http://public-cultures.unimelb.edu.au/
The Research Unit in Public Cultures (RUPC) was established in 2012 and is
housed in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of
Melbourne (Australia).
It focuses on transformations in public culture produced by new
intersections of knowledge, media, space and mobility, within Australia and
internationally.
The Unit seeks to develop new research methodologies that incorporate the
expertise of academics and partners from industry and the cultural sector.
It addresses new forms of cultural practice and adopts an interdisciplinary
approach towards the transformations in public life.
Public culture is traditionally linked to the formation of civil society. It
encompasses processes that range from the individual expression of
viewpoints, the formation of collective value systems, the shifts in
everyday life, to the consolidation of social practices into public
institutions. It is seen as the collective expression of ideas and their
realisation into public institutions through the multiple channels of
political participation. In contemporary society, these voices and emergent
structures are formed through a complex interplay of media, cultural
perspectives and social practices. Hence, public culture is no longer formed
by values and practices that arise from and remain bound to a homogenous
group. It has multiple origins, addresses diverse communities and flows
across territorial boundaries. It is a dynamic process rather than a fixed
conceptual framework that can integrate the knowledge generated by different
academic disciplines and cultural practices. It acknowledges that in
contemporary society that the form of public culture is pluralistic and
volatile. Multiple forms of media, diverse modes of local agency and fluid
exchanges across numerous global networks are now shaping public culture.
The RUPC plays a key role in facilitating scholarship, enhancing research
opportunities and enabling collaborations between creative industries,
government agencies, cultural institutions and peak bodies, academic
research centres and diverse communities. A distinctive feature of the RUPC
is that the researchers are not only working on the issues that are
transforming public culture, but that they are also working with key
cultural agents, public stakeholders and civic leaders. This interaction, or
what is known as “epistemic partnership” is framed by a system of on-going
feedback. As a consequence, the understanding of public culture is
constantly being cross-hatched by critical dialogue between the researchers
and the partners.