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Shared stakes, distributed investment: Socially engaged art and the financialization of social impact

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2023

Emily Rosamond
Emily Rosamond*
Affiliation:
Arts University Bournemouth, UK
*
Corresponding author: Emily Rosamond, Arts University Bournemouth, Poole, Dorset BH12 5HH, UK. Email: erosamond@aub.ac.uk
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Abstract

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This article examines the implications of the financialization of social impact and the emerging social impact bonds (SIBs) market for socially engaged art practices. How do SIBs, which allow for investment in social impact metrics, shift the broader contexts through which the value of social impact is understood in art discourses? In the British context, recent projects by Assemble, Open School East and others do important social work, yet echo the logic of the social investment market by outsourcing social impact. Rather than dismissing socially engaged art initiatives as having been recuperated by financialized capitalism, I suggest the need to develop new ways of achieving a double reading of these works as they relate to - and upset the distinctions between - stakeholder and bondholder valuation.

Keywords

Socially engaged artsocial impact bondssocial impact investingfinancialization
Type
Article
Information
Finance and Society , Volume 2 , Issue 2: Art and finance , 2016 , pp. 111 - 126
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits noncommercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
© 2016 The Author(s)

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