Autonomy and resilience in cultural work: looking beyond the ‘creative industries’

Abstract

a adam smith Business school, university of Glasgow, Glasgow, uK; b school of Creative arts and technologies, university of ulster, Magee Campus, Derry/londonderry, uK ABSTRACT How do cultural workers deal with the tension between autonomy and control in their working lives? One answer, advanced in this journal by Mark Banks in 2010, is that cultural autonomy provides scope for self-realisation, and potentially for ways of working that challenge commercial and managerial constraints. It allows those with critical inclinations to resist unpalatable controls and initiate processes of struggle which may deliver improvements in the conduct and experience of work. More recent empirical studies have cast doubt on this interpretation, pointing to patterns of instrumental behaviour and conforming autonomy that reinforce earlier images of controlled or self-interested 'creatives' . With most of the relevant research focused on commercial contexts, this article considers whether publicly funded art provides more fertile terrain for the destabilising autonomy thesis. Four years of fieldwork with community arts practitioners in Scotland and Northern Ireland captures the everyday pressures of struggling to survive and to resist neoliberal cultural policies, managerial controls and fluctuating incomes. It also reveals collective capacities to intervene that are consistent with the Banks image of dissenting activists for change. The abiding impression at the end of the research is of grinding struggle rather than progressive change, however, or even sustained relief.

Les industries culturelles : l’art de se réinventer pour assurer la pérennité des modèles artistiques

“…La précarité des industries culturelles est largement documentée et reconnue dans les écrits scientifiques, qui portent majoritairement sur le territoire de la Grande-Bretagne (Beirne, Jennings et Knight, 2017;Comunian et England, 2020;de Peuter, 2011). Selon Waite (2009) Néanmoins, des chercheurs ont adressé de nombreuses critiques envers cette vision positive de l'écosystème culturel.…”

“…Selon certains, il s'agirait d'un abus de langage employé par les politiciens pour justifier un désinvestissement dans la culture (Gupta et Gupta, 2019). D'autres énoncent que les industries culturelles sont nées résilientes (Pratt, 2017) et que cette résilience ne mènerait pas vers un accroissement de la prospérité économique du secteur des arts, mais plutôt vers la simple survie de ses travailleurs (Beirne et al, 2017). De plus, il s'ensuivrait un fort coût à payer chez ces derniers qui endosseraient l'incertitude provoquée par les conditions de précarité accrue de l'écosystème (Comunian et England, 2020;Pratt, 2017).…”

Innovación social y ciencia ciudadana en la gestión del patrimonio en un escenario post COVID-19

“…El rol de la cultura en la generación de riqueza de los países se hace cada vez más evidente, sobre todo en momentos en los cuales el mundo se ve azotado por una pandemia de alcance global, la cual ha expuesto la precariedad del sector en niveles no antes vistos (Beirne, Jennings y Knight, 2017;Comunian y England, 2020). Dado que la cultura genera un gran valor económico, además de cohesión social, recuperación de la memoria histórica y sentido de pertenencia local, regional y nacional, es seguro considerar que el sector cultural ha entrado en una fuerte recesión a nivel mundial, exponiendo la insuficiencia del rol del Estado en el proceso de generación de valor y riqueza cultural.…”

Between ‘Freedom as Autonomy’ and ‘Freedom as Potentiality’

“…While these studies tend to address contemporary working conditions in broad terms, leaning on case studies in fields as diverse as call centres, banks and grocery stores, the working conditions of creative workers and professional artists have also received attention (Banks 2010, Loacker 2013, Beirne et al 2017. Such studies look, for instance, at how artists negotiate the conflicting relationship between creative practices and commercial opportunities, as well as at how the precarious reality of a flexible artistic practice dependent on ad hoc funding might prop up artists' self-understanding of the meaningful quality of their work (Loacker 2013).…”