The ‘whiteness’ of cultural policy in paris and berlin

Abstract

When we look closely at how cultural and arts policy operates in the urban settings of Paris and Berlin, we find different policy spheres characterized by a division between ‘high’ culture on the one hand, and urban-ethno-socio-culture on the other. Whilst the majority of funding is allocated by high-culture institutions, whose productions are evaluated on so-called ‘universal’ aesthetic grounds, only a relatively small amount of funding is diverted to the cultural projects in inner-city, ‘immigrant’ areas. However, the key issue in this chapter is not how the budgets get divided up, but rather why certain categories of the population, namely ʼnon-European’ immigrants and postmigrants, are widely expected to engage in cultural projects linked either to ‘ethnic identity’ or to social cohesion and integration. As we shall show below, ʼnon-white’ or non-European immigrant and postmigrant artists can find it difficult to obtain recognition of the ‘intrinsic’ artistic value of their work.