Mrunmayee Sonawale

About

I am a second year PhD researcher in Cultural Policy and Creative Industries at the University of Warwick, funded by the Chancellor’s International Scholarship. I completed my master’s degree in Social Entrepreneurship from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Before starting the PhD journey, I founded a cultural consultancy company Culmosaic where my professional experience spans cultural policy, creative economy development and artisan livelihoods in India and abroad , including work with City Councils, Government Organisations and Private Companies . I have always been drawn to the diversity and stories of cultural life, and my work allows me to bring that personal connection to culture into my research and professional practice. Also I have been a trained Indian classical dancer for 13 years.

Research interests

My PhD research examines cultural entrepreneurship in India, with a particular focus on crafts, artisans and independent cultural practitioners. I am interested in how entrepreneurship operates in contexts where economic activity is closely connected to inherited skills, cultural traditions, community relationships and different forms of cultural value.

A central question in my research is whether existing concepts of cultural and creative entrepreneurship adequately reflect the experiences of cultural practitioners in India. Much of the existing literature on entrepreneurship tends to emphasise innovation, growth, markets and enterprise development, but these ideas do not always capture the realities of cultural work. My research therefore asks who is recognised as an entrepreneur in the cultural sector, how cultural, social and economic forms of value shape entrepreneurial activity, and how far conventional entrepreneurial frameworks can account for culturally embedded forms of work.

The project also considers the wider social and institutional context in which cultural entrepreneurship takes place. I am particularly interested in the relationship between craft, caste, inherited occupations and entrepreneurship, and in how social structures, inequalities and historical forms of occupational organisation influence access to opportunities, recognition and mobility. Alongside this, I examine the role of cultural policy, government programmes, markets, intermediaries and support organisations in shaping the conditions within which artisans and cultural practitioners work.

Theoretically, my research brings together perspectives from cultural policy, entrepreneurship studies and cultural and creative economy research, with particular attention to questions of cultural value, embeddedness and agency.

The wider aim of the research is to contribute to a more contextually grounded understanding of cultural entrepreneurship and to explore how policy and scholarship might better reflect the realities of cultural work in developing and culturally diverse economies.

My research is supervised by Professor Christopher Bilton and Professor Vishalakshi Roy

Selected presentations and other work

• “Fostering Social Development Through Cultural Entrepreneurship” at the International Journal of Arts & Sciences Conference, Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA.
• Presented on “Social Values in Cultural Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice” as part of CEOS.
• Undertook a research project with Professor Aparna Katre, University of Minnesota Duluth, Exploring the antecedents and motivations behind creative entrepreneurs.

Professional associations

• Member of the Association for Cultural Economics International (ACEI).