Diversifying the Creative: Creative Work, Creative Industries, Creative Identities

Call for Papers

                              Special Issue Proposal for Organization

                            Diversifying the Creative:
               Creative Work, Creative Industries, Creative Identities
                                   DEADLINE: DECEMBER 1, 2015

                                            Guest Editors:
                   Deborah Jones, Victoria University of Wellington, NEW ZEALAND
                            Kate Sang, Heriot Watt University, SCOTLAND
                       Naomi Stead, the University of Queensland, AUSTRALIA
                       Rebecca Finkel, Queen Margaret University, SCOTLAND
                     Dimitrinka Stoyanova Russell, University of Cardiff, WALES

Introduction

To diversify the creative is to ask how certain bodies, certain work practices, and certain identities
come to be counted as ‘creative’, while others are excluded. Creativity and creatives have become
desirable, socially and economically, as creativity has been rebranded as the engine of post-industrial
‘creative economies’ over the last decade or so. The rhetoric of creativity encompasses specifically
designated ‘creative industries’ and ‘creatives’ (Caves 2000), as well as a much wider idea of 'the
creative' at work in all kinds of organisations and occupations (Bilton 2006). Creativity is
conceptualised in a wide range of forms, in which traditional and new are spliced together. For
instance, a romantic framing of arts and artists, based on a distinction between the creative and the
industrial, is linked with ideas of art as a vocation and of the artist as a distinctive kind of
individualised genius (Becker 1974). A more recent, 21st century vision is linked with the idea of
innovation as the key to economic success, so that workplaces are specifically designed to attract and
affirm creative talent (Hesmondhalgh 2012). Here, the ideal ‘creative’ may be imagined as a member of
smoothly-functioning team of passionate and diverse talents, a member of a new, ‘creative class’
(Florida 2002). Contemporary governmental policies – national, regional, industry-driven – have set
out to extend, evaluate and monetise the creative (DCMS 2001; Flew 2012).

Creative work has increasingly been recognised as work, with governmental technologies accounting
for creative subjects – artists, technicians, entrepreneurs – in data sets where earnings and
occupations can be surveyed. In oppositional mode, critical scholars have increasingly paid attention
to creative labour and have raised questions about the forms of exploitation and exclusion with which
it is associated (Nixon and Crewe 2004). They frame creative work in relation to other kinds of
exploitative or precarious work, while maintaining a focus on the distinctive features of the creative
(Gill 2002). In particular, such research recognises that struggles over the creative are also struggles
over the control of cultural production (Dean, 2008; Hesmondhalgh and Saha, 2013). But people
working in creative fields often refuse such analyses. Identifying as artists with a vocation, they often
work in what they see as non-creative jobs, perhaps part-time or intermittently, to fund their creative
practice (Menger 1999). The distinctions between paid and unpaid work are blurred (Hesmondhalgh
and Baker 2011), and unpaid positions such as internships may be institutionalised as a way to get a
foot in the door of a creative industry (Siebert and Wilson 2013). The language of workplace rights is
frequently marginalised or silenced altogether, and forms of collective organising such as unionisation
are often unavailable or rejected (Blair et al. 2003). Some government initiatives to develop creative
industries also attempt to address social diversity in terms of equal access to work and of cultural
inclusion and exclusion, but there is not much evidence of success (Proctor-Thomson 2013).

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In this context, it can be very difficult to articulate claims about diversity and (in)equalities within
creative work. For example, it is nearly impossible for women to find a forum or space to raise issues
of creative work and gender equality, such as pay, status, recognition, or acknowledgment of family
responsibilities (Thynne 2000). Even if they are in paid creative work, creatives may accept low pay,
extremely demanding working conditions and precarious employment (Haunschild and Eikhof 2009).
Such patterns are also seen within established professions such as architecture, where members often
reflect on architecture as a lifestyle and persona rather than as a job or career. The construction and
negotiation of personal and professional identities, as well as the performance of creativity through
dress and demeanour, bodily comportment and body art, compound the complex understanding of
what it means to be a creative 'worker'.

The construction of identities takes varying forms in relation to the creative. For instance, the creative
is typically constructed so that women do not become the creative stars or geniuses, do not have equal
access to creative work, are not equally rewarded, and are subject to various forms of occupational
segregation that reinforce these inequalities of both recognition and reward (Sang et al. 2014).
Intersecting with gender are constructions of class, ethnicity, age, disability and sexuality, which
complicate and extend privilege and inequality (Grugulis and Stoyanova 2012). However, less is
known about how other marginalised identities experience creative work, and in particular how
gender may intersect with other identities to construct these experiences. Further, there is poor
understanding of how these intersecting identities may affect who or what is considered creative.
Economic development rhetoric has been influential in claiming that cities ‘tolerant’ to diversity will
attract the ‘creative classes, but this claim is frequently undercut by continuing patterns of class,
gender and racial inequalities (Leslie and Catungal 2012). At the same time, new creative spaces can
operate as sites where claims to cultural citizenship can be contested by marginalised identities such
as sexual minorities (Yue 2007) and people with disabilities (Darcy and Taylor 2009). A critical
examination of creativity and diversity therefore allows us to interrogate and denaturalise both of
these concepts: we can ask how the ‘creative’ comes to be seen as a kind of essence inhabiting
particular kinds of bodies; and also how the ‘diversity’ that is supposed to generate the creative works
seems to rewrite traditional relations of power.

The special issue invites empirical, theoretical or methodological papers critically exploring creative
work, and in particular, the ways in which it is diversified. For instance, the gendered construction of
creativity can be seen in analyses of women’s employment within creative industries, and in the ways
in which creativity is imagined or represented in a range of occupations and practices. Intersectional
perspectives regarding how gender intersects with class, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation for
those working in the sector also can be explored. Although the special issue is open to any discussion
of diversity in creativity or creative work, explorations of specific work settings or contexts, for
example, architecture, film and television, comedy, literature, music and design, will be prioritized. An
inter-disciplinary approach is welcome, acknowledging that the literatures of work in the creative
industries, like the sector itself, have developed in and across a range of disciplines, including cultural
studies, sociology, geography, management and organizational studies. Contributions also could
include explorations of innovative methodologies for studying and understanding the creative
industries, creative identities and creative labour, such as those employing visual and ethnographic
methods. Research may open up new discourses for imagining, re-negotiating and managing diversity
in creative work, opening up in turn new opportunities for marginalised groups to lead, collaborate
and develop skills in creative spaces of greater equality.

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Scope

       Embodying the creative: How is creativity embodied, for instance as gendered, racialised, aged
        and able? How do organisations do support or discourage these embodiments, implicitly or
        explicitly?
       Imagining and organising diversity in creative work: What would decent work in the creative
        sector look like for women and other marginalised groups? How do minorities organise in
        guilds, professional groups, unions or lobby groups to raise issues of equality in this sector?
        How do they organise creative projects with across or within boundaries of difference?
       Experiences of women and other marginalised groups in the creative industries:
        Autobiographical and third-party accounts of experiences in various creative fields can ask
        questions such as: How is equality approached and negotiated? What challenges have been
        faced and what kinds of approaches taken to varying outcomes and successes?
       Intersectional analyses of working life in the creative industries: The complex intersections
        between different identity categories sometimes create unexpected effects, both negative and
        positive. How does the compounding or intersection of diversity categories in single cases add
        to a study of working life in the creative industries?
       Claiming the creative: How are ‘creative’ identities allocated and recognised? How is the ‘super-
        creative core’ constituted in relation to the ‘below the line’ people, i.e., the ‘crew’, support
        workers, and administrators? What systems are there of awards, grants, training, and
        networks, and how are they diversified? Who are the gatekeepers to these resources and who
        receives them? Who in a profession or occupation actually gets to be creative at all, and why?
       Personal branding and the benefits of difference: In the creative industries, standing out as
        distinct from peers can sometimes be advantageous in the construction of a creative persona,
        even when this difference stems from being part of a marginalised group. How can it
        sometimes be beneficial to be in a minority? How does difference link with constructions of
        originality and uniqueness in such cases?
       Authorship, attribution and credit in collaborative work: Creative work is very often
        collaborative, yet the credit is often attributed to one individual. This is not just a case of
        unscrupulous individuals stealing credit, but publications and awards and organisations
        insisting on a single creative figurehead. What implications and effects does this practice have
        in terms of equality?
       Exceptionalist discourses: How do some creative professions frame themselves as unlike any
        other profession and entirely incomparable? What are the unequal consequences of this
        framing?
       Anti-management: There are tendencies in creative professions actively to resist perceived
        managerialism, including any kind of official equity initiatives. How is this resistance exploited
        by employers to increase their own profit at the expense of their workers, or to prevent equity
        interventions?
       The creative profession as cult: Colleagues may become the creative’s only friends, romantic
        and business partners, and family. How does this exclusive culture engender inequalities?
       Creativity and vocation: There is often a sense of ‘calling’ to the creative professions. What are
        the effects of such quasi-metaphysical ideas? For example, are people are willing to put up with
        exploitation and precariousness because they are dedicated to a larger ideal, one which
        frames economic and business imperatives as dishonourable and low-minded?
       Methodologies for studying gendered creativity: We encourage explorations of innovative
        methods for studying and understanding the creative industries and creative labour. What
        methods are most useful or interesting (for example, visual, ethnographic) for understanding
        diversity and creative labour?

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References

Antcliff, V., Saundry, R. and Stuart, M. 2007. Networks and social capital in the UK television industry:
      the weakness of weak ties. Human Relations, 60: 371 – 393.

Becker, H. 1974. Art as a collective action. American Sociological Review, 39(6): 767-776.

Bilton, C. 2006. Management and Creativity. Oxford: Blackwell.

Blair, H., Culkin, N., & Randle, K. 2003. From London to Los Angeles: a comparison of local labour
       market processes in the US and UK film industries. International Journal of Human Resource
       Management, 14(4): 619-633.

Caves, R. 2000. Creative Industries. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Darcy, S. and Taylor, T. 2009. Disability citizenship: an Australian human rights analysis of the cultural
     industries, Leisure Studies, 28 (4): 419-441.

DCMS. 2001. Creative Industries Mapping Document. London: Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

Dean, D. 2008. "No human resource is an island”: Gendered, racialized access to work as a performer.
      Gender, Work and Organization, 15: 161-181.

Flew, T. 2012. The creative industries: Culture and policy. London: Sage Publications.

Florida, R. 2002. The Rise of the Creative Class and how it’s Transforming Work Leisure Community and
      Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books.

Gill, R. 2002. Cool, creative, and egalitarian? Exploring gender in project-based new media work in
       Europe. Information, Communication, and Society, 5: 70–89.

Grugulis, I., and Stoyanova, D. 2012. Social capital and networks in film and TV: Jobs for the
     boys? Organization Studies, 33(10), 1311-1331.

Haunschild, A., and Eikhof, D. 2009. Bringing creativity to market - Actors as self-employed employers.
     In A. McKinlay and C. Smith (Eds.). Creative Labour: Working in the creative industries
     Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Pp. 153-73.

Hesmondhalgh, D. 2012. The Cultural Industries: 3rd Edition. London: Sage Publications.

Hesmondhalgh D and Baker S. 2011. Creative Labour: Media work in three cultural industries. London:
    Routledge.

Hesmondhalgh, D., & Saha, A. 2013. Race, Ethnicity, and Cultural Production. Popular
    Communication, 11(3): 179-195.

Leslie, D., & Catungal, J. P. (2012). Social justice and the creative city: class, gender and racial
      inequalities. Geography Compass, 6(3): 111-122.

Menger, P-M. 1999. Artistic labor markets and careers. Annual Review of Sociology, 25, 541-574.

Nixon, S., and Crewe, B. 2004. Pleasure at work? Gender, consumption and work‐based identities in the
     creative industries. Consumption Markets & Culture, 7(2): 129-147.
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Proctor-Thomson, S. B. 2013. Gender disruptions in the digital industries? Culture and Organization.
      19(2): 85-104.

Sang, K. J., Dainty, A. R., Ison, S. G. 2014. Gender in the UK architectural profession: (Re) producing and
      challenging hegemonic masculinity. Work, Employment & Society, 28(2): 247-264.

Siebert, S., and Wilson, F. 2013. All work and no pay: consequences of unpaid work experience in the
      creative industries. Work, Employment and Society, 27 (4): 711-721.

Thynne, L. 2000. Women in television in the multi-channel age. Feminist Review, 64(1): 65.

Yue, A. (2007). Hawking in the creative city: Rice rhapsody, sexuality and the cultural politics of new
      Asia in Singapore. Feminist Media Studies, 7(4): 365-380.

Submissions

Papers for the special issue must be submitted electronically between 31st October and 1st of
December 2015 (please note dates) to SAGETrack at:
http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/organization

Papers should be no more than 8,000 words, excluding references, and will be blind reviewed
following the journal’s standard procedures.

Manuscripts should be prepared according to the guidelines published in Organization and on the
journal’s website: http://goo.gl/Ukuor0

Workshop

The special issue editors are planning a writing workshop for authors interested in submitting papers
to the special issue to be held at Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh (Scotland) in the first week of
September 2015. Please contact the editors below for details.

Early Abstract Submission

The editors want to ensure speedy review of the submitted works. In support of this they have
requested that authors please send them the abstracts of their proposed papers by 31st October. This
will ensure that potential reviewers for these papers are identified prior to paper submission.

Special Issue Editor Contact details

For further information please contact one of the guest editors:

Deborah Jones, Victoria University of Wellington, NEW ZEALAND
       Email: Deborah.Jones@vuw.ac.nz
Kate Sang, Heriot Watt University, SCOTLAND
       Email: K.Sang@hw.ac.uk
Naomi Stead, the University of Queensland, AUSTRALIA
       Email: n.stead@uq.edu.au
Rebecca Finkel, Queen Margaret University, SCOTLAND
       Email: RFinkel@qmu.ac.uk
Dimi Stoyanova Russell, University of Cardiff, WALES
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Email: Dimitrinka.Stoyanova@wbs.ac.uk

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