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Articles

Practices of hope: care, narrative and cultural democracy

Received 27 Aug 2019
Accepted 04 Dec 2019
Published online: 10 Dec 2019
 
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This article contributes to debates regarding the fundamental aims of cultural policy. It argues that hope is central to political imagination, and that competing hopes need to be addressed within discussions of what cultural policy is ultimately seeking to achieve. In doing so, the paper suggests the distinctive role that cultural policy can play in responding to a ‘populist moment’. It begins with a case study of young people’s cultural opportunities in one London borough, demonstrating the significance of practices of care. Care enables people to narrate their lives, and to experience that their actions matter. Drawing on this case study and a survey of literature on hope, the second section shows that practices of care and creative self-narration support individual and collective hope. The third section argues that addressing the conditions that enable ‘democratic hope’ is an important step in theorizing and realizing cultural democracy as a normative framework for cultural policy. The paper concludes by suggesting that at a time of populist ‘anti-politics’, cultural policy can enable conditions of democratic hope at multiple scales: from supporting practices of care and self-narration within specific projects, to helping rearticulate the public narratives that structure political possibility.

Additional information

Author information

Jonathan Gross

Dr Jonathan Gross is a Research Fellow and Teaching Fellow in the department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries, King’s College London, where his research addresses questions of cultural policy, politics and participation.

Funding

The research project from which the case study is drawn, The Cultural Learning Ecology in Harrow, was funded by A New Direction.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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