Vice Chancellor’s Seminar – The Globalised Cultural Economy: Decolonising Research, Ideology and Policy

The rise of the cultural and creative industries as a public policy concern has been one of the significant developments of the twenty-first century, but too much of the analysis has been focused on the West. The book Global Cultural Economy, by Christiaan De Beukelaer and Kim-Marie Spence emerged from the desire to tell different stories, and to think about the evolution of the cultural economy in a truly global perspective. Drawing on their multi-sited research experience, the book explores a variety of examples, including nepotism in Bollywood to the national standing of Jamaican Dancehall, the emergent music industry of Ghana to the economics of K-Pop, and make a significant contribution to the decolonising of the cultural economy, in theory and practice.

In this talk, Christiaan De Beukelaer will discuss two significant elements of the book in depth. First, he explains why Global Cultural Economy speaks of the “global”, the “cultural” and the “economy” rather than localised creative industries. In doing so, he explains how the book aims to theoretically and methodologically re-framing conversations on cultural and creative industries through non-Western practices. Second, he makes the case that because the cultural economy comes in many shapes and forms, it also comes with different ideological and theoretical underpinnings, that often remain unspoken. The authors have proposed five different perspectives that can help artists, researchers, policy-makers, students, and politicians to better understand existing biases. These are celebratory, aspirational, agnostic, refusenik, and reflective perspectives. These perspectives are crucial tools to recognise bias and ideology in cultural industries policy, research, and advocacy. And recognising bias and ideology is essential if we want to make informed decisions.