Title: The creative city in the ASEAN context: the cultural policy of the Southeast Asian creative cities network
Abstract: This thesis explores the various dimensions of the Creative City policy trend, which has been adopted by cities around the world. Originating in Europe after the social and economic transformation of the 1980s — deindustrialisation and reindustrialisation — the Creative City discourse was initially designed to respond to the social dimensions of macro-economic decline as registered in cities. Creativity was cast a force for the productive transformation and reinvigoration of all components of a city, from metropolitan government and its policymakers to planners and architects, to communities and citizens. It was a vision of economic development as democratisation. However, in this era of globalisation, the Creative City policy notion is all too often deployed as a means of prioritising a narrower conception of economic value — such as exports and property value. This thesis, therefore, investigates the uses of the Creative City policy notion in the developing countries of Southeast Asia, as exemplified in four selected case studies from the Southeast Asian Creative Cities Network — Chiang Mai (Thailand), Bandung (Indonesia), Cebu (Philippines), and George Town (Malaysia). Through the design of the study, literature review, empirical investigations (case study-based), and critical social analysis, in which a central tenet of contemporary urban cultural policy studies is tested: Creative City has become a veritable ‘Trojan horse’ of neoliberal economic values. This commonplace argument is tested through case studies and an extended critical analysis using influential criteria for the identification of urban neoliberalism. This involves an assessment of how the Creative City in ASEAN countries is not synonymous with the democratisation of the city but with new conditions of economic development that inhibit the evolution of participation, representation, policy deliberation, and social inclusion. The thesis concluded by arguing that Creative City discourse in the Southeast Asian region has indeed become a mediator of neoliberalism in Asian cities, but this in itself has little explanatory scope. Asian urban neoliberalism is complex, involving historically distinct economic conditions and demanding a case study approach in comprehending this complexity.
Publication Year: 2020
Publication Date: 2020-01-01
Language: en
Type: dissertation
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