Norms and Storms in Cultural Participation: A Conversation Between Leila Jancovich and Alice Borchi

Abstract

AB: Thank you so much for agreeing to have this conversation with me, Leila. The first thing I’d like to discuss with you is around the norms of participation – what we might consider the implicit rules of participation in the context of culture.

LJ: There are so many different meanings of participation, in so many different contexts, that it’s quite hard to say whose norms or rules we are talking about. In my research I have argued that the word risks becoming meaningless because of its ubiquitous use (Jancovich, 2015). But in terms of political science theories, which is what I draw from, participation is about having the power to influence change (Bevir and Rhodes 2010). So participation should be about breaking norms, not reinforcing them.

But of course that’s not the definition that’s commonly used in the cultural sector, where “participation” often means “taking part” in something that’s being created for you, rather than shaping it (DCMS 2023). So in the cultural sector it is often about “fitting in” to social norms. This of course varies across the sector: cultural participation can also be about, as Nora Sternfeld (2013) said, “having the ability to change the rules of the game.” So even that question – “What are the norms?” – it depends for whom.

For participatory artists, their norm might be to direct the experience and retain authorship, and the participants might be their props, whereas for the socially engaged or community artist, the norm might be about the participants having agency and some control over the content itself. But in both cases, the norm is to start with artists, who then reach out to find participants to engage with. What if the new norm was to fund communities to decide what kind of cultural offer they want?