In our current research into how the practices of governance, conducted at the level of cities and cultural policies produce both individual and collective subjects engaged in particular communities and environments, and the ways in  which cities are constituted, culturally, socially and politically, by a complex mix of their histories, their architectural legacy, their topography, the industries and commerce located there, by their cultural industries and practices, there are two foci:

The cluster of research brought together under the notion of Governing the City: Materialities and Urban Cultures takes forward the notion of the city as a tool of government, developed in the first five years of CRESC 1 Theme 3 and pushes it into new areas. Through a cluster of inter related projects research aims to explore the  city as matter and to analyse it in terms of its intersections with urban cultures. The notion of materiality encompasses the importance of economic processes in understanding cities as well as to the idea of the city as a built environment which ‘solidifies’ social and cultural processes in visible and material ways. It thus aims to analyse buildings and built environments as texts which reveal the social and cultural processes embedded within. Visual signs, symbols and artefacts are key here.  Further core questions are the ways in which governmental policies act to embed social and cultural relations in particular urban spaces and forms and on contemporary and historical understandings of urban identities in the context of socio-economic and cultural divisions and differences. A further cluster of research considers new ways of understanding governance spaces and urban policy theoretically drawing on notions of assemblage and topology, considering how cities are assembled also by the situated practices and imaginations of actors involved.

The second set of research questions brought together under the umbrella of Cultural Assemblages: Museums and Heritage emerges from the work of CRESC 1 Theme 3 on the operations of varied institutions whose role is the shaping of the subject through engagement with culture. In this sense the work of this theme explores the deployment of culture as a tool for shaping the individual and the social. A key question here is on the role of museums and heritage in making and mobilising particular social worlds and subjects. Research questions focus on the operation of heritage practices in the production of individual, civic, supra-national and colonial identities will be investigated via work, and on the relations between metropolis and colony and Europe and Oceania . A further line of enquiry addresses issues of acquisition and the fiscal mechanisms applied to the transfer and/or retention of art collections , as well as issues of disposal.