Cultural policy and the cultural economy: A critical analysis of the effects of cultural policy on cultural economic development at the local level

The purpose of this study is to examine how cultural policy at the local level, is applied to CED projects---particularly those that emanate from African American communities---and how the discretionary practice of the policy implementation affects the community. A second purpose is to examine how bias and the lack of uniformity can affect the implementation of cultural policy on local CED projects---further to investigate the prevailing issues that foster disconnect and a lack of continuity between the current policy and the theory in this field. Finally, it reviewed how the lack of a uniform cultural policy affected local CED projects. Two communities in the city of Chicago were studied, Bronzeville and the North Pullman historic districts.;This study is auto-ethnographic. Auto-ethnographers use their personal experiences as primary data. Therefore, the dominant portion of this study centers primarily on data gathered through utilizing a combination of auto-ethnographic, autobiographical, and retrospective participant observation research for the Pullman community portion of the study. For the Bronzeville portion of the study I have also utilized interviews. The respondents were people who were involved in some capacity with the project.;This study describes and interprets the effects of existing state and local cultural policy on CED projects in the African American community. This study focused on two central issues : a) Is there an existing mindset held by those who implement cultural policy contributes to the marginalization of knowledge that emanates from communities which then leaves a community without a voice to express itself in the political process, and b) Does the ambiguous definition of a cultural policy, as it relates to cultural economic development projects emanating from the community level, and allows local officials to abuse their political power and to create barriers for communities that prevent development of a community's understanding of policies and the creation and completion of cultural economic development initiatives.;Three separate stages of data collection and analysis provided the data and conclusions of this study. The auto-ethnographic format was used simultaneously with a retrospective participant observation approach through first- person narrative and essay writing, and interviews.;The findings indicate from the analysis of the data on two communities studied, seem to indicate that inasmuch as considerable knowledge is gained through transformational, experiential and self directed learning takes place in the community; that knowledge and or skills is not readily accepted nor respected. That being the case the bureaucratic manipulation moves into full throttle when the loosely defined cultural policy is implemented on cultural economic development projects particularly those that take place in the African American community.