Cultural policy and participatory art practices in Flanders Kris Rutten and Helena Calleeuw Department of Educational Studies, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium Griet Roets Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium, and Angelo Van Gorp Fachbereich 5 Erziehungswissenschaften, Universität Koblenz-Landau, Campus Landau, Landau, Germany Abstract Purpose – In Flanders, the subventions in the cultural sector are mainly divided and decided upon within the framework of the Arts Decree. Within this policy framework, art organizations may choose in their funding applications for “participation” as one of the five possible functions to describe their artistic and cultural practices. However, questions need to be raised about the different interpretations of the notion of participation within this policy framework. The growing trend of evidence-based policy-making implies that participation risks to become a “target” that needs to be achieved instrumentally, which paradoxically ignores the fact that participatory practices within culture and the arts are very often diverse, multi-layered and context-specific practices. Starting from this paradox, the purpose of this paper is to explore how the current policy framework is translated into different “participatory” art practices by art organizations and specifically how cultural practitioners themselves conceptualize it. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper, the authors discuss the results of a qualitative research based on semi-structured interviews with cultural practitioners about how they grapple with the notion of participation within their organizations and practices. Findings – The results clearly show that practitioners use micro-politics of resistance to deal with different, and often conflicting, conceptualizations of participation in relation to this cultural policy framework. Research limitations/implications – The implications of the findings are vital for the discussion about cultural policy. These micro-politics of resistance do not only have an impact on the development of individual participatory art practices but also on the broader participatory arts landscape and on how the function of participation is perceived within the renewed policy framework. Originality/value – The original contribution of this paper is to explore the perspective of practitioners in cultural organizations about the function of participation in the Arts Decree in Flanders and specifically how the notion of participation is operationalized in their practices in relation to this cultural policy framework. Keywords Participation, Cultural policy, Cultural organization, Politics of resistance Paper type Research paper Introduction In their work on the social impact of the arts, Belfiore and Bennett (2008, 2009, 2010) have raised important questions about what it is in the field of culture and the arts that attracts the support of governments and that legitimizes its place in educational institutions and society at large. They focus more in particular on how cultural policy often assumes specific impacts as a way to legitimize public expenditures, which implies the expectation of a “return on investments” rather than unconditionally granting “subsidies” (Belfiore and Bennett, 2007; Caust, 2017). These assumed impacts are at the same time the basis for assessing and measuring whether the public investment has indeed been worthwhile or had its effect. The required evidence of tangible and measurable outcomes is mostly extrinsic to the field of culture and the arts itself and often taps into other policy domains (Belfiore, 2006). This is referred to as “policy attachment” (Gray, 2002a, b), which implies that the cultural sector “attaches” its value to other policy domains that appear to be more societal or economically Journal of Organizational Change Management Vol. 32 No. 2, 2019 pp. 266-281 © Emerald Publishing Limited 0953-4814 DOI 10.1108/JOCM-08-2018-0209 Received 6 August 2018 Revised 6 February 2019 Accepted 1 April 2019 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/0953-4814.htm 266 JOCM 32,2