This presentation was part of the second seminar for an AHRC funded research network, Brokering Intercultural Exchange: Interrogating the Role of Arts and Cultural Management based at Queen's University Belfast (PI Victoria Durrer) in partnership with Heilbronn University (Co-I Raphaela Henze). In this session participants considered the place that cultural institutions have come to play in society and where, if at all, intercultural considerations come to bear. Here, Jo Caust explores the relationship between our cultural identities and our cultural institutions, organisations and policy bodies. Jo Caust's presentation assisted us in unpicking some of the assumptions, traditions and norms that underlie arts and cultural management. www.managingculture.net