Creative industries as platform for citizen participation in cultural transformation of Minsk urban space

Abstract

Creative industries do not make revolutions in city planning but transform the ways of thinking about and practicing urban space development. In the context of Minsk, Belarus, creative industries are a part of the contemporary urban infrastructure transformation that is reestablishing the former Soviet urban space. The aim of this article is to document and analyze the ways that creative industries turn the urban spaces of Minsk into participatory platforms for cultural transformations. The development of these creative industries in Belarus has played a crucial role in transforming urban spaces into new inclusive cities. The distinctive feature of Belarusian creative industries is their embeddedness in the spaces of Soviet cities. Empirically, this text is based on the findings of a qualitative empirical study in the framework of grounded theory. The research seeks to understand the self-narrative and self-identification of the new creative class in Minsk (spring and summer 2018). The respondents were people who are involved in the process of developing creative industries in Belarus.