In this conversation, Rob Watson speaks with cultural policy thinker and writer Justin O’Connor about the ideas behind his book Culture is Not an Industry, and what they mean for artists, policymakers and communities engaged in participatory and community-based practice.
They begin by locating the personal and political moment from which the book emerged. Justin is Professor of Cultural Economy at the University of South Australia. Justin reflects on his early experiences in Manchester’s music and cultural scenes in the 1980s and 1990s, and how what once seemed like a hopeful model for urban renewal and creative regeneration slowly became absorbed into a more instrumental, economised framework—one that often sidelined the very cultural values and community aspirations it was supposed to promote.
As Rob notes, the book resonates because it feels like a reckoning with a story many of us have lived through: the promise that culture could transform lives and places, followed by a sense that this promise was hollowed out by managerialism, short-termism and the shift towards “creative industries” as a catch-all policy tool. Justin and Rob discuss what are the consequences of treating culture as a sector rather than a shared space of meaning-making? How did the language of economic growth and innovation come to dominate the ways we talk about and support cultural work?
Throughout the conversation, there’s an insistence on slowing down and paying attention to the terms we use. Justin talks about the disappearance of the word “art” in cultural policy documents, replaced by more marketable language like “creative” or “innovation.” What gets lost in that substitution? Who benefits when symbolic and expressive practices are reframed as drivers of economic productivity? And how do these shifts affect the conditions in which participatory and community artists are expected to work?
Rob shares his own experience of cultural education and media production, noting the tensions between artistic expression and technical skill, and the way institutional boundaries often reinforce unhelpful distinctions. In thinking through these tensions, the discussion returns to the need to recognise artistic practice as something distinct—not because it is elite or rarefied, but because it speaks to human meaning, ritual, imagination, and collective life. Why do we continue to undervalue this, particularly when it comes to participatory forms of practice that emerge from people’s everyday lives and experiences?
There’s a shared frustration with the instrumentalisation of art as a tool for solving social problems that originate elsewhere in society. The pressure to prove impact—to deliver measurable outcomes—risks displacing the deeper, slower processes through which culture supports social connection, identity, and reflection. What does it mean to create spaces where people can explore, make, and share cultural expression without the expectation of economic return or social improvement? Can we reimagine cultural policy not as an investment strategy, but as a form of care?
Justin introduces the idea of the foundational economy as a way of rethinking the role of culture in society—not as an industry, but as part of the everyday infrastructure of life, alongside education, health and housing. Culture, in this framing, is a shared resource that needs maintenance, support, and access for all. If we approached cultural provision in this way, what would it look like? How might this affect how we fund, organise, and talk about participatory and community-based work?
The conversation doesn’t shy away from the structural challenges—...