Creative Work Beyond Precarity

This book offers an original critical evaluation of how freelance careers can be established and sustained in the increasingly uncertain global creative economy. Developing from the author's theoretical and empirical research at the nexus of precarious work and entrepreneurial learning, it provides an in-depth understanding of why and how creatives can learn to become entrepreneurial and how this relates to creative entrepreneurship. This book traces how arts work became creative labour and explores the contemporary organisation of artistic and creative practices to understand practical alternatives to the individualised careers we currently feel responsible for maintaining. Inspired particularly by the work of Raymond Williams, creative work is reconceptualised as practice-based collaborative learning encounters through which we might put shared feelings of precarity to work towards the production and practice of alternative possibilities. Accessible and concise, breaking down complex concepts through practical examples and linking the creative process to entrepreneurial learning, this book will be of interest to students, educators and researchers studying and working in the creative economy.

Tim Butcher is Associate Professor of Organisation Studies at the University of Tasmania, Australia.

1. Creative work: an introduction 2. How being creative became precarious 3. Affective labour, affective life, affective politics 4. Collaborative learning 5. Socially engaged learning 6. Creating possibility