Andy gives a seminar at Cambridge

Porf Andy Pratt gave a seminar in the Department of Architecture and the History of Art, who are hosting the City Seminar Series (on March 1st). Andy gave a paper called Resilience and the urban cultural economy. The paper was based upon one published recently in City, Culture and Society, and a paper that Andy is developing for a special issue of European Planning Studies. This is a strand of work where Andy is exploring themes of governance, cities and the cultural economy

The aim of this paper was to question the normative interpretations of resilience as they apply to the local cultural economy. The paper had three sections, the first sets out the received notion of resilience that is atomistic and closed (Mode A), and contrasts it with another version (Mode B) which is social and open. The second section reviews some of the important characteristics of the cultural economy and indicates why it is particularly sensitive to local embedding. The third section contrasts resilience informed policy frameworks of Mode A and Mode B. The paper concluded that a form of local capacity building applied to the particularities of the cultural economy, and place, offer a more productive strategy for resilience.