Abstract
This paper presents an individual case study conducted as part of the research project Kultura i Rozwój (“Culture and Development”) in the Institute for Advanced Study in Warsaw. The main objective of the project was to study citizens’ grassroots cultural initiatives expressing their aspirations for fulfilling individual and/or community goals. The study focused on the activities of the De-Novo Association, which organised a series of collaborative outdoor performances in Dynów in July 2014. Data from the events were grouped into five categories: subjectivity, community, participation, persistence, and self-reflection. Our observations were geared toward charting the dynamics of five basic areas: resource allocation, redistribution, inclusion, innovation and cooperation, and decision-making. The most important personal and social outcomes of the initiative include: fulfilling individual needs, fostering cooperative contribution to community, shaping social capital, promoting creativity and entrepreneurship, and improving the quality of urban space through the participatory model of management.
Keywords
innovation; participation; social capital; social change; culture and development
Anna Świętochowska
PhD in liberal arts and sciences in the field of management studies. She wrote her PhD dissertation Polityka kulturalna w środowiskach miejskich – maksymalizacja wartości i poszukiwanie konsensusu [‘Cultural Policy in Urban Environments: Maximising Value and Search for Consensus’] at the Faculty of Management and Social Communication of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Managing editor of the quarterly journal Kultura i Rozwój and a member of a research team of the project ‘Kultura i Rozwój’ [“Culture and Development”] developed in the Institute for Advanced Studies under the supervision of Prof. Jerzy Hausner. Along with her research activities, she has considerable artistic achievements: she has composed music for more than twenty performances, with prizes awarded at Polish and international festivals. In 2007, she received an individual prize from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage for the music to Balanders. Her research interests include the relationship between culture and development, theory of organization, especially participatory management models, and issues of the values of culture from the point of view of cultural policies.
