“Our country’s calling card”1
Culture as the Brand in RecessionaryIreland
Rosemary Meade
Introduction: A moral crisis begets an economic crisis?
While there have been some efforts to explain Ireland’s2economic crisis with reference to the dialectical tendencies ofcapitalism3, globalisation and neo-liberalism, mainstreammedia and political commentary has preferred to avoid this kind ofsustained analysis. Instead, with varying degrees of emphasis,commentators have attributed causality to specific errors – somecollective, others individual – in behaviour or judgment. They includeour foolhardy reliance on the property sector, the misbehaviour andmiscalculations of rotten apples in the banking sphere, and cronyismand ineptitude within ruling political elites. In the general rush tocensure, the Irish public has not escaped criticism. The profoundlyideological contention that we are all somehow toblame4 is repeatedly passed off as an incontestable fact; a‘common sense’ legitimising reductions in the minimumwage5, assaults on public sector spending and conditions,the broadening of the tax base to include the low-paid and theavoidance of more decisive redistribution from the summit of theearnings hierarchy. For example, former Finance Minister, BrianLenihan, ritually invoked our collective responsibility – constitutedby one part guilt and one part patriotism – to rationalise hisgovernment’s deference to global markets and the new climate ofausterity6.
“This Budget serves no vested interest. Rather, it provides anopportunityfor us all to pull together and play our part according to ourmeans ….” (October 14th, 2008)
“Everybody pays and those who can pay most will pay most. The Plancalls on us all to take more responsibility for ourselves.”(Budget 2011 Speech, December 7th, 2010)
“I accept that I have to take responsibility as a member of thegoverning party during that period for what happened, but let’s befair about it, we all partied.” (Prime Time, November24th, 2010) [My italics.]
In the mainstream media, discussions about the economic crisis havedisplayed a comparable moralising sensibility, with recurringreferences to how we’ve been let down by elites7 –politicians, state officials, bankers – and how we as a people letourselves down. The economic crisis is thus framed as a kind ofun-cool karma, drawn down by citizens’ relentless pursuit of hedonismduring the period of the Celtic Tiger8. In April 2011, theFinnish Banking expert Peter Nyberg, who was charged with reporting onthe causes of the banking crisis, finally published his analysis:
“[T]he way Irish households, investors, banks and public authoritiesvoluntarily reacted to foreign and domestic developments was probablynot very different to that in other countries now experiencingfinancial problems. However, the extent towhich large parts of Irish society were willing to let the goodtimes roll on until the very last minute(a feature of the financial mania) may have been exceptional.”9[My italics.]
‘Our’ obsession with the property ladder, speculative investments andconspicuous consumption are now memorialised in the ugly reality ofghost estates, abandoned race-horses and home repossessions. FormerPresident Mary Macaleese became something of an early touchstone foranxieties about prosperity’s impact on our national value system.Having warned against the dangers of “the cul de sac ofcomplacent consumerism”10 in November 2005, she would latersuggest that recession presented an opportunity for moralrehabilitation,
“Somewhere along the line, we began to think that we weren’t happywith deferred gratification. We had to have it now and in this momentand I think that we have paid a very, very big price for that veryradical shift. And now the balance presumably is going to swing backthe other way and it will be no harm.”11
These would become the narratives of blame: either so universalisingthat they fail to interrogate issues of power, social reproduction,inequality and exclusion in the Irish context; or so narrowly targetedon charismatic miscreants that they avoid analysis of the structuralroots of this latest crisis in capitalism. Demonstrating, a wilfuldenial of their own partiality they ultimately fall back onto thatmost pervasive of ideological devices, the fetishisation of individualchoice. As with doctrinaire neo-liberalism they assume that individualcitizens – be they ordinary consumers, politicians or employees offinancial institutions – can be disassociated from their economic andsocial habitus and thus hold sovereign responsibility for their riskychoices in the market place. Sometimes these choices are representedas ‘rational calculations’ and sometimes as ‘moral lapses’, but theoverall effect is similar; to gloss over the contradictions of latecapitalism as a global system that governs our every day practices.
A functionalised culture
There is another problem with all this showy lancing of collectiveguilt; it typically prefaces a more urgent kind of ‘X Factor’ quest,where the search is on for those innovators who can lead the economicrevival. It became manifest in the recurring calls for particularbusiness ‘dynamos’, celebrities, economists or civil society leadersto run for elected office in the General Election of 2011. It alsobecame manifest in various representations of the cultural sector, thearts and artists – or as Fintan O’Toole describes them “Ireland’sgreatest remaining asset”12 – as storm troopers in thebattle to rescue the nation’s beleaguered reputation. When theeconomic crisis punctured the credibility of old elites, it alsocleared a space for new icons of hope and as the National Campaign forthe Arts recognised,
“There is now a broad consensus that the arts will play a dynamic partin Ireland’s economic and social recovery. To maintain the role of thearts as a significant driver of employment, cultural tourism, thecreative industries, our collective wellbeing and internationalreputation…”13
What manifests as a consensus, I am inclined to describe as hegemony;the broad acceptance that culture be ‘functionalised’ in the interestsof the economy. In September 2009, the Irish Department of ForeignAffairs hosted the “inaugural Global Irish Economic Forum”, which wasattended by “members of the Government; Secretaries General ofGovernment Departments, CEOs of State Agencies, and leading members ofthe Irish business and cultural sectors”14. Among theprincipal themes under discussion were the uncertain status ofIreland’s reputation and the urgency of ‘brand’consolidation15. The report on the event explained that,
“[S]peakers focused on the concept of branding, noting the strength of‘Brand Ireland’, but that in today’s hugely competitive environment,resources must be targeted and the message focussed so that Ireland,could distinguish itself on the global stage. The arts and culture hada key role to play in this process. Participants strongly argued thatthe arts are no longer a luxury or a charity, but are a hugelyimportant part of the economy.”16
It’s a limited and limiting appraisal of the role of the arts –charity, luxury or brand extension – and it could easily be dismissedas corporate babble, typical of an event such as this. However, theever present threat of further cuts in public spending has done muchto focus Ireland’s collective consciousness. ‘Brand Ireland’discourses have been adopted by arts organisations that are cognisantof the rising expectation that all must prove our commitment to theeconomic revival. Even before the Global Economic Forum, VisualArtists Ireland “the all Ireland Development and resource body forprofessional visual artists”17 made a submission to theInnovation Task Force on September 16th 2009, in which itpositioned improved grants and resources for artists as “furthersupport of the cultural identity of Brand Ireland”18. It isalso worth noting that similar tendencies were common in Japan in thewake of its economic crash in 1991, with the ‘J-cool Brand’ invoked tocounteract the country’s reputational and image problems19.During March 2010, RTE Radio’s flagship news showMorning Ireland ran a week-long discussion series centredaround the somewhat rhetorical question ‘Can the Arts help revive theeconomy?’, incorporating interviews with guests who were described bypresenter Áine Lawlor as “the great and good”20 of theIrish arts world. Significantly the interviews were timetabled tocoincide with the St Patrick’s holiday, the now ‘traditional’ focalpoint for international marketing of Brand Ireland. Participantsincluded Abbey Theatre director Fiach Mac Conghail, musician andbroadcaster Philip King, writer Colm Tóibín, theatre director GarryHynes and the newly appointed Cultural Ambassador to the US, actorGabriel Byrne. The interviews did not allow participants to reflect onthe social, democratic or transformative possibilities of the arts, orhow and why culture might be meaningful to citizens. Instead questionswere framed to elicit arguments regarding the economic, andspecifically touristic, dividends that could be yielded by investmentin the cultural sphere.
In Ireland there has been a long-standing tendency for government andmainstream media to privilege a narrow frame of economic rationalityin their evaluations of cultural, scientific, social and politicaldevelopments21. As the economic crisis has unfolded,invocations of that rationality have become cruder and more frenetic.Given that the artistic sphere is often attributed transcendentproperties – based on its ability to elevate our minds and desires –it is notable that it too should fall victim to that tendency. Aspeech by former Taoiseach Brian Cowen, “at the announcement ofIreland’s next Professor of Poetry – Harry Clifton” comicallyillustrates the case:
“[T]his country is fighting its way out of a severe recession and wewill come through this because of the quality of our people, theirself-belief and their ingenuity. The arts and our culture has a bigrole to play in getting Ireland back on track.
I believe that being Irish holds a distinct and intrinsic value.Ireland is a brand. People know us. Our country, her landscape and herculture are known the world over.We must connect with that brand now and use it to give us thecompetitive advantage in a globalised world that is increasingly thesame. We must ourselves portray the positives that others see in us.”22[My italics.]
In other words: creativity must be entrepreneurial, culturaldistinctiveness means market advantage.
Rhetorical status Vs structural location
As Howard Becker observed, the arts are never immune from socialprocesses and are never merely the products of sequestered minds orindividual imaginations. Instead they should be viewed as outcomes ofcollective action where “[R]elations of co-operation and constraint, …penetrate the entire process of artistic creation andcomposition”23. Despite all the ‘Brand Ireland’ rhetoric,issues of economic survival constitute a pressing constraint oncontemporary Irish arts organisations and individual artists.Significant in this regard are the findings of survey of 1,128 artiststhat was jointly commissioned by both Arts Councils on the island ofIreland. It suggested that the average income from their arts practicefor artists in the Republic of Ireland was less than “€15,000 in 2008,with 50% of artists earning €8,000 or less from theirwork”24. Expectations of the ability of the arts to re-bootthe economy seem inconsistent with the actual earning power of artiststhemselves. Furthermore, hegemonic discourses about culture and itsrole are taking shape against the backdrop of significant cuts inrevenue for the Arts Council and arts organisations. Launching itsstrategic plan, in October 2010, the Arts Council chair Pat Moylan25noted some of the challenges it now faces:
“[T]he Arts Council said it was publishing the strategic overview ‘ina spirit of confidence, tempered by the realism required to plan andprovide for the arts at a time of significant difficulty in the publicfinances’, and stressed that the consequences of some decisions couldbe ‘far from what we would wish in ideal circumstances’.”
In 2009 theSpecial Group on Public Service Numbers and ExpenditureProgrammes, chaired by economist Colm McCarthy and established for the explicitpurpose of rationalising cutbacks in government spending, recommended€5.3 billion in savings and staff reductions of 17,300 across thepublic sector. It identified the arts and cultural fields as a “lowerpriority”26 for the state and posited that the existinggovernment department’s functions be re-allocated to otherdepartments. It also recommended a €6.1million reduction in the ArtsCouncil budget, along with the discontinuation of financial supportfor Culture Ireland and the Irish Film Board. This ‘lower priority’status was underscored by the ‘controversy’ that surrounded theappointment of Mary Hanafin as minister for ‘Tourism, Culture andSport’ in 2010, a move that was widely regarded as a demotion.
“I did say, that whereas I would be very happy to take the job, thatit would be perceived as a demotion – because, unfortunately, mediaover the years has perceived arts, sports and culture to be somethingof less importance than some of the other departments.
And, yet when you see the importance of it to the economy, whenyou see the people who came last year to Farmleigh27 toshare their ideas on how to promote Ireland, culture and tourism wasat the heart of what people were suggesting.”28 [Myitalics.]
Simultaneously championed and treated as an afterthought, therhetorical status of arts and culture seems to be at odds with itsstructural location. This contradiction is less puzzling if weconsider the broader economic and discursive context, and what Hardtand Negri have described as the hegemony of ‘immaterial labour’ in thecontemporary period. By immaterial labour they mean labour thatproduces “immaterial products, such as knowledge, information,communication, a relationship or an emotional response”29.By hegemony they are not claiming that the majority of workers areengaged in this kind of labour – clearly they are not – but that thislabour has a comparatively elevated status in contemporary capitalism,whereby it is perceived to embody all that is most market friendly,innovative and forward-looking. Immaterial labour imposes “a tendencyon all other forms of labour”30 and societies, states andindustries must show that they are willing to “informationalize,become intelligent, become communicative, become affective”. Giventhat the arts and cultural spheres are already invested with thesekinds of attributes, they are well placed to be activated in theinterests of economic accumulation and commodification. In Ireland the‘Smart Economy’ has become a new signifier of economic progress, withthe arts and cultural sectors identified as key potentialcontributors, but ones that require ‘leveraging’: “[F]uture investmentin this sector must be based on world-class ambition and achievement,and it must also be based on engaging and attracting the businesssector”31. Hegemonic discourses, therefore, simultaneouslyseek to discipline and enable the arts and cultural sectors. Upbeatprescriptions of their economic role and their centrality to BrandIreland carry a parallel – albeit often implicit – threat regardingthe fate of the economically irrelevant.
A case for resistance
Given their sector’s vulnerablities, it’s unsurprising that many andartists and arts organisations have mobilised collectively to resistthe threat of cutbacks and to argue for continued public subsidy ofthe arts. For example, the National Campaign for the Arts has combinedhigh energy and visually arresting forms of advocacy with repeatedassertions of the sector’s economic relevance. During the2011election, it urged supporters to deliver a unified message tocanvassers and candidates.
“The arts enrich our lives
The arts enhance Ireland’s image and reputation on the world stage
The arts are a stimulant of and contributor to the smart economy
The arts are a significant employer
The arts drive cultural tourism”32
Arguably, lobbying by artists and arts organisations has been quitesuccessful in obviating austerity’s more draconianeffects33. In many ways their structural position resemblesthat of community organisations that are feted for their contributionto society, yet are ultimately dependent on state favour for theirfinancial survival. Community organisations can find themselvesstrategically adapting to government policy in order to protect theirsector and to legitimise their particular value claims. Likewise artsorganisations may draw upon hegemonic discourses and economicrationalities in order to defend what are already precarious fundingstreams and support networks.
However, when resistance is framed within the parameters of theprevailing hegemony it ultimately speaks to the short term materialinterests of (a minority within) the arts sector and its audiences. Itis worth remembering that beyond that sector, cultures are generatedthrough everyday encounters and uncelebrated forms of aestheticpractice. As Paul Willis explains, ‘aesthetics’ and ‘Art’ arepresented as universal signifiers of what is best and most exceptionalin cultures, but those signifiers are themselves socially constructed:their status is derived from and sustained by social distinctions,patterns of exclusion, power inequalities and marketrelationships34. As the arts and cultural sectors areresponsibilised to fashion brand identity and attract consumers ininternational markets, their responsibilities to Irish citizens aretrivialised. Alternative expectations of the sectors might include:the broadening and deepening of audience participation; the creationof new opportunities for ordinary citizens to make and distributetheir own cultures; and a critical interrogation of hegemonicdiscourses of culture, Irishness and our so-called ‘Brand’ identity.
Ultimately hegemonic discourses, such as those embedded in the fantasyof ‘Brand Ireland’, offer an impoverished conception of culture. The‘arts sector’ becomes a proxy for creativity in its broader sense.‘Tourism potential’ and ‘market share’ become the default measures ofcultural and artistic achievement. A nationalist imperative is imposedon artists who must generate positive PR for Brand Ireland. Citizensare responsibilised to take pride in and to cheerlead those PRachievements, like supporters of the national football team, while ourown contributions to the contestation and re-fashioning of culture areoverlooked. Despite all the empty moralising about the evils ofconsumption in the period of the Celtic Tiger, hegemonic discoursesinevitably retreat into a consumerist model of culture: privilegingspectacle and things – they can be bought, sold, visited or reproduced– over communication, critique and “ordinary commonmeanings”35.
Finally, it is worth emphasising that this hegemony is not absolute,that there are some vital expressions of resistant culture in Irelandtoday. In any functionalised reckoning of what constitutes a society’scultural wealth, it is difficult to monetise these localised,provisional and reactive processes: although particular, they do notseem so special; although real, they usually lack celebrity.Nonetheless, un-branded culture that speaks against the crude hegemonyis vibrantly present in the creative solidarity that artists,musicians, poets, dancers – professional and otherwise – give tosocial movements. In its most limited form, the ‘culturalcontribution’ to activism is reduced to fundraising or PR. At itsbest, the political reclamation also coincides with a culturalreclamation and celebration, so that culture and creativity is seen asintrinsic to social change, not merely as a decorative accessory.Cultural reclamation and resistance is also evident in the emergenceof independent social centres, poetry slams, lo-fi festivals,alternative screenings and all those other spaces – be theyintellectual or physical – where people get together to communicateand co-operate democratically. These efforts may well be temporaryexpressions of an always elusive autonomy, but even when theydisappear and reappear in other forms they add up to a cumulativeculture of resistance – maybe even a culture beyond the brand.
Notes
1 Comment by Taoiseach Brian Cowen made during his speech ‘at theannouncement of Ireland’s next Professor of Poetry – Harry Clifton –Newman House’ Wednesday, 30th of June, 2010.
2 Here Ireland is used to refer to the Republic of Ireland rather thanthe Island of Ireland.
3 See Allen, K (2009)Ireland’s Economic Crash: A Radical Agenda for Change. Dublin:The Liffey Press and Kirby, P (2010)The Celtic Tiger in Collapse, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
4 Following the general election of June 2011 a new coalitiongovernment came to power in the Republic. In advance of its firstbudget in later that year, Taoiseach Enda Kenny was moved to addressthe nation and to assure us that the crisis was not our ‘fault’. Hisanalysis seems to have been revised by January 2012 when he told theWorld Economic Forum at Davos that ‘people went mad borrowing’.Scally, D (27/01/2012) ‘Taoiseach blames crisis on ‘mad borrowing’ andgreed’, Irish Times: Accessed 19/04/2012
5 That policy decision, taken in the early aftermath of the Irishcrisis, has since been reversed by the new government.
6 Lenihan, B (14/10/2008) ‘Financial Statement of the Minister forFinance Mr Brian Lenihan, T.D’ Department of Finance: Accessed04/03/2011
Lenihan, B (07/12/2010) ‘Financial Statement of the Minister forFinance Mr Brian Lenihan T.D.’ Department of Finance: Accessed04/03/2011
Lenihan, B (24/11/2010) ‘Prime Time Interview with MiriamO’Callaghan’, Prime Time, RTÉ.
7 O’Connor, J (18/11/2010) ‘Irish people feel frightened, alone andunled’, The Guardian. Accessed 04/03/2011
8 Sunday Independent (28/11/2011) ‘What did we do to deservethis?’ Irish Independent. Accessed 04/03/2011
9 Nyberg, P (2011)Misjudging Risk: Causes of the Systemic Banking Crisis Ireland,p. ii. Accessed 02/06/2011
10 Hogan, S (09/11/2005) ‘Tiger society “scary for those left behind”,Irish Independent. Accessed on 02/06/2011
11 Irish Times (16/12/2008) ‘Ireland is on rebound fromconsumerism, says President’, Irish Times. Accessed04/03/2011
www.irishtimes.com/premium/loginpage
12 O’Tooole, F (27/03/2010) ‘Does Mary Hanafin realise she’s theminister for all we’ve got?’, Irish Times. Accessed04/03/2011
13 National Campaign for the Arts (No Date) ‘About the Campaign’,Accessed 04/03/2011
www.ncfa.ie/index.php/page/about/
14 Department of Foreign Affairs (2009)Global Irish Economic Forum 18-20 September 2009 Report.Dublin: Department of Foreign Affairs, p 4.
15 ibid, p 15.
16 ibid p 21.
17 Visual Artists Ireland (2009)Creative Ireland – Submission to the Innovation Taskforce.Dublin: Visual Artists Ireland, p 3.
18 ibid p 5.
19 Allison, A (2009) ‘The Cool Brand, Affective Activism and JapaneseYouth’. Theory, Culture and Society, 26 (2-3): 89-111
20
21 See O’Mahony, P and Schafer, MS (2005) ‘The Book of Life in thePress’, Social Studies of Science, 35(1): pp99-130 and Meade,R. (2008) ‘Mayday, Mayday! Newspaper Framing Anti-globalisers!’,Journalism, 9(4): pp330-352.
22 Cowen, B ( 30/06/2010) ‘Speech by the Taoiseach, Mr. Brian Cowen,T.D., at the announcement of Ireland’s next Professor of Poetry -Harry Clifton – Newman House, Wednesday, 30 June, 2010 at 6.30pm’Accessed on 02/06/2011
Speech_by_the_Taoiseach_at_the_announcement_of_Irelands_next_Professor_of_Poetry_Harry_Clifton_Newman_House_30_June,_2010.html
23 Becker, B (1974) ‘Art as Collective Action’,American Sociological Review, 39(6): 767-776, p 770.
24 McAndrew, C and McKimm, C (2010)The Living and Working Conditions of Artists of Artists in theRepublic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, The Arts Council/Arts Council Northern Ireland. Accessed on02/06/2011
25 Arts Council (29/10/2010) ‘Arts Council outlines strategic approachfor next three years’, Accessed 01/06/2011
26 McCarthy, C [chair] (2009) Report of the Special Group on PublicService Numbers and Expenditure Programmes. Dublin: Stationery Office,p 33.
27 She is referring to those who attended the Global Economic Forum.
28 Hanafin, in Ó Caollaí, É (24/03/2010) ‘Hanafin raised demotionperception’, Irish Times, Accesssed on 26/01/2011
29 Hardt, M and Negri, M (2005) Multitude. London: HamishHamilton, p 108.
30 ibid p 109.
31 Irl Gov. (2008) Building Ireland’s Smart Economy. StationeryOffice; Dublin, p80.
32 National Campaign for the Arts (No Date) ‘Election 2011’, Accessed01/06/2011
www.ncfa.ie/files/2011-messages.doc
33 Smyth, G (10/12/2010) ‘Do arts cuts hit the right note?’,Irish Times. Accessed 01/06/2011
34 Willis, P (2005) ‘Invisible Aesthetics and the Social Work ofCommodity Culture’, in D Inglis and J Hughson (eds.)The Sociology of Art. Basingstoke: Palgrave, p 73-74
35 Williams, R (1989) Resources of Hope, London: Verso, p 4.