https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7449-1549
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ABSTRACT
The scope, unevenness, and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on cultural work has been widely acknowledged. This article turns to how sections of the cultural industries responded to the onset of this crisis. Our account is based on document research completed during the first wave of the pandemic. We gathered news reports, impact survey results, policy recommendations, open letters, event announcements, and other grey literature generated by a range of organizations in the cultural sector, including trade unions, professional associations, and activist groups, among others. Framed by the concepts ‘labouring of culture’ and ‘policy from below’, our thematic analysis of this material reveals that cultural workers responded to the pandemic by surfacing the idea of cultural production as work; by enacting practices of care and mutual aid; and by proposing policy changes. These collective responses are marked by multiple tensions, particularly between rehabilitating the status quo in the cultural sector and radically reimagining it for a post-COVID-19 world.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
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Notes on contributors
Greig de Peuter
Greig de Peuter is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada.
Kate Oakley
Kate Oakley is Professor of Cultural Policy and Head of the School of Culture and Creative Arts at the University of Glasgow.
Madison Trusolino
Madison Trusolino is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, Canada. She is completing her SSHRC-funded dissertation on women and LGBTQ+ comedians’ experiences of work and resistance in the Canadian comedy industry.