Creative industries and cultural development: still a Janus face?

Since the 1970s, it has been possible to discuss cultural policy in terms of the discourses ‘art as industry’ and ‘cultural rights’ (for a discussion of this history, see Gibson, 2001). ‘Creative industries’ is the policy ‘buzz term’ of the moment. The ways in which the terms ‘creative industries’ and ‘cultural rights’ are understood in contemporary cultural policy encapsulate the ways in which the economic and humanistic benefits of creative practice have been articulated as existing in competition. I argue that it is counterproductive to understand these discourses as mutually exclusive. Are these discursive constructions — art as profit versus art as identity — constitutively oppositional? To pose this same question using the terms which frame contemporary policy debate, how do we negotiate between the (seemingly) competing logics of the creative industries and cultural development policy discourses?