The spectre of the creative industries: Andy gives paper at seminar in Leeds

On September 13th Andy presented a paper entitled : ‘The spectre of the creative industries’ , Cultural Policy Under New Labour AHRC seminar, Leeds University,

The theme of this provocation is the strategic absences and presences of scale in creative industries policy marking in the period of New Labour administration. These tensions were underpinned by a poorly articulated notion of the creative industries and policy. Ironically, perhaps the most fully implemented notion of policy for the creative industries was an instrumentalisation of the creative industries for social inclusion. From an external perspective what is read as post-1997 ‘creative industries policy’, is in fact pre-1997 ‘metropolitan cultural industries policy making’. The paper considers the promotion of the creative industries for exports (in a non-spatial, and non comparative framework)  but with a significant absence of analysis, or comprehension, of the global nature of cultural production chains, and the ensuing trade issues.

The seminar had a packed agenda. Which included not only Andy’s college Dave O’Brien, but recently departed colleage Prof Kate Oakley, plus past members of CCI,  Prof Sara Selwood and Prof Robert Hewison.

9.30 to 11: Session 1 – Assessing New Labour
Chair: Kate Oakley, University of Leeds

Clive Gray, University of Warwick
Cultural policy under New Labour: structural, behavioural and policy constraints

Jim McGuigan, Loughborough University
A jeremiad on New Labour’s neoliberal cultural policies

David Hesmondhalgh, University of Leeds
Were New Labour’s cultural policies neo-liberal?

11 to 11.30: Break

11.30 to 1: Session 2 – Creative Industries
Chair: Melissa Nisbett, King’s College London

Dave O’Brien, City University
‘Business as usual’ The UK and creative industries as industrial policy

Andy Pratt, King’s College London
Scaling the creative industries

David Lee, University of Leeds
Business as usual? Regional creative industries policymaking under New Labour

1 to 2: Lunch

2 to 3.30: Session 3 – Instrumentalism and Economism
Chair: David Hesmondhalgh, University of Leeds

Robert Hewison, Lancaster University
Creative Britain: the digressions of diversity

Eleonora Belfiore, University of Warwick
Cultural value, cultural policy and the ‘rhetoric of no alternative’

Kate Oakley, University of Leeds
The National Trust for talent? NESTA and New Labour’s cultural policy

3.30 to 4: Break

4 to 5.30: Session 4 – Inclusivity and Accessibility
Chair: David Lee, University of Leeds

Franco Bianchini, Leeds Metropolitan University
The experience of the New Labour governments (1997-2010) in the context of the British Labour Party’s tradition of arts policy-making since 1918: continuity or change?

Sara Selwood, independent consultant
Access for the many, not just the few

Leila Jancovich, Leeds Metropolitan University
New Labour’s ‘participation’ myth