Cultural production: Diversity, equality and exclusion

The dominant cultural policy narrative surrounding questions of ‘access’ and ‘inclusion’ has tended to focus on cultural consumption. Having recognised that audiences for certain types of cultural organisation are skewed towards the most affluent, educated and least diverse portion of the population, numerous researchers have attempted to evaluate and influence the manner in which this apparent inequality might be addressed. However, research has also pointed to inequalities within the field of cultural labour and yet far less appears to have been done with regards to these findings. As such, it continues to be the case that “/the voices, experiences and talents of the UK’s population as a whole are not being expressed, represented or developed within the Cultural and Creative Industries/” (Warwick Commission, 2015). This has social, economic and cultural consequences, not least because patterns of success with regards to who undertakes ‘professional’ cultural production are inevitably linked to patterns of cultural consumption and the associated systems of social structuring.

However, debates about inequitable access to the means of professional cultural production have begun to gain greater prominence beyond the plane of academia. Discussions about how some are excluded from careers in the creative and cultural industries are increasingly focused on questions of class, gender, ethnicity and disability. As O’Brien and Oakley (2015) have noted “/what has long been apparent to scholars in the field – that the cultural industries are less ethnically diverse, more male and skewed towards those of a higher socio-economic background than most other parts of the economy – seem[s] to have become, at least briefly, news.”/

In August, Edinburgh plays host to the Edinburgh Festivals, collectively one of the largest arts festivals in the world. The city is filled with creative practitioners and many of them are hoping that the Edinburgh festivals will offer a route into a sustainable professional career in the arts, and are willing take significant risks as they attempt to achieve their aspirations. The presence of such activity makes Edinburgh in August the ideal location at which to discuss questions of inequality in cultural production. Therefore, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh will host a one day colloquium to bring together academics currently conducting research in this area, and those who are attempting to address such inequalities in practice. As such, we are issuing a call for papers from those whose research addresses this theme.