Cultural Value as a Node Challenge: A Valuation Methodology Proposal

Cultural value – the way the value of culture is expressed in decision-making – is an artifact of the ongoing process of translation, and an occasional breakdown of communication, across disciplines and sectors. Cultural value is an outcome of how different stakeholders – including policymakers, arts professionals and creative practitioners – struggle to legitimate their articulations of value. Accordingly, this article approaches cultural value as a ‘node challenge’ (Kaszynska, 2018) - a practical problem of collective agency where multiple discourses collide. In response, a research underpinned, collaborative valuation methodology is proposed. The approach bridges situational analysis and mapping (Clarke, 2005) with deliberative facilitation (Elstub and Escobar, 2019) while recognizing that cultural value is a product of situated valuation (Dewey, 1939) constituted through struggle (Latour, 1987). Rather than using research to answer what cultural value is, or to critique cultural policy, research is harnessed here for the practical purpose of facilitating decision-making concerning culture.