Culture as foundational (January 2026) has developed out of dialogue between UK-centred cultural policy scholars and the Foundational Economy Research team Their shared concern is to resist narrow instrumental justifications of culture and argue for culture as part of the essential capabilities for a full participation in democratic citizenship. The issue in the mid-2020s is how to intervene to maintain local culture when public infrastructure has been starved of resource and the cultural eco system a hybrid assemblage of public, private and non-for-profit- is in crisis. The focus is on the UK, but we believe many of these issues can be found across the developed countries, and not just the Anglosphere.
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The Foundational Economy 