In the previous two chapters, we have discussed how autonomy can be used by actors within the theatrical field and how autonomy is influenced by and influences the organization of a theatrical system. In this chapter, we discuss how autonomy can serve the purposes of actors outside the theatrical field. In other words, our interest here is in how claims to autonomy of theatre—that is, theatre's assertions of its own value—can be useful in other fields or in society at large. This is an idea that provokes debate, as the notion of art's autonomy is often interpreted in a way that precludes the usefulness of art to other ends. In Chapter 2, we discussed the (incorrect) theoretical underpinnings of the notion of l’art pour l’art and concluded that the fact that agents pursue a specific value within a field does not imply that their actions have no consequences outside that field (see relations (1) and (3) in Figure 1). As a consequence, our notion of autonomy does not exclude societal functioning of art; rather, it facilitates it. Autonomy is not opposed to sociality. It is a form of social functioning. Do note that the position we take up here aligns with views on the inevitability of instrumentality of cultural policies discussed by Vestheim (2007 and 2012), who claims that:

This is part of the nature of policy; it would be incoherent for a political system to articulate a cultural policy that did not make reference to the value of culture for a wider group in society. Our point is that making a claim to the autonomy of theatre can be useful in asserting and defending a claim to the value of the theatre for those who stand outside of it. .