[ecrea] Cultural Work/Cultural Value symposium

Cultural Work/Cultural Value
One–day symposium @
Central Meeting Room 15
The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, UK
Friday February 21st, 2014
10.30am - 4.30pm

The propensity in studies of cultural value to focus mainly on the qualities of cultural objects, texts, goods and commodities – or how they are consumed - tends to obscure the cultural work processes which produce those objects. It is cultural work that locates both these objects and the worker-subjects whose own skills, ideas and values shape their material (or immaterial) form. Indeed, the work and the worker are at the very heart of the matter; without workers to produce cultural goods, there is nothing for publics and audiences to actually value.

Of course the idea that cultural workers produce goods which might have a certain intrinsic or extrinsic value, is generally accepted, even if the precise character of such value remains hotly disputed. The question arises of how work and labour processes might shape the valuation process, by providing a set of identifications, discourses and practices that help frame public discussion and evaluation of culture.  Artists, musicians, designers and so on, not only draw from existing repertoires of value, but create value, and invest their work with purpose and meaning, which influences its circulation and consumption; yet they also undertake cultural work ‘for themselves’ for their own internal purposes, rewards and values. What might these be, precisely?

As a contribution to ongoing AHRC Cultural Value Project this seminar explores these (and other) questions by focussing on cultural workers as both reflective individuals and ethically engaged citizens. It identifies the views and sensibilities of cultural workers as one the diverse sources of the components of cultural value, and then seeks to explore the plurality and complexities of value-laden experience brought to bear in the cultural industries workplace.

Programme of speakers

•	Mark Banks (Open): What is Work Worth?

•	Calvin Taylor (Leeds): Cultural Value: Between Ethics and Economic Regulation

•	Christina Hughes (Warwick): Comparisons of Value in the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter

•	David Hesmondhalgh (Leeds): Cultural, Aesthetic and Economic Value: The Case of Music

•	Daniel Ashton (Bath Spa): Cultural Work and Critical Pedagogies

•	Kate Oakley (Leeds): Work, Justice and Mobility: Policy for Cultural Labour


This is a free event and lunch, tea and coffee are provided.
However, we have only a restricted number of places and so you must register to attend.
To reserve your place please (emailmark.banks /at/ open.ac.uk)  providing your name and affiliation.


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