Creative industries work across multiple contexts: common themes and challenges

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the precarious nature of creative industries (CIs) work in Australia, Canada and the Netherlands, with a focus on job security, initial and on-going training and education, and access to benefits and protection. Design/methodology/approach The paper reports from a largely qualitative study featuring an in-depth survey answered by 752 creative workers in the three locations. Findings Survey data identified common themes including an increase in non-standard forms of employment and the persistence of precarious work across the career lifespan; criticism of initial education and training with particular reference to business skills; the need for and challenges of life-long professional learning; and lack of awareness about and access to benefits and protection. Respondents also reported multiple roles across and beyond the CIs. Practical implications The presence of common themes suggests avenues for future, targeted creative workforce research and signals the need for change and action by CIs educators, policy makers and representative organizations such as trade unions. Originality/value While precarious labour is common across the CIs and has attracted the attention of researchers worldwide, a lack of comparative studies has made it difficult to identify themes or issues that are common across multiple locations.

Sustaining dancer wellbeing through independent professional dance careers

“…The clear benefits for working together as a company are hindered when operating in the casualised contemporary dance sector. This problem reiterates the need for development of communities of practice (Hennekam and Bennett 2017) in creative industries wherein dancers may collaborate in physical training (either dance specific or generic) with the common goal of maintaining performance fitness through for example casual catch up exercise sessions or dance classes.…”

“…Despite the challenges and sacrifices overcome by aspiring dancers in training, a dancer's greatest challenge can be faced when attempting to develop a professional career in a casualised sector of intermittent, low paid contracts (Bennett and Bridgstock 2015;Ashton and Ashton 2016;Hennekam and Bennett 2017). The professional contemporary dance sector in Australia is poorly funded (Meyrick and Barnett 2017) and dancers experience extended periods of unemployment (Zawadzki 2016).…”

“…A minority of persistent and talented dancers progress physically, emotionally and artistically into professional dance careers (Walker et al 2012). These dancers experience an abrupt environmental shift from the highly structured, autocratic and commercialised dance training sector to the underfunded, unstructured and predominately independent domain of professional dance (Ashton and Ashton 2016;Hennekam and Bennett 2017).…”

Sexual Harassment in the Creative Industries: Tolerance, Culture and the Need for Change

“…Florida (2004, p. 321) contended that the creative industries provide 'full opportunity and unfettered social mobility for all'. However, there is growing evidence that precarity, competition and lack of regulation within these industries exacerbates both privilege and inequality (Eikhof and Warhurst, 2013;Hennekam and Bennett, 2017). As such, not all scholarly and governmental attention has been positive; indeed, commentators note particular difficulties for groups of creative workers, including older workers (Hennekam, 2015) and women (Banks and Milestone, 2011).…”

“…Our third contribution is that this is the first study to explicitly link the catalysts and perpetuating factors of systematic inequality (Eikhof and Warhurst, 2013;Hennekam and Bennett, 2017) to the experiences of sexual harassment against women.…”