Harvey argues that ‘[t]he present economic difficulties in both the US and Britain, as well as throughout Europe, are essentially being deepened for a political reason rather than out of economic necessity. That political reason is the desire to have done with capital’s responsibility to cover costs of social reproduction’ (ibid., p. 269),

Nicolas Bourriaud has famously termed socially ‘relational’ (Bourriaud, 2002)

The question of the significance of participation, though vital to much contemporary work, is one that should be treated with some suspicion. The mere involvement of the actions of audience members is not enough to assume a vital or direct relationship to the work of art …. How the exchange of participation takes place must be carefully framed, so

I explore what models of social relation and community these practices can produce, while I remain wary of models that either fetishize a myth of a unified singularity and thereby obliterate difference, or propose an unresolved multitude. I seek models of community that recognize people’s social interdependence without assimilating their distinctiv

These subsequent chapters often look at a greater range of art and performance beyond the participatory forms outlined above and in Chapter 1, because they ask how participation in culture is more broadly and fundamentally affected not just by artistic practices but also by policy-making, spatial organization and arts funding.

art theorist Claire Bishop has called ‘the social turn’ in contemporary art (Bishop, 2006b).

Who gets to do what, where, when and how in this cultural practice, and how does this affect people? What are this practice’s relationships to social engagement, communication, social justice, equality and democracy; how might it contribute to or weaken them? If it invites participation, who can participate and on what terms? What is the quality of

We need some ‘fellow feeling’, some social sympathy, to check unreserved self-interest.

seem to offer widespread constructive social engagement, with participants communicating, collaborating, co-creating and mutually supporting one another.