Community organisations within the creative industries: policy and organisational issues for community based cultural organisations

Abstract

This research explores the notion of community based cultural organisations as a new type of organisation that combine the community orientated objectives of community arts practice with the commercially oriented creative industries. This has resulted in organisational goals that place equal emphasis on process and product. By combining these goals, organisations have responded too much of the criticism of previous community arts practice. These organisations are hampered however by gaps in cultural policy which limit their ability to gain legitimacy and therefore agency in either the arts or the creative industry fields. The research illustrates that the main difficulty for these organisations arises from the fragmented nature of government policy. The commodity/public good split in cultural policy remains the dominant discourse for both central government and local government in New Zealand. I argue that if community based cultural organisations are to be supported by government policy an integrated policy approach needs to be adopted. Such an approach would need to combine both economic and social outcomes as integral elements of the field of cultural practice and production. Arts administration has been dominated by rational management theory that has been criticised as inappropriate for many arts and cultural organisations. I argue therefore, that using and adapting alternative models, or even combining aspects of a range of theories, gives organisations an open palette to choose from that extends past the limited options offered as advice from government departments.