Cultural policy in Shanghai: the politics of caution in the global city

The official vision of Shanghai as a global city remains, above all, an economic one. In recent years, however, visions of the global city have sought to complement economic competitiveness with more attention to cultural cosmopolitanism. The prominence, resources and the very scope of Shanghai's global ambitions have encouraged a cultural rescaling for addressing the challenges of local governance. Signature cultural events, such as the Biennale, the Film Festival and the EXPO 2010, have given strong impetus to new forms of transnational dialogue. At the same time, what signifies opportunities for cultural urbanity also informs official desire to draw the conceptual boundaries of urban culture. From the perspectives of cultural geography and political sociology, this paper explores the relationship between Shanghai and its new global cultural elites as a case study for Shanghai's evolving cultural policies. Drawing from discourse analysis and ethnographic research data, discussion focuses upon the particular case of the Goethe- Institute and the politics of its institutional recognition in Shanghai. It will be shown how Shanghai's official claim to cosmopolitan urbanity encounters the compromises of the city's parallel attempt to orientate itself within the contradictions of local, national and global city visions.