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For these reasons, it is strongly recommended that cultural participation surveys are integrated by
analysis on the non-audience and all those people excluded (or excluding themselves) from
participation activities. Knowing the motivations, obstacles and constraints in cultural participation
is as vital for an effective policy as knowing the participation rate and the ways in which cultural
practices happen. We dare to suggest that in some cases it might even be more important to have
a profound understanding of the obstacles and conditions that hinder cultural participation – and
participation as a whole – in order to be able to imagine possible solutions.
But analysing the hidden aspects affecting participation could also make another significant
contribution on the international and global levels. Besides a handbook on measuring cultural
participation, a compendium – if not exactly a handbook – of obstacles and constraints to cultural
participation, clearly linked to their original context and their social, economic and cultural
parameters, might represent a very interesting and thought-provoking resource for researchers and
policymakers to reflect upon and deepen their ways of designing innovative polices. The multiple
reasons for not taking part in cultural activities and the long list of constraints registered in distant
cultures and countries, similarities and differences in divisions, forms, nuances, and the effects of
similar problems in different territories, all of these can play a stimulating role in deepening (with a
perspective clearly oriented toward the policies) the wide range of reasons and motivations of a
phenomenon affecting the majority of the population in most countries.
Beyond comparing single datasets and information, it should be possible to build up the conditions
for sharing a wider and more nuanced critique of problems, constraints and the conditions affecting
cultural life in different countries across the world.
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