The Equilibrist Hope: perspectives & prospectives on cultural-creative crowdfunding

This doctoral dissertation shed light on the potential role of cultural-creative crowdfunding (CCCF) as a responsible innovation within the culture sector. By examining CCCF as a mechanism for pooling relatively small sums of money from a potentially large group of individuals to fund cultural-creative projects, the research has identified CCCF as not only an alternative source of finance but also as an instrument for collaborative endeavor, value co-creation, and collective mobilization.

Pioneers in crowdfunding

Historically, artists have been pioneers in adopting crowdfunding, but the practice currently remains on the margins of the culture sector activities and policy setting due to the tension between art and commerce.

Furthermore, crowdfunding research has been underexplored in earlier scientific work, especially from the cultural community standpoint. This doctoral dissertation aims to fill this knowledge gap by exploring CCCF as an intersection of the culture sector and alternative finance technology and by adopting a multi-angle analysis to expand the conceptual umbrella of CCCF as a practice that mirrors the dynamics of the culture sector and leverages its digital realms.

The study investigates the phenomenon of crowdfunding in the empirical context of the culture sector, contrasting different socio-economic realities from the Global North (mainly Norway/Europe) to the Global South (mainly Brazil/Latin America).

Through an iterative process of a multi-method research design, this work brings theoretical insights to inspire future solutions, while elaborating on CCCF perspectives and prospects, and aims to inform academics, policymakers, and practitioners. 

The potential of cultural-creative crowdfunding

In sum, CCCF represents a promising new form of organization for the culture sector with potential for novel arrangements, such as match funding mechanisms. It also provides a rich arena to explore socio-technical and aesthetic discourses, while also systematizing its practices and relational structure.

From a perspective of responsible research and innovation, this work focuses on re-positioning the CCCF as a rhizomatic assemblage of symbolic nature that can serve the culture sector – not only financially but also enhancing its dynamic (digital) socio-aesthetics practices, with broader societal applications and implications.

By providing an augmented comprehension of CCCF and vaster awareness of its discourses, this PhD advances the theory of CCCF  by proposing a conceptual framework of multiple additional ways of how crowdfunding affects cultural production (in a general) within the broader  context of digital transformation, while also contributing to the cultural-creative own narrative.

This work enables the culture sector to take agency in shaping CCCF as a umbrella of varied practices that align with the culture sector’s relational-structural forms, spinning from co-creation of diverse values towards a more sustainable, democratic, and common future.

Personalia

Alice Demattos Guimarães defines herself as a cultural economist from Brazil. She graduated in economics from the University Federal of Minas Gerais, and since the beginning of her bachelor’s, she focuses on researching the culture sector and its interplays in society. She holds a master's in Global Markets and Local Creativities, as a scholarship holder in the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree (EMJMD) between the University of Glasgow, University of Barcelona, and Erasmus University of Rotterdam.

Her Master’s thesis received the Award of the Cultural Management Fund excellence research. Afterwards, she embarked in her doctoral journey in the Western Norway University of Applied Science, HVL Business School – Section of Innovation Studies.

Her PhD is part of the Regional Development and Responsible Innovation (RESINNREG), and her research was conducted as part of the international research project of crowdfunding in the culture sector - CROWDCUL, funded by the Research Council of Norway. Overall, her main research interests are in the areas of cultural-artistic practices, local development & cultural policty, arts and creativity management, alternative finance and other economics, and decolonial perspectives.

Trial Lecture

9th August kl. 10.00
Room M005, K2, campus Bergen
Title of trial lecture:- How can cultural policy take agency for the development of cultural-creative industries in a way that mirrors the cultural sector dynamics?

Public Defence

9th August kl. 12.20
Room M005, K2, campus Bergen

Defence Commitee

• Committee Leader: Associate Professor Svein Gunnar Sjøtun, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, (HVL).
• 1^st opponent:Professor Bjørn-Tore Flåten, University of Agder.
• 2^nd opponent: Professor Trine Bille, Copenhagen Business School (CBS).

Supervisors

• Main supervisor: Professor Natalia Mæhle, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences.
• Co- Supervisor: Professor Lluis Bonet, University of Barcelona.

Chair

Professor Stig Erik Jakobsen, Vice-Dean for Research.