Abstract
In the broader context of research into cultural labour, this article focuses analytical attention on working conditions within socially engaged arts practice, which have been under-researched to date. In particular, the article aims to uncover the unacknowledged costs shouldered by socially engaged practitioners working on publicly subsidised participatory projects. On the basis of the analysis of qualitative interviews with socially engaged artists and creative professionals, the article calls for an explicit effort to bring our public cultural institutions to task in relation to what Mark Banks calls ‘creative justice’. This entails highlighting the mechanisms of systemic exploitation of artists within current funding practices and the ways in which project-based funding rarely incorporates, as a matter of course, provisions to ensure the fulfilment of duties of care towards both artists and participating communities. The article draws on feminist ethics of care to advance a first intervention towards developing fresh thinking on the moral economy of the subsidised arts sector; it does this by starting from an acknowledgement that the normative environments of contemporary arts funding point to a clear moral failure of cultural policy.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 61-78 |
Number of pages | 18 |
Journal | European Journal of Cultural Studies |
Volume | 25 |
Issue number | 1 |
Early online date | 9 Jan 2021 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Feb 2022 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The research presented in this article was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (award number AH/L005115/1).
Keywords
- Arts funding
- cultural labour
- cultural policy
- cultural work
- ethics of care
- moral cultural economy
- participatory arts
- socially engaged art practice