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| Id | 205 | |
| Author | Walmsley, B., | |
| Title | Deep hanging out in the arts: an anthropological approach to capturing cultural value | |
| Reference | Walmsley, B. (2018). Deep hanging out in the arts: an anthropological approach to capturing cultural value, International Journal of Cultural Policy, 24(2): 272-291. DOI: 10.1080/10286632.2016.1153081 |
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| Link to article | https://doi.org/10.1080/10286632.2016.1153081 |
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| Abstract | This article presents the findings of an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project carried out from September 2013 to March 2014 by five researchers at the University of Leeds (UK), who paired off with five audience-participants and engaged in a process of ‘deep hanging out’ at events curated as part of Leeds’ annual LoveArts festival. As part of AHRC’s Cultural Value project, the overarching aim of the research was to produce a rich, polyvocal, evocative and complex account of cultural value by co-investigating arts engagement with audience–participants. Findings suggested that both the methods and purpose of knowing about cultural value impact significantly on any exploration of cultural experience. Fieldwork culminated in the apparent paradox that we know, and yet still don’t seem to know, the value and impact of the arts. Protracted discussions with the participants suggested that this paradox stemmed from a misplaced focus on knowledge; that instead of striving to understand and rationalize the value of the arts, we should instead aim to feel and experience it. During a process of deep hanging out, our participants revealed the limitations of language in capturing the value of the arts, yet confirmed perceptions of the arts as a vehicle for developing self-identity and expression and for living a better life. These findings suggest that the Cultural Value debate needs to be reframed from what is currently an interminable epistemological obsession (that seeks to prove and evidence the value of culture) into a more complex phenomenological question, which asks how people experience the arts and culture and why people want to understand its value. This in turn implies a re-conceptualization of the relationships between artists or arts organisations and their publics, based on a more relational form of engagement and on a more anthropological approach to capturing and co-creating cultural value. |
Deep hanging out in the arts: an anthropological approach to capturing cultural value. however even cultural economists such as throsby con- tend that certain expressions of cultural value transcend valuation as they are rooted in shared social experiences while holden rightly notes that the intrinsic impacts of the arts belong to the immensurable realms of emotion and even spiritu- ality. within the overarching method of deep hanging out the post-event conversations that took place between the academic researchers and the co-researchers during and after the lovearts festival played a signicant role and enabled the former group to qualify deep hanging out and situate it within the context of the arts. reecting ehrenreichs call for collective participation in the arts he also feels that the arts can act as an antidote and alternative to the individu- alised way of living prevalent in many western societies. as one of our arts partners pointed out we already know the generic value of culture and the arts: it has been evidenced time and again in myriad studies many of which have been referenced in this paper.
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