Context (Culture, State of the South West 2011)
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11.3.1 This chapter presents official data and analyses that are relevant to an understanding of the state of culture in South West England, and makes comment on regional and sub-regional trends and issues. Given the multiple inter-connections between cultural production and consumption, and between cultural life in different localities, the chapter aims to give an overview of the state of culture, and its relationship to economic, social and environmental issues. Cultural datasets cited in the chapter are available from the Culture Module web pages (Culture), official websites and via the reference section and hyperlinks.
11.3.2 The Culture and Sport Evidence (CASE) research programme is led by DCMS in association with Arts Council England, English Heritage, Museums Libraries and Archives Council and Sport England. Its aim is to ‘influence the policy agenda in culture and sport in England by generating high quality, relevant research with easy access to a range of analysis and data for partners to build sound arguments.’ (CASE, September 2010). Datasets and a
Regional Insight: South West (TBR, 2010) are available on the CASE website.
11.3.3 'Culture' is principally taken here to mean the 'cultural sector', as defined by the Data Evidence Toolkit (DET) (DCMS, 2002) developed by DCMS (1998; 2001). Research methodologies and definitions have proliferated, and precise quantification has become increasingly problematic. Data cited in this chapter, are mostly taken from the CASE datasets, as well as other official sources and more up-to-date survey results. CASE categorises the culture and sport sector under four broad sub-sectors:
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creative, heritage, museums libraries and archives, and sport. This chapter includes tourism data because of the relationship between the region’s cultural and visitor economies.
11.3.4 Chapter content is presented under four main sections: cultural and creative economy; participation and attendance; cultural infrastructure; cultural governance. The chapter concludes with a commentary that draws together regional trends, opportunities and challenges, based on the evidence and the author’s knowledge and understanding of the region’s culture and sport sector and cultural offer. Thus, the chapter blends numerical data, description, analysis and interpretation.
