Jutta Virolainen - Participatory turn in cultural policy?
Virolainen, J. (2016). Participatory turn in cultural policy? An analysis of the concept of cultural participation in Finnish cultural policy, Nordisk kulturpolitisk tidsskrift, 19(1): 59–77.
Virolainen’s article critically examines the concept of cultural participation and its role in contemporary cultural policy. Its empirical part analyses Finnish cultural policy documents, but it also contains a wider literature review.
The article is particularly interesting in that it provides a good overview of the processes related to the development of the idea of cultural participation since its beginnings in the cultural policies of the 1960s and 1970s. It helps the reader to understand a shift of the cultural policy priorities from education through experience to participation, in the context of a gradual transformation of the welfare state into a competition state.
The participatory turn in various national policies is described as aiming to enhance citizens’ participation in political decision-making by introducing new ways to take part in democracy. Some of the contradictions arising in this process in the cultural field are discussed in more detail based on the Finnish example. The resulting typology of the main elements that construct the idea of cultural participation is particularly relevant for reviewing Nordic cultural policies but can also be applied in a wider European context.
Virolainen “Participatory turn in cultural policy? An analysis of the concept of cultural participation in Finnish cultural policy”