Moral Economies of Creative Labour
A two day conference
Organisers
Media Industries Research Centre/Institute of Communications Studies, Leeds
Sociology/Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change, The Open University
Date: Thursday 7th-Friday 8th July 2011
Venue: Institute of Communication Studies, University of Leeds
Call for Papers
In analyses of the cultural, media and creative industries, considerable
attention has been paid to the negative, unethical or amoral aspects of the
labour process - such as the exploitation of 'precarious' workers, the
self-exploitation that results from internalizing mechanisms of control, or
the damaging aspects of inequality and individuation at work. While it
remains vital to theorise these aspects, a number of scholars have sought to
offer contrasting accounts that point to the diverse array of moral and
ethical practices evident in cultural/creative labour, with workers
appearing to routinely invest their work with social and non-instrumental
values, ethics and politics - however 'commercialised', 'networked' and
'immaterial' their workplaces may appear to be. Such scholars draw their
energies from accounts of the cultural or moral aspects of economic life
(Sayer), the limits of market thinking in the cultural sphere (O'Neill,
Keat), autonomist and post-Marxist approaches (Lazzarato, Hardt and Negri)
and varied attempts to move beyond the ethical impasse of post-structuralist
critique. Yet whether it is possible to identify any substantively 'moral',
'ethical' or critical features of this sector remains contentious. This
conference therefore asks: what are the moral or ethical dimensions of
creative work? What are the political outcomes of efforts to infuse creative
labour with ethical intent or content? How might an ethical politics of
creative labour be theorized and organized? Or, given the propensity of
capital to absorb or exploit normative critique, should the prospect of
'ethical' cultural work be regarded as illusory and damaging?
Speakers include: Russell Keat, Andrew Sayer, David Hesmondhalgh, Helen
Kennedy, Mark Banks.
Papers are invited on the following (or similar) topics: creativity,
cultural work and ethics; media work and ethics; ethics and aesthetics;
creative/cultural policy, politics and organizing; ethics and exploitation;
'good' and 'bad' work; ethics of caring; emotions and affective creative
labour; practices and virtues; the commodification of ethics; the limits of
workplace ethics.
. Please email abstracts (150 words max for a 20 minute paper) to Liz
Pollard (e.v.pollard /at/ leeds.ac.uk) by Thursday 31st March.
. Places are limited and successful acceptance will be confirmed in
mid-April.
. To register for the conference please also contact Liz Pollard.
. Conference fee: £75 (waged) £30 (Postgraduates/unwaged), includes some
meals and refreshments.
. See http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/ and www.cresc.ac.uk for programme updates and
further details.
