Liberal Governmentality and Urban Culture : Governing Differences and Diversity in the Policies of Helsinki and Sydney

Abstract

This article uses Michel Foucault’s understanding of police and liberalism to discuss the governance of diversity and differences, and how they appear as a regulatory form of power in urban cultural policy. The data consists of interviews conducted with policymakers in Helsinki and Sydney. The article asserts that the policing of cultural spaces of encounter at the city level is not limited to the regulatory practices and controls that produce a sense of safety and order for citizens in the city. This governance has great significance for representing excluded people and the socioeconomic identity of their neighborhoods. Finally, the use of language as a means of communication in cultural policy practices in Helsinki and Sydney is identified as a powerful resource that facilitates community entry, contact, and interaction with others within cultural spaces and the city.