The Subsidy Question: Community Theatre and the Integral State
Field | Value | Language |
dc.contributor.author | Nantsou, Izabella | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2025-01-29T02:48:07Z | |
dc.date.available | 2025-01-29T02:48:07Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2025 | en_AU |
dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33564 | |
dc.description.abstract | This thesis explores how historical shifts in capitalist accumulation strategies have influenced Australian cultural subsidy. It examines the origins of Australian neoliberalism and its impact on federal arts funding from 1972 to 1997, focusing on the relationship between the state, community arts, and cultural policy. The methodology is historical materialism, guided by Antonio Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony, which views the state as integral to capitalism. The first half of the thesis traces the evolution of federal arts funding as a Keynesian economic policy, through its transformation under the Whitlam government, to the destabilisation of the arts council model amid economic crises, and examines how these changes shaped Australia’s federal community arts program. The second half analyses how shifts in accumulation strategies are reflected in community arts through four case studies: Art and Working Life (1982-c1995), an arts program jointly funded by the Australia Council and the Australian Council of Trade Unions targeting projects linked to labour culture; Melbourne Workers Theatre (1987-2012), a theatre company dedicated to working exclusively with the labour movement; Creative Nation (1994), Australia’s first federal cultural policy, which entrenched an economic rationalist “creative industries” paradigm into policymaking; and The Essentials (1997), a community theatre production created with emergency services and domestic violence support workers about their experiences under a state-wide restructure by former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett. These case studies are examined in the context of declining organised labour power in Australia, and the rise and consolidation of neoliberalism as the dominant hegemony of advanced capitalism. This thesis finds that the industrial problems of the Australian arts sector result from a structural antagonism between a sector that relies on public funding and the imperatives of the neoliberal state. | en_AU |
dc.language.iso | en | en_AU |
dc.subject | neoliberalism | en_AU |
dc.subject | theatre | en_AU |
dc.subject | community arts | en_AU |
dc.subject | cultural policy | en_AU |
dc.subject | creative industries | en_AU |
dc.subject | australia | en_AU |
dc.title | The Subsidy Question: Community Theatre and the Integral State | en_AU |
dc.type | Thesis | |
dc.type.thesis | Doctor of Philosophy | en_AU |
dc.rights.other | The author retains copyright of this thesis. It may only be used for the purposes of research and study. It must not be used for any other purposes and may not be transmitted or shared with others without prior permission. | en_AU |
usyd.faculty | SeS faculties schools::Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences::School of Art, Communication and English | en_AU |
usyd.department | Discipline of Theatre and Performance Studies | en_AU |
usyd.degree | Doctor of Philosophy Ph.D. | en_AU |
usyd.awardinginst | The University of Sydney | en_AU |
usyd.advisor | Ginters, Laura |
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