Knowledge exchange in the arts and humanities as creative economy policy assemblage

This paper reflects on how the underpinning logics of UK creative economy policy – about the value of creativity, the commodification of knowledge, and how these things lead to economic growth – become embedded in knowledge exchange projects. Looking at the work of REACT, a major knowledge exchange programme aimed at stimulating growth in the creative sector through collaborations with universities in South West England and South Wales, this paper asks how the various rationalities of an economy driven by creativity have moved into the university sector. The analysis shows how the multivalent, ad hoc and sometimes contradictory experience of producing a project such as REACT means that policy transfer is never entirely complete nor stable, and that in this sense it is still possible for knowledge exchange programmes to imagine and generate alternative approaches to creativity that are not wholly reducible to a neoliberal or capitalist logic, although they remain implicated therein.

Citation

Moreton, S. (2021). Knowledge exchange in the arts and humanities as creative economy policy assemblage. Research for All, 5(2), pp. 272-290. https://doi.org/10.14324/RFA.05.2.06