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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Unholy alliance or way of the future?

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This chapter observes how recent Finnish municipal and regional cultural strategies signify and value culture. On the basis of a thematic analysis of 21 strategies, I construct three main categories of their 'culture speech': the first is to approach culture as an instrument that unites different administrative sectors, on the one hand, and helps them to achieve extra-cultural – mostly social and economic – objectives, on the other. The second, is where culture is attached to individuals and communities and their expressions. It is also seen as an 'instrument' benefitting and serving them. The third, is economic. Culture is associated with the cultural and creative industries, and with economic impacts in general. My concluding argument is that culture has, to an increasing extent, become strategically instrumentalised in local and regional public governance. Many municipalities and regions seem to expect that arts and culture can bring desired innovations to develop their economies and social cohesion, for instance.