Andreas Wittel explores the possibility of developing the theoretical
framework for a political economy analysis of cultural production,
and the key role that subjectivity and aective labour plays within this
sector.

Owen Worth and Carmen Kuhling provide a theoretical discussion
that takes its cue from a neo-Gramscian analysis, and looks at the
anti-globalisation new movement. It deals with the tensions between
a structural, political economic reading of this cultural politics on
the one hand, and more culturalist readings of new social movements
on the other.

Gerry Strange and Jim Shorthose critique some of the limitations of
orthodox economics in its treatment of artistic labour. They position
artistic labour as a particular form of social and economic (inter)action,
highlight its intimate connection with autonomy, and suggest ways in
which the realm of autonomy might be expanded.

Neil Maycroft provides a detailed analysis of the banality that
characterises the discussion of ‘life-style’ within contemporary cultural
commentary, as a symptom of a wider ideology of consumerism.

Following on from his earlier piece, Maycroft reviews this critical
work of Patrick Hamilton’s literature, and positions it within a wider
cultural politics, resistant to the diminution of life to the cultural
stereotypes of consumer ‘life-style’.

Ian Waites presents an historical account of the literary and pictorial
resistance to the nineteenth-century Enclosure Acts, highlighting the
key role that access to common land played in the cultural life of
common people of the time. He links this to contemporary cultural
politics of space.

Adam Barnard locates the Situationist International as the fertile
precursor of contemporary cultural politics, through an account of
its political trajectory and its development of radical artistic
techniques.

Barnard goes on to review the grati artwork of Banksy, as an
inheritor of the Situationist political tradition.

Inga Scharf highlights the sterile mainstream cultural production of
immediate post-war Germany, and shows how the New German
Cinema of the 1960s blew this sterility away through its mixture of
political and aesthetic radicalism.

Tony Burns reviews the work of Ursula Le Guin, specifically 'The
Dispossessed', as an example of politically and ethically committed
creative writing.

Simon Tormey discusses the tensions within the European Social
Forum movement, especially those emerging from the debate between
a ‘disaggregated’ cultural trajectory and the imperative for more overt
political organisation.

Jim Shorthose explores two concrete examples of cultural development
and interaction. He argues that the dierence between top-down,
‘engineered’ cultural development, as compared with more •••,
‘vernacular’ culture, highlights the existence of dierent forms of
cultural production, consumption and ways of living culture within
these settings.

Following on from this, Pete Bradley describes his experiences as a
cultural producer and activist within a ‘vernacular’ DIY cultural setting,
and adds specific detail to the previous article.

Steven Miles reviews the cultural development of NewcastleGateshead
Quayside and argues that, while such developments may initially be
corporate-led, they are being re-colonised by working-class cultural
actors who add their own sense of ownership and authorship.

David Byrne and Chris Wharton provide a more critical view of the
ocial cultural developments in Newcastle-Gateshead. They argue
that these schemes undervalue traditional working-class culture, and
signal a lack of real cultural diversity.

Mark Jayne provides an account of the somewhat misfiring attempts
to use the arts and cultural production for urban regeneration in Stoke-on-
Trent, and argues that this stems from a failure of cultural managers
and policy-makers to develop sensitive, appropriate and meaningful
responses to local producers.

Carmen Kuhling situates the smoking ban in Ireland within a wider
political economic context, discussing some of the cultural tensions
that it both rejects and prolongs, as Irish culture goes through an
‘accelerated modernisation’.