Rethinking creative freelancers and structures of care in cultural policy and organisational practice: A case study of Dundee during the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

This article seeks to reposition freelance creative and cultural workers (CCWs) and conditions of creative work as the foundations of cultural policy making. Using a case study of Dundee, Scotland, in the immediate aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, the article draws on focus groups and interviews with creative freelancers, representatives of cultural organisations and members of a cultural strategy development group in Dundee. It presents how freelancers were not only missing from policy (national and local), their precarity was also exacerbated by cultural organisations in their response to pandemic-induced uncertainty. The potential for more caring modes of engagement with freelance CCWs are identified. Crucially, the article argues that this support work must also be resourced to be effective and sustainable. The article presents opportunities for rethinking the position of freelancers in cultural policy and sector leadership, and reflects on the capacity for academic research to support such work.

The precarities of cultural and creative work through pandemic times

“…These contributions also support a growing understanding, over time, of how pandemic times overlap with wider series of disasters and interruptions; the Covid-19 pandemic is not an aberration but rather an intensified moment of crisis that lies atop multiple other crises both fast and slow. Creative workers' experiences of pandemic precarity are compounded by multiple factors such as housing crisis (Wolifson et al, 2023), political austerity or anti-corruption campaigns (Garduño Bello et al, 2024), competitive funding landscapes (England, 2023). In their contribution emphasizing the spatial dimensions of creative work during the pandemic, Peta Wolifson and her co-authors (2023) present precarity as 'co-constituted and experienced differently through matters of employment conditions, urban built environment, and social reproduction'.…”

“…The research brought together in this collection is not merely a snapshot of a specific period of high pandemic: rather, it uses a range of qualitative methods to understand how the role of creative and cultural work in different communities, and how the possibilities and constraints for workers in these sectors, have shifted across a timeframe of several years to create new settings for the near future. Drawing variously from sociology, labour studies, feminist geography and more, the spatial and temporal elements of the pandemic are a recurring theme: Wolifson et al (2023) use mapping techniques to understand the interaction of creative workers with creative spaces in Sydney, Australia; England's (2023) contribution provides a productive case study of regionality in Dundee, Scotland; Simon's (2024) participants in Nigeria are returned to for their reflections on how their industry has changed over time, and what changes have stuck two or three years into pandemic times.…”

“…We see examples of government funding responses – however insufficient – in Mexico and Argentina as different authorities came to terms with the increasingly clear effects of closures and social distancing measures upon creative workers. In Scotland, where freelancers make up over 30% of the creative workforce, Lauren England (2023) shows that existing vulnerabilities from freelancing were magnified by cultural institutions themselves. Government policy has started to acknowledge the need to care more systematically for creative workers and the working and living conditions they experience.…”

“…In Mexico, Garduño Bello et al (2024) show that the governmental response actually enhanced precarity due to the very policies promoted in the name of sectoral ‘development’. Another contributor, England (2023), points out that in Scotland, while more resourcing is needed, just as important as economic resources is an institutional commitment to an ethic of care in engagement with their creative workers. Cultural organizations – many of which may espouse an ethos of care and public service in their offerings – must also care for their workers.…”