Once You Are In You Might Need to Get Out: Adaptation and Adaptability in Volatile Labor Markets—the Case of Musical Actors

Abstract

Abstract:The labor market for musical actors is very challenging for several reasons. On the one hand, it is difficult to acquire a position: qualification requirements are high, competition is fierce and reputation is difficult to build up. On the other hand, once in it is often necessary to get out: once being in, market demand for roles with a stage age above 45 drops dramatically and it becomes increasingly hard to stay healthy due to the threefold exposure to bodily strains of acting, dancing and singing. This labor market thus presents potentially interesting situations, in which the meaning of the concept resilience-in the sense of valuing preservation-can change fundamentally. While at the beginning of a career, the main challenge is often to adapt to market requirements, in the second half of a career it becomes increasingly important to become adaptable to a broader spectrum of opportunities, including exit scenarios. The paper generates empirically grounded ideal-typical accounts of the meaning of adaptation and adaptability for musical actors with a focus on the actors' networking strategies, their professional identities, and the corresponding ways of perceiving and creating spaces.

Art and resilience: The spatial practices of making a resilient artistic career in London

“…Practitioners have to manage uncertainty in relation to career opportunities, but there is also an uncertainty at the very centre of every artistic practice and production, and even knowledge processes (Danvers, 2003, p. 53). This supports a view of resilience studies as an analysis of "how humans interact within an ever changing world" by putting in place both the practices of adaptation and adaptability (Ibert & Schmidt, 2014). According to a recent study on musical actors, resilience in labour markets implies both an ability to carry out predictable tasks and an ability to manage unpredictable circumstances through spatial mobility and the development of multiple positional identities, which tend to change over time (Ibert & Schmidt, 2014).…”

“…There is a relationship between individuals' assets and the wider environment in which they operate (Bristow & Healy, 2014). Ibert and Schmidt (2014) explored the spatiality of musical actors' strategies of resilience by focussing on the relational spaces that labour market actors create over the course of their careers. While these authors argued that these spatialities are not locally embedded, in this paper we propose a focus on the spatial practices and strategies of individuals whose decision-making and actions are geographically 'situated' and, to a certain degree, connected to a complex adaptive spatial system, i.e.…”

“…the urban context where individuals live and work. From our perspective, resilience is inherent to the dynamics of a relational web (Ibert & Schmidt, 2014) whose local nodes -e.g., network gatekeepers, artefacts, and institutions -cannot be neglected. A notion of resilience acknowledging "the situated nature of social, economic and culture action" is also the most meaningful to the cultural economy, which is particularly "sensitive to local embedding" (Pratt, 2015).…”

Personal Networks on the Labour Market: Who Finds a Job in the Creative Sector in Poznań?

“…They can function as sources of information about job openings and general industry trends, and also as a forum for an exchange of ideas about work and career paths (Kovács, Musterd 2013;Ibert, Schmidt 2014). Granovetter (1973) claimed that to fully understand the impact of personal networks on both personal and professional lives of individuals, it was important to distinguish between strong relations, or ties, formed with family members and close friends, and weak ties formed with acquaintances and colleagues.…”

“…Representatives of the creative sector typically hold a temporary contract related to a specific project. Many of them are self-employed or hold freelance working positions (Beck 2000;Grabher 2001;Markusen 2006;Brown, Nadler, Męczyński 2010;Ibert, Schmidt 2014;Nadler 2014). The temporary, project-based nature of work precludes unionisation and requires an individual adaptation to the market and individual negotiations of working conditions (Apitzsch 2013).…”