Cultural entrepreneurialism: on the changing relationship between the arts, culture and employment¹

Abstract

Abstract: In recent years, there has been a rapid rise in “atypical”, precarious forms of employment in all European Union states, and the political significance of the issue of “employment in the cultural sector” has increased noticeably. There are several reasons for this. One is the change from a post-industrial economy to a cultural economy and a forced process of economisation of societal welfare-state fields such as health, education and culture. The “marketisation” of culture and the “culturalisation” of the market means that on the one hand “high” culture is becoming increasingly commercial and, on the other, cultural content is increasingly shaping commodity production. These processes run concurrently and are part of a general trend in post-modern society.

The article follows the thesis of a recently published EU study on job potential in the cultural sector [MKW Wirtschaftsforschung GmbH / Österreichische Kulturdokumentation. Internationales Archiv für Kulturanalysen et al., (2001). Exploitation and development of the job potential in the cultural sector in the age of digitalisation (Brussels: European Commission DG Employment and Social Affairs) (summary: http://www.kulturdokumentation.org/eversion/rec_proj/potential.html)] which identifies a new type of employer and/or employee—the “entrepreneurial individual” or “entrepreneurial cultural worker”—who no longer fits into previously typical patterns of full-time professions of the European welfare state system.

The former “cultural worker” has been transitioning into a “cultural entrepreneur” or—as others put it—into a “sole service supplier in the professional cultural field”. According to the historian Heinz Bude's argument, western European societies find themselves in a process of “transformation into flexible, digital capitalism, away from the Keynesian welfare state to a Schumpeterian performance state and a ‘variable geometry of individual incentives’”. What is developing here is the guiding concept of the “entrepreneurial individual”, i.e. individuals who do not follow prescribed standards but who (have to) try out their own combinations and assert themselves on the market and in society. In this context, the creative cultural sector is of broader interest for new labour market concepts and strategies. In addition to the general change, new technology is leading to the emergence of new job profiles in the creative cultural sector so that the image of artists and creators is changing fundamentally. The new creative workforce is meant to be young, multiskilled, flexible, psychologically resilient, independent, single and unattached to a particular location. The article stresses the argument that these new realities of work and labour have to be recognised more extensively in up-to-date labour market strategies and cultural policy concepts. Western societies have to learn to cope better with these new general working and living conditions which affect a continuously increasing number of cultural workers/entrepreneurs—people who have to make their living from micro-entrepreneurialism. The article argues that cultural and employment policies should find innovative ways to accommodate the ambivalent efforts and needs of cultural workers/entrepreneurs (without capital). In conclusion, it will point out that the knowledge-based society has also given birth to historically new forms of employment not yet represented in the traditional canon of the political representation system (political parties, interest groups, etc.). Cultural policy-makers should take this into account in thinking about adequate social security schemes for their clientele, and labour policy-makers should be more aware of the major employment potential of the cultural sector on the one hand and, on the other, of the often precarious working and living conditions currently prevailing in it.

Keywords:

• Cultural labour force
• Self-employment
• Marketisation
• Cultural worker and/or entrepreneur
• Freelancer cultures
• European employment policy

Notes

Paper presented at the Second International Conference on Cultural Policy Research, Wellington, New Zealand, 23 January 2002. The following explanations on the changed relations between the cultural sector, the economy and the labour market are made on the basis of my work at the Österreichische Kulturdokumentation. Internationales Archiv für Kulturanalysen (Vienna) (http://www.kulturdokumentation.org) for the module 1 “Employment in the cultural sector. Literature and research. An overview” (with Veronika Ratzenböck) for the EU study Exploitation and Development of the Job Potential in the Cultural Sector in the Age of Digitalisation (MKW Wirtschaftsforschung GmbH, Munich in co-operation with Österreichische Kulturdokumentation. Internationales Archiv für Kulturanalysen, Vienna; empirica Delasasse, Cologne; Interarts, Barcelona; Economix Research & Consulting, Munich and WIMMEX AG, Munich, Brussels 2001). A summary of the EU study is available at http://www.kulturdokumentation.org/eversion/rec_proj/potential.html. The author is solely responsible for the compilation of arguments presented in this article.

I cannot discuss here the most important question concerning the discussion “culture and/or economy”—so to say the WTO negotiations in which it is indeed a hot issue. Again, a very old question is at stake here: for example, whether a book or a film is an economic or a cultural product. In a globalised world not least, the economic power of cultural industry majors depends, among other things (national framework), very heavily on international free trade contracts. Now there is a strong emphasis on the development of an international intstrument on cultural diversity to sustain small and diverse markets and cultures.

The situation of women artists and cultural workers is even worse (cf. Swanson and Wise, 1994; Milestone, 1998; Neyer, 1999; Cliche et al., 2000).

“External” university lecturers refers to a specific working agreement with the university as opposed to the normally full-time or part-time “internal” university employees. The “external” lecturers are a prominent part of the new knowledge society conditions.