Asset mapping and civic creativity: How social media and DIY culture contribute to democracy, communities and the creative economy

Throughout this book creative citizenship is explored theoretically and empirically as a concept that intrinsically leads to value generation. Acts of creative citizenship bring personal, cultural, economic, social and civic benefits, not only to individuals and communities directly involved in these acts, but also to the wider public. The Creative Citizens project is concerned not only with understanding and capturing current practice and its value, as enacted through the use of different media, but also exploring how this pursuit of value can be supported and advanced. One of the instruments we used to explore questions of value was asset mapping. Asset mapping in a methodology used with community groups and organisations to help unearth, capture and visualise existing resources and capacities. Drawing from the strengths of different existing approaches, asset mapping was innovatively used in the Creative Citizens project as an analytical research tool for capturing people's values and perceptions of value, and as a practical tool to support community engagement and co-creation. This chapter reviews different asset mapping approaches and presents the approach developed and used in Creative Citizens across all three strands of the AHRC-funded project (hyperlocal publishing, community-led design, creative networks). It discusses the strengths of our methodology as a multi-purpose approach and its ability to generate insights into local networks and their untapped potential.