Individualisation, Marketisation and Social Capital in a Cultural Institution: the Case of the Danish Folk church

What happens when an old cultural institution is subjected to marketisation and individualisation? How does the institution do justice to the inner core of its traditions, whilst at the same time keeping up with the demands of its individual users, as well as the marketisation requirements coming from the state and society in general? And, how do these responses affect the way that the institution contributes to the generation of social capital? Taking the Danish Folk Church as their core example, researchers representing different academic disciplines analyse these questions in 17 chapters.

The choice to use the Folk Church as the main case for evaluating how old institutions respond is in itself provocative and challenging. The book therefore opens with a discussion of why the Folk Church provides an example of a cultural institution worthy of being analysed in this way. The four main parts of the book elaborate on relevant parts of the history of the Folk Church; the nature of marketisation; of individualisation and of social capital as related to the Folk Church. The book concludes with a discussion of the effects of marketisation and individualisation on cultural institutions like the Folk Church. Cultural institutions must ask themselves what happens to What Money Can’t Buy in their response to marketisation and individualisation?