The Future of Cultural Work
Date: Monday 7 June 2010
Venue: Open University London Regional Centre, Camden.
Call for Papers
As ‘creativity’ and ‘creative work’ have become buzzwords for progress, so the
cultural and creative industries have become an instrumental feature of
national economic and cultural policies. Most recently, cultural, artistic and
creative labour has been identified as leading the transition to a more fluid,
affective and converged ‘innovation’ economy, where cultural work is valued
more for its ability to diffuse ideas and ‘creative energies’ than for its intrinsic
value, or for its (potentially) socially transformative or redemptive potential.
Firms, national governments, promoters of ‘creative cities’ and development
agencies alike have offered a plethora of interventions designed to stimulate
growth through organizing and managing creative and cultural work
(see ‘Creative Britain’ for example). Such a process has rested on the
assumption of a frictionless and mutually beneficial relationship between
capital and labour, and culture and economics; where distinctive forms of
artistic and cultural production and economic and governmental priorities
appear to co-prosper in harmonious union. However, while the specific
qualities of cultural and creative work are now assumed to be progressive and
beneficial to both capital and labour, recent events cast doubt on the status
of creativity as (in Andrew Ross’s words) ‘the oil of the 21st century’. The
instrumental gearing of culture to innovation policy, the consolidation
of ‘free’, ‘co-creative’ - but precarious, individualized and poorly-
remunerated - work in media, cultural and arts organizations, a deep-rooted
global recession that has eviscerated opportunities for cultural labour, and in
the UK a general election that may alter fundamentally the creative industries
script, has markedly transformed this discursive and material field. Here, the
benign union of culture and economics, the prospects for rewarding and
meaningful cultural industry employment, and the extent to which
creative/cultural work could or should meet the demands of economic
restructuring and governments, come once again under scrutiny. This
conference therefore asks: What is the status of creativity and creative work
in this new decade? What is the current and future relationship between the
creative and cultural industries and the discursive and material practices of
culture and economy?
Papers are invited on the following (or similar) topics: the conditions of
creative/cultural workers; freelancing, ‘free’ and co-creative labour, cultural
work and critical socio-spatial politics; work, exclusion and marginality; the
role of creative and cultural work in economic and cultural policy; cultural work
and 'cultural diplomacy'; impacts of technology and ‘convergence’, the
creative nation post-recession/post-election.
Organisers:
Mark Banks and Stephanie Taylor (CRESC, Open University)
Rosalind Gill and Andy Pratt (Centre for Culture, Media and Creative Industries
Research,King’s College, London)
Please email abstracts (150 words max for a 20 minute paper) to
[log in to unmask] by Friday April 9th. Places are limited and successful
acceptance will be confirmed in mid-April. To register for the conference
please contact Karen Ho [log in to unmask] Conference fee: £70 (waged)
£25 (Postgraduates/unwaged), includes lunch and refreshments. See
www.cresc.ac.uk for programme updates and further details.
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