Beyond the class act: Gender and race in the ‘creative city’ discourse

Parker, Brenda

doi:10.1016/s1047-0042(07)00008-6

Cited by 45 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…First, critical accounts of creative work and creative labour emerging from feminist sociology and cultural economy draw attention to workers themselves, rather than a potentially disembodied 'creative class' that has been the focus of much discussion. Such foregrounding not only of labour market insecurity, low levels of pay, a lack of career progression and pay (Gill 2002(Gill , 2009(Gill , 2010McRobbie 2002McRobbie , 2009Oakley 2004Oakley , 2006Oakley , 2009Ross 2008) but also clear patterns of gendered, racialised and classed inequality (Parker 2008;Negrey and Rausch 2009;Comunian, Faggian, and Li 2010;Leslie and Catungal 2012) stands in sharp contrast to a dominant geographical literature which has conceptually disregarded labour market exclusions. Despite the fact that advertising, design and architecture (for example) remain highly male-dominated sectors, they often continue to be evaluated using theoretical frameworks that rest upon gender-neutral understandings of learning, knowledge creation/exchange and indeed social interaction.…”

Section: Understanding Gender Divisions In Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘It’s just a very male industry’: gender and work in UK design agencies

Reimer

2015

Gender, Place & Culture

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The article focuses upon gender divisions of labour in the UK design sector as a means of highlighting a relatively understudied segment of the creative industries. Drawing upon a wider study of design consultancy firms across London, Birmingham, Manchester and Newcastle, it considers how configurations of gender division are bound up with everyday representations of design labour. The article reveals how associations between craft, skill and masculinity appear, and are reinforced in design practice. It also points to the ways in which design work is valorised within and through constructed geographies of difference between London and the regions, emphasising that hegemonic masculinities are reinforced and reproduced in reference to understandings of activities in place. CONTACT Suzanne reimer s.reimer@soton.ac.uk * Please note that whilst the research on which the paper was based was conducted as a team, this paper was individually authored; and the co-researchers have agreed to this sole authorship. RESUMENEl artículo se centra en las divisiones de género laborales en el sector de diseño del Reino Unido como medio para destacar un segmento relativamente poco estudiado de las industrias creativas. Basándose en un estudio más amplio de las firmas consultoras en Londres, Birmingham, Manchester y Newcastle, considera cómo las configuraciones de la división de género están estrechamente relacionadas con las representaciones cotidianas del trabajo del diseño. El artículo revela cómo las asociaciones entre el arte, la habilidad y la masculinidad surgen y se refuerzan en la práctica del diseño. También señala las formas en que el trabajo de diseño es valorado dentro y a través de las geografías construidas de las diferencias entre Londres y las regiones, enfatizando que las masculinidades hegemónicas son reforzadas y reproducidas en referencia a las formas de entender las actividades en el lugar. PALABRAS CLAVES

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Section: Understanding Gender Divisions In Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘It’s just a very male industry’: gender and work in UK design agencies

Reimer

2015

Gender, Place & Culture

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“…The analytical basis of this argument has been strongly critiqued (Scott ) and Florida is rightly seen as a promoter of gentrification (Peck , ), though he has recently moderated his position in light of the rising inequality now seen in “creative” cities (Florida ). Moreover, “creativity” trucks in racialized and gendered assumptions about labor and value (Parker ). Nonetheless, Florida points to a shift in the business culture that characterizes many of the leaders in high‐value industries, away from suburban “nerdistans” and toward dynamic urban milieux: “This urban shift in venture capital and start‐ups is in line with the long held view that dense cities, as opposed to sprawling suburbs, provide the ecology required for breakthrough innovation” (Florida ).…”

Section: Ground Rent and Production In The “Knowledge Economy”mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Post‐Industrial “Shop Floor”: Emerging Forms of Gentrification in San Francisco's Innovation Economy

Stehlin

2015

Antipode

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The San Francisco Bay Area in California is undergoing a technology‐driven wave of growth arguably more thoroughgoing than the first “dot‐com” bubble, fueling hypertrophic gentrification and tales of a deeply class‐divided, “Blade Runner kind of society”. While Silicon Valley is still the industry's employment center, San Francisco is seeing faster tech firm growth, and is transforming its downtown to become more “livable” and promoting public space as key to innovation. In this context, this paper offers a reading of urban public space not just as a consumption amenity but also as the “shop floor” of a labor process that goes beyond the walls of the firm to mobilize the social itself in the production of privately appropriated value. With innovation now the watchword of gentrification, the stakes of this shift oscillate between the total commodification of urban vitality and the recognition of the social process of value production itself.

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“…The result is a class of workers who struggle to find stable employment, affordable housing, and social support (Leslie and Rantisi 2012, 466). Further, Parker (2008) argues that there are implicit gendered and racialized assumptions packed into Florida's "progressive" creative class thesis that reproduce socioeconomic inequalities and valorize "hegemonic masculinity" (Parker 2008, 202). Women, minorities, and households are largely obscured in the creative class dialogue as they are not considered the chief "sites of creativity" (Parker 2008, 210).…”

Section: Creativity For Innovation and Economy Or Culture And Socialmentioning

confidence: 99%

From cultural industries to creative industries and back? Towards clarifying theory and rethinking policy

Kong¹

2014

Inter-Asia Cultural Studies

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In this paper, I draw attention to the complexities and confusions in the shift in discourse and praxis from "culture industry" to "cultural industries" and then "creative industries." I examine how this "creative turn" is fraught with challenges, highlighting seven issues in particular: (i) the difficulties in defining and scoping the creative industries; (ii) the challenges in measuring the economic benefits creative industries bring; (iii) the risk that creative industries neglect genuine creativity/ culture; (iv) the utopianization of "creative labour"; (v) the risk of valorizing and promoting external expertise over local small-and medium-scale enterprises in the building of "creative industries"; (vi) the danger of overblown expectations for creative industries to serve innovation and the economy, as well as culture and social equity; and (vii) the fallacy that "creative cities" can be designed. I suggest that the move towards creative industries discourse represents a theoretical backslide, and raise the possibility that a return to "cultural industries" would be more beneficial for clarifying our theoretical understanding of the cultural sectors and the creative work that they do, as well as enabling better policymaking.

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Beyond the class act: Gender and race in the ‘creative city’ discourse

Cited by 45 publications

References 19 publications

‘It’s just a very male industry’: gender and work in UK design agencies

‘It’s just a very male industry’: gender and work in UK design agencies

The Post‐Industrial “Shop Floor”: Emerging Forms of Gentrification in San Francisco's Innovation Economy

From cultural industries to creative industries and back? Towards clarifying theory and rethinking policy

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