Creative Economy

Introduction

I will study how different actors disrupt or reinforce dominant discourses in a case of deliberation on the redevelopment of old industrial sites. These sites include an old ship-yard, a flour mill, gas-works Governmental actors, project developers, financers, artists and creative entrepreneurs engaged in an evolving struggle between a dominant discourse of 'entrepreneurship' and an emerging discourse of 'cultural entrepreneurship'. The entrepreneurship discourse primarily attributes an economic value to these locations and advocates tearing them down to build condominiums and offices. The 'cultural entrepreneurship' discourse provides an alternative interpretation of these sites and how they should be redeveloped. It aligns 'entrepreneurship' with a counter-cultural or subordinate discourse of 'maintenance of cultural value' that artists, residents and small business in the creative sector often express. It is an emerging discourse that draws on ideas from dominant and subordinate discourses that have been in opposition to each other in the past. It provides an opportunity for a variety of actors who subscribe to these two conflicting discourses to form a discourse-coalition that allows them to interpret their interest as no longer conflicting.

I will first present the case study of the deliberations that focused on redevelopment for the creative economy in the Netherlands. This case will describe the new discourse that actors developed and endorsed in deliberative venues organized for their learning network or Community of Practice. Second, I will elaborate the Foucauldian notion of discursive power and how it enters dialogue even when deliberative designs are applied to temper power-differences. Third, I will introduce boundary work as a theory and method to study this type of power in the discursive struggles between dominant, subordinate and alternative discourses. Fourth, I will present the results of the analysis of a case of urban redevelopment for the creative economy in the Netherlands and how actors reinforced and disrupted discursive power through boundary work.

'Entrepreneurship' and 'cultural entrepreneurship' in urban redevelopment of creative economy

In the 1980s and 1990s many of the old industrial sites in the Netherlands were objects of struggle between different governments, private owners and project developers. Their stalemate gave artists and small businesses in the creative economy the opportunity to temporarily use these locations for festivals, exhibition spaces, workshops, and even restaurants. New audiences were attracted to these locations and their financial and culture value increased. A new urban redevelopment discourse began to emerge among project developers, governmental actors, artists and businesses in the creative industry that emphasized financial gains alongside the maintenance of the cultural value of old industrial sites.

Around 2002, a group composed of building owners, financers, project developers, governmental actors, and users of at least seven of these sites decided that they wanted to gain more support and credibility for this new type of redevelopment.2 They started to form what I interpret to be a discourse-coalition on 'cultural entrepreneurship' in urban redevelopment.3 The discourse-coalition brought together the dominant entrepreneurship discourse - in which various actors agreed that these sites inevitably should be demolished and replaced by offices and condominiums - with ...