Handbook

This topic is designed to analyse the case study of cultural ecology as it links the micro and the macro, the local and regional and the global, with the various concepts at work in the global flow of creative enterprise. Focusing on ecologies allows us to consider how the diverse parts of the cultural sphere are interdependent. It looks at precincts and festivals as engines of cultural development. It uses as case studies the debates over the building of an Adelaide contemporary arts centre on the old RAH site, the MONA and Dark Mofo effects, and regional festivals. It looks at cultural development and the wellbeing arguments for investment in arts and culture and the way these are deployed by local councils, state governments, nations, and at the international level through UNESCO and elsewhere. It looks at the failure of the Richard Florida arguments and considers what rises to replace them.