Dr Eleonora Belfiore
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Dr Eleonora Belfiore is an Associate Professor at the Centre and, between 2004 and 2008 worked on a 3-year research project on the social impact of the arts, jointly funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Arts Council England. The project’s main objective was a critical reformulation of the claims made about the impacts that the arts can have on the individual and society, with a view of investigating the possibility of developing a rigorous framework and methodology for impact assessment. From September 2008, Eleonora has been working, together with Dr Anna Upchurch of Leeds University, on a project funded by the AHRC entitled "Beyond utility and markets: Articulating the role of the humanities in the twenty-first century", in collaboration with Dr Donna Zapf of Duke University. The project explores the question of the articulation of the functions and value of Humanities research beyond a narrowly instrumental and utilitarian emphasis on notions of 'impact' and 'utility'. Eleonora is presently developing further her research interest in the area of the social impact of the arts, the cultural policy-making process and theoretical and historical approaches to understanding contemporary policy-making in the cultural sector. Eleonora also teaches the European Cultural Policy 2 module, and contributes to the teaching of the Introductory module on British Arts Administration, on the MA in European Cultural Policy and Management.
Research interestsEleonora was awarded her PhD in 2006 having completed a thesis entitled "Ubi maior, minor cessat: A comparative study of the relation between changing cultural policy rationales and globalization in post-1980s England and Italy". In the course of her doctoral research, Eleonora has had the opportunity to develop her interest in cross-national cultural policy research and the methodological issues involved in it. One of her other main research interests is the way in which cultural policy overlaps with other areas of public policy-making, in particular social and economic policy. In particular, the social impacts of the arts and their role in debates over public funding of the arts represent one of the main focuses of Eleonora's current research. Eleonora has also researched the ways in which global changes in public policy and administration, such as the New Public Management – and the related growth in evidence-based policy and auditing mechanisms – have impacted on the subsidised cultural sector and affected cultural policy priorities and rationales. Most recently, Eleonora’s research interests have developed around the often unacknowledged role of deeply held beliefs and cultural values in the process of policy-making, especially in the context of the professed reliance on empirically acquired ‘evidence’ as a basis for decision making in the policy sphere. Eleonora welcomes the opportunity of supervising PhD students in any of the above areas of research.
Representative publicationsBelfiore, E. & Bennett O. (2010) 'Beyond the ‘toolkit approach’: Arts impact evaluation research and the realities of cultural policy-making', forthcoming in Journal for Cultural Research. Belfiore, E. (2009) 'On bullshit in cultural policy practice and research: Notes from the British case', International Journal of Cultural Policy, 15.1 (revised version of the ICCPR 2008 conference paper). Belfiore, E. & Bennett O. (2009) 'Researching the Social Impact of the Arts: literature, fiction and the novel', International Journal of Cultural Policy, 15.1 Belfiore, E. & Bennett O. (2008) The Social Impact of the Arts: An Intellectual History Belfiore, E. (2008) 'On bullshit in cultural policy practice and research: Notes from the British case', paper delivered at the 2008 edition of the International Conference on Cultural Policy Research (ICCPR) which will be held in Istanbul, 20-24th August 2008. Belfiore, E. & Bennett O. (2007)'Determinants of impact: towards a better understanding of encounters with the arts' Belfiore, E. and Bennett, O. (2007) 'Rethinking the Social Impact of the Arts' Belfiore, E. (2006) 'The unacknowledged legacy: Plato, the Republic and cultural policy' Belfiore, E. (2006) 'The social impacts of the arts – myth or reality?', in Mirza, M. (ed.) (2006) Culture Vultures: Is UK arts policy damaging the arts?, London: Policy Exchange. Belfiore, E. (2004), The methodological challenge of cross-national research: comparing cultural policy in Britain and Italy (Coventry: Centre for Cultural Policy Studies). Belfiore, E. (2004), 'Auditing Culture: the subsidized cultural sector in the New Public Management' Belfiore, E. (2003), 'Economic Impacts: Inconclusive Evidence', ArtsProfessional, Issue 43, 10 February Belfiore E. (2002), 'Art as a means towards alleviating social exclusion: does it really work? – A critique of instrumental cultural policies and social impact studies in the UK' Courses taughtEleonora teaches the following modules of the MA in European Cultural Policy and Management:
Contact details
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You can listen to Dr Belfiore and Prof. Bennett discussing the content of the book and its relevance for contempory cultural policy debates in a podcast by clicking here |
