Introduction: Cultures of circulation

What are cultures of circulation, and how can they be understood in ways that inform critical scholarship and relationships between academic work and public engagement in globalized settings? This introductory article discusses the initial formulation of the phrase in 2002 and describes how the seven articles in this special issue extend its implications 10 years later. We begin by charting some of the key contexts in which the concept has flourished, noting some of the problems and limitations of its use in different disciplines. We then provide an overview of how each article in this issue takes up the dialectics of circulation and the programmatic of culture as practice. We conclude by proposing avenues for further research as well as opportunities for self-reflexive uses of the concept within academic debates and via wider public engagement. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.