Conference Paper/Proceeding/Abstract 219 views
Reproduction of Neoliberal Enterprise in Community Arts Work in Wales: A Foucauldian Discourse Analysis
Rey Shakirzhanov 
Work, Employment and Society Annual Conference 2025
Swansea University Author:
Rey Shakirzhanov
Abstract
Cultural work has been constructed by policymakers and academics as a key contributor to economicgrowth (Campbell, 2021; Belfiore, 2020; Luckman, 2018; Thestrup & Pokarier, 2018; Conor et al., 2015;Morgan & Wood, 2014; De Peuter, 2011; Banks, 2007; Freedman, 2007), whilst a romanticised imag...
| Published in: | Work, Employment and Society Annual Conference 2025 |
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| Published: |
Manchester University
2025
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa70231 |
| Abstract: |
Cultural work has been constructed by policymakers and academics as a key contributor to economicgrowth (Campbell, 2021; Belfiore, 2020; Luckman, 2018; Thestrup & Pokarier, 2018; Conor et al., 2015;Morgan & Wood, 2014; De Peuter, 2011; Banks, 2007; Freedman, 2007), whilst a romanticised imageof freelance artists has come to be represented more widely as a model for future work (McRobbie, 2016). Despite these celebratory visions, this work has been shown as being precarious, characterisedby a lack of secure working conditions, ongoing sense of uncertainty, lack of ‘safety nets’, with no certaincontinuity of career growth and prospects (Masquelier, 2019; Butler, 2010; Bourdieu, 1998). Within this context, cultural workers have been “invoked as paradigmatic figures of 21st century capitalism” (De Peuter, 2014, p. 264), taking on a subject position predicated upon a discourse of neoliberal enterprise (Read, 2009; Donzelot, 2008; Foucault, 2008; O’Malley, 1996; Du Gay, 1994a, 1994b, 1996, 2004; Du Gay & Salaman, 1992; Rose, 1992; Keat, 1991; Gordon, 1991). This position connotes a range of entrepreneurial and business-like conducts, such as being autonomous, responsible, competitive, risktaking, calculative, proactive, and seeking self-fulfilment through work. A great deal of attention hasbeen paid to studying the proliferation of entrepreneurial logics within this domain of work, both on policy level (Rosello & Wright, 2010; Banks & Hesmondhalgh, 2009; Banks, 2007), and in practice (see for example. Mackenzie & McKinlay, 2020; Hoedemaekers, 2018; Blair, 2009).Yet, research into the cultural work of community arts has been generally scant. Unlike other culturalsectors that place artists at the centre of cultural production, ‘community arts’ can be described as anon-commercialised area of work that “enjoins both artists and local people within their variouscommunities to use appropriate art forms as a means of communication and expression … adaptingthem to present day [community] needs and developing new forms” (Kelly, 1984, p. 1). This paper shedslight on the reproduction of neoliberal logics of enterprise in community arts based on data collectedduring doctoral research in Wales. Using a Foucauldian Discourse Analysis approach (Willig, 2008a,2008b; Parker, 1992, Hollway, 1989) and ethnographic methodology, it details how community artsworkers construct their subject positions different from paradigmatic representations of work as adomain of enterprise. A key finding of this study is the proliferation of the discourse of ‘caring about’,acting as a resource for resisting individualised, money-oriented subject positions of enterprise, whilstalso legitimating acceptable versions of entrepreneurial behaviour. This paper contributes empiricallyto discursively understanding the nature of community arts work and the role of the ethics of care in it(Alacovska & Bisonette, 2021). It also offers alternative theorisations of entrepreneurial work, rethinking the current dichotomous visions of the discourse of enterprise as a fait accompli in the construction of worker subjectivity (Foucault, 2008; Fournier & Grey, 1999; Du Gay, 1994b, 1996; Du Gay & Salaman, 1992). |
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| College: |
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Funders: |
Swansea University |