ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by description of Arvika's cultural economy and an estimation of the town's relatively strong reputation among artists and craftspeople in Sweden as well as abroad. It shows the significance of network capital must be empirically assessed not only in relation to different cultural fields, but also in relation to the place-specific materialization of such fields – what we may call local cultural ecosystems. Arvika's attractiveness is thus strongly associated with its historical and present cultural setting, which offers a different type of lifestyle to art practitioners than the city does. The interviews provide a good picture of how closely intertwined network capital is with social and cultural capital. The interviews thus show that network capital can be reinforced by the social and material structures of place, via institutions and societies that embody and legitimize cultural capital. As Arvika is strongly associated with a lively cultural scene, artists expect the municipality to be strategically engaged in cultural politics.
