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<TITLE>The Future of Cultural Work: Call for papers</TITLE>
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</B></SPAN><B><SPAN STYLE='font-size:29.0px'>The Future of Cultural Work
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<FONT FACE="Arial Narrow"><B><FONT SIZE="5"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:16.0px'>Organisers: Mark Banks and Stephanie Taylor (CRESC, Open University)<BR>
Rosalind Gill and Andy Pratt<BR>
(Centre for Culture, Media and Creative Industries Research,<BR>
King’s College, London)<BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><FONT SIZE="5"><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:16.0px'><B>Date: Monday 7 June 2010<BR>
Venue: Open University London Regional Centre</B>, <B>Camden.
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<FONT FACE="Arial Narrow"><FONT SIZE="6"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:21.0px'><B>Call for Papers<BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><SPAN STYLE='font-size:16.0px'><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow">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’. <B>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</B>, 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: <B><I>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?</I> <BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><FONT SIZE="5"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:16.0px'><B><I>Keynote speakers: David Hesmondhalgh, Georgina Born, Mark Deuze, Melissa Gregg </I></B><I>(final list TBC)<BR>
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</I>Papers are invited on the following (or similar) topics: <B><I>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.<BR>
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</FONT><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow"><B>Please email abstracts (150 words max for a 20 minute paper)</B> to m.o.banks@open.ac.uk 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 k.d.ho@open.ac.uk. Conference fee: £70 (waged) £25 (Postgraduates/unwaged), includes lunch and refreshments. See www.cresc.ac.uk <a href="http://www.cresc.ac.uk/"><http://www.cresc.ac.uk/></a> for programme updates and further details. <BR>
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