This dissertation examines how the process of creating the "Hong-dae cultural district" in Seoul has involved the mobilisation of various social groups and triggered the (re)institutionalisation of the meaning of "the cultural". It seeks to explicate how a cultural policy project can stimulate the emergence of social groups, which challenge existing policy provisions and laws and lead to the (re)institutionalisation of "Hong-dae culture". In so doing, the author will be able to simultaneously take account of the issues of agency, structure and culture by explicating the relationship between cultural policy and social change.