By Marte C. W. Solheim

I have been invited to present my research on diversity and innovation at different cultural fora, such as international and national folk-music festivals, which bring together diverse voices representing cultural scenes in Norway and beyond.

At some of these events, the organizers arranged seminars specifically tackling diversity and inclusion within the creative and cultural scenes. This is a topic high on the agenda in Norway, which strives to create a cultural scene adequately representative of its diverse population, on stage as well as among the audience.

Moreover, this is a prominent issue raised in the media, since those managing cultural institutions have tended to be a homogenous group. Such awareness has led to the creation of organizations facilitating the employment of ethnic minorities in cultural industries in Norway, as well as various other initiatives.

For instance, the initiative led by the Arts Council in Norway that started off with the purpose of investigating how one might achieve true inclusion within cultural industries (this initiative culminated in the report entitled “An Inclusive Cultural Sector in the Nordics”.

At one folk music festival where I presented, one of the speakers, Marit, gave an example of how the organization she worked for, Interkultur, worked to make its offerings more diverse and inclusive, by reaching out to an immigrant community. The area was Drammen, Norway’s seventh largest municipality, located 40 km from the capital, Oslo. Drammen is known for having a higher-than-average percentage of immigrants within the Norwegian context, most of them from Poland. In 2021, 14,84% of the Norwegian population are immigrants (18,51% when including Norwegian-born to immigrant parents), and in Drammen these numbers are 21,24% immigrants (and 28,50% when including Norwegian born to immigrant parents) (Statistics Norway, 2021).

Since this diversity had not been represented or reflected in the local cultural scene, the organization decided to contact the Polish community, to discuss what they wanted to experience culturally. The Polish community responded by suggesting that one of the most famous reggae artists in Poland be brought in, and the organizers took a chance and invited the suggested artist. They realized quickly that they did not even have to promote the event; it was sold out even before they were able to start the marketing campaign for the concert.

Interkultur have focused on arranging international cultural days and becoming a hub for multicultural dissemination and activities, dedicated to showcasing greater diversity on stage, backstage, and in the audience. Although the case mentioned above involved bringing an international artist to Norway, rather than utilizing a specific immigrant entrepreneur within Norway, it did exemplify the “matching” of cultural offerings with existing needs in the market. The case, therefore, speaks to cultural entrepreneurship (Gehman & Soublière,2017).

Extract from a recently published book-chapter

The above is an extract from a new book chapter published in the book “Cultural Entrepreneurship. New Societal Trends”.

In this chapter, I aim at marrying two previously separate research agendas. Namely that of cultural entrepreneurship and immigrant entrepreneurship.

The chapter focuses on the case of Norway, and aims at disentangling and opening up new fruitful pathways for research. Traditionally, immigrants have been found to demonstrate higher entrepreneurial drive than non-immigrant populations, which has spurred an increase in international scholarly attention to this theme.

Studies on immigrant entrepreneurship have tackled a variety of related topics, such as the uncovering of entrepreneurial intentions, opportunity recognition, and the role of diaspora networks. Cultural entrepreneurship has emerged along these lines, centering on the role of culture and heritage in entrepreneurial ventures.

Concomitantly, interest has grown in investigating cultural entrepreneurship from the prism of culture-making—deploying culture towards making culture, and thus altering frames of reference. But despite the boom in research on these matters internationally, as well as in the presence of immigrant entrepreneurs in Norway, few scholars have offered contributions on immigrant entrepreneurship in the country.

Moreover, to the best of this author’s knowledge, research devoted to the interconnectedness between immigrant entrepreneurship and cultural entrepreneurship is scarce. Thus, the present chapter offers critical reflections on this angle and highlights fruitful pathways for future research. This chapter tackles the topic of cultural entrepreneurship by advancing knowledge on the role cultural entrepreneurship may play in encouraging greater equitability and mutual understanding among communities in multicultural societies.

You can read more about it here.