Creative Working Lives – serie

This book presents research on pathways into creative work. The promise of ‘doing what you love’ continues to attract new entrants to the cultural and creative industries. Is that promise betrayed by the realities of pathways into creative work, or does a creative identification offer new personal and professional possibilities in the precarious contexts of contemporary work and employment? Two decades into the 21st century, aspiring creative workers undertake training and higher education courses in increasing numbers. Some attempt to convert personal enthusiasms and amateur activities into income-earning careers. To manage the uncertainties of self-employment, workers may utilise skills developed in other occupations, even developing timely new forms of collective organisation. The collection explores the experience of creative career entrants in numerous national contexts, including Australia, Belgium, China, Ireland, Italy, Finland, the Netherlands, Russia, the US andthe UK. Chapters investigate the transitions of new workers and the obstacles they encounter on creative pathways.Chapters 1, 12 and 15 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book presents research on pathways into creative work. The promise of ‘doing what you love’ continues to attract new entrants to the cultural and creative industries. Is that promise betrayed by the realities of pathways into creative work, or does a creative identification offer new personal and professional possibilities in the precarious contexts of contemporary work and employment? Two decades into the 21st century, aspiring creative workers undertake training and higher education courses in increasing numbers. Some attempt to convert personal enthusiasms and amateur activities into income-earning careers. To manage the uncertainties of self-employment, workers may utilise skills developed in other occupations, even developing timely new forms of collective organisation. The collection explores the experience of creative career entrants in numerous national contexts, including Australia, Belgium, China, Ireland, Italy, Finland, the Netherlands, Russia, the US andthe UK. Chapters investigate the transitions of new workers and the obstacles they encounter on creative pathways.Chapters 1, 12 and 15 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This open access book explores the experience of working as a craftsperson or designer maker in the contemporary creative economy. The authors utilise evidence from the only major empirical study to explore the skills required and the challenges facing contemporary makers in an increasingly crowded marketplace. Drawing upon 180 interviews with peak organisations, established and emerging makers, and four years of fieldwork across Australia, this book offers a unique insight into the motivations informing those who seek to make an income from their craft or designer maker practice, as well as the challenges and opportunities facing them as they do so at this time of renewed interest internationally in the artisanal and handmade. Offering a rich and deep collection of real-life experiences, this book is aimed both at an academic and practitioner audience.

This open access book explores the experience of working as a craftsperson or designer maker in the contemporary creative economy. The authors utilise evidence from the only major empirical study to explore the skills required and the challenges facing contemporary makers in an increasingly crowded marketplace. Drawing upon 180 interviews with peak organisations, established and emerging makers, and four years of fieldwork across Australia, this book offers a unique insight into the motivations informing those who seek to make an income from their craft or designer maker practice, as well as the challenges and opportunities facing them as they do so at this time of renewed interest internationally in the artisanal and handmade. Offering a rich and deep collection of real-life experiences, this book is aimed both at an academic and practitioner audience.

This book systematically examines various factors that shape graduates’ entry into media work, which include the state and its policies, industrial and organizational practices and cultures, and media education. However, the book does not take a typical political economic or even media industries approach to this exploration. Rather, it innovatively traces how these forces are operationalized to shape media work from the perspective of the graduates, their educators and their employers. These varying perspectives are analyzed to see how graduates experience the outcomes of policy, education and industry cultures. The book examines the impact that policy, education and industry have in redefining what media work means for parts of industry that are responsible for cultivating new entrants into the creative industries.

This book explores how creativity is increasingly designed, marketed, and produced with digital products and services — a process referred to as softwarization. If ‘being creative’ has developed into one of the paradigmatic architectures of power for framing the contemporary subject, then an essential component of this architecture involves its material and symbolic configuration through tools. From image editors to digital audio workstations, video editors to game engines, these modern tools are used by creatives every day, and mastering these increasingly complex technologies is now a near-compulsory pathway to creative work. Despite their ubiquity in cultural production, few have sought to theorize them in aggregate and with interdisciplinary breadth.By bringing disparate creative and methodological traditions in one volume, this book provides a comprehensive overview of approaches for understanding this complex, emerging, and dynamic field that speaks beyond the disciplinary categories of ‘tool,’ ‘instrument,’ and/or ‘software’. It makes a unique intervention in the fields of cultural production and the cultural and creative industries. ​

This book explores how creativity is increasingly designed, marketed, and produced with digital products and services — a process referred to as softwarization. If ‘being creative’ has developed into one of the paradigmatic architectures of power for framing the contemporary subject, then an essential component of this architecture involves its material and symbolic configuration through tools. From image editors to digital audio workstations, video editors to game engines, these modern tools are used by creatives every day, and mastering these increasingly complex technologies is now a near-compulsory pathway to creative work. Despite their ubiquity in cultural production, few have sought to theorize them in aggregate and with interdisciplinary breadth.By bringing disparate creative and methodological traditions in one volume, this book provides a comprehensive overview of approaches for understanding this complex, emerging, and dynamic field that speaks beyond the disciplinary categories of ‘tool,’ ‘instrument,’ and/or ‘software’. It makes a unique intervention in the fields of cultural production and the cultural and creative industries. ​

Work of Fiction: Making a Living from Writing in the UK explores the lived experiences of fiction writers in the UK and how they make a living. Based on a substantial body of interviews with a range of fiction writers, it considers the ways that writers think about and talk about writing as work and how ‘discourses of writing’ operate to support or undermine them as cultural workers. It argues that discourses of love, luck, magic, and ‘being a writer’ function in complex ways to position writers in enchanted and elevated spaces which both nurture their practice and undermine their status as remunerated workers in the creative sector.The book shows how the positives and negatives of often precarious cultural work are played out for fiction writers. It has implications for writers in the ways that they think about and talk about themselves as workers, and how the publishing industry values their contributions.

Work of Fiction: Making a Living from Writing in the UK explores the lived experiences of fiction writers in the UK and how they make a living. Based on a substantial body of interviews with a range of fiction writers, it considers the ways that writers think about and talk about writing as work and how ‘discourses of writing’ operate to support or undermine them as cultural workers. It argues that discourses of love, luck, magic, and ‘being a writer’ function in complex ways to position writers in enchanted and elevated spaces which both nurture their practice and undermine their status as remunerated workers in the creative sector.The book shows how the positives and negatives of often precarious cultural work are played out for fiction writers. It has implications for writers in the ways that they think about and talk about themselves as workers, and how the publishing industry values their contributions.

This book examines how the concept of 'Start-up' has transcended its original acceptation as a synonym for an early-stage, hi-tech company, to become a historically specific way of knowing and acting in the world.'Start-up' is everywhere. The term has been employed since the 1970s to indicate any company with a limited operating history and in a phase of market discovery. In the 1990s, the term gained a more preciseconnotation, one connected to the kind of experimental, technology-based, and venture-backed businessesthat became the most visible embodiment of the New Economy techno-utopianism. Today, the term is widely known and used beyond managerial circles, so much so that it has become a subject of TV showssuch as Shark Tank, MTV’s Dropout, and HBO’s irreverent series Silicon Valley. 'Start-up' is no longer just an economic and managerial concept but, the book argues, also a cultural phenomenon that is reshaping the way we conceive work in the 21st century. It does this by furthering the idea that withdrawal from traditional disciplinary regimes such as formal education and wage labor is a necessary step on the pathtoward professional realization and personal freedom. But what happens when one decides to leave the safe harbor of regular employment and set sail on the tumultuous waters of independent work? The book addresses this question through a 22-month ethnographic investigation of the Vancouver new media and digital industries. Through interviews with creative practitioners and participation in informal gatheringsfor tech workers, the book provides a compelling perspective on creative work in the start-up age.​