Of course, we should employ the term creative policy or policing
field of creativity also in terms of social development.
Because, creativity has been a lot of times we'll
say interpreted as a new way to develop societies.
So, this idea of the social development
is one of the core idea of the creativity and vice versa.
So, first of all we should stress that creativity has been
historically considered as the employment policy.
As the policy in field of employment.
Because, one of the main expected outcomes in
creative industries policies was to increase the number of workplaces and jobs.
Especially, what we call the self occupied workplaces and jobs.
And such objectives figures among DCMS,
Department of Culture Media and Sport documents, and European Union documents.
In DCMS definition for example,
we can find that those industries which
have their origins in individual creativity, skill,
and talent and which have a potential for wealth and
job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property.
So, and of course it creates the particular idea of precarious worker,
or the worker who is soft or flexible in his work.
His work is flexible.
His work hour are flexible.
And this idea of what we call precariat as analogue to proletariat in Marxist ideology,
in Marxist social theory.
The idea that we have deal actually with a new social class of precarious worker,
someone who is working for himself,
someone who is underpaid and someone who is working not for money but for pleasure.
And of course, this idea of pleasure becomes central in this field.
So, the idea of cultural outcomes
also is driving such kind of social will say, welfare social ethics.
For example, the idea that creative development and
policy could improve cultural skills of the public.
If we will take a look on the European Green Book,
we can find this sentence,
"Building on our rich and diverse cultures,
Europe must pioneer new ways of creating value-added,
but also of living together,
sharing resources and enjoying diversity".
So, the idea that cultural skills of public,
you can develop such cultural skills of public and they on
their turn will develop the employment policy,
the general development of the economy, et cetera, et cetera.
So, the idea of sustainability effect,
the idea of such intercultural skills which will improve
this creativity is under this idea of course.
Finally, what kind of critique we can do.
Here, once we speak about creativity
as a form of employment policy or
economic policy and especially social development policy.
First of all, we have a deal with a new form of exploitation and
some schools are pointing out this idea.
We have deal with the idea that you are just working for pleasure,
for self-expression, not as a commodity to sell.
So, it means that probably you should be agree to be underpaid,
but you have a job which is pleasure for you.
So, it means that the part of creative workers' job is paid not with the money,
but with this pleasure of feeling creative.
If I'm feeling creative myself that's why I'm agreeing to earn less money,
but to have a pleasure to have a flexible working hours, et cetera.
And, this idea also of course could justify the decline in jobs in
making such jobs creative and by developing precariat and self employment et cetera.
Instead of developing the industrial policies,
instead of protecting workers and labor, et cetera, et cetera,
so, of course this critique is never present in modern social theories.
This critique against this policy of creativity.
And here I will invite you to watch a video by our colleague Angela McRobbie from
Goldsmith College who will present her critical argument against this idea, be creative.
This idea of being creative.
Something around culture, the definition of culture has undergone a change.
And if we look back to the traditional 60s,
70s, early 80s definition of culture,
one of the most well known and one of
the definitions of culture that really inform
culture studies is the idea of culture as a way of life.
Culture is non-elitist, not high culture.
Culture in the anthropological sense.
Culture is a kind of common property,
something common good, a common public good.
Raymond Williams talked about culture as a way of life,
something that was really shaped how people formed their own everyday lives.
And what I argued was what we saw with
the inauguration of this govern mentality dis positive,
is that culture as a way of life came to be increasingly replaced by
creativity as a way of making a living or culture as a way of making a living.
So, what was this common resource.
This everyday non-monetized kind of
common good comes to be seen as almost like a personal asset.
As a piece of human capital.
Something that can be financialized,
something that can be turned into a kind of commercial good.
And the way in which that happens is through this idea
of creativity as a practice of self romanticism.
Okay, let me just go into a little bit more detail about what I mean there.
What I want to say is that from 1997 in the UK,
and then increasingly also across Europe and in the US, we see
what I would describe as a kind of new identity,
or new assemblage of the middle class.
And this new assemblage of the middle class comes into being
through this multiplicity of instruments, of tool kits,
of pedagogical packages which are then
used as a way of training up the middle class for what I would say the post welfare era.
So, the middle classes in the UK maybe also in
Russia in the 50s and 60s and early post-war years,
the middle classes were most traditionally trained for the professions,
for the institutions of the state, for bureaucracy,
for the public sector,
for teaching, for social work,
for law, for medicine,
for the health services.
So they were generally a large kind of
the flow of the middle classes was traditionally geared towards the professions,
and the public sector.
And what we see here is something different happening.
Not all of the middle classes by any means,
but lets say a particular strata of the middle classes.
Those who are entering the university often to do media arts courses,
to do creative courses,
to do performing arts,
to do creative writing,
to do a series of performance arts.
It is this strata or this sector of
the middle class who are being trained for as I put it the post-welfare era.
So, there is an influx of
new often lower middle class graduates particularly young women.
So, again if we go back to the changes that
were brought into being around the Tony Blair government,
the new labor government,
what they said is okay we're going to open up the universities.
We want to see more than 50 percent of
young people into the universities and becoming graduates.
And the question is what are the courses that
this influx of graduates were going to be taking?
How could it be done quite cheaply?
And also what was the demographic of this flowing of young people to the universities?
And the answer to that that I'm particularly interested in and that I have
seen very much shaped up is a high percentage of young women,
so that now in the UK more young women almost than young men go to university,
and a particular focus on young women who perhaps in the past wouldn't have
gone to university for reasons of their lower middle class background.
So, I was particularly interested in this strata,
not exclusively, but for sure this was a significant demographic.
And what I argued was that it was this cohort of
young women into let's say media arts degrees,
into fashion management, into fashion and communication,
up in the north of England,
in Northumberland and Dundee in Scotland all over the country.
What I argued was that they were subjects to,
or if you like ripe for the romance of creative labor.
That is to say, they were addressed in terms of a celebration of
getting to university and also to
a certain extent a celebration as almost like post-feminist subjects.
You're going to have the chance that your mothers didn't have,
and you are going to have the chance to have a rewarding job.
You're going to have an exciting career,
a career that is more fulfilling than had you
followed a traditional pathway into let's say retail.
Working in Marks and Spencer's or working lower down the career ladder.
So, there was this kind of incitement,
an invitation, and that's exactly how the dis positive works.
It works by inviting you in in a positive way.
And that's of course exactly what Foucault talks about.
That is to say, that there is a pleasure.
There is a kind of positivity in the incitational invitational discourse.
So, this cohort are being invited into creative labor and at the same time,
and Tony Blair said this very clearly,
there is no guarantees about the outcome from studying in this sector.
You're not guaranteed, it's not going to deliver you into a job for life.
There is a sense of
uncertainty in the outcome and this was very much what Tony Blair talked
about when he launched the ill-fated cool Britannia campaign.
That let's celebrate Britain's talent,
Britain's cultural economy and you know what, we don't quite know where it lead to,
we don't quite know what sort of jobs it's going to see into being.
So, what I put it in terms of the pleasure and
the romance actually where compensations for work without protection.
So, the excitement, the invitation,
the the idea of self-expressive work was if you like the compensation.
The positive rewards for
jobs that possibly did not bring
protection in the way that protection in the public sector,
professional jobs in the past meant sickness entitlements,
maternity leave, a pension,
social insurance, unemployment benefits and so on.