Policies and Governance Models for Urban Cultural Commons
* Report: Policy Analysis and Policy Recommendations. Cultural and Creative Cities. Creative Industry Kosice, 2020
URL = https://www.spacesandcities.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/policy-final_3-2-ok.pdf
Towards Homes of Commons
"This report is the outcome of the Cultural and Creative Cities (CCSC) project, which is a policy project co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union and managed by a consortium of eleven non-profit and public organisations. Seven Urban Labs based in seven European cities form the core of the project. Bringing together non-governmental cultural organisations and local/regional authorities, they address local challenges and find participatory and commoning solutions to them."
Discussion
"Rethinking the relationship between cultural centres and public authorities
Earlier policy projects, such as the Culture for Cities and Regions (CCR), recommended that municipalities should shift their role towards that of facilitators. The CCR, for example, recommended that cities act as a trusted partner and facilitator. This idea is echoed in the Partnership on Culture and Cultural Heritage, suggesting a shift of the government citizens model towards a provider-customer model (CCR 2017, 39).
However, the CCSC analysis of previous projects and policies highlights how such trends carry the risk of vagueness and undifferentiated uses. From different projects, “we can see that such policies can be mobilized for very different aims and have vastly different expressions in diverse contexts. Interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral collaboration is recommended by all projects, but without being grounded in notions of social justice, democracy, and the commons, this buzzword becomes quite hollow” (Iossifidis 2020, 39–40). Attentive to the risks elucidated above, the CCSC partners worked on bridging the gap between policy-makers and cultural actors. The overall objective is to understand policymaking as an ecosystem in which cultural representatives and public servants come together and work in non-competitive, horizontal, and collaborative ways to provide solutions to urban problems. As in an ecosystem, every actor has a role which is in balance with those of others."
Toolkit and prototyping Homes of Commons:
"The same vision of collaboration and participation was at the heart of the collective exercises of the toolkit and the prototyping of Homes of Commons. With a willingness to go beyond the conceptualisation of the toolkit as a mere collection of best practices, the CCSC toolkit supports organisations at the local level in self-recognising themselves as commons, while the prototyping accompanies them in working towards collaborative organisation models."
More information
- Downloadable policy conclusions: https://www.spacesandcities.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/policy-final_3-2-ok.pdf
Includes:
/ Urban Commons: an Alternative Model for Cultural Centres / 40 / Local Participation: How to Make it Meaningful? / 47 / New Visions of Decision-making: Homes of Commons / 54