Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action – serie

This book investigates whether, how and where the cultural milieu of European societies has changed as a result of the socio-economics crisis. To do so, it adopts a psycho-cultural approach, which views the cultural milieu as a set of meanings, placing the generalized image social actors have of themselves, the world, events and their relationships in the context of the socio-political and institutional environment, including policies. By analyzing the changes in cultural milieu and social identity, the book develops strategic and methodological guidelines for the design of post-crisis policies, providing a concept of how the cultural dynamics are associated with certain individual characteristics and specific socio-economic phenomena.

This book investigates whether, how and where the cultural milieu of European societies has changed as a result of the socio-economics crisis. To do so, it adopts a psycho-cultural approach, which views the cultural milieu as a set of meanings, placing the generalized image social actors have of themselves, the world, events and their relationships in the context of the socio-political and institutional environment, including policies. By analyzing the changes in cultural milieu and social identity, the book develops strategic and methodological guidelines for the design of post-crisis policies, providing a concept of how the cultural dynamics are associated with certain individual characteristics and specific socio-economic phenomena.

This book presents the main findings of an empirical exploration of media discourses on social representations of “otherness” in seven European countries. It focuses on the analysis of press discourses produced over a fifteen-year period (2000–2015) on three contemporary figures of otherness that challenge the identity of European societies, question the attitudes towards diversity, and pose significant challenges for policy-makers: immigration, Islam, and LGBT. The book provides a comprehensive and articulate map of how national media addresses such themes from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives, revealing patterns of continuity and discontinuity across time and space. Lastly, it discusses these patterns in the light of their cultural meanings and their influence on social and political collective behaviours.

This book presents the main findings of an empirical exploration of media discourses on social representations of “otherness” in seven European countries. It focuses on the analysis of press discourses produced over a fifteen-year period (2000–2015) on three contemporary figures of otherness that challenge the identity of European societies, question the attitudes towards diversity, and pose significant challenges for policy-makers: immigration, Islam, and LGBT. The book provides a comprehensive and articulate map of how national media addresses such themes from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives, revealing patterns of continuity and discontinuity across time and space. Lastly, it discusses these patterns in the light of their cultural meanings and their influence on social and political collective behaviours.

This book advances the understanding and modelling of sensemaking and cultural processes as being crucial to the scientific study of contemporary complex societies. It outlines a dynamic, processual conception of culture and a general view of the role of cultural dynamics in policy-making, drawing three significant methodological implications: pluralism, performativity, and semiotic capital. It focuses on the theoretical and methodological aspects of the analysis of culture and its dynamics that could be applied to the developing of policymaking and, in general, to the understanding of social phenomena. It draws from the experience and data of a large-scale project, RECRIRE, funded by the H2020 program that mapped the symbolic universes across Europe after the economic crisis. It further develops the relationship between culture and policy-making discussed in two previous volumes in this series, and constitutes the ideal third and final element of this trilogy. The book is a usefultool for academics involved in studying cultural dynamics and for policy-oriented researchers and decision-makers attentive to the cultural dimensions of the design, implementation and reception of public policies.

This book advances the understanding and modelling of sensemaking and cultural processes as being crucial to the scientific study of contemporary complex societies. It outlines a dynamic, processual conception of culture and a general view of the role of cultural dynamics in policy-making, drawing three significant methodological implications: pluralism, performativity, and semiotic capital. It focuses on the theoretical and methodological aspects of the analysis of culture and its dynamics that could be applied to the developing of policymaking and, in general, to the understanding of social phenomena. It draws from the experience and data of a large-scale project, RECRIRE, funded by the H2020 program that mapped the symbolic universes across Europe after the economic crisis. It further develops the relationship between culture and policy-making discussed in two previous volumes in this series, and constitutes the ideal third and final element of this trilogy. The book is a usefultool for academics involved in studying cultural dynamics and for policy-oriented researchers and decision-makers attentive to the cultural dimensions of the design, implementation and reception of public policies.

This book is an important contribution to narrative research and highlights how narratives can produce social change. The author demonstrates this through an analysis of concepts like future, uncertainty and risk, both in terms of individual impact and as collective forms of social life. The book reconstructs the relationships between future, uncertainty and risk through everyday how narratives exert power over individual and social life by influencing individual or collective decisions and choices. Narratives also change future prospects, thus producing social change. Some of the examples the author draws out for discussion are - in specific - the narration of the migration flows in the Mediterranean Sea, and the narration of the pandemic emergency from COVID-19. The result of different narratives has been the emergence of new ideologies and of a complex series of dynamics in which the local ends up becoming global and vice versa. Highly topical and interdisciplinary in its approach, this book is of interest to researchers and students of the sociology of culture and communication, media and communication studies, social and cultural psychology and cultural anthropology.

This book is an important contribution to narrative research and highlights how narratives can produce social change. The author demonstrates this through an analysis of concepts like future, uncertainty and risk, both in terms of individual impact and as collective forms of social life. The book reconstructs the relationships between future, uncertainty and risk through everyday how narratives exert power over individual and social life by influencing individual or collective decisions and choices. Narratives also change future prospects, thus producing social change. Some of the examples the author draws out for discussion are - in specific - the narration of the migration flows in the Mediterranean Sea, and the narration of the pandemic emergency from COVID-19. The result of different narratives has been the emergence of new ideologies and of a complex series of dynamics in which the local ends up becoming global and vice versa. Highly topical and interdisciplinary in its approach, this book is of interest to researchers and students of the sociology of culture and communication, media and communication studies, social and cultural psychology and cultural anthropology.

This book provides qualitative analyses of intercultural sense making in a variety of institutional contexts. It relies on the assumption that in an increasingly culturally diverse world, individuals often enter contexts that have communal, historically determined and stable sets of values, norms and expected identities, with little cultural compass to find their bearings in them. The book goes beyond interpreting differences in people’s ethnic or linguistic roots and discusses instead people’s interpretive efforts to navigate different sociocultural situations. The contributors examine such situations in educational, organizational, medical and community settings and look at how participants with different levels of sociocultural competences (such as, migrant patients, migrant adult learners, children) try to cope with institutional constraints and expectations, how they understand symbols, practices and identities in institutional contexts,and how their creative adjustments come to light. This book provides insights from the fields of psychology, education, anthropology and linguistics, and is for a wide readership interested in cultural meaning-making.

This book provides qualitative analyses of intercultural sense making in a variety of institutional contexts. It relies on the assumption that in an increasingly culturally diverse world, individuals often enter contexts that have communal, historically determined and stable sets of values, norms and expected identities, with little cultural compass to find their bearings in them. The book goes beyond interpreting differences in people’s ethnic or linguistic roots and discusses instead people’s interpretive efforts to navigate different sociocultural situations. The contributors examine such situations in educational, organizational, medical and community settings and look at how participants with different levels of sociocultural competences (such as, migrant patients, migrant adult learners, children) try to cope with institutional constraints and expectations, how they understand symbols, practices and identities in institutional contexts,and how their creative adjustments come to light. This book provides insights from the fields of psychology, education, anthropology and linguistics, and is for a wide readership interested in cultural meaning-making.

This volume develops a theoretical framework for the modelling of meaning-making and cultural processes as crucial to the scientific study of contemporary complex societies. It focuses on the methodological and empirical aspects of the analysis of culture and its dynamics that could be applied to policymaking and to the understanding of social phenomena. It covers culture-based segmentation, ad hoc survey instruments like the VOC and PROSERV questionnaires, discourse flow analysis, the Homogenization of Classification Functions Measurement, and others. It also presents a detailed discussion of the methodology of cultural analysis in contexts of health and education. The volume showcases a top-down approach by including quantitative methods and/or automatized or semi-automatized procedures, and at the same time supports a hermeneutic, bottom-up, abductive approach, focused on the situated dynamics of meaning-making. It provides insights from cultural studies, socialstatistics, social policy, and research methodology in the social sciences. This is a useful resource for academics involved in studying cultural dynamics and for policy-oriented researchers and decision-makers who are interested in cultural dimensions of the design, implementation and reception of public policies.

This volume develops a theoretical framework for the modelling of meaning-making and cultural processes as crucial to the scientific study of contemporary complex societies. It focuses on the methodological and empirical aspects of the analysis of culture and its dynamics that could be applied to policymaking and to the understanding of social phenomena. It covers culture-based segmentation, ad hoc survey instruments like the VOC and PROSERV questionnaires, discourse flow analysis, the Homogenization of Classification Functions Measurement, and others. It also presents a detailed discussion of the methodology of cultural analysis in contexts of health and education. The volume showcases a top-down approach by including quantitative methods and/or automatized or semi-automatized procedures, and at the same time supports a hermeneutic, bottom-up, abductive approach, focused on the situated dynamics of meaning-making. It provides insights from cultural studies, socialstatistics, social policy, and research methodology in the social sciences. This is a useful resource for academics involved in studying cultural dynamics and for policy-oriented researchers and decision-makers who are interested in cultural dimensions of the design, implementation and reception of public policies.

This is an original book, covering all the past areas of research anyone would need to know about festivals and ‘event-based culture’. It is based on academic research but written in a way relevant for cultural professionals – uniquely explaining the cultural power of festivals, and with original empirical research, the realities of organisation and management, and social and economic value.  Dr Jonathan Vickery, Reader in Cultural Policy Studies and Director: Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies, Univeristy of Warwick.This book discusses music festivals in the context of the specific values they convey. Today, music festivals are a permanent feature of national, regional and local cultural policies, a valuable asset in the tourism industry and a significant source of income for an industry that has been adversely affected by the steady decline in physical sales of music. For the audience, on the other hand, it is an opportunity to escape from everyday life, multi-sensory contact with art, an activity that stands for “full-body participation”– a cultural phenomenon that drags people out of their homes like no other. There is one common denominator linking the above-mentioned features of contemporary music festivals – namely the world of values. This is evident from the non-accidental locations, festivals spaces’ design, planning and the line-ups created consciously, with great care. The organisers’ “missions”, logos, and other symbolic organisational artefacts communicate specific values. These values are explicitly mentioned by artists and audiences: they can be easily identified in online forums and media reports; participant behaviour, festival “rituals” and additional festival programs are shaped on the basis of values, and cooperation is built between the festival and the local community. As the reader will quickly realize, numbers and statistics sit alongside descriptions and quotations in this book, and the organisers’ statements are accompanied by the opinions of academics, but above all the festival audience is given a voice – both through quotations and their drawings. This voice is by no means uniform, as it turned out that research into values was often transformed into a pretext for spinning tales about one’s life situation, one’s political preferences, and one’s understanding of freedom and responsibility. Memories were mixed with declarations, joy with regret, curses with dreams, prose with poetry. Thomas Pettitt was not wrong in noting that “Social history has learnt to appreciate festival as a valuable window on society and its structures”. The authors have tried to open all the windows available.  Students and researchers in the fields of cultural anthropology, social psychology, folklore studies, comparative religion, sociology of culture, cultural policy, cultural history, and cultural management will find this book highly interesting.

This is an original book, covering all the past areas of research anyone would need to know about festivals and ‘event-based culture’. It is based on academic research but written in a way relevant for cultural professionals – uniquely explaining the cultural power of festivals, and with original empirical research, the realities of organisation and management, and social and economic value.  Dr Jonathan Vickery, Reader in Cultural Policy Studies and Director: Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies, Univeristy of Warwick.This book discusses music festivals in the context of the specific values they convey. Today, music festivals are a permanent feature of national, regional and local cultural policies, a valuable asset in the tourism industry and a significant source of income for an industry that has been adversely affected by the steady decline in physical sales of music. For the audience, on the other hand, it is an opportunity to escape from everyday life, multi-sensory contact with art, an activity that stands for “full-body participation”– a cultural phenomenon that drags people out of their homes like no other. There is one common denominator linking the above-mentioned features of contemporary music festivals – namely the world of values. This is evident from the non-accidental locations, festivals spaces’ design, planning and the line-ups created consciously, with great care. The organisers’ “missions”, logos, and other symbolic organisational artefacts communicate specific values. These values are explicitly mentioned by artists and audiences: they can be easily identified in online forums and media reports; participant behaviour, festival “rituals” and additional festival programs are shaped on the basis of values, and cooperation is built between the festival and the local community. As the reader will quickly realize, numbers and statistics sit alongside descriptions and quotations in this book, and the organisers’ statements are accompanied by the opinions of academics, but above all the festival audience is given a voice – both through quotations and their drawings. This voice is by no means uniform, as it turned out that research into values was often transformed into a pretext for spinning tales about one’s life situation, one’s political preferences, and one’s understanding of freedom and responsibility. Memories were mixed with declarations, joy with regret, curses with dreams, prose with poetry. Thomas Pettitt was not wrong in noting that “Social history has learnt to appreciate festival as a valuable window on society and its structures”. The authors have tried to open all the windows available.  Students and researchers in the fields of cultural anthropology, social psychology, folklore studies, comparative religion, sociology of culture, cultural policy, cultural history, and cultural management will find this book highly interesting.

This volume provides in-depth discussions on the challenges of intercultural encounters in Brazil. It analyzes existing policies related to migration and minorities and proposes innovative approaches to policy-making. It also highlights policies that have had a real social impact. The volume consolidates theoretical contributions from authors of different but convergent fields to indicate the role of culture and cultural processes in a wide range of phenomena such as psychosocial intervention with immigrants, emigrants, returnees and refugees, homelessness, mental health and interculturality, mobility in urban settings, monolingualism and monocultural curriculum at Brazilian schools and universities, besides narratives of new and older immigrants. Displacement is one of the 21st century's greatest challenges, and this volume provides interdisciplinary perspectives on mobility and people in cultural contact in Brazil, the largest country in South America and the fifth most populous in the world. Although seen from a Brazilian scenario, issues discussed here permeate all other countries that are diverse and receive immigrants, and shed light on the complex socio-cultural world in which we live.

This volume provides in-depth discussions on the challenges of intercultural encounters in Brazil. It analyzes existing policies related to migration and minorities and proposes innovative approaches to policy-making. It also highlights policies that have had a real social impact. The volume consolidates theoretical contributions from authors of different but convergent fields to indicate the role of culture and cultural processes in a wide range of phenomena such as psychosocial intervention with immigrants, emigrants, returnees and refugees, homelessness, mental health and interculturality, mobility in urban settings, monolingualism and monocultural curriculum at Brazilian schools and universities, besides narratives of new and older immigrants. Displacement is one of the 21st century's greatest challenges, and this volume provides interdisciplinary perspectives on mobility and people in cultural contact in Brazil, the largest country in South America and the fifth most populous in the world. Although seen from a Brazilian scenario, issues discussed here permeate all other countries that are diverse and receive immigrants, and shed light on the complex socio-cultural world in which we live.

This volume explores the relationship between humans and technology across a variety of contexts, with particular attention to how technology mediates interactions between individuals. It considers a wide range of settings, including education and training, professional and entertainment environments, as well as social, artistic, and economic domains. Drawing on diverse theoretical frameworks, the volume presents research conducted in several countries.Key themes addressed here include edutainment and the future of learning; immersive experiences and their influence on human engagement with art and cultural heritage; digital and AI-mediated platforms, and the evolving on dynamics of human-human and human-machine interaction, including human-robot interaction. The volume opens with a historical and cultural overview of the human-technology relationship, and each chapter presents original empirical data alongside a review of relevant research and developments within its specific field. This structure enables readers to gain both a historical perspective and insights into emerging trends. A unifying thread throughout the volume is the focus on the cultural dimension of technology, contributing to the discussion about whether technology creates new culture or the current culture creates technology. It also discusses associated social and digital policies and potential future directions technology may take. It provides critical reflections on a rapidly evolving field of study.The volume will be of interest to a broad audience of scholars and researchers engaged in the study of human-technology interaction and the development of related policies.

This volume explores the dynamic dialogue of art within society from a multitude of perspectives across the world. It highlights art as a process that is interwoven with notions of physical and metaphysical transition and represents a fundamental awareness of how art is represented and shaped through everyday social challenges. The chapters in this volume link the idea of symbolic universes with social practices of art in different societies and through different historical epochs, under the assumption that art leads the development of cultural systems underlying society. The volume looks at art that is shaped by forgotten or/and hidden perspectives. It suggests that art may have crucial, phenomenologically approachable variations that have been misunderstood in the scientific fields. The work considers art and science as complementary, instead of as counterparts/opposing forces.Divided into an introductory and four thematic parts, the volume reflects on historical signs preserved in artwork; explores the meaning behind art and the experience of cultural cultivation; delves into the dynamic shaping of creative expression through art; and, finally, looks at the artists’ own experiences of performance. This volume is of interest to researchers and students in the fields of cultural psychology, semiotics, arts and aesthetics, and cultural studies.

This volume delves into intersections of identities in complex societies, which reproduce and cross symbolic boundaries and form as well as challenge power relations. The volume offers both descriptive and analytical contributions with evidence-based suggestions of the ways forward in the messy reality of human superdiversity. It comprises studies from across four continents (Africa, Asia, Europe, South America), and ensures a global scope. The common theme across chapters is their concentration on broadly understood intercultural encounters, their features and implications for the engaged parties. Thus, the recurring themes discussed in the chapters are relations between minority and majority groups, including the issues of migration and indigenous cultures, the dynamics of integration processes, and their impact on the cultural identity of the participants of intercultural encounters. Several of the chapters present a linguistic perspective of intercultural communication, referring to post-conflict and postcolonial contexts, and focus on language policy and the related tensions between the development of linguistic diversity and social cohesion. The chapter authors provide qualitative methodological approaches against theoretical frameworks, looking at particular case studies, and refer to sociological and psychological aspects of interculturalism, sociolinguistics, and concepts relating to cultural identity.This interdisciplinary volume is of interest to a wide readership, including those coming from cultural studies, cultural psychology, discourse studies, identity research, and sociolinguistics.