In the past decades, culture has increasingly been accepted as a dimension to be planned and managed within public policy, alongside social, economic and ecological considerations. Techniques for impact assessment of interventions on our economy, ecology and society are becoming more sophisticated, but are not yet well established within the cultural domain. This paper presents the results of a systematic literature review on applications of cultural impact assessment (CIA) internationally. Findings indicate that CIA has largely been practiced since 2002 to understand the impact of development processes on indigenous communities. While interest in CIA was also apparent in areas of public policy, particularly local government, little evidence was found of the practice actually established. A divergent understanding of CIA was found in the 'cultural' (funded arts and heritage) sector where it was understood as both impact on culture, but also impact of cultural activities. Only two developed tools for measuring cultural impact were found, one each for indigenous contexts and cities. Recommendations for strengthening CIA practice include establishing agreed definitions of culture and cultural impact, and validated tools, including measurement frameworks and indicators.
Cuando el saber se especializa, crece el volumen total de la cultura. Ésta es la ilusión y consuelo de los especialistas (En Juan de Mairena, de Antonio Machado) Resumen El cambio en los objetivos y en los instrumentos de intervención de las políticas públicas no siempre comporta el desarrollo de nuevas perspectivas y metodologías para su evaluación. El caso de las políticas culturales ejemplifica esta realidad. Por un lado, han adquirido un rol fundamental en el desarrollo territorial que busca integrar una economía del conocimiento con la cohesión social, la gobernanza y la sostenibilidad. Sin embargo, su perspectiva de evaluación continúa centrada en criterios estéticos, de consumo cultural o, simplemente, en las externalidades de la cultura. Así, este artículo contribuye al desarrollo de metodologías para evaluar de forma científica el retorno social de las políticas culturales, su valor público y los beneficios producidos para la ciudadanía. Palabras clave: políticas públicas; evaluación de políticas; políticas culturales; valor público de la cultura.
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