987 onwards, in which their main objective was to reach beyond
anecdotal evidence surrounding best practice in design, and discover what
constituted design as ‘general practice’. Their research was seminal in dis-
covering: ‘all aspects of the business where design is utilised’ and identified
how the ‘enterprise organises itself to make best use of design’ (Gorb and
Dumas, 1987, p. 151); in doing so beginning to understand how the
1
Oxymoronically, design is often seen as an unstructured and risky practice, whereas man-
agement is based on control and predictability.
activities of design flow between, and receive input from, the various peo-
ple and departments in a firm.
Working within their own narrow working definition of design as, ‘a
course of action for the development of an artefact or a system of artefacts,
including the series of organisational activity required to achieve that
development’ (ibid., p. 151) (reflecting their assumption that product
development pervades industrial organisations), Gorb and Dumas were
concerned with the development of a series of design matrices in case
study companies, which highlighted the role of covert activities. These
covert activities or ‘silent design’ as they termed them, are seen as actions
within an organisation that are not called design and are carried out by
individuals who are not considered designers. Gorb and Dumas noted
silent design as staff (often middle managers in larger firms) undertaking
certain activities unaware of their importance to overall design and prod-
uct development. Interestingly, Gorb and Dumas surmised that these indi-
viduals often made decisions viewed as more appropriate and important to
the design process than those of the actual designers. The relatively
uncomplicated realisation by Gorb and Dumas that much design in com-
panies was undertaken by ‘non-designers’ has been further explored over
the years, and provides a context in the following section, which explores
some key developments in the understanding of who does design in
businesses.
Silent Design in Business

Early recognition of something analogous to silent design was noted by
Walsh (1996) who recounts research undertaken in the early 1980s (see
Walsh and Roy 1983). When interviewing manufacturers about design
activities, some organisations made quite positive statements about their
lack of design efforts. ‘We don’t do design’ was one response recorded,
qualified with an explanation that sketches of potential products were
often informally prepared (‘on the back of a cigarette packet’) and then
developed by a range of shop floor workers who would essentially decide
the shape, size, form, material and manufacturing process of the product
(ibid.)—a non-linear, collective effort, not wholly silent, but certainly not
recognised as design activity. By the late 1990s, Walsh began to align his
thoughts on silent design around the definitions of Gorb and Dumas and
included a few ideas that expanded its characterisations. Firstly, he saw
silent design as design centred activities that were often undertaken by
staff developing and contributing to product ideas in their own time

(something defined latterly as ‘Bootlegging’). Furthermore, Walsh felt
silent designers were frequently staff that were highly qualified and com-
mitted to design, but their time to work on design ideas was constrained
by their managerial duties.
By 2003, Bruce Tether (2003) observed that silent design was ‘wide-
spread’ in companies, even for companies that have been awarded prizes
for their exemplary, well designed products. Tether’s research revealed
that nearly a quarter of the award-winning companies investigated stated
they had no in-house design staff or design team, nor engaged consultant
designers when developing new products. As he noted, these companies
lacked professional design input, yet still managed to produce praisewor-
thy products. Tether went on to define two more possible areas of design
in the business, which he saw as influencing product development:
1. Subordinate Design, which conveys an explicit design influence, rec-

ognised by designers, but existing as a subsidiary function, for exam-
ple, within Research and Development or Marketing.
2. Designed Focused activities in a business, which sees designers sepa-
rate from other functions but nevertheless have equal status to other
departments.
Tether’s ‘locations/types of design’ within an organisation reveal that

design ideas can originate from many sources; the initial product ‘vision’
is influenced by many people along its developmental journey, silent
designers amongst them. However, only some of these people will be
rewarded, or even, credited for their input; a point we discuss later in
the chapter.
Whilst Tether’s research was aimed specifically at large production com-
panies, the work of Moultrie et al. (2007) was concerned with smaller
firms. They noted that whilst there was strong evidence of the importance
of good design to companies, it was apparent that design skills were often
marginalised in small and medium-sized firms (p. 335), and evidence of
completion of design activities by staff ‘with no training or aptitude in
design’ (p. 357). This marginalisation, which frequently leads to silent
designing, is often a symptom of ‘design illiteracy’ or immaturity, within
smaller organisations which is often characterised by an over emphasis on
engineering, internally sourced marketing information and unfounded
prejudices towards design, combined with tradition-based beliefs of some

managers about how to make things (ibid.).
Although there is persuasive evidence to suggest that when developing
existing and new products, an ‘integrated’ design approach (a resource
that links, directs and supports disparate specialisms in the organisation) is
desirable for competitive advantage, Stevens et al. (2009) argue that in
practice, the ‘dis-integration’ of design activities within SMEs contribute
to ‘the myriad factors, which impede or diminish the effective strategic
exploitation of design’. To highlight the dis-integration of design in firms,
Stevens et al. proposed two themes which align with the concept of mar-
ginalisation of design whilst supporting the notion of silent design:
1. Partial Design, employed to a limited degree for such things as

superficial styling or communicating through marketing and
branding; and
2. Disparate Design, a non-holistic approach to design within the firm
where design is widespread but not co-ordinated in any effective
way to realise synergistic potential.
The marginalisation of design along with the dis-integration of design

activities in firms (partial and disparate design included) has been seen by
some theorists as evidence that design in organisations is nearly always
undervalued, frequently neglected and regularly seen as unimportant. For
example, the abstruse and capricious nature of design has remained despite
transformation in information and communication technologies and the
advent of web-based innovation and product development (see Candi
2009). Open source systems, social media interactions, electronic design
templates and crowdsourcing activities have meant that in certain fields of
design the responsibility, management and ultimate ownership of ideas
and designs has become increasingly vague. It could be argued then, that
silent design has become even more inaudible. The corollary of these new
ways of designing is the possible inaccurate and unwitting, ‘normalisation’
of design through design tools that include speculative templates and
defaults, which in time become accepted design practice (Candi 2009). In
other words, a fifth-hand form of designing that is markedly removed
from the professional designer and consequently the ownership of ideas
becomes more tenuous.
Contemporary research has begun to push the notion of silent design
far beyond the design ‘space’ considered by Gorb and Dumas (op cit.)
with for example, Brøgger and Jevnaker (2014) expanding the idea of
what constitutes design in two further ways: (1) how design is done and
(2) where it can take place. Brøgger and Jevnaker use the term ‘waremak-
ing’ to frame the expanse of influences that ultimately lead to the realisa-
tion of a ‘ware’ or product. The authors see waremaking as not only
machine-made things, but also critically items that incorporate physical
interaction; something akin to Craft, where designing and making blur.
This leads to things that are richly ‘personalised’ and thus, in some way,
bare the mark of the maker, not only physically but also tacitly (or silently).
Moreover, Brøgger and Jevnaker see the design space as being well beyond
the design studio or design department. Not unlike Heap (2008) who
witnesses casual, but highly important, design-centred ideas and informa-
tion being circulated around businesses through the ‘corridor conversa-
tions’ of employees, which echoes the research of Brøgger and Jevnaker
who frequently witnessed non-designer interactions, daily experimenta-
tion, conjecture and backstage conversations in and between design proj-
ects. Further still, the authors include wholesale, retailing, product
demonstrating and selling in their sphere of design input, along with the
manipulation of the design space, noting:
designing happens whenever someone (re)arranges and (re)configures par-

ticular premises or problem settings, performance and/or solution settings
or otherwise takes action to change some forms and formatting and content
into something else. (Brøgger and Jevnaker 2014, p. 128)
Brøgger and Jevnaker go on to state that ‘taken-for-grantedness’ of

actions that are an implicit part of designing, along with ‘waremaking’ and
the manipulation of design spaces means a designed thing is always the
consequence of many seen and unseen actions. As such, more layers of
ownership are draped over that ‘thing’, making it increasingly difficult to
see where the credit for it lies. Recent researchers looking into silent design
seem to have convoluted the notion and perhaps even misinterpreted its
central characteristics; perhaps in an attempt to say something different.
For instance, Shams and Lam (2016) and Grana et al. (2018) position
silent design as a purposeful, managed way for some firms to do design,
and go to some lengths to rationalise the pros and cons of adopting a par-
ticular design strategy—seen or silent. Yet such thinking seems to at once
overlook the essential features of silent design, that is, it is unseen,
unsought and silent designers are unaware of their influence on designs

(Heap 2008).
Having presented in this section a brief overview of how the notion of
silent design has evolved, an examination of silent design in empirical prac-
tice reveals a number of issues, which are considered in the context of
value creation in practice in the remainder of the chapter.
Silent Design and Value Creation in Practice

As already observed, design in industry, that is, the thinking, communica-
tions and actions of design agency, does not occur in a vacuum; rather it
manifests in dynamic and often unpredictable environments where it is
mediated by prior knowledge, tacit understanding and unseen, even enig-
matic, design input. To further illuminate how this ‘randomness’ of design
practice can occur in companies, and in turn attempt to illustrate who may
be responsible for ideas and design input, the following section relates
empirical observations of design activities, seen and silent, within a case
study furniture manufacturer.
With 85 employees and annual turnover of c.£5 million in 2007,
Company A, a furniture manufacturing company was well-established in
the UK’s furniture design/manufacture sector. Although having a prod-
uct catalogue containing over a hundred designs, the firm regularly took
on bespoke jobs. The company was large enough to require a design man-
ager, a marketing team, finance and technical managers and a substantial
shop floor workforce comprising woodworkers, machinists, metal fabrica-
tors and upholsterers. These teams and workers were duly supported by
the sales, purchasing, quality control and transport departments. Most of
the commentary related here comes directly from observations and semi-
structured interviews with company managers, as well as anecdotal evi-
dence collected over the months of conversations and interactions with
the company’s staff. These observations were undertaken as part of a
wider investigation into the characteristics of design knowledge and a
company’s capacity to locate, disseminate and manage design information
as discussed by Heap (2008).
Three groups of workers in the company are presented to illustrate the
diverse and seemingly unconnected areas where design ideas can emanate,
framed hereafter as (1) the Makers; (2) the Quality Controllers; and (3)
the Purchasers.
(1) The Makers—the factory shop floor staff, the people in the firm that
machined parts, assembled components and finished-off ‘show’ wood,
upholstery and fittings were frequently making adjustments to furniture
designs. The motivation for these changes varied; sometimes changes
made assembly easier, other times adjustments were made to ease the pro-
cesses of manufacture, and on some occasions, changes and adjustments
were made because the original design did not work. On one occasion, an
order for several chairs that had not been produced for some years came in
to the company. The shop floor staff set about machining components,
reactivating the original jigs that helped assemble the components and
prepare the finishing items. Midway through assembling the first chair, the
process came to a sudden halt; some components would not fit together.
Several attempts to re-machine parts of the chair had no effect; when the
components were placed in the jig, they would not align to the point they
could be fixed in place. The solution to the problem came about through
a casual corridor conversation with a member of the transport team.
Several years earlier, this employee had worked on the shop floor and
recalled making this particular chair. What is more, he remembered the
same problem of component non-alignment, with the problem lying with
the assembly jig, which had not been made correctly. To overcome the
problem, the assemblers took a hammer to the jig and knocked parts of it
into shape every time it was used, so that the components aligned and the
chair could be made. The solution was never communicated to the design
team, so the problem persisted until the next time the chair was to be made.
This manipulation of the jig had resulted in changing the way the chair
was produced, but probably more significantly, had resulted in a slight
change in the chair’s aesthetic. As one employee notes ‘shop floor staff
knew they were making adjustments to the design but never considered it
especially significant’—‘it just kept things moving on’. Moreover, these
modifications took place unseen by the company’s managers.
(2) The Quality Controllers—Similar design adjustments were revealed
through observations of, and discussions with, the quality control supervi-
sor in Company A’s upholstery department. The supervisor described
how he frequently instructed the upholsterers to make changes to the way
in which items of furniture were upholstered. His instructions were based
on practical issues as well as aesthetics based on experience: ‘I have an eye
for what looks best and know how to finish off’. He rationalised his
instructions and adjustments through his belief that the design specifica-
tions he received often, ‘left a great deal of information un-specified’, and
felt his job was to ‘interpret many of the design specifications and com-
plete the design’ as he saw appropriate. However, as with the shop floor
workers, he rarely, if at all, conveyed his adjustments back to the design
team so they could be used on future furniture designs. Moreover, simi-
larly to the machinists, his design interactions were unsought and unbe-
known to the design office.
(3) The Purchasers—the purchasing team was composed of three people
located in an unimposing office on the shop floor and were collectively
responsible for sourcing, negotiating a price for and procuring materials,
fittings, machines, tools and components that went into making the com-
pany’s furniture. On the face of it, the purchaser’s connection to anything
design-related was at best tenuous. However, the availability, delivery tim-
escales and volumes of items purchased had a significant ‘knock on’ effect
for the design office. This was confirmed by Company A’s Design Manager
on several occasions when describing ‘having to make changes to design
because certain materials and the like could not be obtained’. The inter-
esting aspect of this observation and what makes it a convincing example
of silent design is how unaware the purchasing staff were of the impact
they could have on the design and development of furniture products.
When asked, they felt their impact on the design process was ‘negligible’
because they felt ‘distanced’ from the products; in fact, most of the time
never seeing finished items, and certainly never having any physical con-
tact with the furniture, they found it difficult to appreciate their impact on
designs. In a similar vein, purchasing activities were not directed by the
design team (they were unsought), and in most instances, they went about
their purchasing activities unknown (and unseen) by the Company’s
Design Manager. As we argue, these silent changes serve to change a
designer’s original concept (for worse or better) and therefore introduce
the question of ownership and credit, which in commercial terms is gov-
erned by ‘intellectual property’.
Valorising Design Through Intellectual Property

Intellectual property (IP) is defined broadly as ‘creations of the mind’ by
the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO), one of the 15 specialised
agencies of the United Nations (WIPO 2004). WIPO’s definition covers
a range of rights. Some codified in national and international legislation
and codes of practice (e.g. registered design’), others more nebulous (e.g.
‘know-how’ and ‘trade secrets’). From a legal and political perspective, in
the UK—and as far back as the English Statute of Anne, 1709—the key
objective of intellectual property law has been to control and recognise the
value that exists within the expression of creativity by preventing its wider
unauthorised use. In other words, to protect the right to make copies
(literally the ‘copyright’) of the elaborate illustrative designs within reli-
gious books. This is a critical point in the context of the creative economy
since from the start, the protection was concerned with the recorded item
and not the original ideas, and given the influential nature of British law,
this ‘protectionist’ stance spread throughout the western world through
the momentum of post-Enlightenment and Industrialisation, manifest in
the International Convention of Berne, in 1886, concerned with copy-
rights, and the International Convention of Paris in 1883, concerned with
industrial design.2 These Conventions were seen as critical given the
impending impact and risks inherent in internationalisation—and moneti-
sation—of innovative ideas. Both Conventions set minimum requirements
for the existences of IP rights that became widely used and harmonised,
and embedded into national laws, as reflected in the World Trade
Organisation’s General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
In a contemporary context, the valuation of so-called creations of the
mind is like any other property right. They allow creators or owners of
patent, trademark, design or copyright works to benefit from their own
work or investment in a creation. These rights are outlined in Article 27 of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which provides for the right
to benefit from the production of moral and material interests, resulting
from authorship of scientific, literary or artistic productions. Goodridge
et al.’s research (2014) on the valuation of these ‘creations of the mind’
indicates that UK investment in intangible assets such as intellectual prop-
erty, workplace training and non-scientific R&D exceeds that in fixed
assets (£137 bn investment in intangible assets in 2008, compared to
£104 bn for fixed assets). Global licenses in the patent and creative indus-
tries alone have exploded; worth more than £600 bn annually (Hargreaves
2011) with some estimations that 84 per cent of the value of assets in the
top 500 businesses in the US are ‘intangible’ (Ocean Tomo 2015).
There are some inevitable and increasingly apparent problems, which
arise from valorising designs and ‘creations’ as intellectual property. Whilst
WIPO, as an agency of the United Nations, is the global forum for
2
Convention of Paris for the Protection of Industrial Property 20th March 1883. Berne
Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, 9th September 1886.
intellectual property, which operates to a mandate to ensure governing

bodies and national statutes are designed to a common understanding of
‘international intellectual property’, there is surprisingly little uniformity.
Furthermore, there are diverse views on the recognition of value in the
creative economy (see Webber 2005; Darcy 2013; O’Connor 2015).
Understanding intellectual property as the product of a creative mind has
been translated into law variously, for example, as ‘originality’ (Copyright
Designs and Patents Act 1988), ‘innovative step’ (Patents Act 1977) in
patents, and the identification of these features and their owners has led to
costly legal action. Take for example the case of Apple Inc. vs. Samsung
Electronics litigation (2011–2018) that involved over 50 court cases with
a proposed $1 bn award of damages.
As Hargreaves (2011, p. 3) notes ‘proliferating use of IP can push up
IP transaction costs and “block” new players from entering markets’. For
incoming digital designers, the application of concepts of originality and
ownership appear restrictive within the wider paradigmatic moves towards
open access, open markets and digital sharing (expressed through e.g.
Creative Commons). This is creating an existential turmoil for the recog-
nition of value within, for example, the design industry, which is especially
marked in two areas.
Copyright Infringement
Firstly, the turmoil can be seen within copyright law itself, that exists in
technical drawings, computer software or databases, where the ‘original-
ity’ does not require an element of ‘newness’ from existing work or be
required to carry the common symbol ©, as the key test for the existence
of potential value and a warning against copying. Secondly, is the issue of
‘subconscious copying’, which has been exposed most commonly through
law cases—for example, Thicke’s 2013 hit ‘Blurred Lines’, which a court
found copied Marvin Gaye’s ‘Got to Give it Up’, and H&M’s (2015)
legal action against Forever 21 for a copyright infringement of its ‘Beach
Please’ tote bag. Such examples highlight the vagaries of working practices
in creative areas and of the need to record design creations and the routes
to design changes, including the inspiration and the creative talent from
all participants in the process. Traditionally, emphasis has focused on the
original designer, noting the insight and experiences that originate with
the designer if the design is new, and the ultimate user. This is exacerbated
by some common industrial myths such as ‘5 changes to a fashion design
secures originality’, that posting the design to yourself or marking this

with © secures ownership, and that ‘everything placed on the internet is
free to use’. Added to this is the problem of identifying ownership. Outside
of state-registered rights patents, registered design or trademarks where
ownership is more certain, the presumption is that the original creator is
the owner of the IP. Yet, where the design of ‘creations of the mind’ is the
product of teams, the ownership may be ambiguous unless stated clearly.
For example, in 2009, the music industry was shocked by the decision in
Fisher vs. Brooker where 40 years after the heyday of ‘Whiter Shade of
Pale’, the keyboard composer was able to claim co-ownership and there-
fore royalties due to the distinctive musical chords that added to the back-
ground melody. Other examples have included designers not being aware
of the ownership of IP work by independent contributors, especially where
there has been an absence of contract (e.g. Doc Martens) and exposing
the potential risks found in cases of ‘silent design’.
Remix Culture
The second deeper element that challenges the foundations of intellectual
property is that of the ‘Remix Culture’ or the free movement culture,
which finds the basis of IP rights and ownership, utterly unsuitable for a
modern digital culture that uses alternative senses of value via an ability to
share assets through peer-to-peer file sharing. Lessig (2008) argues for
example, that creative groups have found a new way of working involving
digital sharing and mash-ups that support their creativity and that the
criminality of copyright infringement law is too ‘heavy-handed’ and which
here we argue is overly rigid and austere. Whilst his focus is largely on the
artistic elements of IP, Rostama (2015) writing for the WIPO, acknowl-
edges that such communal sharing in creative production has a longer
history that many imagine and ‘mash-ups’ would be protected currently
under the global defence that actions ‘do not unreasonably prejudice the
interest of the legitimate rights holder’ (Art 9 Berne 1886). At the same
time, Rostama (opt. cit) concedes that there is uncertainty in this area as
evidenced by the long running dispute of Lenz vs. Universal Music. This
is particularly problematic where individuals hold personal ethical views of
communal sharing, consistent with the ‘free culture movement’ and col-
laborate in the field of industrial design, which is subject to commercial
and legal parameters of intellectual property ownership (see Koutras 2016).
Conclusion: Problematising Value Creation

and Design Ownership
In this chapter, the mainstream framework of intellectual property rights

as a proxy of creative value has been examined. At the beginning of the
chapter, the design industry was drawn upon to contextualise the rise of
‘creative value’ in the UK context but also more recently, to examine the
emergence of ‘silent design’. Silent design in this context occurs when
individuals participate in the design process, sometimes unwittingly or
subconsciously, but nevertheless in a way that militates an original design.
The existence of silent design in a furniture company as discussed earlier
raises three important points in relation to intellectual property and the
way in which creative value is currently connoted.
Firstly, the case study of the furniture design manufacturer serves to
expose the value that non-designers can make in the design process, which
resonates with Asheim and Coenen’s (2005) work in Northern Europe on
innovation systems for diverse knowledge forms including the way in
which innovation occurs tacitly when using culturally rich symbolic knowl-
edge. It raises the question however about whether some workers, who
currently contribute to the creative design process, for example, through
purchasing, problem solving and quality control, should be recompensed
in some way, in a framework, which recognises only the originator of the
design. As silent design has been shown to have a positive effect on the
development of products, the question of who should be credited with
this and profit from this is raised. Intellectual property and the ownership
of ideas is regularly cited as being the life blood of competitive companies,
yet in many instances, the accurate ownership of an idea that has travelled
the path of design in a firm becomes ambiguous.
Secondly, and drawing on the same concept of design, the chapter leads
to the logical question of whether there are inherent risks associated with
design on, for example, the shop floor, that might expose a company or
designer to copyright infringement. In these situations, who is most at risk?
Finally, the chapter highlights the current flaws in the current copyright
framework. For example, the free culture movement described earlier and
the continuing influences of silent design on product and service develop-
ment expose the rigidities of the current statute. As a proxy of creative
value, the issues of IP need to be better understood to reflect all aspects of
the design process, whether hidden silent or not. That said, the creative
economy is operating in a context of the first generation of millennial
designers, who have emerged and honed their design skills within a free
culture movement entailing the wholesale sharing of ideas and designs, for
example, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file sharing, social media and open access
channels, and where creative value can emerge through a complex web of
open innovation (involving users and customers), from mash-ups, and
from sampling. There are several ways to view this. The role of the free
culture movement needs to be fully appreciated in commercial terms for
its impact in supporting and producing design value. At the same time,
there is the risk that where individuals do not wish to record or own their
creative contributions, the potential value will be lost and limited to, for
example, a personal media record or social media event, whilst the route
of intellectual property rights may be perceived as the reserve of the elite.
We conclude by arguing that the current commercial and legal schema in
which valorisation occurs requires further consideration, resulting in more
nuanced frameworks and tools.
References
Asheim, B. T., & Coenen, L. (2005). Knowledge Bases and Regional Innovation
Systems: Comparing Nordic Clusters. Research Policy, 34(8), 1173–1190.
Benton, S., Miller, S., & Reid, S. (2018). The Design Economy. The State of Design
in the UK. Brighton: The Design Council.
Blair, T. (1998). Best of British for the Millennium, Speech at the Design Council,
2 April 1998.
Brøgger, B., & Jevnaker, B. H. (2014). The Cultural Production of Commodities:
Understanding the Art and Gaps of Silent and Seen Design. Society and Business
Review, 9(2), 124–138.
Candi, M. (2009). The Sound of Silence: Revisiting Silent Design in the Internet
Age. Design Studies, 31, 187–202.
Corfield, K. G. (1979). Product Design. London: National Economic
Development Office.
Darcy, J. (2013). Under-regulated or Under Enforced: Intellectual Property, the
Fashion Industry and Fake Goods. European Intellectual Property Review,
35(2), 82–92.
DCMS. (2001). The Creative Industries Mapping Document, 2001. Department of
Culture, Media, and Sport. London: TSO.
Design Council. (2017). Designing a Future Economy. Developing Design Skills for
Productivity and Innovation. Brighton: The Design Council.
Design Council. (2018). The Design Economy 2018. The State of Design in the UK.
Brighton: The Design Council.
Goodridge, P., Haskell, J., & Wallis, G. (2014). UK Investment in Intangible

Assets. London: Nesta.
Grana, F. M., del Mar Benarides-Espinosa, M., & Roig-Dobon, S. (2018).
Determinants of Silent Design and Explicit Industrial Design. Journal of
Business Research, 88, 317–320.
Gorb, P., & Dumas, A. (1987). Silent Design. Design Studies. 8(3): 150–156.
Hargreaves, I. (2011). Digital Opportunity. A Review of Intellectual Property and
Growth. London: DBiS. Retrieved October 12, 2018, from https://www.gov.
uk/government/publications/digital-opportunity-review-of-intellectual-
property-and-growth.
Heap, D. (2008). Design Capacity and Capability: Mapping Design in Motion in
the UK’s Furniture Manufacturing Sector. PhD Thesis, Birmingham City
University.
Jerrard, R., & Hands, D. (2008). Design and the Organisation. In R. Jerrard &
D. Hands (Eds.), Design Management; Exploring Fieldwork and Applications
(pp. 3–33). London: Routledge.
Koutras, N. (2016). History of Copyright, Growth and Conceptual Analysis:
Copyright Protection and the Emergence of Open Access. Intellectual Property
Quarterly, 2, 135–150.
Lessig, L. (2008). Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in a Hybrid Economy.
London: Bloomsbury.
Moultrie, J., Clarkson, P. J., & Probert, D. (2007). Development of a Design
Audit Tool for SMEs. Journal of Product Innovation Management,
24(4), 335–368.
O’Connor, S. (2015). To Whom Would the Court Give a Whole Lotta Love?
English Copyright and the Blues. European Intellectual Property Review,
37(6), 344–354.
Ocean Tomo. (2015). Annual Study of Intangible Asset Market Value. Retrieved
October 12, 2018, from http://www.oceantomo.com/2015/03/04/2015-
intangible-asset-market-value-study/.
Rostama, G. (2015). Remix Culture and Amateur Creativity: A copyright dilemma.
WIPO Magazine, No. 3. Online. Retrieved October 12, 2018, from https://
www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/2015/03/article_0006.html.
Shams, M., & Lam, B. (2016). Strategic Design Versus Silent Design: A Reckoning.
DMI Review, 27(3), 28–33.
Stevens, J., Moultrie, J., & Crilly, N. (2009). Design Dis-Integration Silent,
Partial, and Disparate Design. Proceedings of ‘Undisciplined! Design Research
Society’ Conference 2008, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield 16–19
July 2008.
Tether, B. (2003). How to Define a New Product and a New Process: A Review of
Existing Approaches. Report for Scottish Enterprise.
Thatcher, M. (1982a). Product Design and Market Success. Seminar at 10 Downing

Street, 25 January 1982.
Thatcher, M. (1982b). Industrial Design, in Engineering, 31 May 1982. Retrieved
October 12, 2018, from http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/display-
document.asp?docid=104951.
Utterback, J. M., Ekman, S., & Tether, B. (2006). Design-Inspired Innovation.
World Scientific Publishing Company.
Walsh, V. (1996). Design, Innovation and the Boundaries of the Firm. Research
Policy, 25, 509–529.
Walsh, V., & Roy, R. (1983). Plastic Products, Good Design, Innovation and
Business Success. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
Walsh, V., Roy, R., Bruce, M., & Potter, S. (1992). Winning by Design. Technology,
Product Design and International Competitiveness. Oxford: Blackwell.
Webber, D. (2005). Intellectual Property - Challenges for the Future. European
Intellectual Property Review, 27(10), 345–348.
Williams, B. (2007). The Finniston Report 1980. Policy Studies, 1(1), 45–52.
WIPO. (2004). What Is Intellectual Property. World Intellectual Property Office.
Retrieved October 12, 2018, from www.wipo.int.
CHAPTER 11
The Hidden Value of Underground

Networks and Intermediaries
in the Creative City
Rachel Granger
Introduction
In this chapter, the value produced from creative performance in collective
spaces and processes is examined by drawing on creative relationships and
networks. For some, the city can be read as a series of bounded spaces,
socio-political and dialectical tensions, sites of linguistic or material devel-
opment and representation or even as places of historical significance. In
this chapter, the creative city is read through its people and their interrela-
tionships, and the main message offered is that this provides a rich and
more nuanced view of creative economic performance as a live action.
Drawing on relational economics and the New Economic Geography,
the chapter positions value in the creative economy firmly as economic
value, but also as socially constructed value, created, mediated and vali-
dated by a series of actors and agencies, some performing as intermediaries.
In this, it is recognised that creative performance is shaped, and ultimately
R. Granger (*)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_11
218 R. GRANGER
constructed from the unique spatialities of knowledge and power bound in

relationships that take place between key actors and sites/social spaces in a
city. In doing so, the chapter sheds light on the key processes through
which creative activities are constructed and valorised, the key sites and
actors that add value to creative processes and the legitimising and enabling
relationships both within and between places that have salience in improv-
ing our understanding of what value means in the creative economy.
Relational Geographies of Creativity

It has been claimed in recent years that researchers have made great strides
in producing data that maps the geography of the UK’s creative ecosystems
(Siepel 2019) with Nesta’s Creative Nation (Mateos-Garcia et al. 2018)
proffered as a rich case in point.1 Nesta’s assertion that its most recent map-
ping of creative industries shows their ‘evolution’, their ‘contribution to
local economic development’, ‘strength of their ecosystems’ and their ‘con-
nections with each other’ is not borne out by the locational mapping of
companies using Office for National Statistics (ONS) data, supplemented by
meet-up details. While it is true to say that Nesta, like other stakeholders, is
constrained by a paucity of national data on the creative economy, which to
some extent will be ameliorated through the work of the new Creative
Industries Policy and Evidence Centre in the UK, it also speaks of the limita-
tions of existing ways of viewing value in the creative economy, which in
Chap. 1 was argued to be entirely unsuitable for a post-industrial setting.
The use of Standard Industrial Classifications to denote different areas
of activity in an economy (SIC 2007)2—disaggregated into two-, three-
and four-digit codes—have been the subject of extensive criticism over the
years (e.g. Jacobs and O’Neill 2003; O’Kile and Phillips 2009). In econo-
mies rich in service industries, rigid sector codes lack flexibility to cover
the breadth of activities that can occur in a single reporting unit (e.g. a
company, a university), or the rapidly changing nature of work that occurs
in project working. This is especially pronounced in the creative economy,
in which a creative team may work on design issues on one project (SIC
71121, 71122, 74100) but be engaged in advertising and media of new
products or service design on another project (SIC 73110, 73120). The
omission of many micro businesses from the official data stemming from
1
Nesta is a UK innovation foundation.
2
SIC 2007 is the current Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) used in the UK to classify
a business establishment and other statistical unit by the type of economic activity it engages in.
11 THE HIDDEN VALUE OF UNDERGROUND NETWORKS… 219
the way data is collated from tax returns and the current taxable threshold
(£85,000 in the UK) exacerbates the data deficit for the creative economy.
As a result, cities rich in (creative) micro businesses can be at best misrep-
resented, and at worst omitted in official economic statistics such the UK’s
Business Register and Employment Survey, as has been remarked in
Leicester by Granger (2017b). There is further disquiet when these same
datasets play a pivotal role in policy design and resource allocation either
directly through, for example, the work of Department for Culture Media
and Sports (DCMS) or through the influence of stakeholder and funding
organisations who rely on this same data.
The second area of concern relates to what meaningfully can be deduced
from business location mapping in such datasets. The location of a business
can be based on a number of decisions, including taxation, costs and avail-
ability of factor inputs, and customers. In some parts of the literature and in
public policy, it has become commonplace to take that location, especially
co-location, as inferring inter-trading (e.g. Bakhshi and Mateos- Gacria
2016; Mateos-Garcia 2010) so that concentrations of businesses are elevated
to ‘clusters’, ‘learning regions’ or ‘innovation systems’ despite exhibiting
very different tendencies. Clusters in particular have been noted as favour-
able sites rich in knowledge and transfer as a result of their urban agglomera-
tion and localisation economies (Storper and Christopherson 1987; Pinch
et al. 2004), and which emphasise (and differentiate) the importance of
traded and untraded interdependencies (Storper 1995). Yet in practice, co-
location of companies may not result in inter-trading or indeed the type of
interdependencies, which typically result in value-added activities, knowl-
edge transfer or pooling of resources seen as pivotal to economic growth.
More recently and in an attempt to fill the apparent vacuum, attention
has been paid to the spatiality—(social) spaces—in which knowledge and
innovation occurs as a process, and to places that enable valuable links that
support such knowledge-seeking aspects of innovation and advance.
‘Acting as territorialised expressions of a resource-based view of relation-
ships and linkages, un-traded interdependencies are mediated through the
market as well as social conventions’ (Powers 2013, p. 2). As Faulconbridge
(2017) notes, these twin aspects have contributed to the development of
relational perspectives in economic studies—noted as the relational turn—
in which the focus has fallen upon ‘economic and social relations, pro-
cesses of organizing, problem solving and innovation, as well on the
creation of informal and formal institutions’ (Bathelt and Gluckler 2005,
p. 1546, in Faulconbridge 2017, p. 1).
220 R. GRANGER
Relational perspectives offer unique insights into knowledge and inno-

vation processes by considering both the social and spatial dimensions of
innovation (and creativity) in tandem, and also through a perspective that
shifts focus ‘from the macro to micro level’ (Boggs and Rantisi 2003,
p. 111) foregrounding the way in which knowledge and innovation are
innately shaped by the contexts and people in which they are produced,
and the socio-cultural constituents of micro economic practice (Jones and
Murphy 2011). As a result, relational studies of the economy draw empha-
sis on relational microspaces, trust and reciprocity and power (power is
both exercised and constructed) in shaping economic practice. Gertler
(2003) offers an additional perspective in arguing that culture needs to be
understood as being related to, and situated within institutions, and that
this spatiality is continually reconstructed by social agency (see Bathelt and
Gluckler 2003) and architectures and infrastructures (see Amin and
Cohendet 2004), underpinned by complex assemblages of social collabo-
ration. As Faulconbridge (2017) is at pains to stress, such a socially con-
structed understanding of spatiality reconfigures conceptions of the
primary sites needed for knowledge and innovation to occur, and here, the
primary sites for value creation in the creative economy.
Social Proximity and Value

Understanding the role that cities can play as creative ecosystems is marked
out by their place-based characteristics and also the complex socio-spatial
collaboration located or enabled there. As Chapain et al. (2013) note,
places can provide ‘ideal’ attributes that act as a centripetal force on factor
inputs e.g. ‘attracting and retaining creative workers that provide the
know-how, ideas and creativity that fuel their economic success’ (p. 203).
Implicit here is that qualitative shifts in a workforce provide the impetus
and talent to drive creativity in the city or a place, and therefore draws on
the earlier work of Raban (1974), Zukin (1995) and Florida (2001).
Whilst the importance of human capital does seem logical, this view of a
creative city, for example, also overlooks the wider forces at play in a cre-
ative ecosystem—the cityscape and the social spaces found there, which
Cohendet et al. (2010) capture in their work on valuable ‘underground’
scenes and Potts et al. (2008) express as the value of ‘social networks’ in
creative enterprise. In these different accounts, social spaces, networks and
social capital are positioned as elemental, perhaps even imperative, in driv-
ing creative economic activity, such that ‘the survival of creative industries
[relies] on social networks of cities’ (Potts et al. 2008, p. 166).
From this perspective, a city’s space—both physical and social—are

seen as key factors of production that constructs value and produces capi-
tal, and follows on from Lefebvre’s (1974, 1992) reading of the ‘Urban
Problematic’ where ‘social space is essentially urbanised space in advanced
capitalism and where dominant production is reproduced’. As Boschma
(2005) acknowledges, much has been written on the impact of proximity,
especially co-location, but other dimensions of proximity besides geogra-
phy have begun to emerge in understanding interactive learning and inno-
vation. Bunnell and Coe’s (2001) reference to ‘de-territorialisation of
closeness’, which elsewhere has been captured as ‘propinquity’ (Granger
2006) underscores Boschma’s identification of cognitive, organisational,
social and institutional proximity in learning and innovation contexts. As
he notes, geographical proximity cannot be considered in isolation: ‘geo-
graphical proximity per se is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition
for learning to take place’ (p. 61). One might conclude then that the cre-
ative economy is primarily a social economy since it relies on factors of
production constructed by and through unique socio-spatial relations and
networks, leading to the proposition that a creative city is fundamentally
about networks and (social) space.
Relational Views of Leicester as a Creative City

In conceptualising the value imbued in relational attributes of creative
performance and spaces in which this chapter has been located, it now
draws upon the empirical spatial-relational mapping found in Leicester’s
‘Creative Census’ and bespoke ‘FLOKK’ platform.3
Leicester is a second-tier city in the UK (pop. 464,000), and politically
is a combined authority with an elected mayor, forming the most signifi-
cant city in the East Midlands region. Nottingham lies 28 miles to the
North, London 100 miles (one hour) to the South and Coventry and
Birmingham 27 and 44 miles, respectively, to the West. Leicester is nota-
ble for its ethnic diversity and tolerance, being the only ‘minority majority’
city in the UK and is home to migrants from all over the world. In recent
years, the city has become notable through the Champions League win of
Leicester City Football Club, the discovery of King Richard III and as
runner up for 2018 City of Culture. Leicester’s participation in the City of
Culture competition, in which it lost out to Hull, reflects is rich cultural
offer, tied to its textiles heritage, its strong visual and performing arts
3
FLOKK is a digital platform created by Leicester to monitor sector networks (https://
flokk.online).
222 R. GRANGER
(home to 15 theatres and art galleries) and high concentration of creative

industries (rich in digital, arts and design sectors).
Building on earlier empirical models of spatial-relational mapping
(outlined in Granger 2010, 2016), FLOKK was developed in 2017 as an
open data platform to capture the relational activities of Leicester’s rich
creative economy. FLOKK operates as an open mapping database, and
collates data incrementally through snowballing techniques. During a
six-month period in 2018, a total of 817 organisations and workers par-
ticipated in the FLOKK mapping process, producing 3518 interactions
and face-to-face interviews conducted with 168 of these to examine their
creative working practices in further detail. Starting in July 2018 and as
part of a Creative Census exercise, organisations in Leicester were invited
to participate in FLOKK via the work of strategic stakeholders, who
helped the census project to maximise reach and sector balance (e.g.
Leicester City Council, Leicester Business Festival, East Midlands
Chamber of Commerce). Participants were asked to self-disclose details
about their work, and also self-identify sectors in which they operate,
using four-digit SIC codes, allowing for broader comparison with the
wider economy.
Looking first at the links participants self-disclosed through FLOKK,
which are taken to infer ‘traded’ and ‘untraded’ links between actors and
institutions (Table 11.1), one notes the dominance of creative and digital
sectors across the entire economy. Given that several iterations of snow-
balling took place and that sector targeting was used at the 500-entry
point, there is confidence that this is not a product of the sampling
approach used in Leicester but reflects a local dominance of the creative
economy. A total of 1456 interactions emanating from creative and digital
sectors were recorded, representing a third of all interactions in the econ-
omy. The majority of these took the form of intra-relationships (42%),
indicating a breadth and density of the operations of local creative and
digital sectors, and as reflected by an ‘Intra-operability Quotient’4 (IOQ2)
in Table 11.1 (IOQ2 = 1.37), but which might equally suggest a risk of
path lock-in in the future (see Granger 2016).
4
An intra-operability quotient is a measure of the degree of interaction within a sector, as
a proportion of all intrasectoral interactions in the region, while an inter-operability quotient
is a measure of the degree of interaction between a sector and other sectors, as a proportion
of interactions in the region, nation and other sectors (see Box 11.1).
Table 11.1 Sector interactions in Leicester ecosystem (817 organisations)
Sector ii
(Links from Creative Digital Smart Construc Transport/ Manufac Science/ Services Adminis Invest Educa Health Retail Visitor Commu Sub- IOQ2
sector i, to economy economy tion/ Logistics turing R&D tration ment tion economy nity & total (intra)
sector ii) Engineer Third
ing Sector
Sector i
Creative 496 110 0 4 10 4 4 50 63 48 136 4 30 21 34 1014 1.37
economy
Digital 110 132 6 0 2 4 10 46 32 32 58 2 2 2 4 442 0.836
Smart 16 2 63 0 2 12 6 26 18 31 18 2 0 4 3 203 0.8292
economy
Construction/ 4 2 6 43 0 6 0 6 16 0 4 0 2 2 2 93 1.295
Engineering
Transport/ 16 2 0 8 51 4 2 26 17 0 2 0 4 8 4 144 0.992
Logistics
Manufacturing 16 12 2 9 8 81 26 10 8 20 16 4 6 8 6 232 0.9779
Science/R&D 4 10 0 2 0 2 80 10 4 20 38 0 0 4 0 174 1.287
Services 32 4 6 8 6 9 8 44 24 28 44 4 14 6 10 247 0.498
Administration 12 2 0 0 2 2 8 6 31 0 47 2 4 14 0 130 0.6679
Investment 2 18 0 0 2 2 10 0 4 4 0 0 4 0 8 54 0.207
Education 62 20 14 0 2 6 4 22 44 8 142 0 2 8 21 355 1.1203
Health 16 2 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 6 4 0 0 2 34 0.3295
Retail 18 4 4 0 4 4 0 10 6 0 24 0 6 11 0 91 0.1846
Visitor 10 0 0 0 12 0 2 8 12 0 24 0 10 8 2 88 0.2546
economy
Community & 32 2 4 0 0 0 0 4 28 4 44 6 4 18 71 217 0.91644
Third Sector
Sub-total 846 322 90 74 101 136 160 272 307 195 603 28 88 114 167 3518
224 R. GRANGER
Box 11.1 Measures of Interaction (Inter- and Intra-operability)
Inter-operability Coefficient
• measure of the degree of interaction between a sector and
other sectors, as a proportion of interactions in the region,
nation and other sectors.
IOQ1 Int sr / Intr / Int sn / Int n

Where:
Int = Interactions
s = sector
r = region
n = nation
ΣInt = Total reference area interactions
Intra-operability Coefficient
• measure of the degree of interaction within a sector, as a pro-
portion of intrasectoral interactions in the region.
IOQ2 Int ss / Int s / Int ss / Int

Where:
ss = interactions within a sector

s = sector
ΣInt = Total reference area interactions
Also of note are the links recorded between creative/digital sectors and
educational (194 interactions) and administrative (95) arms of the econ-
omy, which infer a proactive creative and digital industry, which is engag-
ing on knowledge and policy issues. On the one hand this is not surprising
given the size of the creative economy in Leicester (estimated to be 34,000
workers by Granger (2017a)) and also that Leicestershire is home to three
major universities and three significant further education colleges, all with
major creative faculties. On the other hand, it does highlight some incon-
gruities, especially in terms of conventional thinking on the way value is
constructed in the creative economy, and the role of universities and gov-
ernment in this process.
In the New Economic Geography literature, knowledge transfer rela-
tionships between higher education and other sectors are framed as axi-
omatic, and reflect an economy’s desire to operate as a learning city or
region (Asheim 2007), innovation system (Morgan 1997; Lundvall 1994;
Cooke et al. 2014; Jensen et al. 2007), Helix (Etzkowitz 1994; Leydesdorff
and Etzkowitz 1998) and/or cluster (Porter 1990; Fujita 1988; Fujita
and Thisse 2002), and where learning is framed as the key resource. In the
trilateral relationship of a Helix Model in particular, universities have a
central primacy given their knowledge and research capabilities, which are
framed as capital for economic growth. Such constructs usefully express
the notion of interaction and network between public and private agents
that allow for the rapid diffusion and exploitation of knowledge, skills and
best practice in a locality, and where universities have a key role to play.
One might expect therefore that empirical data would show a strong rela-
tional network in university cities, and depict strong links from university
towards industry. Yet, in Leicester, the interactions recorded through
FLOKK depict weaker relations from university towards the creative econ-
omy (82) comparative to interactions from industry towards education
(194), which is replicated in those from industry towards administration
(63) (see also Fig. 11.1). Given the varied nature of higher education in
Fig. 11.1 A sector-relational map of creative and digital sectors, Leicester (2018)
226 R. GRANGER
Leicester (comprising diverse research interests and both mode 1 and 2

research), as well as vocational training through colleges and universities,
it seems doubtful that this could be explained by the particular institu-
tional make-up of the city and to a lesser extent county. Why is it then that
Leicester’s creative economy stands in marked contrast to the conceptual
ideas found in the literature and perhaps even the empirical behaviour
recorded from creative and digital practitioners in other creative studies?
A reasonable supposition is to question the conceptual basis of creative
economy thinking, influenced by the New Economic Geography dis-
course, and to ascertain whether value construction from university learn-
ing drives value in creative practice in empirical terms.
Reflecting further on this obvious anomaly, there appears to be at least
five areas of distinction between hegemonic models of the innovation and
creative enterprise discourse, and the empirical realities of the creative
economy, and which might warrant further thinking. Firstly, the sizeable
presence of tacit knowledge (Polanyi 1966, 1974), symbolic knowledge
(Asheim and Coenen 2005) and intrinsic value (Throsby 2001) in cre-
ative industries would seem to require very specific spatial-economic
transactions for transfer, diffusion and even absorption that are incongru-
ous with the formal transfer transactions implied in territorial knowledge
dynamics involving universities and industry in the literature (e.g.
Crevoisier and Jeannerat 2016). This is reflected in the numerous exam-
ples of successful Triple Helixes found in advanced science and technol-
ogy fields but few if any in the arts and humanities (see Viale and
Composall’Orto 2002; Arnkill et al. 2010). Secondly, the importance of
lifestyle to creative workers, the juxtaposition of creative production and
consumption (Cunningham 2012a) and the existence of portfolio work
and liminality (Daniel and Ellis-Chadwick 2016) and sharing and gifting
(Botsman and Rogers 2011) would suggest that creative workers exhibit
markedly different working practices, social spaces, and in some cases,
motivations for work and collaboration, which do not fit comfortably
within the schema of learning and innovation of the New Economic
Geography. Unlike in advanced sciences where university workers pro-
duce research and knowledge, and then transfer this to practice via indus-
try, in creative work, university workers tend to be both producers and
consumers, and producers and practitioners, and the way new knowledge
is produced and applied is more multiplex. This is especially pronounced
in smaller cities and ecosystems where many creative workers operate in
multiple roles and the situation is more fluid, social spaces are intertwined
and knowledge transfer can be informal (Granger and Hamilton 2010).

Thirdly, creative businesses tend towards downstream, rather than
upstream value appropriation with a tendency towards co-evolution with
end users reinforced by open innovation practices, risk-minimising invest-
ment packages and shorter life cycles, which run counter to the linear
upstream value chains of some innovation models, which involve univer-
sities (Cunningham 2012b; MacNeill and Jeannerat 2016). Fourthly, in a
trilateral relationship, the imperative for universities to interplay with
industry is implicit in producing commercially relevant and viable research
and innovations (termed Mode 2 Knowledge), which industry then takes
to the market. Yet the idea of research-intensive universities engaging in
novelty production in creative spheres is unsuitable for creative business,
in which innovation is highly consumer-orientated, and where heteroge-
neity (something different) has salience over scientific discovery for creat-
ing new market value. As a result, the distinction between the main
players (university-industry- customer-producer) and what is and isn’t
knowledge in context is ambiguous.
In the context of Leicester, the qualitative data captured in interviews,
along with the spatial-relational mapping data of FLOKK points at some
possible explanations, and which might provide a platform for further
consideration—and reinterpretation—of value within the context of cre-
ative development and relationships in the creative city. During 2018, 104
interviews were conducted with creative and digital practitioners in
Leicester and Leicestershire, and another 64 surveys completed with local
university staff operating in creative faculties (three universities that serve
the Leicester creative city). From this, one notes the very high number of
practitioners who are graduates (76.9%), which exceeds the average for
the city (29%) and denotes a learning sector overall, but which entails very
few collaborative links with local universities (1.9%). While a third of prac-
titioners (32.6%) indicate that in the last 12 months they had been invited
as guest speakers at universities or had been asked to host students in
placements, implying that active conversations do take place between uni-
versity and industry, these might be framed as reinforcing universities’ sec-
ond mission role in skill development and human capital, rather than
underpinning their third mission role in knowledge transfer towards
industry. This is particularly in evidence through the question, ‘what
examples of knowledge transfer exist between your organisation and a
local university?’, in which 61 creative practitioners (58.6%) provided
examples of knowledge-intensive projects with universities, compared to
228 R. GRANGER
less than 5% (4.6%) for creative staff in universities. Upon further analysis,
universities appear to be engaged in a number of practices with creative
workers (e.g. 92.1% organising guest speakers, 87.5% organising place-
ments, 20.3% organising new projects), but do not resemble the type of
formal knowledge transfer activity presupposed in clusters and Helixes
(see ante).
Given the very high number of graduates operating in Leicester’s cre-
ative economy, it seems probable that creative practitioners are familiar
with, and even value, universities and the way in which they can generate
and transfer relevant knowledge for industry, but there is not the forward
and backward (university-to-business) linkages in Leicester, nor the spill-
overs, or embeddedness with university institutions that one would expect.
Reflecting further on this, interviewees were asked, ‘where does your
organisation secure new knowledge for innovation?’ to which 93 practitio-
ners (89.4%) indicated that ‘new knowledge’ was found principally within
the industry, while 87 respondents (83.6%) cited the importance of cus-
tomers in the innovation process. In other words, knowledge transfer for
innovation in Leicester’s creative industries comes from within the indus-
try, recognisable as ‘competitors’, ‘critical friends’ and ‘peers’, and which
supports the earlier calculation of a high ‘intra-operability quotient’.
Participants also noted the integral role of ‘customers’ in the innovation
process, supporting the ontological argument that consumers play an
intrinsic role in value production in creative spheres.
Why is it that these creative businesses, large in number, diverse in size
and sub-sector, buoyant in turnover and recruitment and highly skilled at
their core should be so disconnected from Leicestershire’s higher educa-
tion system, which collectively specialises in creative activity?5 One possi-
ble reason might be that Leicester’s local universities are deployed in
Mode 1 rather than Mode 2 knowledge production with regards to cre-
ative industries, meaning that university research on creative industries is
largely out of sync with local business needs. A second argument is that
Leicester’s ecosystem lacks the type of spaces and soft institutions needed
to germinate genuine university-industry interplay, preventing businesses
from anchoring new knowledge created in higher education. A third pos-
sible argument is that businesses rely on soft knowledge transfer through
other mediums such as turnover of staff, freelance portfolio work from
university staff or through other external pipelines, thereby negating the
5
De Montfort University, University of Leicester, Loughborough University.
need for formal engagement with universities. These alternative explana-

tions are now considered in the remainder of the chapter, by drawing on
relational data.
H1: Leicester Universities Produce Mode 1 Creative Knowledge

The Leicester Creative City ecosystem is served by three universities, which
specialise in different aspects of creative industries, with several examples of
centres of excellence, which produce internationally significant research
(Table 11.2). These are complemented most notably, by the specialist cre-
ative teaching and research that takes place at Leicester College of Further
Education. Looking at the range of creative disciplines offered by local
universities, there does seem to be a close match between Higher Education
sector (HE) skills and the industrial composition of Leicester’s Creative
City. The expertise held collectively by local universities suggests that they
are well placed to feed in new knowledge to museums, visual and perform-
ing arts sectors, the design industry, textiles and fashion and also media.
The location of Loughborough University’s Institute for Digital
Technologies and Institute for Media and Creative Industries (both in
London) might be argued to dilute the potential for local knowledge trans-
fer in Leicester but the wider knowledge base is considerable.
In considering whether local universities are producing Mode 1, rather
than Mode 2 knowledge in creative industries, one notes that Leicester’s
universities concentrate on skill development rather than new knowledge
production in creative disciplines. This could be concluded from the
extensive range of teaching in creative areas comparative to the more
restrictive areas of research, and from the amount of time spent on creative
projects (16%) compared to teaching (71%) from interviews with univer-
sity staff. In response to the question ‘Who do you collaborate with on
research projects?’, 64 respondents from local universities (61.5%) indicate
that collaboration and knowledge development occurs predominantly
outside of the region, rather than within it. This would imply that several
areas of latent research expertise leak out of the region rather than being
harnessed locally.
H2: Leicester’s Ecosystem Does Not Support Knowledge Transfer

Leicestershire’s three universities could be said to shape the institutional
thickness of the ecosystem, which has a strong presence of public, private
230 R. GRANGER
Table 11.2 Creative specialisation of Leicester’s HE Institutions (2018)

University Creative disciplines International recognition
University of Creative Writing Leicester Institute for

Leicester Creative Marketing, Advertising, Cultural and Media
Business Economies (CAMEo)
Film and Media Studies School of Museum Studies
Victorian Studies, Heritage
Interpretation, Museum Studies
Media, Culture and Society
De Montfort Creative Writing Institute of Creative
University Creative Business Technologies
Creative Music/Sound Technology Institute of Art and Design
Computer Games Programming Textile Engineering and
Intelligent Systems and Robotics materials (TEAM)
Animation/Game Art Performing Arts Centre
Graphic Design (PACE)
Film Studies, Media Production Leicester Media School
Journalism Creative and Cultural
Photography Industries Research Group
Digital Arts
Fine Art
Dance, Drama, Performing Arts
Drama
Art and Festivals Management
Architecture
Design, Design Innovation
Textile Design
Fashion Management
Contour Fashion, Fashion Buying
Footwear Design
Product Design, Interior Design, Retail
Loughborough English/Writing Centre for Research in
University Fine Art, Art and Design Communication and Culture
Product Design Engineering Institute for Design
Graphic Communication/Illustration Innovation
Drama, Performing Arts, Cultural Institute for Digital
Policy Technologies (London)
Creative Business Institute for Media and
Creative Industries (London)
and third sector organisations (Table 11.3). One notes the large number
of organisations conducting research (18), offering business and skills sup-
port (30) and also space for networking (48) which serves the city and
surrounding areas with both the talent and infrastructure for creative
Table 11.3 Leicester creative city ecosystem (2018)
work. Whilst it could be argued that the research capacity of some organ-
isations is softer in nature than novelty-producing research, the picture
painted is of a rich creative ecosystem in combination.
H3: Leicester’s Creative Knowledge Transfer Occurs Through

Alternative Pipelines
Looking further at the institutional thickness of Leicester’s Creative City
(Table 11.3), one notes the vibrancy of the Third Sector in particular,
which engages in creative practice and also conducts creative research,
provides skills and business support and actively supports networking
through the provision of social spaces. It does raise the question about
why so many organisations conduct skills and business support activities in
creative disciplines given the dominance of local universities and a college,
and the presence of a city-wide (free) business support programme funded
through public sources (The ‘Collaborate’ programme). As one creative
232 R. GRANGER
worker explains: ‘The City’s Business Growth Team [Collaborate] have been
excellent but there’s only so much they can do. They offer generic business
advice, whereas we are living and breathing in specialist business areas, which
are acutely competitive, and the best advice can only come from within; from
the people who have survived those same kind of pressures’. A leading figure in
Leicester offers further clarification: ‘the global financial crisis has had lon-
ger term impacts on the landscape in which we must now operate, and the
Brexit Referendum has compounded the situation by cutting off main routes
of funding and investment that we need. The changes meted out by institu-
tions have transformed the business landscape here, which us as businesses have
had no choice but to respond to. We mentor, support, and invest, in our sector
and our neighbours, first because they need our support and without us they
might succumb to the pressures of the market, but second because we have a
vested interest in Leicester’s creative city blossoming’. These comments are
supported to some extent by the high levels of intra-relationships occur-
ring within creative and digital sectors and noted by FLOKK (Table 11.1).
While there is perhaps a rationale for self-serving the sector to support
potential clients (creative industries are both producers and consumers), it
is unclear why the sector serves from within rather than externally towards
higher education as a major stakeholder.
One possible reason lies in the way value is constructed and mediated,
and the changes that have occurred within higher education. The financial
upheaval from the 2007 Banking Crisis imperilled national economies and
has ushered in new business models, new ways of financing and investing
and also new actors and stakeholders. Higher education has introduced
new business models, most notably in terms of student fees, which are
likely to be reduced and capped, but which have rendered formal degree
courses an expensive option. The introduction of new providers such as
Echo Factory (providing degrees accredited by Wolverhampton
University), Curve Theatre (in arts and business degrees), My Graphic
Design School (MGDS), Two Queens Studio, Spark Arts and SEED
Creative Academy to name but a few, provides a diversity of options for
creative and digital practitioners. To this, one might add the training pro-
vision through specialist maker spaces such as the Clay Room, Print
Workshop and Art Studios, and the indirect training and support on offer
through networks (e.g. Creative Coffee, CREATE, TEDx Leicester).
As one practitioner argues ‘Why would I pay to listen to somebody lecture
me [at university] about creative practice and research, when I can sign-up
for a short course with a local expert, or talk to experts for free in my local
coffee shop, or sound out ideas at a city event, or a tenanted co-working space
and do the research myself?’ This idea of internal, shared access to knowl-
edge resources is expanded on in feedback from another respondent: ‘De
Montfort University are doing some interesting work in sound technology but
not as interesting as my own work. Most of my work these days is in America
and the ideas coming from there are emerging so quickly that we are at the
edge of change in our industry. The best ideas come from talking to others on
trans-Atlantic projects, which I then use to seed local projects or help those I
mentor. These guys are experts in everything—not just one field but several.
[…] I touch base with people from the university through direct conversations
or at networking events, and in some cases when they are in Grays [coffee
shop]. I’m happy to pass on new ideas to the university in the same way I do
with new start-ups. Having a support network and a group of pals in the
same line of work is really useful for updating skills and keeping abreast of
new ideas, as well as keeping on top of new talent coming through, and
enabling the local creative scene to move forward’.
In both accounts, the notion of value is strong. There is a palpable
sense of financial value (value for money) and the opportunity costs of
taking a formal degree course at university in the first quote. In the second
quote, the sense of value in terms of ‘worth’ or ‘relevance’ comes to the
fore, and evokes power in authenticating and valorising the worth of pro-
vision. Drawing on De Propris and Mwaura (2013) and De Propris (2019)
as well as wider work on cultural intermediaries, one might begin to posi-
tion some of the key actors in Leicester’s creative economy—and perhaps
some of the interviewees—as exerting power in ‘legitimising’ (defining
value), ‘mediating’ (allowing for new constructions) and ‘enabling’ new
value to be created through local social spaces.
Legitimating Value Through

Cultural Intermediaries
The notion of cultural intermediaries in the creative economy has gained
widespread support in recent years, and as Jakob and van Heur (2014)
argue, the effectiveness of the creative economy will depend largely on the
intermediaries that shape and regulate it. While cultural intermediaries
cover a gamut of agents and activities, leading to the proposition that
‘everyone is a cultural intermediary now’ (Smith Maguire and Matthews
2012, following on Nixon and Du Gay 2002), O’Connor (2015) makes a
useful distinction between cultural intermediaries that mediate between
234 R. GRANGER
the production and consumption of creative and cultural activities, which

draws on Bourdieu (1984, 1996) and those that operate as economic and
commercial agents, which he terms more as economic imaginaries.
Bourdieu’s (1984, 1996) understanding of cultural intermediaries as
exemplars of the new middle class involves the mediation of production
and consumption, and which in a contemporary context might refer to
cultural practitioners and agencies engaged in both production of culture
and consumption, and who both mediate between producers and consum-
ers of creative products as well as connect them in unparalleled ways (Jakob
and van Heur 2014). In the Leicester context, Curve Theatre, New Walk
Museum and festivals act as centres of both production and consumption;
in so far as they produce work and also commission work. The LCB Depot,
Leicester’s creative hub, also produces work through its gallery spaces and
programme of activities but also consumes cultural work as individual
workers, as a site for ancillary activities (hosting other activities), and plays
an important role in mediating new work, for example, its role as a sponsor,
host and consumer of the 2019 Bring Your Paint Festival, and its role in
enabling a Design Season in Leicester. By contrast, economic imaginaries
are framed as more commercially minded and as market agents involved in
the qualification of goods that mediate between culture and the economy.
In that sense, the term economic imaginaries might be used to depict the
power exerted by corporate sponsors or philanthrophic interests in art,
which as noted in Chap. 4 serves to essentially qualify what is deemed to be
art and what and how this is provided to wider audiences. Munro’s (2017)
reference to intermediary agencies that sit between government/policy-
makers and creative practitioners such as the Arts Council might straddle
both definitions however. For this reason Jakob and van Heur (2014,
p. 357) have identified various kinds of cultural or creative intermediaries:
‘arts and cultural councils, policy networks, economic development agen-
cies, foundations and unions to artist collectives, cultural centres, creative
industries incubators, festivals and tradeshows’—that are engaged in the
further development of the creative economy and perform a role as ‘taste
maker’ (Nixon and Du Gay 2002).
More recently, Perry et al. suggest a need for a third area of intermedi-
aries operating in the third sector and community, which serve to mediate
between culture and communities, such that we might realistically identify
four main groups, covering different sic and soc codes, working variously
to legitimate particular goods and services, enabling cultural work and
advancing creative activity (widely defined) for the wider good.
1. Taste Makers—Powerful agents legitimating what is perceived as

‘valuable’ in the creative sphere, and often working seamlessly
between production and consumption and adding value through
the qualification of goods, reinforced by their occupation and exper-
tise. These agents construct value by mediating how goods or ser-
vices (or practices and people) are perceived and engaged with by
others and relate to their expert orientation and market context
(Matthews and Smith Maguire 2014, p. 2), for example, Arts
Council England. For this reason, De Propris (De Propris and
Mwaura 2013; De Propris 2019) views such intermediaries more as
codifying (constructing) how value is interpreted by constructing
legitimacy.
2. Economic Imaginaries—Drawing on O’Connor (2015) to portray
market actors involved in the qualification of goods and services,
mediating between the economy and culture, for example, funders,
commercial galleries and even the media.
3. Enablers (within creative spheres)—Referring to those individuals
and agencies who bring actors together and mediate to allow proj-
ects or services to develop. Often viewed as leaders in their field, or
well respected locally for being entrepreneurial and are able to take
a more strategic view of what is appropriate or needed locally.
4. Bridgers (between creative and other)—Perry and Symmons (2019)
make a case for a distinct category of intermediaries operating
between culture and communities, and play a key role in mediating
how culture is comprehended and interpreted as lived, and playing
a key role in how individuals make sense of culture. Judgements of
what has value, what is meaningful and how this is interpreted pro-
vide an added dimension that has not thus far been captured in the
cultural intermediaries discourse.
As Perry et al. (2015, p. 726) note: ‘little attention has been given to
analysis of the working practices of cultural workers who operate in diverse
professionalised and everyday cultural ecologies. The wider set of political,
social and moral motivations of cultural workers have been often over-
looked, particularly those that seek not only to advance their own interests
but also to develop connections with excluded, marginalised or disadvan-
taged communities […]. There is a gap in understanding this “other”
form of cultural work and its potential to mediate between different values
in the creative economy’.
236 R. GRANGER
The notion of intermediaries and the different ways of viewing these

provide a useful framework for reconsidering Leicester’s creative economy
and for understanding the nature of interactions taking place, some of
which has been noted earlier. Using Gephi software, and calculating the
(degrees of) closeness between different actor interactions, it has been
possible to identify prominent ego networks and naturally occurring clus-
ters and communities. In practice, this has allowed 26 distinct communi-
ties to be identified in Leicester’s economy, and the ego networks of
individual actors highlighted. In Fig. 11.2, the role of universities, cham-
bers of commerce, city council and the more informal Leicester Business
Festival, LCB Depot, Create, DOCK, Ultimate Web and Leicester Start-
Ups are noted as connecting several actors and their interactions.
One also notes, for example, the frequent citing of ‘Ultimate Web’,
‘Tech Start-Up’ and ‘Ben Ravilious’ both in the spatial-relational mapping
exercise and also interviews, which in practice refers to the same person.
Ben appears to play an active role in enabling work through the Tech
Start-Up Community (network), in legitimating work (citing some actors
and work as more important than others in his blogs and networking) and
in building bridges and trust (and reciprocity) in ancillary sectors. In this
sense, one might say that Ben performs several intermediary roles but is
neither a powerful funding agency nor a public policy unit, as the original
working of the intermediary literature describes. Using the above taxon-
omy, one might identify Ben as performing a tastemaker role, acting as
Fig. 11.2 Key actors and interfaces in Leicester (2018)

enabler of local projects and also bridging sub-sectors, projects and actors
in a more strategic role. As one participant notes ‘Ben has his ears on the
ground and is the person who knows what is good for the sector, and what we
should be looking out for. More recently, Ben has started to be more profession-
ally acquainted with “Cats Are Not Peas” and mark my words, Alex [the
founder] will be the next big player in the city’.
A similar pattern is also noted for ‘Leicester Interchange’, ‘TEDx
Leicester’ and ‘Solvers Studio’, who are all operated by ‘Carl Quinn’.
Carl’s extensive links in the community and expertise in social innovation
as well as arts-based training allow him to mediate between the cultural
world of practitioners (artists, film makers, designers), traditional cultural
intermediaries (such as art establishments, Royal Society for Arts), strate-
gic stakeholders (such as universities, local government, LCB Depot) and
community groups. He operates seamlessly between these different
spheres of the economy, and as one interviewee notes ‘connects disparate
parts of the economy in a way single-focused actors and organisations cannot’
and ‘in a bridging role that cascades and connects information, while at the
same time, anchoring projects and people to create a sticky creative environ-
ment, much of which happens away from public view but is unrivalled locally’.
Value Construction Through Relational Mapping

While in recent years, the tendency has been for scholars and policymakers
to frame the value of the creative economy as the final and financial output
of creative endeavour, in this chapter value has been viewed through a
relational lens. Value has been conceived as knowledge transfer and the
productive use of knowledge for wider economic gain, which draws from
Chap. 1 in terms of framing the creative economy as performance-based.
Implicit is that the location of actors and practitioners as well as the sectors
in which they operate is not a reliable or useful indicator of how value is
constructed in the creative economy, and is in many ways futile since they
describe the actor rather than the action!
The chapter notes the benefits of spatial-relational mapping (here dem-
onstrated through FLOKK) and also the conceptual work of intermediar-
ies as a framework for understanding the empirical realities of a creative
economy. Data from 817 organisations and their 3518 interactions across
the economy, together with 168 interviews has provided a rich basis from
which to view the creative economy in the case study area of Leicester.
Against the ontological backdrop of agglomeration economies, traded and
238 R. GRANGER
untraded interdependencies and knowledge transfer, which positions

learning as the critical capital in a knowledge system, we find that the posi-
tion in Leicester is markedly different.
The idea of HE-led learning in which ideas and knowledge is trans-
ferred from university research to creative practitioners is not borne out
either by the spatial-relational mapping work or the extensive interviews.
While it is true that the creative and digital sectors that make up the cre-
ative economy are pervasive across the economy and have extensive links,
it is also true that they display a high level of intra-operability (IOQ2 = 1.37),
suggesting that traded and untraded interdependencies occur predomi-
nantly within the sector. There are some possible ontological reasons for
this relating to the characteristics of creative activities, for example, the
predominance of tacit knowledge, which requires very specific spatialities
for transaction, the working practices and motivations of creative practi-
tioners, and close relationships with end users, which suggest a different
set-up for creative businesses than is supposed through Research and
Development (R&D) studies in Science, Technology, Engineering, and
Mathematics sectors (STEM) sectors. To this, a review of Leicester’s HE
credentials in creative areas, which outlines the potential for HE-led
knowledge transfer, together with a review of key stakeholder functions
(Table 11.3) and anecdotal evidence from interviews suggests a more mar-
ginalised role for Leicester’s HE in developing knowledge and value in
practice. In particular, a spatial-relational map of Leicester’s creative econ-
omy and its naturally forming clusters/communities suggests a strong role
for some key actors and agencies, which has not been explained through
the New Economic Geography literature, and eclipses those relationships
within and between university and administrative sectors.
While some interviewees alluded to the financial value and barriers of
HE in terms of the financial costs of accessing training and the worth of
university skills and ideas vis-à-vis ‘free’ knowledge from within the sector,
it was the feedback about some individuals, coupled with the relational
maps of key actors that imply that some actors more than others have value
in the creative economy. Drawing on the literature on cultural intermedi-
aries, the chapter has been able to describe and explain the relative power
and value of some actors over others in mediating between spheres, shap-
ing and in some cases authenticating what is perceived as locally valuable,
while enabling new projects to come to fruition, and bridging between
creative and non-creative actors. From the grassroots level, this is framed
as locally more valuable in constructing value in a creative economy than
the learning and knowledge emanating from larger, and key stakeholders.
References
Amin, A., & Cohendet, P. (2004). Architectures of Knowledge: Firm Capabilities
and Communities. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Arnkill, R., Järvensivu, A., Koski, P., & Piirainen, T. (2010). Exploring Quadruple
Helix Outlining User-Orientated Innovation Models. INTERREG IVC
Programme. Commission of the European Communities.
Asheim, B. (2007). Industrial Districts as ‘Learning Regions’: A Condition for
Prosperity. European Planning Studies, 4(4), 379–400.
Asheim, B., & Coenen, L. (2005). Knowledge Bases and Regional Innovation
Systems: Comparing Niche Clusters. Research Policy, 34, 1173–1190.
Bakhshi, H., & Mateos-Gacria, J. (2016). The Geography of Creativity in the UK.
London: Nesta.
Bathelt, H., & Gluckler, J. (2003). Towards a Relational Economic Geography?
Journal of Economic Geography, 3, 117–144.
Boggs, J. S., & Rantisi, N. (2003). The ‘Relational Turn’ in Economic Geography.
Journal of Economic Geography, 3, 109–116.
Studies, 39(1), 61–74.
Botsman, R., & Rogers, R. (2011). What’s Mine Is Yours. How Collaborative
Consumption Is Changing the Way We Live. London: Collins.
Bourdieu, P. (1984 [1979]). Distinction, a Social Critique of the Judgement of
Taste. London: Routledge.
Bourdieu, P. (1996). Les Regles de l’Art (1996/1992) [Rules of Art: Genesis and
Structure of the Literary Field]. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Bunnell, T., & Coe, N. (2001). Spaces and Scales of Innovation. Progress in
Human Geography, 25, 569–589.
Chapain, C., Clifton, N., & Communian, R. (2013). Understanding Creative
Regions: Bridging the Gap between Global Discourses and Regional and
National Contexts. Regional Studies, 47(2), 131–134.
Cohendet, P., Grandadam, D., & Simon, L. (2010). The Anatomy of the Creative
City. Industry and Innovation, 7, 91–111.
Cooke, P., Heidenreich, M., & Braczyk, H. (Eds.). (2014). Regional Innovation
Systems (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
Crevoisier, O., & Jeannerat, H. (2016). The Economic Value of Knowledge:
Embodies in Goods or Embedded in Cultures? Regional Studies, 50(2), 189–201.
Cunningham, S. D. (2012a). The Creative Cities Discourse: Production and/or
Consumption? In H. Anheier & I. Judhishthir (Eds.), Cities, Cultural Policy
and Governance (pp. 11–121). California: Sage.
Cunningham, S. D. (2012b). Emergent Innovation through the Coevolution of
Informal and Formal Media Economies. Television and New Media,
13(5), 415–430.
240 R. GRANGER
Daniel, E., & Ellis-Chadwick, F. (2016). Entrepreneurship and Liminality: The

Case of Self-Storage Based Businesses. International Journal of Entrepreneurial
Behavior and Research, 22(3), 436–457.
De Propris, L. (2019). Mapping Cultural Intermediaries. In P. Jones, B. Perry, &
P. Long (Eds.), Cultural Intermediaries Connecting Communities: Revisiting
Approaches to Cultural Engagement (pp. 43–62). Bristol: Policy Press.
De Propris, L., & Mwaura, S. (2013). Demystifying Cultural Intermediaries: Who
Are They. What Do They Do and Where Can They Be Found in England?
Birmingham Business School, 2013–07.
Etzkowitz, H. (1994). Academic-Industry Relations: A Sociological Paradigm for
Economic Development. In L. Leydesdorff & P. Van den Besselaar (Eds.),
Evolutionary Economics and Chaos Theory: New Directions in Technology Studies
(pp. 139–151). London: Pinter.
Faulconbridge, J. R. (2017). Relational Geographies of Knowledge and Innovation.
In H. Bathelt, P. Cohenedet, S. Henn, & L. Simon (Eds.), The Elgar Companion
to Innovation and Knowledge Creation (pp. 671–684). Edward Elgar.
Florida, R. (2001). The Rise of the Creative Class. New York: Basic Books.
Fujita, M. (1988). A Monopolistic Competition Model of Spatial Agglomeration:
A Differentiated Product Approach. Regional Science and Urban Economics,
18, 87–124.
Fujita, M., & Thisse, J.-F. (2002). Economics of Agglomeration: Cities, Industrial
Location, and Regional Growth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gertler, M. S. (2003). A Cultural Geography of Production: Are We Learning by
Doing? In K. Anderson, M. Domosh, S. Pile, & N. Thrift (Eds.), The Handbook
of Cultural Geography (pp. 131–146). London: Sage.
Granger, R. C. (2006). The Knowledge City (Uncovering the Spatial Dynamics of
Knowledge Work). University of Birmingham.
Granger, R. C. (2017a). Spatial-Relational Mapping in Socio-Institutional
Perspectives of Urban Innovation. In A. Watson & C. Taylor (Eds.), Rethinking
Creative Cities Policy: Invisible Agents and Hidden Protagonists (pp. 49–61).
London: Routledge.
Granger, R. C. (2017b). The Sustainability of Creative Cities: A Comparative
Analysis of Leicester and London. Leicester: CURA.
Granger, R. C., & Hamilton, C. (2010). Re-spatialising the Creative Industries: A
Relational Examination of Underground Spaces and Professional and
Organisational Lock-in. Creative Industries Journal, 3(2–3), 47–60.
Jacobs, G., & O’Neill, C. (2003). On the Reliability (or Otherwise) of SIC Codes.
European Business Review, 15(3), 164–169.
Jakob, D., & van Heur, B. (2014). Editorial: Taking Matters into Third Hands:
Intermediaries and the Organization of the Creative Economy. Regional Studies,
49(3), 357–361. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2014/948658.
Jensen, M. B., Johnson, B., Lorenz, E., & Lundvall, B. Å. (2007). Forms of
Knowledge and Modes of Innovation. Research Policy, 36(5), 680–693.
Jones, A., & Murphy, J. T. (2011). Theorizing Practice in Economic Geography,
in Foundations, Challenges and Possibilities. Progress in Human Geography,
35, 366–392.
Lefebvre, H. (1974). La Production de l’Espace. Paris: Anthropos.
Leydesdorff, L., & Etzkowitz, H. (1998). The Triple Helix as a Model for
Innovation Studies. Science and Public Policy, 25(3), 195–203.
Lundvall, B.-Å. (1994). The Learning Economy. Journal of Industry Studies,
1(2), 23–42.
MacNeill, S., & Jeannerat, H. (2016). Beyond the Production and Standards:
Towards a Status Market Approach to Territorial Innovation and Knowledge
Policy. Regional Studies, 50(2), 245–259.
Mateos-Garcia, J. (2010). Creative Clusters. London: Nesta.
Mateos-Garcia, J., Stathoulopolous, K., & Klinger, J. (2018). Creative Nation.
London: Nesta.
Matthews, J., & Smith Maguire, J. (Eds.). (2014). The Cultural Intermediaries
Reader. London: Sage.
Morgan, K. (1997). The Learning Region: Institutions, Innovation and Regional
Renewal. Regional Studies, 31(5), 491–503.
Nixon, S., & Du Gay, P. (2002). Who Needs Cultural Intermediaries? Cultural
Studies, 16(4), 495–500.
O’Kile, C., & Phillips, E. (2009). Using Industry Classification Codes to Sample
High-technology Firms: Analysis and Recommendations. Journal of Accounting,
Auditing and Finance, 24(1), 35–58.
Perry, B., & Symmons, J. (2019). Towards Cultural Ecologies: Why Urban
Cultural Policy Must Embrace Multiple Cultural Agendas. In B. Jones, B. Perry,
& P. Long (Eds.), Cultural Intermediaries Connecting Communities: Revisiting
approaches to cultural engagement (pp. 63–76). Bristol: Policy Press.
Perry, B., Smith, K., & Warren, S. (2015). Revealing and Re-valuing Cultural
Intermediaries in the ‘Real’ Creative City: Insights Form a Diary-Keeping
Exercise. Journal of Cultural Studies, 18(6), 724–740.
Pinch, S., Henry, N., & Stephen, M. J. (2004). From ‘Industrial Districts’ to
‘Knowledge Clusters’: A Model of Knowledge Dissemination and Competitive
Advantage in Industrial Agglomerations. Journal of Economic Geography,
3, 373–388.
Polanyi, M. (1966). The Tacit Dimension. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago.
Polanyi, M. (1974). Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago.
242 R. GRANGER
Porter, M. (1990). The Competitive Advantage of Nations. New York: Free Press.

Potts, J., Cunningham, S., Stuart, D., Hartley, J., & Ormerod, P. (2008). Social
Network Markets: A New Definition of the Creative Industries. Journal of
Cultural Economics, 32(3), 166–185.
Powers, J. (2013). Un-traded Interdependencies as a Useful Theory of Regional
Economic Development: A Comparative Study of Innovation in Dublin and
Beijing. Columbia University.
Raban, J. (1974). Soft City. Picador.
Siepel, J. (2019). How Location Impacts the Creative Industries: Creative Clusters
and Innovation. Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre. Retrieved
from https://pec.ac.uk/blog/workstrand1-introductory-blog-1.
Smith Maguire, J., & Matthews, J. (2012). Are We All Cultural Intermediaries
Now? An Introduction to Cultural Intermediaries in Context. European
Journal of Cultural Studies, 15(5), 551–562.
Storper, M. (1995). The Resurgence of Regional Economies, Ten Years Later: The
Region as a Nexus of Untraded Interdependencies. European Urban and
Regional Studies, 2(3), 191–221.
Storper, M., & Christopherson, S. (1987). Flexible Specialisation and Regional
Industrial Agglomerations: The Case of the US Motion Picture Industry.
Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 77, 104–117.
University Press.
Viale, R., & Composall’Orto, S. (2002). An Evolutionary Triple Helix to
Strengthen Academy-Industry Relations: Suggestions from European Regions.
Science and Public Policy, 29(3), 154–168.
Zukin, S. (1995). Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places.
Oxford: OUP.
CHAPTER 12
Value Transformation: From Online

Community to Business Benefit
Tracy Harwood, Jason Boomer, and Tony Garry
Introduction
The aim of this chapter is to shed light on the generation and transforma-
tion of values through the production and consumption of Let’s Play (LP),
as an area of practice in the creative economy. Let’s Play has emerged from
the practice of machinima, ‘animated filmmaking within a real-time virtual
3D environment’ (Marino 2004, p. 1), and is referred to as ‘non-narrative
machinima’ (Menotti 2014, p. 81). The phenomenon typically takes the
form of video game walk-throughs, reviews and other gameplay videos
T. Harwood (*)
Department of Digital Culture, Institute of Creative Technologies,
e-mail: tharwood@dmu.ac.uk
J. Boomer
SideFest, Leicester, UK
e-mail: jason.boomer@sidefest.co.uk
T. Garry
Department of Marketing, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
e-mail: tony.garry@otago.ac.nz

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_12
244 T. HARWOOD ET AL.
that are often live-streamed over the internet to fan followers and archived
in curated playlists. The practice of making LP is now a mass cultural
endeavour, largely described by industry stakeholders such as game devel-
opers and publishers as a form of ‘user-generated content’. Whilst this
form of user-generated content will become increasingly pivotal to the
digital economy (Terranova 2000; Lessig 2008; Tapscott 2008;
Hesmondhalgh 2010) and to new emergent forms such as Twitch.tv
(Shontell 2014), the value of such remains largely undocumented.
As a creative sub-culture of gaming, with a distinct community of prac-
tice and intellectual property (IP) (Dredge 2014), little is understood about
players’ behaviour and motivations for generating content or value associ-
ated with the community, as well as the relationship between creators, those
who follow and its impacts on business stakeholders. Content is inherently
a derivative of IP owned by computer video games developers and publish-
ers, and as such it adheres to the Game Content Usage Rights (or similar)
outlined by IP rights owners (Hayes 2008). Rights require creators to dis-
tribute their content freely but allow them to monetise their content as part
of advertising revenue sharing programmes, such as YouTube’s Partner
Program (Google, n.d.). Through these programmes, advertisements are
included in video content, with revenue split between the distributing plat-
form (e.g. YouTube) and the creator, thus there appears to be a significant
economic driver from businesses to engage this community in a creative
process. The process challenges the notion of LP as form of free labour for
businesses, given the advertising revenue generated clearly represents eco-
nomic value for the creator and the social networking platform. What is
unclear, however, are the types of value derived from the process. This chap-
ter contributes by presenting a framework and empirical evidence through
which the LP community may be better understood. It is the dynamic rela-
tionship between the value components and the analysis of how and why
value is generated and transformed within the LP community that form the
primary contribution of this empirical study. The chapter is organised into
two key parts. The chapter first provides a conceptual framework for under-
standing value in the context of LP before presenting findings of an LP case
study, and drawing wider conclusions for discourse on cultural value.
Conceptual Framework of Value

Drawing on Bourdieu (1989), value may include ‘economic capital […],
cultural capital, social capital, and symbolic capital, which is the form that
the various species of capital assume when they are perceived and recognized
12 VALUE TRANSFORMATION: FROM ONLINE COMMUNITY TO BUSINESS… 245
as legitimate’ (p. 17). Bolin (2012) argues against the use of capital over
value, suggesting that ‘[i]f value is defined as the worth of a thing, […] it
follows that this worth can be of other kinds than mere economic’ (p. 33).
Through an exploration of value, evidence of social influence may be rein-
forced by the potential elevation to celebrity status, whereby creators of
LP content occupy a position between the video game IP owners and their
target market, assuming the position of an unofficial brand advocate.
Drawing on the themes of a video game as an interactive, immersive
virtual experience, a video game can be defined as ‘… a specific kind of
digital entertainment in which the gamer interacts with a digital interface
and is faced with challenges of various kinds, depending on the plot of the
game’ (Zackariasson and Wilson 2012, p. 5). Regardless of the type of
video game (e.g. first person shooter and fantasy role play), they are sepa-
rate from the real world yet have a common language, rituals and expecta-
tions which Huizinga (1949) has referred to as a magic circle. While
Huizinga predates computer video gaming, his ideas on rules and perfor-
mance of an act are pertinent. The rules refer to norms, for example, the
codes of conduct for participation, whereas the performance is an intel-
lectual or imaginative work, emanating from the behaviours, strategies
and player-performance required to adapt in the changing environment.
Newman (2008) suggests there is an ‘inherently social, productive and
creative nature [to] these cultures that surround and support videogam-
ing’ (p. vii). This intimates an almost instinctual integration of culture into
the self whereby language, behaviour and patterns of thinking are shared
and internalised over time, shaping the ways that community members
emerge and interact through practice (Wenger 2000; Henri and Pudelko
2003). This is not so much about value-in-exchange between the game
developer and the game player (Toffler 1980) but is typical of the shift to
recognising value-in-use (e.g. Vargo and Lusch 2008; Ritzer and Jurgenson
2010), where the game becomes an ‘operant’ resource to the player,
becoming integrated by the player in their experiences. LP therefore rep-
resents a contemporary social, productive and creative form within video
gaming culture, where hacking and modding (modifying content) is often
observed in the prosumption practices of its community (Toffler 1980).
As the popularity of the LP phenomenon has grown since its emer-
gence in 2005 (see Klepek 2015) with a global forecast of 500 million
views of content in 2016 (see Statista.com), the potential impact is its
potential benefit to businesses as well as the players, the latter particularly
in terms of adoption of work-like digital skills among the community of
practice members (see Wenger 2000; Payne 2011; Menotti 2014).
Building on Kuchlich’s (2005) concept or playbour and Newman’s (2008)

assertion that live-performed machinima, or LPs (Menotti 2014), are
inherently productive, LP practices develop work-like skills (such as video
editing) that are used in creative and production processes. As a form of
user-generated content, the issues of free and immaterial labour also arise
(Lazzarato 1997; Terranova 2000; Cote and Pybus 2007). Lazzarato
(1997) proposes a focus on ‘productive cooperation and the social relation-
ship with the consumer [which] is materialized within and by the process of
communication’ (1997: n.p.). He further states: ‘… in this kind of working
existence it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish leisure time from
work time. In a sense, life becomes inseparable from work’ (1997). This is
central to the concept of the social factory where the ‘work process [has]
shifted from the factory to society’ (Terranova 2000, p. 33), particularly
in relation to the digital economy. Cote and Pybus (2007) build on the
concept of immaterial labour for Web 2.0, suggesting that what ‘2.0
addresses is the “free” labour that subjects engage in on a cultural and biopo-
litical level when they participate on a site such as MySpace’ (2007, p. 90).
Thus, the shift in perception of labour as something that solely occurred
in the factory to something that takes place in society is an important con-
cept in relation to non-work activities (Kuchlich 2005; Zwick et al. 2008).
As with LP, the peripheral activities involved in the production of this
content have converged with an otherwise leisurely activity of gameplay.
Given the application of skills developed through associated creative and
production processes, which are often seen as free forms of advertising for
game developers and publishers (Hayes 2008), LP is inherently produc-
tive (Newman 2008). Despite this, few game IP owners have clarified the
legal status of LP as a creative endeavour, allowing games developers and
publishers an opportunity to potentially exploit the playbour, say, through
advertising the game to other gameplaying community members.
Furthermore, LP adds value to community engagement activities such as
audience development, say, by coordinating live-streamed gameplay
to members.
Conceptually then, value is the attributes ascribed to something, either
explicitly or implicitly, by an individual or group, and which may be con-
sciously or unconsciously held about it (Alder and Gudersen 2008). Value
is also ‘the result of a social praxis and negotiation between producer and
consumer’ (Bolin 2012, p. 33) and is therefore highly subjective. Whilst
the actions of individuals might be the same, the value sought or experi-
enced is always idiosyncratic. To qualify, as Bechmann and Lomborg
(2012) suggest, the act of joining and participating in social networks such
as Facebook results in the generation of distinct forms of value for differ-
ent parties. Examples of value in the LP community may therefore exist as
social value through networking and collaboration; cultural value through
learning and development of advanced production techniques, and devel-
opment of work-like skills; economic value through advertising revenue
and merchandising; and symbolic value, in the ability to develop an audi-
ence and inspire them to action. The notion of value transformation in
such a context is tantalising: how might an organisation such as a game
developer capture and (re-)use the types of value a phenomenon such as
LP generates? Value is continually shaped and transformed by its context,
for example, changes or mutations are influenced by historical, sociologi-
cal and geographical influences where something of value in one time-
space setting will have different value in other settings (e.g. Cova and
Paranque 2016; Jafari 2017).
It is through prosumption activities (Toffler 1980; Fiske 2010) that LP
attains an elevated status with the community, where symbolic value is
derived from numbers of followers (converted through views of content).
The development of an audience may, however, be only one objective for
a community member: Crane and Sornette (2008) identify two methods
of promotion of social networking platforms: content being exogenic (i.e.
promoted by LP players) or endogenic (i.e. discovered by the audience).
Thus, the mode of engagement influences the lifetime popularity of the
content that in turn, determines the types of value generated through
playbour, and the potential for its capture and transformation by the firm.
By engaging in collaborative works, and providing regular and reliable
content, LP players may also transfer value through the process of build-
ing extended reputation, providing their collaborators with significant
influence over a community of followers, such as that attributed to a role
of opinion leadership (Katz and Lazarsfeld 1955; Robinson 1976) in a
word-of-mouth marketing context (see Trustov et al. 2009). Furthermore,
there is a continuous flow of information from game developers to the
prosumer through ongoing game development processes, which collec-
tively highlight the dual importance of mass media and interpersonal
influence (Baksy et al. 2011) as resources are absorbed by each party, re-
used and further value generated in an iterative process. This is sum-
marised in Fig. 12.1. Several articles have sought to apply this in the
context of the digital age (Potter 2007; Dennis 2008; Weaver 2008; Baksy
et al. 2011).
Fig. 12.1 Two-step flow of communication. (Source: based on Katz and

Lazarsfeld 1955; Robinson 1976)
One high profile example of the power of opinion leadership in the

LP community is that of PewDiePie (real name Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg,
community subscribers of 45+ million, see Dredge 2014). Through con-
tent streaming, this player is directly attributed with reinstating Skate 3®
to the videogame sales charts some four years after its first release. As
Dring (2014) explains: ‘[t]he result of this coverage has caused a spike
in interest. The game was out of print, but the weight of consumer
demand at retailer GAME meant the firm requested EA produce more
copies. The result has been the title sitting in the charts all year’ (2014).
It is highly unlikely that the retailer or the game publisher could or
would have instigated such demand from its target consumers, yet a
series of LP content which incorporate this community member’s on-
screen personality through gameplay activities has influenced both com-
munity and firm behaviour. In this way, community members may
potentially counter exploitation by firms (Robinson 1976). It also
enables the players to extract value from their playbour (Gerencer 2016;
Weaver 2008)—PewDiePie has reportedly earned over $124 million in
sponsorship and advertising revenue since 2010 (Gerencer 2016).
Emergent business models, such as multi-channel networks (MCNs;
e.g. Maker Studio™), further muddy the value flows by capitalising on the
community. Such flows highlight the potential for value to be transformed
from one (subjective) form to another as well as transferred between the
firm, prosumers and community members (Cova and Paranque 2016).

Green (2015) describes how cultural capital derived from the develop-
ment of technical skillsets for creating virtual reality experiences was trans-
formed into economic value; Entwistle (2002) describes the transformation
of cultural value to symbolic value for high-fashion photographic models
who derive kudos that helps to develop their longer-term careers; and,
Morreale (2014) describes the transformation of cultural value from a cre-
ative process to economic value for a prolific YouTube video maker. Whilst
Dujarier (2016) highlights the ambiguity of this kind of work and the
value derived from it, others raise questions about how the quality of the
product relates to value-in-use (e.g. Payne et al. 2008; McColl-Kennedy
et al. 2012; Golder et al. 2012; Macdonald et al. 2016). Quality has long
been considered to be an antecedent of value (e.g. Zeithaml 1988; Ulaga
and Eggert 2006) yet it is clear that prosumers of LP are actively seeking
to transform the original content into something new for what appears to
be a variety of reasons.
Further reflecting on this discussion, MCNs facilitate LP players in
developing their audience (and thus the community) but primarily act to
benefit IP owners and the platform by mediating programming, funding,
cross-promotion, partner management and digital rights management
(Mediakix.com, 2016). In acting as intermediaries between the IP owner
and the community, MCNs transform the inherently social and productive
nature of the community (Newman 2008) into economic value for all
stakeholders. The speculative nature of LP monetisation (Hayes 2008) by
games developers is therefore enabling new valuable business models to
emerge. Whilst media coverage demonstrates the impact of the LP com-
munity (see Brightman 2016; O’Rourke 2015; Hodson 2015; Dring
2014), there is limited understanding of the types of value and the roles
and significance of the LP phenomenon as a community of practice and
interest, and their transformative impacts on the development of new
business models, which demands further study.
This chapter therefore provides insight into the nature of value gener-
ated and how it is transformed and transferred by firms and community
members, with particular focus on opinion leaders (LP players). The
remainder of the chapter reports findings of a qualitative research design,
with the next sections describing in turn, the research methodology, find-
ings and conclusion.
Methodology
This research sought to explore the ways in which participants (LP play-
ers) immerse themselves in the game sub-cultures and communities of
interest to generate value. In order to address the research aim, a mixed
methods qualitative design was used (Schwandt 1999; Husserl 1980) that
enabled the subjective nature of value-in-use inherent within the LP com-
munity to be explored (Bechmann and Lomborg 2012). The approach
generates rich insight (Geertz 1973) and allows for the extraction of
meaning from experiences (Farina 2014). This research also draws on the
prior experience of one of the authors within the community as a partici-
pant observer to the focal phenomenon. Netnography was used to evalu-
ate the online, social nature of LP (see Kozinets 2015) in conjunction with
semi-structured interviews. Participants were selected on the basis of their
involvement in the community. As Henri and Pudelko (2003) states, in
order for participants to be aware of gaming sub-cultures, they must be
active in the community of interest. Fiske (2010) has suggested this can be
in the form of communication with other community members as well as
the productive consumption of cultural texts (i.e. LPs). Thus, sampling
was purposive in design, based on the role of the community member as
an opinion leader alongside which a random selection of the ten most
recent examples of their creative work was selected (see Table 12.1).
Interviews were conducted via Skype, which enabled recording and
transcription for data analysis. Interviews focused on the circumstances
surrounding the establishment of the participants’ social media streaming
channels, and how much LP content participants viewed, how they col-
laborated with others, and the role of advertising, sponsors and subscrib-
ers. Participants were asked to reflect on the types of value they derived
from LP and how it was transformed through the creative development
processes they employed. In addition, content analysis of creative work
produced by participants (streamed videos) was used to evaluate the refer-
ences participants made to other texts, the common language and symbols
(see Peterson 1979; Krippendorff 1980) they used in their creative expres-
sion, as well as the sub-cultural references related to the specific game(s)
they used to create their content. The approach to community and brand
engagement undertaken by participants was also evaluated using the range
of social media platforms identified by participants during interviews.
Themes were allowed to emerge through analysis of the datasets and
this was then grouped in relation to four types of value (economic, sym-
Table 12.1 Sample description

Sample Method Data analysis
70 LP videos Netnography Thematic and content

analysis of LP
Seven community Interviews, each lasting Thematic analysis of
members approximately one hour interviews
Field notes Participant observation Thematic analysis
Research Channel Duration of Connectivity (number of

participant ID subscriber-base participation in social networks used)
community
P1 69 3 years 4 months 4
P2 1,293,746 5 years 8 months 7
P3 18 3 months 4
P6 386,123 6 years 1 month 7
bolic, social and cultural). In this way a deep understanding of the

responses from community participants was generated (Ritchie et al.
2013). The next section discusses the key research findings in relation to
the value types identified.
Findings
Of the four value themes identified in the literature (economic, social,
cultural and symbolic value), two themes emerged from the dataset for
each type of value, resulting in eight themes in all. We next discuss each of
the value themes identified, focusing on how it was generated and used by
LP players and organisations.
Economic Value
Advertisements and merchandise were related to economic value.
Advertisements were often included as part of YouTube’s partner pro-
gramme, with content produced by the LP player being overlaid with the
advert. Economic value was derived from the cost-per-mille set by the
platform (e.g. $2/1000 views, Green 2015). Products such as t-shirts,
hats and event tickets were sold by the LP player to followers and subscrib-
ers and were evidence of merchandise.
Some participants demonstrated a clear focus on economic value as a
driver for content creation. This was evidenced through the inclusion of
advertisements and promotion of merchandise on their content videos.
For these participants, there was evidence of a decision-making process to
derive monetary income and focus on view count, enabling them to deter-
mine how and where to monetise their content and monitor its success.
Participants appeared to be directly responding to the business models
developed by platforms and games developers, as well as third party organ-
isations seeking to advertise their products and services by association with
the LP player content.
For others, the process of monetising their content was of lower per-
ceived value than the development of skills, considered to be a form of
cultural value. P2 comments: ‘If I ever couldn’t do this as a job anymore full
time, I would still make content…’. Whilst most participants had allowed
(multiple) advertisements to be associated with their content, they denied
economic value was the driver for creating work.
Some participants commented they did not find the economic value
derived from the LP process adequate for the contribution they felt their
work made to the community. It is most likely that advertising was used as
a means to generate a form of symbolic value, effectively helping them to
legitimise their work by association with a (platform-led) process, rather
than a specific brand advertiser. This is also evidenced by their frequent
participation in platform ‘partner’ schemes. Furthermore, one participant
claimed ‘… at the minute I don’t monetise, […] although that is in my
future plans’ (P3), suggesting economic value was used as part of a trans-
formative process to develop other value forms such as collaborative
opportunities (social value) and technical skillsets (cultural value). This
player commented value was derived from seeing the content enjoyed by
others: ‘[it is] for anyone who would watch it’ (P3).
Thus, evidence of economic value suggests that participants were aware
of the preliminary steps that needed to be taken to prepare for future
monetisation by focusing on viewing figures and profiling their work,
resulting in their elevated social status, collaborations and skills but the
process they adopted transformed economic value to symbolic, social and
cultural values.
Symbolic Value
Symbolic value was identified in two themes related to subscription boxes
and calls to action. The subscription box was a form of overlay on content
and was used to indicate the LP player’s desire to boost their subscriber-
base. This highlighted their aim to develop an audience, and thus their
symbolic value. Calls to action were where the LP player encouraged the
viewer to ‘share’, ‘subscribe’, ‘comment’ or ‘visit the store’ to buy mer-
chandise through the content itself. This theme was therefore an attempt
to exert influence over the viewer. Symbolic value was embedded into
participants’ content. Evidence highlights how LP players customise their
work using ‘idents’ as branding for their content across multiple media
platforms. Participants stated that a focus on subscriber counts was for
them an indication of elevated status and influence over their target audi-
ence. In particular, their membership of the YouTube Creator Academy
was a mechanism they used to encourage collaboration and opinion shar-
ing among community members.
Whilst status established through numbers of followers was highlighted
as a focus, many participants did not consider their status within their tar-
get audience to be central to the success of their channels. These partici-
pants explain: ‘There is an ego related to YouTube … you do want people to
watch [your content]’ (P3) and ‘… sometimes people […] get engrossed in
the view-counts, the subscriber-counts […] sometimes it is greatly important’
(P4), however, as P5 suggests ‘… I might manage to turn my channel into
an actual thing if I get enough subscribers … if people have a lot of subscribers
then they have a track record, they’re a bit more committed’. It is the altruis-
tic nature of content creation that players determine elevates their status
within the community, as P2 states: ‘there are a lot of people that are almost
dependent on the content, and I kind of keep it going for them as well’. This
is reinforced by one participant who legitimises his position with content
that was created from a visit to a game developer, implying status through
superior knowledge and brand access.
Longevity in the community was also identified as a contributing factor
to let’s player success, as P5 states in relation to the level of engagement
with viewers: ‘… maybe I’m a little bit of a role model because I’ve been
doing it for so long’, albeit this participant has a relatively low subscriber-
base. Importantly, it is the stated desire to ‘make a career’ out of content
production that this participant perceived to be indicative of generating
symbolic value. P2 states: ‘… people are so narrow-minded that, if they’ve

got fewer subscribers than them, then they instantly have the connotation that
that channel is lesser [BUT, it is the subscriber count that is] your seal of
approval, like your value on YouTube, and that is something that I really
hate’. Such a view highlights the participants’ tension with current busi-
ness models of the content platforms (i.e. whereas platforms primarily aim
to support the transformation of symbolic to economic value, the LP con-
tent producers predominantly seek to generate social and cultural value
and transform it symbolic value).
Social Value
Social value was evidenced in themes relating to comments and replies and
collaborations and friends. Comments and replies indicated social engage-
ment with others in the LP community and reinforced the connection
between the LP player and their viewers. Collaborations were often evi-
denced by multiple LP participants in a single video, each of whom had
their own LP channel. Friends may also be included in the LP content but
were not otherwise active in producing LP content. Content is shared for
an audience to engage with alongside various mediated strategies that
actively promoted communication between the LP player and their viewer.
Collaboration and friendship are therefore dominant themes, emphasising
that content creators are highly motivated by sociality of the environment.
This is perhaps surprising, given that these content creators are often per-
ceived to be bedroom-based ‘nerds’ with few friends.
The content illuminates that social value was the most universally
sought form of value in this study. All participants stated they enjoyed
producing the content with or for friends and themselves, but they also
actively sought to create new networks through their efforts. As P3 states,
‘[I’m] hoping to find people that are like-minded, who enjoy watching the
same things as I watch’ whilst P7 extends this by commenting ‘I want to
make a dual comedy let’s play with someone in the same room’. Generating
social value in this way is quite a complex process: not only do c ollaborators
need to coordinate their effort to create content, ‘thing that people like
about let’s plays is that they are watching the video as if they are sat on the sofa
with a friend’ (P2) but as their social value transforms to symbolic value,
so their network grows providing more opportunities to create social value.
Evidence suggests that more frequent collaboration occurs on the
larger channels, with those that form a part of a larger group of players.
Conversely, however, there seems to be little relationship between collab-

oration and comments on content by community members, despite the
various social networks connected to the primary content channels. Whilst
Facebook and Twitter were cited by participants as important social net-
working tools, they also commented that engagement with their commu-
nity was mainly an ‘in the moment activity’, typically taking place when
using a specific platform to create content. Social value is thereby simulta-
neously generated with cultural value through the content creation pro-
cess. This goes some way to explaining the dismissive attitudes of
participants towards economic value as they described a lack of certainty
in the ability to monetise content yet an obvious enjoyment in the creative
process, which is entirely within their control.
Cultural Value
Cultural value was identified in themes related to face cam use and the
technical advances evidenced in content. A face cam, or forward-facing
camera, was used by LP players to overlay their face on to the content.
This was a popular mechanism used and clearly a skill that evidenced tech-
nical proficiency. LP players saw the use of the face cam as a way of adding
quality and indicating professionalism. Technical advances were also
observed in LP content, including the use of chroma key (green screen),
proficiency with audio and video editing and multi-cam setups, where the
content view was switched between several players’ content streams. The
production of LP content clearly necessitated players to develop work-like
skills. Skills related to everything from presentation skills, cinematography,
audio-visual capture and editing, storyboarding, and compositing, and
therefore the generation of cultural value was considered a main motivat-
ing factor. Evidence of the use, development and intent to advance their
creative and technical skillsets were highlighted, for example, participants
frequently suggested their goals were to: ‘… learn all the different pro-
grams of recording, editing, and learning […] the best ways to do that’ (P7).
P7 explained that development was not limited to computer-based skills
but ‘… personalities have changed as well, like some of the people that I do
let’s plays with have become a lot more open with it’. Others cited specific
examples of original inspiration, demonstrating their creeping involve-
ment in creative activities that transformed them from consumers to pro-
ducers. P5 states: ‘… there’s a lot of recording, planning it out, writing
everything, putting it all together … it’s [now] more focused, more effort,
and more planning’ whilst P2 comments ‘I really enjoy storytelling in video

games, and I think in turn that makes me a better storyteller myself … mak-
ing that content refines all of those skills’.
Development was described as a learning process, as P2 comments: ‘…
you tend to mimic and copy people you aspire to be like, because when you start
out on YouTube you are normally quite vulnerable … then after kind of like
the year mark you tend to start finding your own voice’. This illustrates how
social value transforms to cultural value, as P4 explains, ‘[I] get a lot of
inspiration from the content providers that we watch, which inspires us to try
and develop those skills that would be needed to create that content to show it
off to our friends, or to even show it off to potential interviewers as a develop-
ment of skills’. Thus, participants demonstrate that the value transforma-
tion process is well understood, identifying the applicability of their
learned skills to more traditional work environments such as broadcast TV,
radio or graphic design.
Discussion
LP is shown to have multiple types of value that has benefit for LP players,
the community and businesses alike, and consequently business models
have been developed around this new form of user-generated content
(Vollmer et al. 2014; Dredge 2014; Marsden 2013; Rapp 2012). There is
evidence that the gaming industry is largely supportive of LP players in
creating the work despite some contradiction in terms and conditions
stated by developers and IP owners (Brightman 2016; O’Rourke 2015;
Hodson 2015; Dring 2014). Social networks serve as points of contact
with the community, where members can assemble around a topic of com-
mon interest (Henri and Pudelko 2003). The consumption of a shared
passion is a common theme and is indicative of a community of interest
(ibid.). Payne (2011) suggests that engagement with and consumption of
content can result in the development of skills. This implies that members
of communities of interest become prosumers (Toffler 1980) by partici-
pating in creative practice (Wenger 2000). Within this research, partici-
pants that transformed into active members of the community did this
initially by imitating the work of other community members, effectively
‘paying tribute’. This demonstrates a desire to pursue social and cultural
value through prosumption of content. The social aspect observed
through collaborations intimates that content is the result of a form of
playbour, inherently play-like yet requiring work-like skills to produce
(Newman 2008; Kuchlich 2005). The consequential physical socialisation

between community members is more akin to ‘living room gaming’
(Chambers 2016), rather than a virtual purely online endeavour.
Furthermore, it highlights how the transition from a community of inter-
est to a community of practice can take place.
Also evidenced in this research is how social, cultural and symbolic
value is a corollary to economic value for community members. As
Bourdieu suggests (1986), value can be of many types and it may be trans-
formed from one form into another. The research into the LP community
highlights that whilst becoming a well-known player is tied to generating
income, it may not be possible to generate income without becoming well
known in the process. Yet, despite this, economic value is not a primary
goal for participants: research highlights there is considerable potential
economic value that LP content generates but there is little evidence that
this is actively pursued, even though content is frequently embedded with
income-generating advertisements and merchandise. Even those express-
ing an interest in translating the production of LP into future employment
(Ritzer and Jurgenson 2010) claimed not to be incentivised by monetising
content. Thus, it appears that economic and other forms of value have
been transformed into symbolic value (following from Bourdieu 1989)
through which participants secure an elevated status, regardless of any
potential loss of economic value through the processes employed. This is
clearly the opposite of what firms and intermediaries have implemented in
their development of an ecosystem that supports LP players through a
process of monetising engagement.
Within the community, the actual and potential value transformations
identified are intriguing, and demonstrate a level of simultaneous naivety
and sophistication among community members, as well as emergence of
the focal phenomenon. The audience is used to generate social value, with
cultural value of content resulting in development of skills (Fiske 2010)
and symbolic value being derived from the means to influence others.
Economic value is derived from views of content created. Thus, social and
cultural value results in personal growth, leading to symbolic value for
participants. Whilst it seems obvious that it is an elevated status (Dennis
2008; Weaver 2008; Potter 2007) that is transformed into economic
value, participants highlighted a reverse attitude (i.e. economic value for
them transforms to symbolic value). The trajectory implied by the find-
ings is therefore highly dynamic and is neither linear nor hierarchical. The
presence of advertising does not necessarily indicate a desire among
articipants to generate economic value but demonstrates technical

p
competency.
LP players make content in the pursuit of social (friends, networking)
and cultural (creative skills) value. The process involves producing and
distributing content, collaborating with others and engaging with online
communities, which develops skills. The generation of economic value is
therefore tied to the consumption of the content (Hayes 2008) and con-
trolled by the audience, yet participants highlighted how they are able to
generate both social and cultural value for themselves. This intimates that
control over value generated is of primary importance to community
members. Whilst arguably social value relies on others, players aim to exert
or retain ownership of their content across multiple platforms and net-
works (Henri and Pudelko 2003), resulting in a power balance that favours
the creator in the generation of social and cultural value. In such a way,
players build their power base by utilising existing game-based sub-cultures
that gather around common interests (Menotti 2014). The ways in which
power is used were not a focus of this research but would make an interest-
ing future direction for investigation.
LP monetisation relies on the audience consuming the content, and so
economic value for the creators is not a given. Ritzer and Jurgenson (2010)
state that social networking platforms extract value from their users by rely-
ing on unpaid user-generated content to add value to their platform. Whilst
direct economic impact of LP is a frequent topic of discussion (Dring
2014; O’Rourke 2015; Hodson 2015; Brightman 2016), this is not
reflected in the actions of participants in our research. Even though unpaid
labour might be seen as exploitative, it is through the production of con-
tent that LP players generated a demonstrable skillset which they used as a
strategy to gain future employment. Thus, players transformed cultural
value into economic value. The productive nature of LP is not solely related
to the production of content, rather the consumption of LP can be consid-
ered productive (Payne 2011) in that knowledge and skills relating to pro-
duction techniques and gameplay elements are transferred among
community members. Participants highlight their passion for gaming, and
fun over income is of paramount importance, suggesting LP is a form of
playbour (Kuchlich 2005) that makes use of work-like skills (Newman
2008). From a firm perspective, this form of economic value embedded in
the content is not immediately exploitable albeit that contribution to busi-
ness development results from extended brand reach generated through
the process of community building. Participants do not, therefore, see

firms as exploitative per se.
Bourdieu (1989) suggests that symbolic value is the acknowledgement
of other forms of value as legitimate and, as such, it cannot be pursued in
and of itself. In the research, the process of developing an audience and
building status is evidently time consuming and challenging but what is
surprising is that the pursuit of symbolic value was claimed by participants
to actively destroy social value of the community. For optimum symbolic
value, a two-step flow of communication (Lazarsfeld et al. 1944) was
identified, whereby community members transfer credibility onto a prod-
uct by featuring it in their content, effectively engaging in word-of-mouth
promotion for the game (Trustov et al. 2009). The symbolic value these
community members then generated, by association, preserved their ele-
vated position. Economic and social value is developed through this ele-
vated position in the form of collaboration and shared audiences (YouTube
Creator Academy 2015). Combining this with the social requirement for
generating economic value, as explored above, then highlights the need to
pursue social value before symbolic value becomes accessible. For exam-
ple, the social nature of a platform means that a video with great skill
(cultural value) will be shared, and collaborative videos (social value) will
transcend communities.
Conclusion
The four forms of value outlined by Bourdieu (1986)—economic, social,
cultural and symbolic—were used as the basis for discussing value trans-
formation in the LP community, as outlined in this chapter. Findings
demonstrated that each form of value is pursued and manifested through
the interplay of various creative and prosumption activities. The process
of content creation indicates the embedded nature of social and cultural
value but, whereas the business models employed by firms (platforms and
games developers) emphasise economic value as the driving force for
emergence of the LP phenomenon, the community itself focuses more
on the consequential symbolic value they generate. It is possible that the
relative youth of the industry (Klepek 2015) and speculative nature of
the channel monetisation processes explored (Hayes 2008) impedes par-
ticipants from pursuing direct and meaningful economic value genera-
tion. This research, however, suggests that alternative approaches to
considering value creation and transformation in this type of context may

be required.
LP is not necessarily driven by the virtualised online experience envi-
ronment, highlighting that prosumers are engaged by the social and cul-
tural environment in which content is created. Sharing of content using a
multitude of networks and platforms is identified in this study as an exten-
sion of the magic circle, through which rules and performance of game-
play are enacted and further developed. The consequential work-like skills,
playbour, developed by community members is in this research seen as
evidence of the transformation process between social, cultural and eco-
nomic value to symbolic value. Both the LP community and IP owning
organisations recognise the types of value generated by LP and both seek
to exploit the phenomenon. What is interesting is the complementarity of
the exploitation of value by each party. Community members seek to gen-
erate symbolic value to support their career development, whilst firms seek
to use skills of content creators to extract revenue through associated
advertising (platforms) and building audience (games developers).
The research design has limitations in that it reports on a small sample
size. Future research could therefore expand the framework developed
into a quantitative investigation to explore further the relationships
between the types of value generated and ways in which it is transformed
for the stakeholders in the community.
References
Alder, N. J., & Gudersen, A. (2008). International Dimensions of Organizational
Behavior (5th ed.). Montreal, QC: South-Western Cengage Learning.
Baksy, E., Hofman, J. M., Mason, W. A., & Watts, D. J. (2011). Everyone’s an
Influencer: Quantifying Influence on Twitter. Fourth ACM International
Conference on Web Search and Data Mining. Hong Kong, ACM 65–74.
Bechmann, A., & Lomborg, S. (2012). Mapping Actor Roles in Social Media:
Different Perspectives on Value Creation in Theories of User Participation.
New Media and Society, 15(5), 765–781.
Bolin, G. (2012). The Forms of Value: Problems of Convertibility in Field Theory.
TripleC, 10(1), 33–41.
Theory and Research for Sociology of Education. New York: Greenwood.
Bourdieu, P. (1989). Social Space and Symbolic Power. Sociological Theory,
7(1), 14–25.
Brightman, J. (2016). That Dragon, Cancer Dev Says Let’s Play Videos Took
Away Sales (Online). Retrieved August 31, 2016, from http://www.gamesin-
dustry.biz/articles/2016-03-28-that-dragon-cancer-dev-says-lets-play-videos-
took-away-sales.
Chambers, D. (2016). Changing Media, Homes, and Households: Cultures,
Technologies and Meanings. London: Routledge.
Cote, M., & Pybus, J. (2007). Learning to Immaterial Labour 2.0: MySpace and
Social Networks. Ephemera, 7(1), 88–106.
Cova, B., & Paranque, B. (2016). Value Slippage in Brand Transformation: A
Conceptualization. The Journal of Product and Brand Management,
25(1), 3–10.
Crane, R., & Sornette, D. (2008). Viral, Quality, and Junk Videos on YouTube:
Separating Content from Noise in an Information-Rich Environment.
Proceedings of Social Information Processing, AAAI Spring Symposium,
Technical Report SS-08-06, Stanford, California, USA, March 26–28.
Dennis, E. E. (2008). The Two-Step Flow in the Internet Age (Online). Retrieved
August 12, 2016, from http://mj.unc.edu/sites/default/files/images/docu-
ments/ante/ante_two-step.pdf.
Dredge, S. (2014). YouTube Games Star PewDiePie Could Go Solo at the End of
2014. The Guardian (Online). Retrieved August 13, 2016, from https://
www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/06/youtube-pewdiepie-
multi-channel-network.
Dring, C. (2014). How PewDiePie Fired Skate3 Back into the Charts (Online).
Retrieved July 11, 2016, from http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/
how-pewdiepie-fired-skate-3-back-into-the-charts/0137447.
Dujarier, M. A. (2016). The Three Sociological Types of Consumer Work. Journal
of Consumer Culture, 16(2), 1–17.
Entwistle, J. (2002). The Aesthetic Economy: The Production of Value in the
Field of Fashion Modelling. Journal of Consumer Culture, 2(3), 317–339.
Farina, G. (2014). Dialogues in Philosophy, Mental and Neuro Sciences. Crossing
Dialogues, 7(2), 50–62.
Fiske, J. (2010). Understanding Popular Culture (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
Geertz, C. J. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. Basic Books.
Gerencer, T. (2016). PewDiePie Net Worth (Online). Retrieved August 31, 2016,
from http://moneynation.com/pewdiepie-net-worth/.
Golder, P. J., Mitra, D., & Moorman, C. (2012). What Is Quality? An Integrative
Framework of Processes and States. Journal of Marketing, 76(4), 1–23.
Green, H. (2015). The $1,000 CPM. Medium.com (Online). Retrieved August
25, 2016, from https://medium.com/@hankgreen/the-1-000-cpm-f92717
506a4b#.t6faqyntj.
Hayes, C. (2008). Changing the Rules of the Game: How Video Game Publishers
are Embracing User-Generated Derivative Works. Harvard Journal of Law and
Technology, 21(2), 567–587.
Henri, F., & Pudelko, B. (2003). Understanding and Analysing Activity and
Learning in Virtual Communities. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning,
19(4), 474–487.
Hesmondhalgh, D. (2010). User-Generated Content, Free Labour and the
Cultural Industries. Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization,
19(3/4), 267–284.
Hodson, C. (2015). The Powerful Story of YouTube and a Goat Simulator
(Online). Retrieved August 31, 2016, from http://www.wetheunicorns.com/
debate/goat-simulator-gamers/#UXcfTGqEuWGGDWxh.97.
Huizinga, J. (1949). Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture.
London: Routledge.
Husserl, E. (1980). Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a
Phenomenological Philosophy. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers Group.
Jafari, A. (2017). Theory of Values Transformation in Criminal Banking Law.
Journal of Financial Crime, 24(1), 129–142.
Katz, E., & Lazarsfeld, P. F. (1955). Personal Influence: The Part Played by People
in the Flow of Mass Communication. New York: The Free Press.
Klepek, P. (2015). Who Invented Let’s Play Videos? Kotaku.com (Online).
Retrieved June 5, 2016, from http://kotaku.com/who-invented-lets-play-
videos-1702390484.
Kozinets, R. V. (2015). Netnography: Redefined (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Krippendorff, K. (1980). Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology.
London: Sage.
Kuchlich, J. (2005). Precarious Playbour: Modders and the Digital Games
Industry. FibreCulture, 5(4).
Lazarsfeld, P. F., Berelson, B., & Gaudet, H. (1944). The People’s Choice. Oxford,
England: Duell, Sloan & Pearce.
Lazzarato, M. (1997). Immaterial Labor (Online). Retrieved July 29, 2016, from
http://www.generation-online.org/.
Lessig, L. (2008). Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid
Economy. New York: Penguin.
Macdonald, E. K., Kleinaltendamp, M., & Wilson, H. N. (2016). How Business
Customers Judge Solutions: Solution Quality and Value in Use. Journal of
Marketing, 80(3), 96–120.
Marino, P. (2004). The Art of Machinima. Scottsdale, AZ: Paraglyph Press.
Marsden, R. (2013). Channels Spawned by YouTube Are Making a Fortune but
Are the People Making the Videos Missing Out? Independent (Online).
Retrieved September 6, 2016, from http://www.independent.co.uk/life-
style/gadgets-and-tech/features/channels-spawned-by-youtube-are-making-
a-fortune-but-are-the-people-making-the-videos-missing-out-8464004.html.
McColl-Kennedy, J. R., Vargo, S. L., Dagger, T. S., Sweeney, J. S., & Kasteren
van, Y. (2012). Health Care Customer Value Cocreation Practice Styles.
Journal of Service Research, 15(4), 370–389.
Menotti, G. (2014). Videorec as Gameplay: Recording Playthroughs and Video

Game Engagement. Games as Art Media Entertainment, 3(1), 81–92.
Morreale, J. (2014). From Homemade to Store Bought: Annoying Orange and
the Professionalization of YouTube. Journal of Consumer Culture,
14(1), 113–128.
Newman, J. (2008). Playing with Videogames. London: Routledge.
O’Rourke, P. (2015). I Am Bread Is an Intentionally Bad Game, but That’s Also
Why It’s Good (Online). Retrieved August 31, 2016, from http://mobile-
syrup.com/2015/09/19/i-am-bread-is-an-intentionally-bad-game-
but-thats-also-why-its-good/.
Payne, M. T. (2011). Everything I Need to Know About Filmmaking I Learned
Playing Video Games: The Educational Promise of Machinima. In H. Lowood
& M. Nitsche (Eds.), The Machinima Reader Cambridge. MA: MIT Press.
Payne, A., Storbacka, J., & Frow, P. (2008). Co-creating Brands: Diagnosing and
Designing the Relationship Experience. Journal of Business Research,
62(3), 379–389.
Peterson, R. A. (1979). Revitalizing the Culture Concept. Annual Review of
Sociology, 5, 137–166.
Potter, D. (2007). One Step, Two Step (Online). Retrieved August 12, 2016,
from http://mj.unc.edu/sites/default/files/images/documents/ante/ante_
two-step.pdf.
Rapp, L. (2012). Maker Studio and Ray William Johnson Battle. SourceFed
(Online). Retrieved August 14, 2016, from http://sourcefed.com/
maker-studios-and-ray-william-johnson-battle/.
Ritchie, J., Lewis, J., Nicholls, C. M., & Ormston, R. (2013). Qualitative Research
Practice: A Guide for Social Science Students and Researchers (2nd ed).
London: Sage.
Ritzer, G., & Jurgenson, N. (2010). Production, Consumption, Prosumption:
The Nature of Capitalism in the Age of the Digital ‘Prosumer’. Journal of
Consumer Culture, 10(1), 12–36.
Robinson, J. P. (1976). Interpersonal Influence in Election Campaigns: Two Step-
Flow Hypotheses. Public Opinion Quarterly, 40(3), 304–319.
Schwandt, T. A. (1999). On Understanding. Qualitative Inquiry, 5(4), 451–464.
Shontell, A. (2014). Twitch CEO: Here’s Why We Sold to Amazon for $970M
(Online). Retrieved October 1, 2016, from https://www.businessinsider.
com/twitch-ceo-heres-why-we-sold-to-amazon-for-970-million-2014-
8?IR=T.
Tapscott, D. (2008). Grown Up Digital. London: McGraw Hill.
Terranova, T. (2000). Free Labor: Producing Culture for the Digital Economy.
Social Text, 63(18), 33–58.
Toffler, A. (1980). The Third Wave. London: Collins.
Trustov, M., Bucklin, R. E., & Pauwels, K. (2009). Effects of Word-of-Mouth
Versus Traditional Marketing: Findings from an Internet Social Networking
Site. Journal of Marketing, 73(5), 90–102.
Ulaga, W., & Eggert, A. (2006). Relationship Value and Relationship Quality:
Broadening the Nomological Network of Business-to-Business Relationships.
European Journal of Marketing, 40(3/4), 311–327.
Vargo, S. L., & Lusch, R. F. (2008). Service Dominant Logic: Continuing the
Evolution. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 36(1), 1–10.
Vollmer, C., Blum, S., & Bennin, K. (2014). The Rise of Multichannel Networks:
Critical Capabilities for the New Digital Video Ecosystem. Strategy& (Online).
Retrieved August 16, 2016, from http://www.strategyand.pwc.com/reports/
rise-of-multichannel-networks.
Weaver, D. (2008). The Two-Step Flow in the Internet Age (Online). Retrieved
August 12, 2016, from http://mj.unc.edu/sites/default/files/images/docu-
ments/ante/ante_two-step.pdf.
Wenger, E. (2000). Communities of Practice and Social Learning Systems.
Organization, 7(2), 225–246.
YouTube Creator Academy. (2015). Retrieved from https://creatoracademy.
youtube.com.
Zackariasson, P., & Wilson, T. L. (2012). The Video Game Industry: Formation,
Present State, and Future. New York: Routledge.
Zeithaml, V. A. (1988). Consumer Perceptions of Price, Quality, and Value: A
Means-End Model and Synthesis of Evidence. Journal of Marketing, 52, 2–22.
Zwick, D., Bonsu, S. K., & Dermody, A. (2008). Putting Consumers to Work.
Journal of Consumer Culture, 8(2), 163–192.
CHAPTER 13
Conclusion: Value Constructs

for the Creative Economy
Rachel Granger
Performing Value and Constructs

for Conceiving Value
One conclusion from the variety of perspectives offered on value construc-

tion both in the literature and also in this book would be that value in the
context of the creative economy is varied and multiplex, and as a result of
this complexity, tends to fall back on narrow definitions of economic prac-
tice. While entirely logical and reasonable, Part I of this book argues that
there are inherent pitfalls in doing so. By way of alternative, the book offers
an action-based framework for conceptualising value, tied to the notion of
performance. In Part II, the book considers the attributes considered to be
valuable (useful) to one’s self and the principles or standards that shape
these, which might be viewed as performance of expression, and shaped by
performative power and experience. In Part III, the book explores the dif-
ferent ways value is constructed and mediated through processes and inter-
actions, through performance as -doing, -art form, -process, and -power.
R. Granger (*)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0_13
266 R. GRANGER
Part I: Defining the Creative Economy Through Value

In Chap. 1, the book outlined a case for viewing the creative economy
through the performing lens, which it was argued enables broader disci-
plinary reach. As a result, the book has allowed for less conventional
aspects of value to come to life through the different chapter contribu-
tions, and the condition of value has been further enabled in a way that
opens up new avenues of enquiry and a vernacular that enriches current
economic frameworks and terminology. In Chap. 2, Laura Parson’s valo-
risation of hidden cultural activities in societies, such as those taking
place in the household (hidden from view), and those in some way forced
to become hidden through power and soft institutions (that devalue the
societal worth/perception of an attribute) speak of the way value in a
creative economy performs as a process and as power. As Laura Parsons
argues, this goes beyond what might be conceived as tacit, and alludes to
the difficulties of expressing culture or transmitting it as a complex form;
it resonates with institutional frameworks through, and by which power
upholds and subjugates societal views on what might be perceived as
legitimate or visible, and belief systems on what is willing to become vis-
ible. In much the same way as Lundvall (2002) expresses the power
imbued in ‘local codes’ within epistemic communities, which effectively
keeps outsiders at arms-length, so power relations can play out in house-
holds and communities, and manifest in a variety of ways: (1) marginali-
sation of a set culture; (2) an unwillingness to share or reproduce cultural
artefacts or processes for a mainstream or commercial audience; (3) a
tendency to hide cultural attributes including materiality and symbols
from public display, (4) a concerted effort to reinforce the authenticity
of a culture by restricting ownership and practice within a designated
community, and (5) deliberate marginalisation of a set culture within
society. For example, it has been argued that the legitimacy of subcul-
tures and ‘low’ culture are predicated on powers of subjugation. Thus
the idea that we might simply enrich taxonomies and measurement tool-
kits, as a worthwhile contribution to the creative economy field, and to
remedy existing flaws and deficits is to overlook the more complex power
relations at play in a creative economy, and the structure and agency
within this (see Archer 1995; Barker 2005).
13 CONCLUSION: VALUE CONSTRUCTS FOR THE CREATIVE ECONOMY 267
Part II: The Creative Self

In Chap. 3, Pinky Bazaz considers value in the creative economy both as a
factor input (university degrees as embodied and institutionalised cultural
capital) and by exploring the personal experiences of learning, which have
personal value. What is revealed through the data on higher education
performance in British universities is another power structure, which for
some plays out as a positive process of embodying new skillsets, and
expanding opportunities for capital accumulation in the graduate job mar-
ket. For others, notably BAME groups,1 the experience at university is
shown to be comparatively less empowering, and creates an ideological
contestation over widening participation agendas in the higher education
system. Operating in an wider environment in which a premium is now
placed on creative skillsets, creative degrees are framed as commercially
lucrative and students’ own value of these are accordingly high at the
point of university entry. Yet the experience of BAME students at the
point of university exit across several creative disciplines is problematic,
and reflects real and marked differences in educational performance and
employment options between ethnic groups. Pinky’s use of statistics pro-
vide compelling evidence of ‘attainment gaps’ (Broecke and Nicholls
2007; HEFCE 2013; ECU 2017), which reinforce existing concerns
about meritocracy in the creative economy (e.g. O’Brien et al. 2016;
Taylor and O’Brien 2017; Brook et al. 2016).
Pinky’s contribution serves to remind us that students as feepayers,
now occupy a changing position as consumers in a creative economy, who
as a result, are more likely to reflect on the broader returns on investment
of creative learning, and the value of learning in both economic and social
terms. Resisting the inclination to interpret value as merely monetary
returns, which arise from converting cultural capital into economic capital,
Pinky draws on Rokeach (1973) to consider terminal value, or the sets of
standards, which guide and determine actions and attitudes. Building on
his earlier (1968) work on beliefs, attitudes, and values, Rokeach’s termi-
nal values refer to those values that shape social structure such as equality,
social recognition, a sense of accomplishment, security, comfortable life,
exciting life, and so on, as well as the instrumental values that help achieve
these including ambition, capability, intellect, imagination, and indepen-
dence. Social structure here refers to the social arrangement in society that
1
Black and Minority Ethnic students.
268 R. GRANGER
emerges from and determines the actions of individuals, and lead to socio-
economic stratification. In the context of higher education and creative
skills, while there is a temptation to position degrees and students as
objects, which have monetary value in a commercial setting, the wider
experience of learning and being at university as a process and expression
of personal beliefs and values, can reveal important insights into the over-
all worth of higher education, within a wider society and system.
What is revealed here is that while the attainment gap between White
and BAME students has been explained partially by the relationship
between a student and university, and in particular, the barriers that might
prevent full BAME development, examining the relationship between stu-
dent values and those of an institution can reveal much about a student’s
educational experience and value sets. Pinky notes here the importance of
social belonging at a university (e.g. role models, mentors) as well as per-
sonal attributes (the way education is viewed and used, and motivation for
learning), which shape construction of terminal values around security,
success, and so on, and can create markedly different social structures
around the same commercial degree. One student’s pursuit of ‘stardom’
through a creative degree (Currid-Halkett 2015), using the accreditation
system as a passport to high-earning jobs, may differ to another experience
that draws on the learning environment to grow skills and new experiences
and is likely to view returns in terms of ‘delayed value’. For BAME groups,
with poorer relationships with peers, with fewer role models, and a weaker
support community, as well as lower instrumental values such as capability
and ambition, the value of a degree may not be so much delayed, as deval-
ued. In this sense, terminal values are inherently individual (e.g. one per-
son’s accomplishments may differ to another’s) and while Pinky has not
attempted to map these in her contribution, she nevertheless makes a case
for critiquing widely held assumptions about the universal value and effects
of creative learning. Pinky’s contribution reminds us to consider differ-
ences in micro social values (BAME cohorts, Generation Z), which may
differ to hegemonic views of the creative economy as wealthy workers and
businesses; bearing little resemblance to other groups with different termi-
nal and instrumental values, their learning and employment experiences,
their social and interpersonal interactions, and own positionality, from
which social acceptance and/or monetary value is shaped and ascribed.
Pinky concludes by making a connection between social values (societal
views of the value of higher education), personal and moral values, which
shape and are shaped by experiences and interactions within the higher
education system, and competency values, which ultimately shape employ-

ability and remuneration.
Pinky’s review of one’s creative self, shaped by individual beliefs and
moral systems, that ultimately shape social structure, play out in other
chapter contributions. Jennie Jordan and Ruth Jindall’s portrayal of a
changing arts landscape (Chap. 4), shaped by the power of so-called phi-
lanthropy, speaks to the power that underpins structure and agency. Jennie
and Ruth’s portrayal of financial actors who fund art in lieu of public
resources and who unwittingly constrain art access through their own
value systems, might be described as a type of cultural intermediary. The
literature on intermediaries has thus far considered the role of the new
middle classes whose actions mediate production and consumption of cul-
ture (following Bourdieu 1984, 1996), those economic imaginaries who
as market actors mediate between culture and the economy to qualify cul-
tural goods for economic returns (see O’Connor 2015), and the more
recent birth of community actors who introduce and shape cultural con-
sumption in communities (Perry 2019). While Maguire and Matthews
(2012) argue that the cultural intermediaries construct have been used as
a ‘descriptive catch-all’ for any creative activity or occupation, it does seem
that Jennie and Ruth’s account of philanthrophers who are neither market
agents nor necessarily part of the ‘petit bourgeoisie’ (in the way envisaged
by Bourdieu 1984) nevertheless shape content and access, in a way that
lends power to shaping consumer taste. It therefore provides a new
account of intermediaries who through financial power express their cre-
ative self to reproduce cultural consumer economies. Both Pinky’s work
on higher education experiences, and Jennie and Ruth’s account of phi-
lanthropy in the arts, reveal something of one’s creative self (expression),
shaped by power. Foucauldian discourse analysis has relevance here, in
providing insight into the way institutional power relationships exerted
through one’s language and practice, can shape the way groups and indi-
viduals use these to affirm their own identity, consolidate beliefs, and even
resist the effects of such power.
Foucault’s work (e.g. 1969) reinforces how power can inhere in institu-
tions rather than individuals to effectively automate power and ‘disindi-
vidualise’ values and actions. In Chap. 5, Claire Lerpiniere’s account of
how fast fashion as a global institution exerts power on individuals and
demographic groups to affirm their own identity, in effect disindividualises
their creative self. Although Foucault’s work on the archaeology of power
was intended as a socio-physical reference point about power inhered in
270 R. GRANGER
prisons, and later schools and hospitals, it nevertheless has salience in illus-
trating how power has its principles not so much in a person, as a con-
certed distribution of institutions with principles of control and order, and
in an arrangement that produces a set of relations in which individuals are
caught up. In other words, societal power relations coerce, command,
direct, or influence the actions of others. Here Claire makes reference to
the values or forces exerted on individuals to embody, and to enhance
social relationships, sense of identity, or affiliation to a brand or group
(brand values) and even ethical values or principles. Her work implores us
to consider the material value embodied within a textile, as ‘embodied
situated bodily experience’ (Entwistle 2005) or second skin. This embod-
ied reading of textiles can lead to the creation of a personal relationship
between a garment as creative product, and individual, which connects
with deliberate design and textile thinking, and enables the agency of tex-
tiles to come to the fore. As a result, Claire argues, interaction can lead to
curatorial processes of owning, consuming, and caring for a textile that
detaches from the (global) economic power that connects fast fashion and
the consumer, and dominates the creative economy. Claire’s reading of
textiles through a phenomenological and existential understanding of a
garment sets out a practical way for culture and creativity as an art form in
a post-consumption phase of fashion, which is in a sense more ritualistic.
Lury’s description of ‘post-consumption rituals’ connotes the personalisa-
tion of an artefact, as a means of reassigning its meaning from that of the
manufacturer or retailer, to that of an individual—that belongs to them
and speaks to them (Lury 1996). In Chap. 6, Malika Kraamer uses these
same sentiments to examine the deliberate cultural consumption of Kente
cloth as an exclusive garment in today’s Ghana, as well as in a pan-African
context, in a way that evokes a sense of belonging and satisfaction among
its wearers, with deep aesthetic value. Malika argues that the continued
wearing of the cloth over the last two centuries is embedded in a sense of
continuity and identity with the past and current day identity as an expres-
sion of cultural value, which marks gender, class, status, or role in more
complex ways. As she argues, one way to study the relationship between
social identity and textiles is to look in detail at the use of these fabrics in
relation to the way that particular identities are achieved in wearing these
textiles, for example, at occasions, in political situations, or to promote
social mobility. In that sense, Kente cloth has more of an intrinsic value
(Throsby 2001) rather than market value, and Claire and Malika’s works
both speak to connections made through materials and their embodiment
of meaning. In other words, textiles have power as a productive force that

makes it possible to understand and relate to ourselves, as well as others in
the world around us.
Part III: Collective Creative Spaces and Processes

Starting in Chap. 7, the unique interactions between people and space are
examined in Part III of the book, to understand value construction in the
creative economy from a community and relational perspective. David
Rae’s analysis of learning and cultural exchange in communities in Cape
Breton, Canada, and Leicester, UK are used to depict cultural activities at
the micro scale, which he terms ‘intracultural’. David asserts that cultural
interactions and the value constructed from these are highly dependent on
the sharing of values, belief systems, and behaviours of a distinct group of
people, which here also share a spatial characteristic. The idea that rela-
tional proximity and a group’s ‘idioculture’ (Fine and Hallett 1979) pro-
vides the basis of connections that serve to create value in the creative
economy, and that this sustains and expands through innovation, is an idea
also shared in Chap. 8, where I explore the role of relational and cognitive
proximity in informal spaces, as a determinant of creative innovation. The
locus of value construction in Chap. 7 is the geographical construct of
‘home’, which is an important anchor for cultural identity, and which
frames the sharing of linguistics, signs, and symbols, and has wider social
and cultural meaning. In Cape Breton, this takes the form of ‘Caper’ cul-
tural references and explicit references to membership of indigenous ‘fam-
ily’ groups, which facilitate and authenticate cultural exchanges in the
area, while in Leicester these play out as ‘Asian’ cultural references and
connections, and the symbolic use of cuisine as a marker of membership
and connection. In Denmark (Chap. 8), the same ideas of proximity
(drawing on Boschma 2005) are forged through references to ‘music’ and
‘maker mindsets’, which provides a common basis for micro-level cogni-
tive and relational social capital, and at the meso scale the structural prox-
imity inhered in the physical characteristics (e.g. building, projects) and
informal organisation of maker spaces in a creative economy.
In Chaps. 7 and 8, cultural proximity made possible through shared
signs and narratives (or codes) is cited as a key determinant of economic
value construction in the creative economy, whereas in Chap. 9, cultural
and creative vision provides the basis for relational and structural proxim-
ity that drives change in Ouseburn in the North-East of England. In other
272 R. GRANGER
words, in Chaps. 7 and 8, culture and creative value is the outcome of

interaction, and in Chap. 9, it represents the tool, which supports connec-
tions and through which political and economic change is enacted.
Similarly, in Chap. 10, ‘design’ as one area of the creative economy is
viewed as a valuable art form that drives a process of economic conversion.
While the focus, like that in Chaps. 7, 8, and 9 is economic in nature, the
chapter contribution reveals the way in which value is constructed through
highly intricate and subtle exchanges and processes that occur through
informal interactions at work, often hidden from the public gaze and
occurring in highly tacit forms. By way of example, David Heap and
Caroline Coles draw on furniture design, to highlight the tacit and multi-
plex characteristics of (incremental) design working in furniture produc-
tion, which commercially remain hidden from economic and legal value
frameworks. As David and Caroline note, while ‘silent design’ remains a
powerful driver of economic value in the creative economy, ‘creations of
the mind’ as a product of the interplay within teams, is directly at odds
with the economic imperative of establishing ownership of intellectual
property, on which economic or commercial value is ascribed and con-
verted. In Chaps. 11 and 12, these same ideas of hidden value, which sit
uncomfortably with economic frameworks and narratives, are extended.
In Chap. 11, empirical data on creative businesses and university staff in
Leicestershire reveal surprisingly low knowledge transfer between univer-
sities and business, which is not explained by the intellectual and research
capability of local universities. The data reveals a very strong role for ‘com-
petitors’, ‘critical friends’, and ‘customers’ in driving innovation through
hidden pipelines, and is reflected in a high ‘intra-operability quotient’
(knowledge transfer from within the creative sector). As I argue, while
these other actors in the same sector remain largely hidden from the com-
mercial and academic views of value construction in the creative economy
(see literature on New Economic Geography), they exert power by ‘legiti-
mising’, ‘mediating’, and ‘enabling’ new value creation through local
social spaces. In Chap. 12, the notion of hidden action is reflected both in
the emergent—but often hidden—practice of Let’s Play, which has been
referred to as non-narrative machinima (Menotti 2014) and is a sub-
culture of gaming. The Let’s Play community of practice acts as a key
locus for value creation, creating a hidden value chain between gamers, IP
owners, business stakeholders including advertisers, and followers.
Examples of value in the Let’s Play community exist as social value through
social interaction, cultural value through learning and development of
emerging production techniques, economic value through advertising and

merchandise, and symbolic value in the lure and motivation of an audi-
ence. The case study reveals that social value is the most universally sought
form of value (in the case study used), and reinforces the idea of relational
capital as the key locus of value construction in a creative economy.
Where Does This Leave Us?

There is no doubt at all that the 13 chapters in this book have confirmed
the creative economy to be of the moment but also that more needs to be
done to revisit the narratives and the policy agenda that support value
construction. Framing the different viewpoints of the creative economy
through performance as has been done here (as doing; as an art form; as
expression; as power; as a process; and as experience) has been rewarding
in thinking about value beyond cursory views of economic worth, and in
a way that uncovers new vocabulary, which offer a capacious approach to
considering performance in the creative economy:
• Seeing—We have gleaned key information from seeing the creative

economy expressed in new terms—especially through actions, rela-
tionships, and materiality. These actions and belongings reflect the
value placed on different activities, different items, different com-
munities and sectors, and new extensions of identity, which have
revealed new insights to the way value emerges and builds.
• Revealing—With the viewpoint slightly altered, and using a different
lens, different surfaces or views have become visible, especially where
value construction remains largely hidden in processes or away from
the public gaze. This was particularly apparent in case studies of
value being constructed in hidden spaces (in design industries, in
maker spaces, and within geographical and ethnic communities).
• Reinforcing—Some views have reinforced existing thinking and
understanding on key practices or terms, especially on issues of rela-
tionality or power, while other views have enabled mainstream think-
ing to be challenged (e.g. the role of stakeholders such as universities),
or reinforced new ideas or new processes of value construction (e.g.
the role of informal organisations).
• Embodying—What some may see as inanimate objects or artefacts, or
processes, others understand as symbolic objects or actions that go
beyond art form or function, to embody a living cultural or creative
274 R. GRANGER
practice, and as a tool for value creation. An object in its material

form embodies knowledge and practices, and may stand for value
that is still emerging, through a wider process, and this was highly
visible in accounts of textiles and garments, but also in the game play
at the heart of new digital formats (Let’s Play).
• Connecting—Belonging—Physical belongings remain connected to
their narratives and communities of origin, that connect users to
their creation stories, and may be reinforced through wider display
and awareness. Some accounts connect the user with complex sym-
bolic forms, and express fundamental relationships between human
beings, or humans to physical spaces. Some accounts express an
affinity for a place or situation, and can evoke different responses
from those who read and reflect on the wider meanings and signifi-
cance of accounts. This was visible especially in accounts of belong-
ing in maker spaces and in micro entrepreneurial communities in
Cape Breton and Leicester. Actions and accounts that connect peo-
ple, objects, and places, provide a narrative that helps us to under-
stand the world around us, and connects theory to praxis.
• Accumulating—How do experiences or material objects embody
histories? Using different frameworks, these experiences (actions)
and objects accumulate stories, encourage new conversations and
relationships, which accumulate value over time, and help to build
new narratives.
• Resonating—These accounts and in some cases, art forms resonate
today. They are inspiring and challenging, and provide key links that
help us to understand and make sense of, or feel in common with
wider phenomena.
• Expanding—Through these cases and discussions, new knowledge
has been encouraged to expand scholarly and policy reach, in a way
that helps to rebuild knowledge, and renew connections between
objects, people, community, and living creative/cultural practice.
• Sustaining—These different accounts record and protect ideas for
others to draw from and in a way that sustains learning and thinking.
• Converging—The idea that two viewpoints can occupy the same
space at the same time is central to the creative economy, and in sev-
eral chapters conflicting accounts encourage the reader to reflect on
this new convergence—or collision—of value in time and space, in a
way that expands existing thinking and understanding.
In the first two chapters of this book, we have explained how the con-
cept of value in the creative economy first emerged within research and
policy fields, the pitfalls of this view, and alternative ways of thinking about
the same issue performatively. This performance framework was applied in
the remainder of the book. The framework has shed light upon important
connections and relationships, and new terms, as outlined above. These
terms give us tools for understanding how people speak in terms of value
construction—shaped by wider power relations—which might inform
emerging policy on the creative economy, and potentially opens up new
avenues of research, for example, through the Creative Industries Policy
and Impact Centre at Nesta, and the Centre for Cultural Value at Leeds.
Through the different chapter contributions, both empirical and con-
ceptual, our aim was to bring together different researchers from different
fields, to engage in a diverse range of views and creative practices to stimu-
late new thinking on the creative economy, and also to raise new questions
relating to value construction. While the different chapters reinforce the
view that culture and creativity matter, through the use of different lens
and new constructs, the book provides an alternative view of how policy
might begin to evidence the impacts on individuals and communities. Our
own thinking and view of the creative economy has been affected by the
sheer richness of stories of value accumulated in this book, which suggest
we can no longer continue to rely on an axiomatic model, which positions
economic value exclusively at the centre of the creative economy. Our
hope is that community practitioners and policy makers can see the pitfalls
of continued overreliance on economic tools, and look towards the alter-
native framework and constructs outlined here, which we believe have
stood up well, and would help remove constraints. To conceive of the
creative economy as a broader performance, and to deploy some of the
additional constructs outlined in this chapter, is to tap into an incalculably
large resource of ideas that can transform existing thinking, and tackle
existing deficits. Fundamentally, it requires thinking differently. Supported
by fellow thinkers, the conversations in this book help.
References
Archer, M. S. (1995). Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Barker, C. (2005). Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. London: Sage.
276 R. GRANGER

Studies, 39(1), 61–74.
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste.
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Bourdieu, P. (1996). The Rules of Art. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Broecke, S., & Nicholls, T. (2007). Ethnicity and Degree Attainment. DfES
Research Report No RW92. London: DUIS. Retrieved from http://webar-
chive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130401151715/http://www.education.
gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/RW92.pdf.
Brook, O., O’Brien, D., & Taylor, M. (2016). Panic. It’s an Art Emergency. Social
Class, Taste, and Inequalities in the Creative Industries. Report Funded by the
AHRC. Retrieved from http://createlondon.org/wp-content/
uploads/2018/04/Panic-Social-Class-Taste-and-Inequalities-in-the-Creative-
Industries1.pdf.
CIF. (2017). Creative Diversity. Creative Industries Federation. London: CIF.
Currid-Halkett, E. (2015). Trading Places: Auctions and the Rise of the Chinese
Art Market. In C. Jones, M. Lorenzen, & J. Sapsed (Eds.), Oxford Handbook
of Creative Industries (pp. 171–183). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
ECU. (2017). Equality in Higher Education: Statistical Report 2017. Equality
Challenge Unit.
Entwistle, J. (2005). The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress and Modern Social History.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Fine, G., & Hallett, T. (1979). Group Cultures and the Everyday Life of
Organizations: Interactions Orders and Meso-analysis. Organization Studies,
35(12), 1773–1792.
Foucault, M. (1969/1972). Archaeology of Knowledge (L’Archeologie du Savoir,
Gallimard). London: Tavistock.
HEFCE. (2013). Trends in Young Participation. Higher Education Empirical
Research Database, 1–37 http://www.hefce.ac.uk/media/hefce/content/
pubs/2013/201328/HEFCE_2013_28/pdf.
Lundvall, B.-A. (2002). Innovation Growth and Social Cohesion. London:
Edward Elgar.
Lury, C. (1996). Consumer Culture. Rutgers University Press.
Maguire, J. S., & Matthews, J. (2012). Are We All Cultural Intermediaries Now?
An Introduction to Cultural Intermediaries in Context. European Journal of
Cultural Studies, 15(5), 551–562.
Menger, P.-M. (2015). The Market for Creative Labour: Talent and Inequalities.
In C. Jones, M. Lorenzen, & J. Sapsed (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Creative
Industries. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Menotti, P. (2014). Videorec as Gameplay: Recording Playthroughs and Video
Game Engagement. Games as Art media Entertainment, 3(1), 81–92.
O’Brien, D., Laurison, D., Miles, A., & Friedman, S. (2016). Are the Creative
Industries Meritocratic? An Analysis of the 2014 British Labour Force Survey.
Journal of Cultural Trends, 25(2), 116–131.
(Eds.), Cultural Intermediaries Connecting Communities (pp. 119–132).
Policy Press.
Rokeach, M. (1968). Beliefs, Attitudes, and Values: A Theory of Organization and
Change. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Rokeach, M. (1973). The Nature of Human Values. London/New York: Free Press.
Taylor, M., & O’Brien, D. (2017). ‘Culture Is a Meritocracy’: Why Creative
Workers’ Attitudes May Reinforce Social Inequality. Sociological Research
Online, 22(4), 27–47.
University Press.
Index
A Bourdieu, P., 10, 67, 110, 151,

Accumulating, 274 157–160, 234, 244, 257, 259
Activism, 177–183, capital, 10, 244
187–191, 193–197 cultural value, 110
Aesthetic value, 110 Habitus, 10
Agency, 94, 95 social capital, 158–160
Agotime, West Africa, 111, 123 taste, 67
Anthropology, 98 Brand notoriety, 191–194
Artists, 182, 187, 191, 194–196 Brisbane, 3
Artivism, 179, 184
Arts, 21–27, 67–77, 79–83
Arts Council England (ACE), 21, 22, C
69, 71, 72 Cameron Coalition Government, 70
Asante Empire, 115, 116 Cape Breton, Canada, 131, 138,
Ashanti Region, West Africa, 141–144, 146
111, 111n1, 112 Caper, 142
Association for Business Sponsorship Capital, 85, 87–93, 100
of the Arts (ABSA), 70 Celebration, 124
Centre for Cultural Value (Leeds), 275
Charities, 188, 189
B Charities Aid Foundation, 71
Behaviours, 244, 245, 248 Charity, 71, 73–77
Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Circular Economy, 91
(BAME), 48, 50–53, 55, 56, 58–61 Cluster, 219, 225, 228, 236, 238

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37035-0
280 INDEX
Co-creation, 152 Degree attainment, 50, 52

Cognitive proximity, 170 Degrees, 47–61
Collective action, 143 Design, 85–95, 97–102, 110–112,
Commercialisation, 3, 5 114–116, 118, 120, 123–125
Community, 180–182, 184, 186–189, Design Council, 199–201
191, 193, 197 Design ownership, 213–214
Connecting, 274 DeVos (Institute of Art Management),
Constructs, 265–275 74, 76, 78–80
Consumption, 85–102, 243, 250, Digital, 244–247, 249
256, 258 Digital natives, 54
Converging, 274 Disindividualisation, 269
Copenhagen, Denmark, 152, 160–162 District Brand, 191–194
Copyrights, 210–213 Dress, 110, 111, 113, 117, 119–124
Cowries, 116, 116n3
Craft, 88, 93, 102
Creative city, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9 E
Creative Commons, 211 Economic value, 244, 247, 249,
Creative economy, 4–6, 8–15 251–252, 254, 255, 257–260
Creative Industries Policy and Impact Economy, 19–22, 24, 37
Centre, 275 Ecosystem, 218, 220, 223,
Cultivate, 72, 73, 78, 80 226, 228–231
Cultural capital, 88–92 Embodying, 273–274
Cultural district, 178–180, 188, 191, Emotions, 95, 100
192, 194–196 Entrepreneurship, 131–147
Cultural intermediaries, 233–238 Equality Challenge Unit
Cultural production/consumption, (ECU), 51, 56
183, 185 Exportation/exports, 111, 115
Cultural values, 22, 25, 30, 36, 37,
244, 247, 249, 252, 254–259
Cultural Value Scoping, 6 F
Culture, 132–137, 139, 141–146 Fabric, garment, 91, 102
utopia, 21, 23 Fashion, 109, 114, 116–121, 123–125
way of life, 21, 24 Fashion brands, 89, 97
Fast fashion, 92, 94–101
Festivals, 112–114, 120, 123, 124
D Flagships, 3
Dance, 141, 144 Flexicurity, 169
Data deficit, 219 Food, 139, 140
Definition, 265 Funding, 67–72, 75, 77, 79–83
culture, 20, 21, 23, 26, 30–32, 35 Furniture, 200, 207–209, 213
value, 6 Furniture design, 200, 207–209, 213
INDEX 281
G L
Gaming, 244, 245, 250, 256–258 Lab movement, 162–163
Generation X, 54 Languages, 21–23
Generation Z, 53, 54, 56 Leadership, 72–79
Gentrification, 178, 194 Leadership for the Future (2014–16),
Ghana, 109–118, 120–123 69, 72–79, 81, 82
Global economy, 4 Learning, 48, 54–58, 60, 61, 131,
Global Financial Crisis, 4 134, 135, 139, 153, 154, 157,
162–164, 166–168, 171
Lefebvre, 7
H Leicester, 219, 221–234, 236–238
Heritage, 183, 184, 186, 189 Leicester, UK, 131, 138–141, 146
Heritage Site (World), 186 Let’s Play (LP), 243
Hidden culture, 19–39 Local customs, 123
High culture, 180 Local patronage, 118, 119, 123
Localisation economies, 152,
155–156, 169
I Logo, 193, 194
Identity, 21–23, 32, 34, 36, 58–60, London, 3
89, 94, 110, 119–124, 178, 179, Low culture, 20, 33–35, 266
184, 187, 188, 192, 195 Lundvall, B.-A.
Idioculture, 133, 134 local codes, 266
Immaterial labour, 246
Individual creativity, 50–51, 57
Innovation, 115–118, 123–125, 131, M
132, 134–137, 139, 142, 143, 146, Machinima, 243, 246
152–157, 161, 162, 165, 167, 168, Made in Ouseburn, 194
170, 219–221, 225–228, 237 Maker mindset, 167, 168, 170, 171
Intellectual property (IP), 200, 209–214 Maker spaces, 152, 161–163, 165,
Inter/intra-operability Quotient, 166, 168, 169, 171
222, 222n4, 228 Manchester, 3
Intermediaries, 154, 157 Mapping, 218, 219, 221, 222,
Intrinsic value, 118, 121, 125 227, 236–238
Material capital and value, 89–90
Material culture, 34
J embodied meaning, 32–33
Jobs, 4, 5 Microculture, 131, 133–136, 139,
142, 145, 147
Millennium Product Status, 202
K Modding (modifying content), 245
Kente Cloth, 110–111, 114, 116, Mode 1 Knowledge, 229–230
122, 123 Monetary value, 49
Knowledge systems, 156, 158, 160 Monetisation, 249, 252, 258
282 INDEX
N Prosumption, 245, 247, 256, 259

Nationalism, 121 Public/merit good, 67–75, 77, 79–83
Neoliberalism, 5–7
NESTA, 218
Networks, 5, 8, 14, 217–238 Q
New Economic Geography (NEG), Quality control, 207, 208, 213
153, 217, 225, 226, 238
R
O Reinforcing, 273
Occasions, 110, 112, 115, Relational Analysis, 152, 237–238
118–124, 118n4 Remix Culture, 212
Oral history, 186 Resonating, 274
Ouseburn Futures, 182, 186 Revealing, 273
Ouseburn Trust, 177, 182, 186, Rituals, 119
189–190, 193–195 Rokeach, M., 48, 60, 61, 267
Ouseburn Valley, 177–180, 188–190, terminal value, 48, 60, 61, 267
193, 195, 196 Role models, 56, 58–60
Outdooring, 118, 118n4
S
P Sectionality, 133
Participation, 142, 143, 146 Seeing, 273
Performative utterance, 10 Signs and symbols, 7
Performing, 9–15 Silent design, 199–214
Performing value, 265–273 Single Regeneration Budget (SRB),
Phenomenology, 100–101 181, 182n1
Philanthropy, 67–83 Skills/training, 47, 49, 51,
Place-making, 131–147 54–58, 61
Place marketing, 191–194 Slavery, 28
Playbour (playing labour), 246–248, Slow fashion, 100
256, 258, 260 Social cohesion, 189, 197
Polanyi, 27 Socialisation, 257
tacit knowledge, 28 Social proximity, 220–221
Post-consumption rituals, 270 Social relationships, 119
Power, 20, 23, 25, 26, 28, 30–33, 35, Social value, 247, 252, 254–259
36, 90, 91, 97, 265–267, Societal worth, 266
269–273, 275 Spatial fix, 4
Power relations, 30–31 Standard Industrial Classification
Processes, 200, 208 (SIC), 218, 222
Production, 201, 202, 204, 210, 212 Students, 48, 50–61
Production and consumption, 5, 14 Subcultures, 20, 27, 33–35
INDEX 283
Subordinate design, 204 U

Subsidy, 67, 68, 70, 71, 74, UK design industry (British design),
79, 80 200–203, 213
Sustainability, 85–88, 92, 93, 98, 99, Underground, 217–238
101, 102 UNESCO, 180, 189, 195, 197
Sustaining, 274 University, 48, 50, 53, 58–60, 138, 139,
Symbol, 28, 32, 35 187, 218, 225–229, 232, 233, 238
Symbolic value, 247, 249, 251–254, Untraded interdependencies,
257, 259, 260 155–157, 238
Symbolism, 32, 36 Urban regeneration, 19
Synthetic knowledge, 28, 29 Urban renewal/revitalisation, 178,
180, 182, 192, 193, 195
T
Tacit and embodied V
knowledge, 93, 95 Valorisation, 8, 214
Tacit knowledge, 27–29, 31, 33, 39 Value for money, 47, 48
Tax, 70, 71, 79, 82 Visual arts, 23
Technology, 153, 154, 161, 170 Volta Region, West Africa, 111
Textile, 85–102
Textile production, 110–116, 120
Third space, 151–173 W
Throsby, 24, 26, 31 Waremaking, 206
symbolic value, 26 Wealth, 49, 51
Toffee Factory, 182–184, 186 West Africa, 110, 115–117, 119
Togo, 110, 115, 118, 120, 122 Working-learning-social
Triple Helix, 154–155, 226 nexus, 156–160
Tyne and Wear Development Work/labour, 244–247, 249, 250,
Corporation (TWDC), 252, 253, 256, 258
181, 182n1 World Intellectual Property Office
Types of design, 204 (WIPO), 209, 210, 212

PDF

Încărcat de

Informații document

Titlu original

Drepturi de autor

Formate disponibile

Partajați acest document

Partajați sau inserați document

Opțiuni de partajare

Vi se pare util acest document?

Este necorespunzător acest conținut?

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

PDF

Încărcat de

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN BUSINESS,

ARTS AND HUMANITIES

More information about this series at

ISSN 2662-1266 ISSN 2662-1274 (electronic)

Cover illustration: © Leigh Drummond (MONO) https://www.graffwerk.org

Part I Defining the Creative Economy Through Value 1

1 Exploring Value in the Creative and Cultural Industries 3

2 Problematising Hidden Culture 19

Part II The Creative Self 45

3 Defining Excellence: Value in Creative Degrees 47

4 Problematising Philanthropy in the UK Cultural Sector 67

5 Value Definition in Sustainable (Textiles) Production and

6 A Cloth to Wear: Value Embodied in Ghanaian Textiles109

Part III Collective Creative Spaces and Processes 129

7 Intercultural Entrepreneurship in Creative Place-Making131

8 Co-creative Third Space, Maker Space and Micro

9 Cultural and Creative Districts as Spaces for Value

10 Silent Design and the Business Value of Creative Ideas199

11 The Hidden Value of Underground Networks and

12 Value Transformation: From Online Community to

13 Conclusion: Value Constructs for the Creative Economy265

Pinky Bazaz is a senior lecturer in the School of Art and Design,

Tony Garry is a senior lecturer in the Department of Marketing,

teaches on critical and contextual studies on the Design Crafts,

David Rae is Professor of Enterprise at De Montfort University where he

Fig. 2.1 Hidden culture 38

Table 8.1 Analytical, synthetic and symbolic knowledge systems

Defining the Creative Economy

Exploring Value in the Creative and Cultural

© The Author(s) 2020 3

characterised as a period of creative consolidation in the UK and Australia,

Deficits in the Creative Discourse

the neoliberal form, reflecting both cities’ transition to ‘entrepreneurial

creative economy, which moves beyond the economy, and accordingly

Values in the Creative Economy

and relations, as well as valued patterns of behaviour, which govern these,

Viewing Creative Value Through

Recognising that the critiques of existing research on creative and cultural

informative spaces of contestation. These deficits highlight the failures of

models might advance. It therefore offers one way of resolving current

1. Performance as Doing—reflecting a technical undertaking such as a

In doing so, the use of performing as an underlying construct for this

• as a reflection of one’s own ideas and values (expressively)

It is my contention that theorising creative and cultural industries as

In Chap. 5, Claire Lerpiniere reflects on the consumption and produc-

O’Connor, J. (2015). Intermediaries and Imaginaries in the Cultural and Creative

Problematising Hidden Culture

L. Parsons • R. Granger (*)

© The Author(s) 2020 19

to a financial lens through which use of public resources is scrutinised. The

to culture and creative economy is a commonality in acknowledging one

1. culture as a way of life, pertaining to the beliefs, values, behaviours,

There is evidence of these three embodiments of culture in different

Homogenous Policy Approaches to Culture

­ resence of indigenous populations, ancient languages, and historic strug-

category of ­producers also points to the multidirectional influence of wider

• that activities concern some form of creativity in their production

Intellectual property in this context may be read as a cultural signifier:

Reaching a Cross-disciplinary Definition

The Emergence of Hidden Culture

which allow transfer of tacit knowledge, meaning that modes of transfer

Conceptualising Hidden Culture

Power Relations and Value Allocation

Part I Defining the Creative Economy Through Value 1

1 Exploring Value in the Creative and Cultural Industries 3

2 Problematising Hidden Culture 19

Part II The Creative Self 45

3 Defining Excellence: Value in Creative Degrees 47

4 Problematising Philanthropy in the UK Cultural Sector 67

5 Value Definition in Sustainable (Textiles) Production and

6 A Cloth to Wear: Value Embodied in Ghanaian Textiles109

Part III Collective Creative Spaces and Processes 129

7 Intercultural Entrepreneurship in Creative Place-Making131

8 Co-creative Third Space, Maker Space and Micro

9 Cultural and Creative Districts as Spaces for Value

10 Silent Design and the Business Value of Creative Ideas199

11 The Hidden Value of Underground Networks and

12 Value Transformation: From Online Community to

13 Conclusion: Value Constructs for the Creative Economy265

Fig. 2.1 Hidden culture 38

resence of indigenous populations, ancient languages, and historic strug-

category of producers also points to the multidirectional influence of wider

responsibilities. Privatisation of services meant taxes could be reduced,

e xpectation of reciprocated value: donation for personal satisfaction, how-

compare with education, philanthropists valued art with a personal or

production (Burke 2008, p. 58). However, responsible production would