Emma Blomkamp
I am an Honorary Fellow of the School of Social and Political Sciences at The University of Melbourne.
I have a jointly-awarded PhD from the University of Melbourne and the University of Auckland. My PhD research explored outcomes of community wellbeing in urban cultural policy, focusing on local government arts programming in Australia and New Zealand.
I have led strategic design and social innovation projects for consulting agencies in Australia and New Zealand, and helped to establish The Policy Lab at The University of Melbourne.
I previously held governance roles with cultural organisations, lectured and tutored Political Studies (especially Politics and the Media at the University of Auckland), and worked as a Research Fellow for the Centre of Cultural Partnerships at the University of Melbourne.
In addition to my double-badged PhD, I hold a Master of Arts (Hons) in Film Policy and a Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA). I also studied Media and Cultural Management at Sciences-Po Paris.
I have a jointly-awarded PhD from the University of Melbourne and the University of Auckland. My PhD research explored outcomes of community wellbeing in urban cultural policy, focusing on local government arts programming in Australia and New Zealand.
I have led strategic design and social innovation projects for consulting agencies in Australia and New Zealand, and helped to establish The Policy Lab at The University of Melbourne.
I previously held governance roles with cultural organisations, lectured and tutored Political Studies (especially Politics and the Media at the University of Auckland), and worked as a Research Fellow for the Centre of Cultural Partnerships at the University of Melbourne.
In addition to my double-badged PhD, I hold a Master of Arts (Hons) in Film Policy and a Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA). I also studied Media and Cultural Management at Sciences-Po Paris.
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Papers by Emma Blomkamp
researchers to work with council and community. In this research, we combined a modified Design Thinking model, Co-Design Principles and Harvard Kennedy School’s Public Policy Design Arc. Our aim was to explore, firstly, whether this approach might build the capacity of both council staff and community representatives in the use of design methods for strategic planning, and secondly, whether it could provide a framework of genuine community engagement for council staff. This paper discusses how and why
these approaches were adapted for a local government to create the ‘SITT Model’ and how council staff and community representatives responded to the process.
on policymaking in practice, using the example of public sector innovation (PSI) labs. The paper concludes that design thinking, when it comes in contact with power and politics, faces significant challenges, but that there are opportunities for design thinking and policymaking to work better together.
According to their proponents, PSI labs are helping to create a new era of experimental government and rapid experimentation in policy design. But what do these PSI labs do? How do they differ from other public sector change agents and policy actors? What approaches do they bring to addressing contemporary policymaking? And how do they relate to other developments in policy design such as the growing interest in evidence-based policy and design experiments?
The rise of PSI labs has thus far received little attention from policy scientists. Focusing on the problems associated with conceptualising PSI labs and clearly situating them in the policy process, this paper provides an analysis of some of the most prominent PSI labs. It examines whether labs can be classified into distinct types, their relationship to government and other policy actors, and the principal methodological practices and commitments underpinning their approach to policymaking. Throughout, the paper considers how the rise of PSI labs may challenge positivist framings of policymaking as an empirically driven decision process.
This paper makes the case for conducting an interpretive comparison of cultural governance at the local level in Australia and New Zealand. Although this level of government is characterised by a diverse range of structures and policies, there is sufficient similarity in the legislative framework, traditions and organisational culture of local government in these two countries to compare the common challenges they face in defining and evaluating their role in community cultural development.
Exploring the tensions implicit in a post-positivist comparative study, this paper argues that an interpretive approach usefully highlights both the contingency and the power of particular discourses in governance and in the cultural sector. Such an analysis draws attention to the difficulty in evaluating the impact of local strategies and programmes, particularly when dealing with the uncertain and often intangible outcomes of cultural policy.
researchers to work with council and community. In this research, we combined a modified Design Thinking model, Co-Design Principles and Harvard Kennedy School’s Public Policy Design Arc. Our aim was to explore, firstly, whether this approach might build the capacity of both council staff and community representatives in the use of design methods for strategic planning, and secondly, whether it could provide a framework of genuine community engagement for council staff. This paper discusses how and why
these approaches were adapted for a local government to create the ‘SITT Model’ and how council staff and community representatives responded to the process.
on policymaking in practice, using the example of public sector innovation (PSI) labs. The paper concludes that design thinking, when it comes in contact with power and politics, faces significant challenges, but that there are opportunities for design thinking and policymaking to work better together.
According to their proponents, PSI labs are helping to create a new era of experimental government and rapid experimentation in policy design. But what do these PSI labs do? How do they differ from other public sector change agents and policy actors? What approaches do they bring to addressing contemporary policymaking? And how do they relate to other developments in policy design such as the growing interest in evidence-based policy and design experiments?
The rise of PSI labs has thus far received little attention from policy scientists. Focusing on the problems associated with conceptualising PSI labs and clearly situating them in the policy process, this paper provides an analysis of some of the most prominent PSI labs. It examines whether labs can be classified into distinct types, their relationship to government and other policy actors, and the principal methodological practices and commitments underpinning their approach to policymaking. Throughout, the paper considers how the rise of PSI labs may challenge positivist framings of policymaking as an empirically driven decision process.
This paper makes the case for conducting an interpretive comparison of cultural governance at the local level in Australia and New Zealand. Although this level of government is characterised by a diverse range of structures and policies, there is sufficient similarity in the legislative framework, traditions and organisational culture of local government in these two countries to compare the common challenges they face in defining and evaluating their role in community cultural development.
Exploring the tensions implicit in a post-positivist comparative study, this paper argues that an interpretive approach usefully highlights both the contingency and the power of particular discourses in governance and in the cultural sector. Such an analysis draws attention to the difficulty in evaluating the impact of local strategies and programmes, particularly when dealing with the uncertain and often intangible outcomes of cultural policy.
Faced with increasing demands for accountability and evidence-based policy and planning, local government officers are endeavouring to articulate and assess arts programming and cultural policy in relation to broad aspirations. Their efforts are complicated by the multiple definitions of culture, competing rationales for supporting the arts and the difficulty of quantifying unpredictable and intangible results, not to mention the myriad other activities and agencies that shape cultural community outcomes. Cultural policy evaluation is important for learning and legitimation, but it presents significant challenges for local government.
This thesis examines how municipalities in Australia and New Zealand develop and implement cultural plans and services in this complex environment. Exploring the problems of meaning and measurement that arise from certain discourses and practices, it demonstrates the value of an interpretive approach to cultural policy analysis. The case study research shows that local government officers require an array of skills and different types of knowledge to design, deliver and evaluate urban cultural policy. Their discourses and practices are shaped by overlapping traditions of local governance and multiple forms of cultural value. Community wellbeing indicators are put forth as a relevant tool for local government calculations, but evaluating the results of arts and cultural policy requires more than the careful construction of meaningful measures. Effective evaluation of urban cultural policy would recognise the significance of numerous policy frames and multiple forms of context-dependent knowledge. "
This book brings together diverse perspectives from scholars, policy-makers and creative practitioners to explore the burgeoning field of cultural measurement and its political implications. The featured authors engage in a critical dialogue on various approaches to advocating for, planning, predicting, monitoring, evaluating, and simply understanding culture and cultural change. Chapters cover a range of theoretical and practical approaches to quantifying cultural values often considered intangible: cultural vitality, health and wellbeing, citizenship, sustainability and heritage.
This book is innovative for three main reasons. Firstly, it focuses on the factors driving the intensification of cultural measurement, including new public sector management techniques and the onset of the ‘post-cultural’ condition, in which cultural activities are seen as completely enmeshed in social, economic and environmental formations. Secondly, the book examines emerging categories and techniques of cultural measurement, such as the appearance of cultural sustainability measures or the use of participatory evaluation techniques. Thirdly, rather than presenting disconnected case studies which take the desirability and the mechanism of cultural measurement for granted, the book aims to show the usefulness of a critical focus on the politics of measurement, in which measures can be adapted and contested.
In recent years, culture and cultural development have become internationally recognised as important dimensions of contemporary governance and public policy. As in other policy areas, the production of accurate and relevant data has become central to cultural policy and how the cultural lives of citizens are understood. Conceptual and practical developments in measurement tools, such as new forms of cultural indicators, have the potential to enrich our understanding of culture’s role in wellbeing, vitality and citizenship. From UNESCO’s benchmarks for cultural freedom, through comparative measures of states’ cultural provision and creative cities indices, diverse approaches to quantifying cultural value and measuring societal progress now exist. But how useful are all these measures? Are they helping us to keep track of what matters? What opportunities exist to contest, refine or democratise these systems of cultural measurement?
This book brings together diverse perspectives from scholars, policy-makers and creative practitioners to explore the burgeoning field of cultural measurement and its political implications. The featured authors engage in a critical dialogue on various approaches to advocating for, planning, predicting, monitoring, evaluating, and simply understanding culture and cultural change. Chapters cover a range of theoretical and practical approaches to quantifying cultural values often considered intangible: cultural vitality, health and wellbeing, citizenship, sustainability and heritage.
This book is innovative for three main reasons. Firstly, it focuses on the factors driving the intensification of cultural measurement, including new public sector management techniques and the onset of the ‘post-cultural’ condition, in which cultural activities are seen as completely enmeshed in social, economic and environmental formations. Secondly, the book examines emerging categories and techniques of cultural measurement, such as the appearance of cultural sustainability measures or the use of participatory evaluation techniques. Thirdly, rather than presenting disconnected case studies which take the desirability and the mechanism of cultural measurement for granted, the book aims to show the usefulness of a critical focus on the politics of measurement, in which measures can be adapted and contested.
This chapter charts the key elements of city planning and policy development, beginning from the mid 1980s, that help explain Melbourne’s remarkable economic resurgence and cultural revitalisation. This is not a straightforward tale of policy success, but instead a governance story featuring a broad-based, partially coordinated set of moves by two different levels of government, involving a raft of disparate initiatives and interventions. Strained relations between the state and city governments, changing demographic and industrial trends, and at times hostile reactions to the creative visions of the city’s architects have threatened policy success. Strategic interventions by the state government to increase its own capacity reduced the city’s formal powers but also provided it with scope to do things differently. The emergent combination of a focus on economic growth interacting with a people-centric approach to liveability, whether by design or by chance, has made the city more liveable.
“What’s measured matters” is a common assumption in the practice and theory of governance. Following the hegemony of economic measures of progress and the short-lived social indicators movement, numerous frameworks of cultural and community indicators are now emerging. Variously touted as tools for identifying problems, capturing values, monitoring progress and evaluating outcomes, these indicators have a range of potential policy applications. Representing and responding to complex socio-cultural outcomes in numerical form is full of challenges, though.
Just as painting by numbers is hardly considered a form of “high art”, the use of indicators to guide policy-makers may fall short of “good governance”. This presentation explores the potential for cultural indicators to inform and improve evidence-based policy and democratic accountability, while also considering the pitfalls of “governing by numbers”. By giving a broad critical overview of the origins and applications of cultural indicators, the presenter will thus problematise these devices, before considering concrete examples where they have been, or might be, put to good use by policy-makers.
This paper makes the case for conducting an interpretive comparison of cultural governance at the local level in Australia and New Zealand. Although this level of government is characterised by a diverse range of structures and policies, there is sufficient similarity in the legislative framework, traditions and organisational culture of local government in these two countries to compare the common challenges they face in defining and evaluating their role in cultural community development.
Exploring the tensions implicit in a post-positivist comparative study, this paper argues that an interpretive approach usefully highlights both the contingency and the power of particular discourses in governance and in the cultural sector. Such an analysis draws attention to the difficulty in evaluating the impact of local strategies and programmes, particularly when dealing with the uncertain and often intangible outcomes of cultural policy.