Locating culture in municipalism

Despite this potential, radical municipalist and degrowth literature largely overlooks culture (Banks & Oakley, 2024; Foundational Economy Collective, 2018; Hansen, 2022; Janoo et al., 2021). Roth recently summarised the foundational necessities for “living well” that ought to be the focus of municipalist strategies – yet arts and culture were again absent (2023).

Reset Collective argues for the repositioning of arts and culture within the social foundations of a wellbeing economy (2022). They distinguish between ‘vital’ needs (food, shelter) and ‘enabling’ needs, such as education, health, and culture. Culture, they argue, is not a luxury, but integral to human development, creativity, and the capacity to make meaningful choices (Reset, 2022). The Foundational Economy Collective similarly have come to include ‘social infrastructure such as libraries’ are a crucial part of a foundational economy (Calafati et al. 2023).

Banks’ scathing assessment of Hickel and Kallis’ most popular works exposes how contemporary degrowth is still to develop any credible theory of cultural production (2022). Culture, in their pieces, is reduced to small forms of localised subsistence (Banks, 2022). Do we expect a degrown society to lack public broadcasting, quality journalism, or cultural film? Maybe some degrowthers see organised cultural production as disposable – but aren’t others hoping for a cultural change in how we value ourselves and the world?

And consider the process of transformation, does culture not have a role to play in the shaping of the new values that we so desperately need? In post-2008 Spain, a counter-hegemony against growth had emerged, and Prádanos emphasises the role of culture in not only documenting this transformation, but enabling it to travel further and root deeper. Using cultural theory, he observes how cities like Barcelona blended cultural creativity (film, TV, novels, art) with postgrowth practices (urban gardens, community economies) creating both discursive and practical experimentations challenging the growth hegemony. Indeed, O’Connors argument is that culture as a distinct ‘thing’ emerged as a counter, autonomous space against the economic-rational world, and it’s capture through the evolution of ‘creative industry’ is a depoliticising force (2024). Attending to cultural practices allows us to more deeply understand how counter-hegemonies emerge and sustain.

Beyond La Impremta, Barcelona hosts a vibrant network of alternative cultural spaces that operate at least partially outside capitalist structures on a varying scale of radicalism. The music venue cooperatives like Sala Vol, the communal fiestas at Can Masdeu and the public common partnerships of the Centres Cívics are all spaces which exemplify what Goodman and Bryant (2013) call ‘spaces of intention’, spaces which enable alternative economic geographies to emerge through practice.

It confounds me: even in the UK, we have existing infrastructure, networks and physical buildings, often rooted in local communities, where people voluntarily visit to encounter new ideas. Cultural vibrancy is why people want to live in cities – let us politicise it!

Towards Cultural Municipalist Strategy

To embed cultural strategy within degrowth, starting at the municipal scale makes the most sense. In the UK, local government and local arts were simultaneously strangled at the hands of neoliberalism – so they can be liberated simultaneously.

Creating more equitable and ecological models of cultural production at the city level promotes local economies, generates value that is better retained and shared locally, creating space for civic participation, critical thinking, and community strengthening. On the New Books in Sociology podcast, O’Connor asks: Why, for example, call a collection of live venues a ‘music industry’ when this network of community-based arts and cultural venues could be organised on a far more equitable and sustainable basis through community co-ops?’ (2024).

At the grassroots, the Alter-Cultures project has been mapping Alternative Cultural Places (ACPs) across Europe that operate “within a framework of cooperation”, “attentive to the sorts of futures which they will produce” (Parker et al., 2014a; Bobodilla et al., 2024). These ACPs are scattered and often precarious (operating in meanwhile spaces), but deeply rooted in community, using cultural programming to become hubs for local people with the revitalisation of their neighborhoods. In Barcelona, I posit that there is not just a scattering of single organisations, but actually some form of Alternative Cultural Sector that is thriving at least partially outside of the market.

In the UK, our cultural scene is one of the only things left and right can agree we’re proud of – let us use this! What could a post-growth cultural policy look like? How can we democratise culture and build more expansive models of participation? Whyman has considered how the Preston Model of Community Wealth Building could be adapted to the creative economy (2022), proposing how policy design for the creative sector needs can be more attentive to individual localities to build resilient cultural economies, and in my mind, happier cities.

Cultural municipalism is already being worked out in practice, from the ground up: through the public-common partnerships of Barcelona’s cultural civic centres, of the network of European alternative cultural places mobilising for neighbourhood transitions, in the organisations on the ground continuing to create cultural offerings for their communities despite the increasingly precarious conditions.

These are seeds for transforming urban spaces, for pluralist visions of eco-social transformation. I ask us to attend to them seriously. Word has it La Impremta Col·lectiva have just expanded their studio, so something must be working.