Critical factors in shaping the parameters of cultural valuation in Europe

Abstract

This chapter explores different factors that have influenced the shaping of cultural values in Europe. It addresses and explores five critical factors identified in the project considered relevant to this constitution, namely rising diversity, globalization and digitization, urban transformations, the development of cultural policy, and neoliberalism. Through this explorative exercise, the chapter provides a baseline reference for the whole UNCHARTED project and shows how the parameters of cultural valuation are constructed in European societies today according to existing knowledge and information. At the end of the chapter, a series of coordinates for the valuation of culture are identified, which operate as a general context for the situated valuation of actors within the cultural sphere and in its various functional areas (cultural participation, cultural production and heritage management, and cultural administration).