The creative countryside: Policy and practice in the UK rural cultural economy

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Abstract

This paper explores emerging policymaking and research into rural creative industries, drawing on a case study from the county of Shropshire in the UK. It begins with a critique of existing creative industries policy, which is argued to focus almost exclusively on the urban as the site of creative work. The paper highlights an emerging body of critique of this neglect of the rural in cultural policy, which is matched by a neglect of the cultural in rural policy. Attention then turns to an investigation of the size, scope and characteristics of the creative sector in Shropshire, with findings based on a consultancy report commissioned by public sector actors keen to highlight and promote the county's creative work. This material is used to illustrate some of the distinctive issues facing the UK rural creative sector, which current policy is ill-equipped to address. The paper ends by reflecting these findings back to the broader academic and policy contexts.

Introduction

Over the past decade, fostering, celebrating, maintaining, theorizing and measuring ‘The Creative City’ has been the focus of a large volume of policy and academic publication, conferences and workshops. This agenda has emerged in parallel with urban and regional creative industries development initiatives seeking to achieve post-industrial economic growth and cultural vitality in cities throughout Europe, Australia, Canada, Singapore, the USA, New Zealand, and more recently in Africa, China and Latin America (see for example, Barrowclough and Kozul-Wright, 2008, Cunningham, 2004, Fleming, 1999 Florida, 2002, Florida, 2005, Jayne, 2005, Landry, 2000, Uricchio, 2003; Volkering, 2001). The vast majority of this academic research and policy intervention has focused on certain forms of urban activity, labelling these as essential to the working of the creative economy, and as necessary preconditions for fostering creativity (Florida, 2002, Florida, 2005, Landry, 2000).

A small number of academic and policy interventions beyond metropolitan centres has nonetheless begun to consider the rural creative economy. In particular, academic research has focused on the role of crafts in rural economic development in the UK (Collins, 2004, Dormer, 1997, Livingston, 2002; McAuley and Fillis, 2005, Paulsen and Staggs, 2005); considered the lives of artists in rural Canada (Bunting and Mitchell, 2001); sought to measure the impact of popular music and rural festivals in Australia (Gibson, 2002; Luckman et al., 2009); and begun to unpack what constitutes the symbolic and cultural economy of rurality in Norway and the UK (Floysand and Jakobsen, 2007, Kneafsey et al., 2001). In a similar vein, policy and consultancy reports in the UK have signalled the importance of arts and crafts to rural competitiveness (Collins, 2004, Crafts Council, 2005; Hunter, 2006; Lister, 2004; Matarasso, 2002, Matarasso, 2004, Matarasso, 2005), and championed the potential of rural creative industries in contributing to local and regional development strategies (Arts Council England). This work has emerged alongside programmes initiated by local authorities and regional development agencies in the UK, which are focused on rural creative industries development strategies.1

In this paper we engage with this rural creative industries agenda, which implicitly or explicitly seeks to move away from a seemingly ubiquitous focus on ‘buzzy’ or ‘edgy’ urban neighbourhoods. We highlight the imperative for theoretical and methodological understanding as well as policy interventions that are responsive to the particular characteristics of ‘the creative countryside’. We begin by reviewing previous engagement with rural creativity and then present findings from empirical research undertaken in Shropshire, a county in mid-west England. While the paper is focused on the UK, we draw on studies undertaken elsewhere to discuss the current and potential policy and academic agenda on rural creativity (Bunting and Mitchell, 2001, Cunningham, 2004, Gibson, 2002, Jayne, 2005; Luckman et al., 2009, Volkering, 2001).

In particular, and in the context of calls to consider both the complex nature of the sectors that make up the creative industries (Markusen, 2006) and the ‘placing’ of the creative economy (Ratinsi et al., 2006), we argue the need to consider ‘the countryside’ as a place where the creative economy is differently manifested and articulated from the now standard ‘creative script’ based on cities. In doing so we highlight tensions and issues bound up with recent attempts to overlay ‘urban’ creative industries development agendas onto longstanding ‘rural’ policy interventions focused on particular creative sectors (such as crafts or art and antiques). We identify a key tension around ideas about the rural as a site for particular forms of creative work, often embedded in notions of the rural idyll. The paper builds on debates about rural restructuring in order to highlight complex relationships between ‘creativity’ and ‘countryside’, and highlights the heterogeneity of and relations between the sectors that make up the rural creative economy (Atterton, 2007, Floysand and Jakobsen, 2007, Hoey, 2005, Woods, 2005). Through reflection on research carried out in Shropshire, UK, we highlight policy and research questions and seek recommendations to enhance interventions into the sector.

Section snippets

Beyond the creative city

Urban-based creative industries policy has become a key strategy in addressing the economic (and latterly social) malaises afflicting de-industrialized cities and city spaces, with attention focused on attracting, nurturing and retaining creative practitioners in cities. From Landry's The Creative City (2002) to Florida’s The Rise of the Creative Class (2002) and The Creative Class and the City (2005), confirmation the role of ‘creatives’ as saviours of cities has become almost ubiquitous.

The Shropshire study

The English county of Shropshire is just one of the rural areas in the UK that has begun to develop a creative industries agenda, emerging out of and alongside an ‘arts and crafts’ policy tradition. The research presented in this paper was commissioned by Shropshire County Council and Telford & Wrekin Council, and funded by the regional development agency, Advantage West Midlands (AWM). Fieldwork was undertaken in 2003–2004 and the findings published in 2005 (CTU, 2005). The research brief was

Conclusion: rethinking the rural creative economy

Creative industries development continues to be a cornerstone of UK policy, despite concerns that too much emphasis has been placed on the ability of this sector to ‘solve’ a growing number of ‘problems’, including those of the current economic crisis (Banks and O'Connor, 2009, Pratt, 2009). Enshrined in central government policy via the DCMS, and wedded to New Labour's desire to promote ‘creative Britain’, the past decade has seen creative industries policy developed and rolled out, mainly

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all members of the CTU team who were involved in the research upon which this paper is based, Shropshire County Council and Advantage West Midlands for funding the study, and Paul Cloke and three anonymous referees for their helpful comments. Previous versions of this paper were presented at the Universities of Exeter in Cornwall and Manchester, and we are grateful to our hosts for their comments, too.

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