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Cultural policy is often grounded in art and culture's social effects and significance for the community. At the same time, the step from community to conflict is short: community can imply cohesion, but it can also create an "inside" and an "outside" that may become a seed of division. Which communities—and forms of exclusion—does cultural policy then support? And what is the relationship between art, culture, and community as a concept and cultural-policy value? Through seven articles, Community, Conflict and Politics: Tensions in the Arts and Cultural Field offers insight into some of the understandings of community, nuances, contexts, histories, and not least conflicts that are part of the arts and cultural field and cultural policy. The articles shed light on fundamental dimensions of community, the significance of cultural policy in the Scandinavian welfare states, and why "separatist" communities of non-white arts and cultural workers emerge today. They discuss how a songbook can contribute to nation-based negotiations of community, how literature provides insight into imaginaries of the national "we," how art associations function in a tension between self-organized communities, artistic influence, and state cultural policy, and what happens when art museums seek to establish community with their audiences through global digital platforms. The book stems from the second phase of the research program "Art and Social Communities" (2021–2023), a collaboration between the Norwegian Arts Council and the Danish Arts Foundation.

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