The Importance of Culture for Communities

When we talk about culture in relation to development and social issues, we often get fixated on the negatives. We have so many discussions about harmful traditions practices and social norms, culture becomes this obstacle to creating a more just world. In my opinion, the idea of access to cultural resources as a strategy for empowering vulnerable and marginalised groups has a lot more scope for achieving positive results for people that has currently been explored.  

This is why I want to work in museums and in the arts - the potential is there to make life changing differences to communities if culture is harnessed in the right way. 

One such project I read about recently is the Vale Cultura, a $20 a month allowance for the lowest income citizens to spend on something cultural. This article in the Washington Post gives a case study of a recipient who will use the money to buy a book to read on her daily commute. The idea behind it? That incorporating books, films, dance, theatre etc into your daily life can improve your well being, is a form of education, and can ultimately help people out of poverty. It will be interesting to see an evaluation of its impact after it has been in place for a while. My concern with this is how it encourages a consumer culture and places a monetary value on the good it can deliver. I don't know the cultural policies of Brazil in detail, but I would place importance on delivering opportunities and activities without monetary association to ensure sustainable cultural institutions.

Arts and culture avital to communities the world over and I am excited by projects in the UK, like The Arts Councils "Creative People and Places" programme trying to increase arts engagement in some of the least engaged areas for the country. My partner works on one of these projects and whilst she faces many challenges in bringing the arts to these rural communities, I keep my fingers crossed for a way to make the project sustainable and for its impact and implementation to outlive the relatively short three years of funding the project has.

A few miles further south, in my home town of Peterborough, I have growing concern at the provision of arts and culture, though with a small hope for the future. A few years ago the city council handed over the responsibility for running their mandated culture and leisure services to an independent charitable trust Vivacity. The trust is given a stipend/grant/budget from the council to go towards the services they have to provide and the idea is that as a charitable trust they are more securely positioned to obtain additional funding to delivery beyond this necessary provision. In their creation they picked up the running of other heritage facilities in the city - Flag Fen which was previous run by its own charitable trust and was facing major financial difficulties, and Longthorpe Tower from English Heritage. Vivacity now run these heritage sites plus the city museum, all the libraries, two theatres, half a dozen gym and sport facilities and a programme of festivals throughout the year. This provision sounds extensive, but it is the monopoly that scares me - particularly the libraries. 

Having not lived in the city for a year, I came back and decided to head to the city's central library to pick out some books for my upcoming holiday. 12.30pmon a Thursday and I walked up to the doors and nearly walked right into them as they didn't open. I looked around perplexed at the five or so other people milling around and one guy perched on the bicycle rack said "you're about the 10th person who has done that, it's not open till 1". Oh so they close for lunch now? I asked. But no, on a Thursday they don't open until 1pm. I was miffed at the inconvenience and also disappointed that a resource I've been able to use at my convenience since before I could read wasn't as accessible as I was used to. 

I took to Twitter when I got home and the Vivacity libraries account informed me that it was due to government cuts and they did a consultation. What jarred with me particularly about this is that by becoming an independant charitable trust, that was meant to be a buffer to the government cuts. They're not a council - yes that's their major funder, but why not think creatively, use library spaces for other services to and keep the resource open the hours expected. On Monday I returned to get my books and discovered they'd closed a whole floor of the building. I'd like to know where the books have gone as they're definitely wasn't a full two floors now crammed into one. 

Yes I may be blowing this out of proportion based on the extremely lack of cultural services elsewhere, but I think it is a slippery slope. If they can cut the opening times by 10-20% and only give government cuts as a reason, if we swallow this answer at face value, we may lose our libraries little by little. As a small child, I would go on trips to our local library in Dogsthorpe, or special big trips to the Central Library in the city centre to pick out books. As a teenager I would cycle into town to go to the library. It was where I first scanned through Naomi Klein's 'No Logo' after a geography project on sweatshops. It played an integral part in shaping my love of learning.

The problem here is two fold. We cannot stand for cuts to services that are so vital to the well being of communities. Libraries, museums and the arts aren't something you can solely rely on a capitalist market or the voluntary 'big society' to create and provide. We also can remain silent when our institutions that were established to provide these community services without the risks being solely run by local government are tokenistic in consulting with the communities they serve. It's not about being open at the least inconvenient hours for the community, it needs to be about finding the means to fund themselves to be as accessible as possible - there are programmes out there, there is funding out there. Don't just roll over and accept governement cuts to culture - else our communities will suffer.