Asian Cultural Policy Research Seminar Series - The Creative City [online event]

The Creative City: a sugar-coated policy in the SE Asian second tier cities? is the theme for a free online seminar taking place on Thu, 25 June 2020 at 13:00 – 14:30 BST. Registration is open.

The event is part of the Asian Cultural Policy Research Seminar Series (ACPRSS), launched by Dr Hye-Kyung Lee and Takao Terui at King's College London.

Dr Phitchakan will discuss the Creative City policy and discourse in the Southeast Asian region based on her latest publication.

In this seminar, Dr Phitchakan Chuangchai (Thammasat University in Bangkok) will focus on the Creative City discourse that has captured the attention of policymakers and scholars, and it has travelled to many places, including cities in Southeast Asia. She will discuss the adoption of the Creative City policy trend and the implementation of the discourse in the Southeast Asian region, especially in fast-growing cities like second tier cities. Despite high numbers of cities adopting the Creative City, the discourse has been critiqued by many scholars, for example Pratt (2011) and Mould (2015), as an agent of neoliberalism. Phitchakan’s presentation will investigate such impact in Southeast Asian region and consider the specific strategic manifestations of the Creative City idea and investigate its policy and ideological function in specific exemplar ASEAN cities.

Phitchakan is a lecturer of Management of Cultural Heritage and Creative Industries at College of Innovation, Thammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand. She holds an MA in Cultural and Creative Industries from King’s College London and a PhD in Creative Industries from the University of Warwick. Her research interests revolve around creative cities, urban cultural policy, neoliberalism and democracy in Southeast Asia.

Her recent publications include: The Creative City: a sugar-coated policy in second tier cities? The Case of Chiang Mai, Thailand. In J. O’Conner, G. Xin, and M. Lim (Eds.), Re-imaging Creative Cities in Twenty-First Century Asia (2020, forthcoming). Palgrave Macmillan; ‘The problem of democracy in the ASEAN Creative City: the cases of Chiang Mai, Bandung, Cebu, and George Town’ in Journal of Law, Social Justice and Global Development (2019)

The seminar will be hosted by Dr Hye-Kyung Lee (KCL, CMCI) and chaired by Takao Terui (KCL, CMCI).