Cultural Participation Surveys in Helsinki

Once examined the cultural context and what surrounds the realization of cultural surveys within the city of Helsinki, it is time to list some of the varied local statistical sources. To start with, a few samples are the questionnaire surveys carried out by the Arts Council of Finland, the statistics produced by Urban Facts, data provided by different associations in the field (museums, theatres, orchestras, etc.), occasional studies conducted by the Cultural Office of the city of Helsinki, academic research, and of course, the data provided by Statistics Finland in regard to the city.

The cultural office of the city of Helsinki, provides a regular series of publications on cultural matters (see http://www.hel.fi/www/kulke/en/Cultural+policies/publications/), however, most of the data used in it is not produce by them but rather comes from its subsidies, customers’

feedback collected once or twice a year, or data from tickets bought for their events (interviewee 4, personal communication, 2015, December 18).

Additionally, the cultural Office of the city of Helsinki, relies on Urban Facts, which claims to be the “expert organization responsible for statistics, research, information and open data as well as records management at the City of Helsinki.” (taken from http://www.hel.fi/www/tieke/en/This-is-urban-facts/). The latter carries out statistics and publications about general issues related to the city; specifically related to arts and culture, there is a recent one called “Arts and Culture in Helsinki” (2014), that has been released approximately at intervals of five-year, previously preceded by similar volumes in 1995, 1999, 2004 and 2008.

In this publication Urban Facts applied a web-based survey using email and Facebook as channels for communication, focusing on matters such as the role of the respondents in the field of arts and culture, respondents’ consumption of various forms of arts and culture, the most interesting cultural event of the year, the use of the Internet for arts and culture-related purposes, satisfaction with cultural offerings in Helsinki and problems and shortcomings of cultural offerings in Helsinki (City of Helsinki, 2014).

76 Urban Facts provides information about present, past and future of the city, and it is organised in three units, including urban research unit, archives and a unit for statistics and information services.

Among the information collected by the research unit, can also be found the cultural survey called Urban lifestyles which, as its name suggest, collects information on different ways of living in Helsinki. The first set of data was collected in 2012/2013 and concentrated on living, lifestyles, consumption (especially food and eating out) and families with children and the second, in March 2016, focussed on cultural consumption as well (interviewee 6, personal communication, 2016, March 7).

The results of this survey, are analyzed in conjunction between the research unit of Urban Facts and the Economic Sociology departments of the University of Turku. Its use is mainly in the preparation of written articles based on the data which are likely to be published in the online journal of the city called Kvartti. These articles are not intended to be purely academic, as the survey not only intends “to gather information of how people live in Helsinki, [but also] to provide City of Helsinki information for decision making.” (Urban Facts, 2016)

Another survey worth mentioning is the one belonging to the Helsinki Creative City Index where 245 people were interviewed either face to face or electronically, with the objective of finding out how good people felt and how well Helsinki as a city performed in different topics, in comparison to other cities. Out of 245, 185 were on-line survey responses of long and shorter questionnaires, while the rest participated in workshops, focus groups, and individual conversation with key informants from public and private sector (Landry, 2014).

The web discussion, that followed after the preliminary debate for Helsinki’s strategy programme 2013-2016, is another example of data collection directly linked with processes of decision making in Helsinki; in this one, 1,418 people took part with a total number of answers of 2,405; however, this debate did not focus solely on cultural matters, but in the strategy in general terms (City of Helsinki, 2013).

Lastly, as part of an academic study regarding cultural centres in Helsinki, a survey was applied to 814 visitors of those centres, complementing it with interviews and revision of documents.

77 The main purpose of the questionnaire was to understand the perception and reasons for visiting the centres, while for the research itself was to examine the relationship between the visitor’s motivations and the political justifications of the centres (Silvanto, 2008).

Notwithstanding several surveys existed around the cultural thematic or that may include it, only some of them seem to be intended for further impact on decision making; the statistics put together by the cultural office in their publications are an example of the latter. Issues such as City of Helsinki 2014, 2015, give the impression of not surpassing the descriptive stage as it limited mostly to the presentation of numbers as well as their geographical and sectorial distribution, without additional recommendations or interpretations.

Although the work made by the research unit of urban Facts in the interpretative side is valuable, it is not aimed solely to the cultural field, the execution of surveys represents just a small part compared to the statistics unit, and the connection with the decision-making level is not as clear-cut:

“Statistics are just one dimension when I think of my job as a sociologist. When I think of my projects, they are rarely born because of some direct wishes from the city administration. But on the other hand, issues I’m dealing with are strongly linked with strategy of the city. And sometimes, of course, some special information is needed.” (interviewee 6, personal communication, 2016, March 7)

In other words, the topics of the statistics although relevant to decision making processes, are not always a result of decision makers’ needs. Regardless of the multiple sources abovementioned related to cultural surveys, when compared to Urban Facts, these are not executed on a regular basis, but rather following a specific objective depending on the field they come from.

While the existence of Urban facts, as main responsible for statistics for the city of Helsinki, -not just culture-, could represent itself an indicator of the interest of the local government in keeping data, subject to measurability and evaluation, -in a similar fashion as Statistics Finland at the national level-, it does not necessarily mean the information collected is enough, it reaches the right target (e.g. policy makers), or that it is subject for comparison with other cities.

78 As Saukkonen (2012) mentions, despite the fact that culture represents a great deal in many cities strategies across Finland, the information regarding culture and the cultural sector is rather scarce. As the autonomy of municipalities and local authorities increase, and the cultural activities diversify, the amount of reliable information is less and less accountable for inter-city comparisons.

Seen from a theoretical perspective, the case of Helsinki supports Foucault’s idea of the relationship between governmentality, power and knowledge, exemplifying that similar to the national level, local governments seen in the gathering of information related to its population, a form of govern through knowledge. A knowledge that being derived from a scientific discipline such as statistics, brings “truth” and validation to what it is presented (2007;

1980:133).

Following that reasoning, this is a possible explanation of why areas, such as cultural policy, are being scrutinise under economic categories despite their vague nature, sometimes, even more than other areas of public policy. As Belfiore (2004) points out:

“…the subsidised arts…– in so far as they constitute an area of public expenditure – have found themselves forced to turn to the “rationalised rituals of inspection” […] One might even be tempted to suggest that, even more than other areas of public policy, the arts have found in the justifying practices of audit and performance measurement a precious form of official validation.” (Belfiore 2004: 195)

Therefore, by adopting statistics as the “science of the state”, with its neutrality and sacredness, governments consider their work done as good rulers, while culture and cultural policy are forced to turned it into a mechanism to validates itself; a discussion that will be addressed more in depth in the next section.

On the other hand, Foucault in his analysis of the role played by the government in this new governmentality, - which is no longer based on the structure of family and the sovereign, but instead on the knowledge of population, laws, and power relations -, recognized civil society as a counterpart for the state. A force that indeed until nowadays seems to have great weight in counterbalancing the numbers, as expressed by some of the interviewees in previous chapters.

79 The weight of political will and collective demands in contrast to hard data, do not lose relevance, specially in cases like Helsinki where symbolic constructs can be strongly adhered to positions, structures and institutions (Landry, 2014).

Finally, notwithstanding the relation between government and producers of statistical knowledge appears central in Foucault’s theory and gives great account for some of the phenomena presented, in the case of Helsinki, the connection between local policy makers and the main bodies in charge of cultural statistics seems blurry, at least in what cultural policy is concerned.