Challenges of culture-led local development policies in portugal: renewing perspectives, improving strategies

Abstract

Culture has become increasingly central to the rhetoric of territorial development, but it has not always been translated into the renewal of intervention strategies and practices. In this article, it is argued that in Portugal local cultural policies should have a strong territorial or endogenous configuration, aiming at the valorization of local assets and qualification of communities. Given some of the most relevant challenges in the portuguese context of local development, some guiding principles to which a cultural policy needs to respond effectively, as well as the main dimensions that should give them form and content, will be analyzed.