Plural Values of Culture in Europe

In recent years, the plurality of values of culture has been increasingly recognized in practical, academic, and policymaking contexts. Beyond its traditional intrinsic values – linked to aesthetics, authenticity, and excellence – its capacity to contribute to well-being, to promote identity and belonging as well as tolerance and inclusiveness, to stimulate creativity, and to foster innovation are ever more acknowledged by a great variety of social actors. However, an economy- and market-oriented perspective has come to dominate the administrative and managerial discourse on cultural valuation for a few decades. This has resulted in a predominance of an approach to valuing culture that is expressed exclusively in terms of its economic impact, obscuring other values of culture. The European research project UNCHARTED has tried to counteract this predominance by providing a broader vision of the societal value of culture in the European context and by applying this alternative view to some of the most relevant areas in which cultural valuation impinges on cultural management and cultural policy today. This book presents its main results.

Based on a pragmatist perspective, we have carried out an extensive multiple case study (65 cases in seven countries) that considers the multiplicity of agents who participate in cultural valuation processes (citizens, professionals of creation and preservation, experts and politicians) and the diversity of evaluative practices in which they engage within three main areas: the field of cultural participation; the field of cultural production and heritage; and the field of cultural administration. The book shows the irreducible plurality of the values of culture, the characteristic complexity of the dynamics of valuation and evaluation in the cultural sphere, and the current shortcomings and possible improvements in institutional processes of cultural evaluation. It is essential reading for cultural professionals, policymakers, and scholars of culture.