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In July 2018, the Digital Cultures Research Centre at the University of the West of England convened the first Creativity, Knowledge, Cities (CKC) Conference to critically explore the tensions between the creative sector, cities and universities. We invite scholars to build on these productive debates by submitting proposals for CKC 2019: Rethinking, Resisting, and Reimagining the Creative City.
The ‘Creative Economy’ continues to be predominantly imagined and evaluated in terms of a narrow set of economic metrics and neoliberal assumptions regarding the value of ‘culture’, ‘creativity’, ‘digital’ and ‘innovation’. Despite the sector’s economic ‘success’, such policies often elide the persistent consequences associated with the creative economy including labour precarity, economic exclusion, gentrification, uneven regional development and negative health and well-being impacts.
Further, the University is becoming increasingly implicated in these dynamics. Regional and national economic policies position universities as urban placemakers, real estate developers, talent pipelines, and drivers of innovation. Through research practices, value metrics, and indicators of impact, scholars may also play a role in reproducing dominant constructions of the creative economy and subsequently, urban exclusions. The UK’s Creative Clusters Programme, which links universities, the creative sector and national industrial strategies, is illustrative of these policies, and we especially welcome critical attention to these projects this year.
Against this backdrop of neoliberalism coupled with continued austerity measures, Brexit, Trumpism, and increasing nationalism, creative practitioners, cultural organisations and their collaborators participate in various strategies of resilience and resistance. Hybrid academic-creative spaces of open innovation, radical organisational forms, plural economic practices and values, creative citizenship, and cultural activism, point to how global cultural networks are engaged with economies of care, urban repair, playful politics and experiments in performing just urban futures. However, these activities are often at risk for appropriation and displacement by urban growth regimes, and all the challenges associated with them.
Exploring these contradictory and complex dynamics in tandem, how might we reimagine the relationships between places, the creative sector and the university in order to collectively work towards more resilient and just urban futures? How do concepts such as ‘inclusive growth’, ‘sustainable development’, ‘smart cities’, ‘urban commons’ and ‘the just city’ relate to these concerns? How can we mitigate the many and varied social, economic and cultural costs of creative urban policy?
Using these three themes of Rethinking, Resisting, and Reimagining, and foregrounding the notion of Inclusivity of all forms and at all scales, we welcome proposals for organised panels, individual paper presentations, roundtables and interactive workshops.
Topics may include:
We invite proposals from international scholars representing diverse backgrounds, research and practice disciplines, including urban studies, cultural studies, cultural policy, arts, geography, sociology, economics, and technology studies. We are especially interested in research representing a diverse mix of global, national and local contexts.
View PROPOSAL GUIDELINES and SUBMIT ABSTRACTS here: https://uwe.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/CKC2019 or email [log in to unmask] to discuss alternative methods for submission.
IMPORTANT DATES
Proposals due: 29 March, 2019
Decisions announced: 26 April, 2019
Participant confirmation required: 17 May, 2019
Early bird registration deadline: 30 June, 2019
Conference: 12-13 September, 2019
CONFERENCE REGISTRATION
Regular registration: £250
Concession rate (students, activists, cultural workers): £100
There are limited funds to support Early Career Researchers and PhD students. Please email for further details.
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