Research Article

“Share, take part, give part, have part, become part, be part!”
Impositions of a Cultural Policy Objective in Switzerland

Stefan Koslowski

2024

Resiliency in the Cultural Sector
Journal of Cultural Management and Cultural Policy 2024

P. 33–55

DOI: 10.14361/zkmm-2024-0203

Language: German

Abstract

From a federal policy perspective, this essay traces the rise of the cultural policy objective of ‘cultural participation’ over the last ten years in culturally federalised Switzerland. It is not only about cultural participation in current artistic creation and in cultural institutions, but also about participation in tangible and intangible cultural heritage. In retrospect, the call for as many people as possible to participate in cultural life appears to be both a necessary and unavoidable reaction of cultural policy, creative artists, cultural institutions and cultural organisations to the tectonic shifts in society and culture. For some time now, cultural policy and cultural funding can no longer be based on an understanding of what ‘culture’ is that is shared by society as a whole. Cultural promotion must also open up not only to dialogue with other policy and funding areas, but also to joint funding measures. Negotiation processes and resistance line the path into this new cultural policy territory. The essay thus draws an interim balance of an effective cultural policy objective, records important milestones and discussion points in its establishment and, last but not least, makes a contribution to the—at least in Switzerland— neglected historiography of cultural policy.

Keywords

2024 (2)
Resiliency in the Cultural Sector

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