Logistics of cultural work

A persistent problem in theorizations of cultural work is definition. Drawing the borders between cultural work and other kinds of work is a vexed business. Sectoral definitions confine cultural work to contexts where the production of texts, symbolic creativity and expressive value are paramount. Anthropological approaches open out the field, arguing that all economic activity has cultural relevance. Between these poles we find a host of typologies and schemes that segment cultural work into core and peripheral areas of production (Hesmondhalgh 2007) or nest it in a series of concentric circles that slowly open to the wider economy (Work Foundation 2007). One thing is sure. Cultural work exists within wider networks or chains of supply and demand, production and consumption, which sustain and in turn are sustained by it. Patterns of continuity and change in the evolution and prominence of cultural work are often measured by analysing its position in these networks. Theorizing cultural work with attention to these shifts offers a new perspective on debates that usually pervade discussions of labour in the cultural and creative industries, for instance those that position it as the innovative motor of contemporary capitalism (Cunningham 2006), or those that emphasize the precarious or flexible forms of labour that invest it (Terranova 2004; Rossiter 2006; Ross 2009). This chapter seeks to open such a perspective by drawing on empirical investigations conducted in the cities of Shanghai and Kolkata. The aim is not to resolve the definitional dilemmas outlined above. Rathe1; by tracking how cultural work relates to other labour processes and experiences, the hope is to delineate a field of debate in which to assess claims for its political potentialities.