Metropolitan cultural clusters dynamics, an evolutionary perspective : comparative analysis of Québec (Quartier St Roch), Barcelona (22@) and Nantes (District of Creation) ; Dynamiques des clusters culturels métropolitains, une perspective évolutionniste : analyse comparée de Québec (Quartier St Roch), Barcelone (22@) et Nantes (Quartier de la Création)

Abstract

Although the term "cluster" has been widely used in academic and political circles since the 1990s, we will see that the cultural cluster takes different forms. We will try to show through this analysis, what are the specificities of a particular type of cluster: metropolitan cultural clusters. Their edification is part of a dual desire to build new political objects in a new way. These clusters can be considered new political objects by their hybrid nature. They depend on both public policies and urban, economic and cultural dynamics.To better understand our research subject we will adopt a multidisciplinary scientific approach to be at the intersection of these three perspectives. This is the originality of our approach. In short, it is a question of seeing how the evolution of these clusters is structured through the relationships between actors, of clarifying the logics behind these projects, the choices, the conflicts and the changes of position of the actors. Less sectoral and more territorialized, metropolitan cultural clusters are based on projects where processes matter more than results. These processes will be the core of our analysis and we will seek to understand their dynamics. The "new way of doing things" directly echoes governance. These projects defend themselves from adopting a top down approach, decided «from the top to the bottom» and assume a development that would be organic, whose strategies would not be frozen and would evolve according to opportunities. Despite these wishes, the cultural clusters we are studying bear the stigma of the past. The term cluster is inherited from industrial policies. The coordination methods of the players in these clusters seem to be fixed in old models and much less open than they suggest. Starting from case studies, and thanks to an international comparative analysis, we will highlight the complexity behind this cultural cluster term. Through a longitudinal approach we will retrace the evolution of their objectives, whose factors we will seek to identify. ...