Rising East Essays

Introduction

In the summer of 2007, we were commissioned by the Scrutiny and Equalities Service of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, to undertake research into the impact of the summer programme of arts and events held each year in the borough and assess their contribution to ‘community cohesion’. The impetus for this project was the council’s commitment to develop a better understanding of what the notion of ‘community cohesion’ might mean to local people in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets as part of its commitment to fostering community cohesion.

The borough was awarded Beacon Status for Community Cohesion in 2003 (Keating 2007), since when a strategy of embedding cohesion in all objectives has been pursued.  In this essay, we reflect on the impact of cultural events aimed at building cohesive communities; how community cohesion might be measured or evaluated, and more generally, on the nature of ‘community cohesion’ as a policy initiative.

The major findings are that each event and the series as a whole facilitated the participation of various constituencies. In this sense, each event had its own success particular to the communit(ies) involved.  We found that bringing people together to share common experiences which were regarded as positive (for example, creativity, music, arts and youth projects) was both novel and challenged the idea of Tower Hamlets as being a somehow difficult place to live.

Furthermore, we noted that people attending these events could view the borough council differently, and in some cases have a more positive relationship, other than those potentially difficult relationships about rents, repairs, and other services. These kinds of services were well received and promoted the borough council as a facilitative and creative local council.  Some of the events worked to shape a new concept of place. For example, the Love Box festival promoted Tower Hamlets as a destination borough, part of the hip, contemporary music festival scene.

The article concludes by recommending that these kinds of festivals are developed further and recognised for their potential capacity in improving local neighbourhoods. However, there is work to be done on enhancing the level and intensity of participation and contribution, for example, to meaningful decision making and the planning of events. In addition, there needs to be a broadening out of the conceptual model of community cohesion on which such policy initiatives are based. Community cohesion as a notion emerges from an understanding of communities as relatively internally homogeneous and also separate and atomised social groups within the same space. However, our research revealed that communities are not necessarily homogeneous and do not necessarily cohere in their own right. Interventions of an arts and cultural kind do facilitate changing relationships to shared spaces and allow communities to meet temporarily. What is uncertain is that these meetings result in increased long term social gain, without structures to enable long term engagement and participation.

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Community cohesion

Community cohesion is problematic to define. The concept originated in the United States and was initially used to address economic disintegration. Today it has broadened out to refer to a wider set of social exclusion problems, the solution to which in the UK has tended to be framed as the creation and promotion of shared values and norms and common goals. This emphasis can be seen in the Cantle Report (2001) which framed many of the initiatives around citizenship, governance and public security in terms of a ‘failure to communicate and agree a set of shared values that can govern behaviour’ (2001: 18). According to the final report of the Commission on Integration and Cohesion (2007), a new definition of integration and cohesion is required which both distinguishes between the two terms and is sensitive to wider social and global change. Herein an integrated and cohesive community is one characterised by:

• A clearly defined and widely shared sense of the contribution made by  different individuals and different communities to a future vision for a neighbourhood, city, region or country;
• A strong sense of an individual’s rights and responsibilities when living in a particular place – people know what everyone expects of them, and what they can expect in turn;
• Those from different backgrounds have similar life opportunities, access to services and treatment;
• A strong sense of trust in institutions locally to act fairly in arbitrating between different interests and for their role and justifications to be subject to public scrutiny;
• A strong recognition of the contribution by both those who have newly arrived and those who already have deep attachments to a particular place, with a focus on what they have in common;
• Strong and positive relationships between people from different backgrounds in the workplace, in schools and in other institutions within neighbourhoods.

(Our Shared Future, (2007: 10) Final Report of the Commission on Integration and Cohesion)

In Tower Hamlets, the policy has been one of mainstreaming, which is, attempting to embed cohesion across planning and delivery by all services.  This response was shaped by understandings that the borough was among the most diverse in the UK, both in terms of an urban multicultural population and in economic disparity, thrown into sharp relief by the intense redevelopment of London Docklands and Canary Wharf. The borough is home to some of both the richest and poorest citizens in the UK, and to communities from all over the world.

In 2001 there were localised riots in UK town centres including Burnley, Oldham and Bradford. The Home Office set up a Community Cohesion Review Team (CCRT) led by Ted Cantle and which included Baroness Uddin (Labour Peer and Deputy Leader of Tower Hamlets Borough Council at that time). The events of September 11th heralded a new era of moral panic and increased security concerns, while ‘The election of Britain’s first BNP councillor in Tower Hamlets a decade ago provided a wake-up call to the Council. We have put a great deal of energy into encouraging community cohesion within the borough since.’ (Tower Hamlets Partnership 1: 2003.)

The Bridging Communities Project in September 2006 investigated how the concept of community cohesion might be defined and enhanced, by exploring the views of citizens, (young people, school students, youth workers, tenants’ representatives etc.), in two Local Authority Partnerships. Work with these groups contributed to a localised definition of community cohesion, a process which drew on the Commission’s report.  Two findings are particularly pertinent. First, there was a strong sense of belonging within groups but also a perception that different communities should be mixing more; second, there was a desire for more and improved information about activities and events which encouraged the mixing of communities (see Keating 2007: 4-5).

A premise for the research we undertook was that the notion of community cohesion is contested and itself highly political. We operationalise a concept of community cohesion that is premised on: the engagement and participation of the diverse communities and groups in the borough; the mixing of diverse groups and of tolerance, respect and exchange between groups and finally, an understanding of, and a commitment to, equality of opportunity. With this acknowledged, however, our aim was to consider the effectiveness of the summer programme of community arts events in fostering community cohesion.

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Culture and social inclusion

The policy contexts of the past 25 years show an increasing importance attached to the cultural and creative industries, and the role of culture more generally in promoting and delivering social objectives including social integration, expressed in policy terms as community cohesion.

The deindustrialisation of Britain and many parts of Europe since the early 1980s led to an increased focus on developing industries which could take the place of the traditional economic structures in decline. These service industries ranged from the I.T. and software industry to fashion, food, shopping, sport, and the arts. Rising public and media anxieties about the fragmentation of communities on the one hand, and the need to find effective regeneration projects which would drive economic growth on the other, fuelled the emergence of ‘competitive cities’ which became increasingly pro-active in seeking out development opportunities which would enable them to maintain or enhance their city status in the struggle to stay or become ‘plugged in’ to the global economy (see for example Core Cities, 2002).

Attractiveness has been defined variously, often with reference to indicators such as quality of life, low crime rates, access to desirable educational and health goods, and ‘safe’ settings for children and young people. Detrimental to attractiveness were key social indicators such as youth unrest, poverty, unemployment, poor housing and crime. Rising concerns about social disintegration followed the 2001 riots and the events of September 11th 2001, which drove investigations such as the CCRT’s which found evidence that a physical and social segregation had developed in towns and cities where populations consisted of diverse communities. While this did not always lead to violent conflict, the CCRT found that ‘…lives often do not seem to touch at any point, let alone overlap and promote any meaningful interchanges.’ (Cantle 2001: 9).

The implication of this was that cohesion wasn’t just about meeting and mixing but entering into open and engaged dialogue based on understandings and not social myths. There was recognition that this was difficult to achieve. The failure to assemble, as Cantle found, was not just at the informal level but ‘…ran through most institutions, including the political parties and even voluntary organisations’ (2001: 9). Specifically, regeneration projects which had tried to create meeting and mixing in fact just “institutionalised the problem” (2001: 10).

Since then, the sense of increased community breakdown has driven the search for effective urban regeneration strategies using the arts. Throughout Europe, we can see the tactical use of cultural assets, from festival approaches such as the Cities of Culture, through to grand projects such as the Guggenheim gallery in Bilbao; the Tate Modern development in Southwark, London; the arts and tourist quartiers in Paris, as well as occasional disasters (such as the National Centre for Popular Music) (Bassett, Smith, Banks, O’Connor, 2005), all oriented towards social cohesion.

Alongside these master plans and grand projects lay another layer of activity, at the level of the local neighbourhood, conceptually understood as the organising unit for managing social, cultural and economic regeneration.  A series of Policy Action Teams (PATs) were set up in 1998 as part of the government’s National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal. Each Team was tasked with a particular area, for example, the focus of PAT 01 was Jobs while PAT 06 was concerned with Neighbourhood Wardens. 

One of the Policy Action Teams, PAT 10, was explicitly set up to identify the impact of government spending in poor neighbourhoods on arts, sports, and leisure activities. The assumptions explored were that pursuing arts, sport and leisure would lead to improvements in key social indicators such as health, crime, and unemployment.  Alongside this sat a pro-multicultural agenda, partly informed by the concept of celebration, which positioned Cool Britannia as a ‘rainbow nation’ which could boast a rich cultural mix of communities characterised by an eclectic diversity of cultural forms, each  fused and distinctive by turn. 

Implementation of social inclusion and regeneration policies often took the form of redistributive strategies, such as the much vaunted ‘education, education, education’ approach taken by Tony Blair’s 1997 government, and the less vaunted expansion of child and family benefits. Alongside these, cultural interventions became an important component of local area based strategies backed by project monies. The current policy environment is a patchwork of provision delivered by multi-agency and multi-tiered partnerships working with income streams as diverse as the Arts Council, the Olympic Development Association, government, and the National Lottery funding for ‘good causes’.

According to Buck et al (2005) the  Department for Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS), and the Arts Council viewed the arts and sports as mechanisms of social integration for four main reasons: the development of self-esteem and confidence; positive enhancement of community and individual identities; facilitating connections between individuals and wider communities, and among community networks; and supporting economic growth to develop occupational groups, which in turns leads to improved skills and enhanced capacity of the local labour force. Coalter (2001), who views the arts as a public service rather like ‘social’ services, meanwhile emphasises the opportunities for personal and professional development as well as enhanced health and well-being, belonging, and improved concepts of a sense of place or home.

Translated into policy terms, we can see a shift in Labour politics away from approaches focused on financial redistribution, with its emphasis on progressive taxation threaded through an industrial infrastructure which characterised much of the post war era and lasted well into the 1970s, to a greater use of soft mechanisms based around identities and culture. Buck et al (ibid) conceptualise a broadening out of the use of ‘culture’ and ‘cultural activities’ from a ‘high art’ and elite model of the arts-as-culture which prevailed in post-war Britain to a concept of culture and ‘cultural activity’ which is based loosely on the theme of different kinds of art and different ways of life, which characterises the concept of culture in use today. 

We suggest that each step of this diversification of what is meant by culture and cultural interventions creates increased exposures to and participation by, ever widening audiences, and raises the possibilities of both restructuring and/or preserving the social order. The final steps in the paradigm shift where culture as ‘everyday life’ becomes packaged as a form of festival or community entertainment is based on the assumption of encounters between groups which are assumed to have ‘different’ ways of life, not in comparison to an assumed majority who provide a barometer of an imagined established norm, but where it is imagined that all communities have ways of life which differ from one another.

The social cohesion paradigm is based on the assumption that cohesion will flow from the increase in harmonious social encounters between groups because the social has become framed as primarily a system of cultural encounters. This is an experience-based approach to cultural intervention, and is perhaps implicitly assumed to be pleasurable, desirable, and (vaguely) educational. Such encounters are assumed to develop cultural competencies, a literacy of everyday life needed by citizens to get by in the contexts of global cities. A second aspect of the paradigm rests implicitly on the concept of social networking, and assumes that the increase in encounters will strengthen inter-connections, seen for example in the discourses of inter-faith work, economic and business partnerships, and in Putnam’s terms, the development of social capital which allows for democratic community governance and engagement (1995). The argument here is that ‘bowling alone’ undermines the social fabric and ultimately, the democratic, pluralist principles of Western societies. These are the underlying social factors which shape our global crises and their local manifestations in the emergent politics of religious and social movements, and they also influence the responses made by those in authority.

An enduring theme in these policy transitions towards a broadening out of the scope of ‘social’ policy to include work in and on the cultural system, is the difficulties posed by their evaluation. Once policy documents fall to the ground, how effectively are they implemented, and by what yardsticks would such judgements be made? As Buck et al (ibid) point out, PAT 10’s observation that there was a lack of hard evidence as to the actual success of cultural interventions has been followed by the subsequent lack of follow-through over time, and the over-reliance of ‘post project attitudinal questionnaires’ (pp 149) conducted ‘…without proper baseline studies’ (ibid).  Implicit assumptions that increasing social encounters are positive and will generate social networks of communities competent in managing their cultural encounters, need to be made explicit and exposed to exploration and evaluation.

The yardstick in policy terms is that of the Commission on Integration and Cohesion, which set out the five characteristics of cohesive communities (see above under Contexts).  In this context, the decision by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets to evaluate its approaches to community cohesion is a welcome step in the learning curve, itself understood by us as a reiterative loop, focused upon a complex system of benefits and detriments which can be grasped by looking for which benefits and detriments are incurred by which citizens on what basis with what consequences, under what circumstances and why.

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Project Methodology and Insights

We selected a set of sample events that were representative of many of the kinds that the London Borough of Tower Hamlets stages in terms of the scale and setting of the events, and their articulation with differently composed audiences. The research we undertook was based on two data sources. First, questionnaires and monitoring forms designed and administered by survey teams at community arts events in the borough provided general demographic data and asked four questions on community cohesion. The second data set came from the research assistants, including a small group of undergraduate students from the University of East London, who were given the task of collecting data as observers of selected events, and of providing information about their experiences of collecting the survey data, via focus groups.

From the outset of the project, a number of limitations to the methods were noted. For example, the audience is self-assigned in the sense that only attendees were available to be questioned; the survey method does not produce a representative sample; and there will be an element of selection on the part of the researchers in terms of event attendees targeted/approached, however reflexively this is done and monitored. Further limitations and elaborations on these limitations emerged from the focus group data where researchers reported their experiences of conducting the survey at events.

One such theme concerned the difficulties of asking questions deemed to be sensitive, such as those equal opportunities monitoring questions on religion and sexuality. Some of those questioned, particularly in the overwhelmingly Muslim context of one event, the Community Fair, felt the questions to be a ‘private’ matter and indicated that they felt these to be ‘intrusive’, using these terms explicitly in refusing to answer the questions. It is notable that this applied only to those particular questions. Student researchers commented that:

‘I got a good response from the questionnaires, apart from on issues of sexuality and religion. Obviously, religion was pretty obvious but…’

‘Yeah, they roll their eyes, “Come on, it’s obvious”!’

‘Why are you asking me? I’m Muslim!’

This made the questions about religion and sexuality sensitive and difficult to get firm responses to in some cases. Some respondents were affronted that the survey team would ask such an obvious question as ‘religion’, and then not make what to them was the equally obvious identification of ‘Muslim’ with ‘heteroseuxal’. It was at this event that people were most reticent to answer questions on their sexuality and where they demonstrated the most shock in their responses (‘when I asked that question…her eyes popped out!’ reported a student researcher).

However, there were differences between events. For example, at the Love Box music festival, asking these questions did not seem problematic, perhaps because of the more heterogeneous nature of the crowd:

‘And with that sexuality question, everyone just immediately ticked the box, so it didn’t really come across as an issue. You know, there were homosexual couples there, heterosexual couples there’.

A second theme to emerge concerns the reliability of the questions and the reliability of interpreting the answers given. The open ended questions were seen as lacking in specificity. For example, the question asking about the favourite part of an event meant that some people may answer ‘food’ or ‘music’ or ‘the bands’, without saying which kind exactly; and further probing did not always produce detail. Moreover, some of the questions contained uncertain, controversial and contested terms. For example, the question relating to equal opportunities was not straightforward in the minds of all respondents. One respondent replied that an event did not offer equal opportunities ‘at these prices’, suggesting that this respondent had interpreted the question as a query about whether the ‘poor’ had as much opportunity to enjoy the event as those with higher disposable incomes.

However, the concept of equal opportunities is a catch all category encompassing a number of inclusions/exclusions around gender, sexuality, ethnicity, disability, faith and so on, which may have been more or less well catered for at this event in each category. In some cases, this may well mean that people are likely to give a firmly positive or negative answer to such a question since it is insufficiently nuanced to grasp what specifically is or isn’t positively achieved. Thus a number of student researchers remarked that the answer to this question depended very much on the politics and world view of the respondents.

Another issue is how ‘equality of opportunity’ is understood and registered by the survey respondents. For example, this could be in terms of the diversity of the people attending the event, the diversity of the stalls at the event, the diversity of the entertainment, and so on. Some respondents simply did not understand questions about ‘equal opportunities’ or about ‘sexuality’. In one case, a student researcher who is a Sylheti speaker attempted to translate the questions for a respondent but found that the concepts simply do not translate straightforwardly. They then made the pertinent point that an event intended to foster equal opportunities is targeted at a community whose language does not contain such conceptualisations of social life.

Similarly, a question posed about the ‘meeting and mixing’ of other cultures and communities is difficult. It is one thing to set this out as a policy objective, but its translation at local level can carry rather different meanings to those engaged with it. Meeting and mixing carried a variety of meanings, varying from mingling in the same social space, to informal interaction, to economic trade and exchange. More specific questions could have looked at who people met and what kind of interaction they had, although some of the economic monitoring questions aimed at stallholders attempted to get at this. Most of the student researchers felt that the musical events enabled forms of non-verbal communication and mixing in people’s interactions in enjoying the music, but again, this is difficult to measure and could not have been evaluated by the questionnaire.

Yet, we note that this was balanced by the fact that at these leisure events people did have time for such a thing as a survey and were receptive to being approached, when they might normally have been reticent of talking to a stranger and spending time filling in a form.  Further, student researchers found that music and the drinking of alcohol made people easier to approach and more willing to both to answer questions and to spend time in answering those questions (at events where alcohol was available and the event included music). They also suggested that at some events alcohol ‘eased’ the interaction between some groups of people for example at the Love Box event. Interestingly, poor weather was unproblematic: people huddling in tents to avoid the rain enhanced both questionnaire responses and levels of interaction between those attending events.

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The demographic mix

Our student researchers attended four very different events. The Love Box weekender is a very large, two day event attracting a wide audience. It was observed as being ‘very professional’ and having a wide range of activities within the event itself – a diverse range of stalls, food outlets, amusements, ‘fairground’ rides. Those attending were ‘impressed by the quality of the entertainment’ and emphasised that with the combination of activities, including big bands, smaller musical events and activities particularly targeted at children, it constituted a ‘great family day out’, as well as attracting a more youthful audience.

The second event, the Community Fair, was a relatively small event but one which was very well attended in the small space it was allocated in Mile End Park. All three student researchers who attended this event commented that it seemed explicitly geared towards the interests of the Muslim community in the content of the stalls both small and large, the food outlets and the culture of the event. It is an event geared towards families with children providing a range of ‘fairground’ rides and activities.

A very small event was theBandstand event in Victoria Park. Student researchers expressed some regret that the event was not better attended as the content (Bangladeshi bands and dancers) was so good, and there was a general sense among attendees that there had been a lack of publicity for the event. A diverse event was the St. Barnabas Fete. Student resarchers attended this event and all stressed that this was diverse in terms of the range of music (‘women’s choirs, indie bands, punk’), food outlets and other stalls including those of local political parties and local events (such as the Bethnal Green tube disaster), and some more culturally obscure activities represented such as lesser known South Asian martial arts. This also had activities to cater for young children.

The demographic data of the attendees showed:

• Locality: with the Community Fair attracting the most concentrated audience with an East London postcode, and Love Box with the least concentrated audience, the only event which attracted visitors from the rest of UK and international visitors.
• Gender breakdown: the majority of the Love Box audience were female; roughly even splits in St. Barnabas, slightly more male than female in the Community Fair, and all male at the Bandstand.
• BME identities: the dominance of White: English in particular at Love Box, while the Community Fair saw the Bangladeshi community more highly represented. Under-represented groups among respondents include African: Somali at both the Love Box and Bandstand events, and Asian C, in very small numbers at all events but more likely to be represented at Love Box. The age range was weighted in favour of the younger end of adulthood, peaking at 20-34 age group. Children and those over the age of 60 years were are exclusively represented at the Community Fair and Love Box. A small number declined to answer this partially sensitive question and are included in Not Known.
• Sexual orientation: the ‘Declined to answer’ category is the largest for this question.  the largest expressed representation was found to be heterosexual, with low or no representation of bisexual, gay or lesbian at both the Community Fair and St. Barnabas, and limited representation only at Love Box of the Bisexual community. Love Box attracted the most diverse crowd in terms of stated sexuality. The second largest category is Not Known. Again, Not Printed on the Form indicates the absence of this question from the survey form.
• The data on religious belief is the most complex of data in this set. The overall trends are that Not Known is the largest category, and Not Printed on Form, i.e. not represented in possible options, is a statistically significant proportion. Not Printed on the Form indicates the absence of this question on the survey form. The largest affiliated group is Muslim, followed by Christian. We can see that non-aligned groups (variously defined under catch all categories of Agnostic and Atheist) are a statistically significant response group.

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The findings: observations on cohesion

This section considers both responses to and observations of these various events in terms of their contribution to fostering equal opportunities and community cohesion.

Being in the same space

An important issue was the extent to which the crowd attending events was mixed. This varied significantly from event to event. The Community Fair for example was perceived as predominantly a ‘monocultural’ event, as a festival ‘for’ the Bangladeshi community (but necessarily ‘by’). In response to the question about where people were from, many responses here indicated that the event was, quite literally, on the doorstep of those attending it. The culture of the event was appropriately staged in accordance with Islamic mores. For example, there was a women-only tent, ‘no alcohol’ signs and only soft drinks being sold – although these were limited. ‘You couldn’t even get a coffee’, was one observation. There was about a 50:50 response rate to the question as to whether people had met other people or learned anything about other communities. Most said they ‘hadn’t come across anything different’, and some said that they ‘would love to come across something different’, but interestingly, in completing the surveys, many also claimed that such events did promote equality of opportunity. The latter addition suggests that more than one definition or aspect of this is in circulation, with the opportunity to mix within a community boundary being seen as a significant opportunity by the attendees, even if not falling into the paradigms of community cohesion as group mixing with a.n.other group.

The St Barnabas fete boasted a mixed crowd in terms of age and a clear religious mix (Catholic and Muslim), and the student researchers who attended generally felt this event did give ‘an opportunity to see how other cultures were’. This would seem to go some way to fulfilling the cohesion agenda as defined by ‘different communities mixing’. The fete facilitated communities taking collective action , showing respect for diversity, and promoting meaningful interaction defined as ‘mixing’. The interaction of communities of faith indicates a high degree of social trust, although we note the under representation of other faith groups based in East London, including Jews.

The Love Box weekender had a fairly wide age range ‘from twenty somethings to forty somethings’, it was observed. Whilst people did not notice many children at the festival, ‘they must have expected children because there were activities and amusements there for them’. In addition, the crowd here was internationally and regionally mixed, with many respondents travelling considerable distances to attend this event. It was also observed that at this particular event, whilst people did most usually arrive in groups, those groups were often diverse and composed ‘of people from different backgrounds’, be they regional, ethnic or even national.  Love Box therefore seems to have afforded a significant opportunity for cultural encounters on the one hand, while the scale of the event, with 20,000 attendees, represents a significant economic opportunity. Here, the event also establishes Tower Hamlets as a cultural and arts destination, an area able to offer attractive events worth travelling for, pulling in audiences from outside East London. However, it remains unclear as to the extent to which audiences mixed; also in question are the quality of the interactions, and their impact.

Meaningful interactions across groups

Whether, to what extent and in what ways, different groups engaged with one another is hard to judge from either a questionnaire or by observation. It is worth quoting a number of observers’ comments on this point:

‘…it’s like any gathering that you go to. People tend to stick in groups. If they come as a couple they stay as a couple, or come as a family, stay as a family…Unless there is some sort of activity that forces them to mix with one another…uh…you just don’t, do you?’

‘I think it depends on the definition of “meeting”…there were a cross section of ethnicities, but actually, did they interact? Did they speak to each other? That’s another question. They were in the same park, but I don’t think necessarily that they were talking to each other.’

Half of all respondents themselves thought that on balance they agreed strongly or tended to agree that they did meet people, or were likely to. A small number thought on balance that they would probably not meet people. However, this data suggests sociability, at least at the level of expectation. An interesting theme in the focus group material was the importance of music which was seen by most as a catalyst to some kind of interaction in terms of the diverse offerings at two of the events. The researcher students that attended either or both the Love Box and the St. Barnabas fete all made the point that people were easier to approach, that the atmosphere was more relaxed and attributed this to the impact of music at these events.

In some cases, the structure of the events themselves did not encourage any form of mixing, cultural or otherwise. Here, people were ‘just passing through’ and they might stop, sit and observe an event passively before moving on. There was no opportunity for interaction between observers ‘apart from watching’. Sharing a spectacle in common is a starting point, but it does not rate on the cohesion indicator of meaningful interactions across groups, or meet the two criteria of both engagement and participation, it suggests an engagement which for many may be a casual, ephemeral one.

In addition, we found that the social function of some of the events was to facilitate links within the community, but not between that community and any others. This partially fulfilled the cohesion indicator of solidarity and collective community action, but not meaningful interactions across groups.  At the St Barnabas fete, on the other hand, student researchers suggested that they did witness some form of coming together, where two communities (Catholic and Muslim) ‘crossed there’ and were ‘experiencing the whole thing together’, moving some way towards engagement and participation and opportunities for ‘meaningful interaction across groups’

This said, on the questionnaires, most people did say that such events brought communities together. This could be interpreted in a variety of ways. It may be that people simply  ‘like’ to see events in this light and feel some compulsion to answer ‘yes’ to this question. Alternatively, it may be that even within one particular community there exists considerable diversity, so that a group framed by social categories as a monocultural crowd in itself actually represents diverse opinions and lifestyles. Such a crowd can be brought together by such events, the meaning of the act for the attendees is an expression of social identity and ‘bowling together’, and arguably this creates or affirms a social solidarity.

Promoting equal opportunities

As discussed above, a difficulty in evaluating this lies in the elasticity of equal opportunities as a concept and practice. The understanding of this question and the answers given to it depended on the interpretation of the respondent and of the observers. For example, concerns raised by researcher students observing the Love Box event, were those of social inequality. Whilst the event attracted a wide audience from around the UK and internationally, it was located in a borough with high levels of social deprivation, and the event itself was socially exclusive in the expense of the ticket price.  Whilst the event was clearly highly successful, some saw this as only being so because ‘so many people were willing to pay so much money to be there’. This economic factor raises issues of equality of opportunity, and throws new light on participation in other events, including the Bandstand event which was free – and yet very poorly attended. At the Community Fair, some people denied that the event fostered equal opportunities, because it was not a multi-faith event in terms of the content of the stalls, those attending and those working to put on the various activities. However we can note that this is a particular conceptualisation of equality of opportunity, and that other kinds of equalities are fulfilled by this kind of event; for example, equality of treatment and services.

Promoting ‘community cohesion’

In some cases, the events could be seen to promote cohesion within one community and reflect its concerns. For example, the Community Fair promoted the Islamic faith, ways of life of local Muslim communities and charitable organizations associated with it, but there was no representation of the broader religious mix in the borough or of other faith based groups and organisations. 

Others were seen not to promote any sense of cohesion in terms of the mixing of communities or within any particular community, because they did not elicit any active engagement with those who attended, as was the case with the Bandstand which was a spectator event.

All the student observers saw the mixing of communities and some kind of personal interaction as key to promoting cohesion, and they saw a range of events appealing to different constituencies, in the same physical space, as important in this regard.

Locally embedded events?

Love Box was much enjoyed by those who attended it; however student researchers queried the extent to which the event had much to do with Tower Hamlets itself. This was seen as more of a ‘London thing’ by attendees, drawing people from all over the city, the country and beyond, with some people having travelled from Europe especially for this weekender. Other events such as the Bandstand and the Community Fair were very much a localised affair.

This raises a question of the planning of such events. The lack of attendance at some events, due perhaps to lack of public knowledge of the event, is in contrast to the mass attendance at Love Box. Love Box attracted many visitors from beyond East London postcodes as well as corporate provision and an international line-up, suggesting that there is a sense in which this event is ‘parachuted in’ to a particular location with little established contact with groups from the local area who may attend and support for example by active contribution. Large scale events such as Love Box may seem to have little to do with their particular location, although this does allow for a different framing of the place, in this example as a musical tourist destination, and Tower Hamlets as part of a cool festival scene. This is in itself a possibly quite legitimate objective, but we note that there was a lack of clarity about these kinds of objectives. It might be interesting to consider what local residents who did not attend this festival thought of its content and location. A question raised here, therefore, is the extent to which the events emerge from a process of participative planning with/in neighbourhoods and with stakeholders, and which benefits can be won from which kinds of events.

Arts, events and a ‘public service’ ethos

In this section, we reflect upon the community cohesion indicators relating to equality of opportunity, access, treatment and services and Coalter’s (2001) argument that services which provide arts and culture are themselves forms of public service.

As single events some events helped cohere communities and regenerate the locality more than others. As one observer put it, in describing the Love Box event:

‘It wasn’t a public service type thing…It seemed like everyone was out to make money, you know, the people on the stage, the fairground people, people selling various things…so…yeah it was a money making venture rather than a public service event’.

This event was seen as one which had little if anything to do with both the locality (it could have taken place in any London or city park) and the council (it could ‘essentially have been in the private sector’). Yet researcher students agreed that it was both a positive thing that the council were monitoring such events (whatever the problems with the means of doing so) and that the events were helping to do something positive, in particular by bring people together by and through music.

They and the attendees more generally also felt that the range of events, attempting to appeal to different constituencies was a positive thing. There was a general feeling that ‘being in the same space’ is important whether or not it can be seen that people interact, and that being together in a leisure space is qualitatively different from being in the same library, benefit queue or adult education class or other kind of service context. 

Lastly, there was a sense in which some local people attending these events saw them as way of airing grievances, albeit that they seemed to understand well that the survey team were not ‘from the council’ or representing its particular services.  Our student researchers listened to various airings of the problems of crime and public sector housing, which leads us to wonder whether then the Council could perhaps have a bigger profile at such events and seek to engage with (sometimes disgruntled) local residents in a positive way. There was evidence that attendees welcomed the council putting on these kinds of events, regarding this as a legitimate and constructive council activity. For some, it put a different light on the Council and allowed them to access a different kind of economic and social relationship than the ones to which they had hitherto been confined.

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Conclusions

The Borough of Tower Hamlets deploys a number of different models of events to encourage the participation of various constituencies, each of which has its own successes. People are brought into different social relations through being in the same space and place and having common experiences which they generally regarded as positive, for example, enjoying musical performance. There is potential for people to have a different relationship with the borough through engaging with these different kinds of council services, in these different spaces (for example, away from council buildings). The events help to develop new concepts of place, for example, the Love Box festival promotes Tower Hamlets as a destination borough for contemporary music festivals.

Thus each event and the series as a whole facilitated the participation of various constituencies, with event having its own success particular to the communit(ies) involved.  The projects brought people together to share common experiences which were regarded as positive and challenged their relationship to the Borough of Tower Hamlets and the neighbourhood, for example, the Love Box festival promoted Tower Hamlets as a destination borough, part of the music festival scene.

We think that these kinds of festivals should be developed further and recognised for their potential capacity in improving local neighbourhoods. However, work needs to be done to enhance the level and intensity of participation and contribution. We think that there needs to be a broadening out of the conceptual model of community cohesion on which such policy initiatives are based, away from an understanding of communities as relatively internally homogeneous and also separate and atomised social groups within the same space. Our research shows that communities are not necessarily homogeneous and do not necessarily cohere in their own right. Interventions of an arts and cultural kind do facilitate changing relationships to shared spaces and allow communities to meet temporarily. What is uncertain is that these meeting result in increased long term social gain, without structures to enable long term engagement and participation.

Erika Calvo is Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of East London.
Judith Burnett is Dean of the School of Law, Social Sciences and Communications, University of Wolverhampton.

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Bibliography

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• Cantle, T. (2001) Community Cohesion: A Report of the Independent Review Team. The Home Office, London: HMSO.
• Coalter, F. (2001) Realising the Potential of Cultural Services: The Case for the Arts. London: Local Government Association
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• Tower Hamlets Partnership (2003) Community Cohesion in Tower Hamlets. London Borough of Tower Hamlets

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