Walking the vocational tightrope : narratives of aspiration, creativity and precarious labour

Abstract

The aim of this research is to explore the idea of the disembedded, creative, unencumbered neo-liberal subject. I explore this within the context of the creative industries and the creative career, firstly because creative workers exemplify a move away from traditional notions of career to more informal precarious and intermittent employment, secondly because they are said to be 'iconic' in terms of the new economy (Gill, 2002; Leadbeater and Oakley, 1999; Ross, 2007) and thirdly because the biographical patterns of creative workers and creative careers reflect the structural force of postmodern, reflexive modernity. This thesis investigates the degree to which the guiding ideas and institutional features of modernity and the industrial era (class, gender, family, community) continue to govern the lives of aspiring film and television workers. Beck (1992), Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (2002) and Giddens (1991) for example, argue that the features of traditional life no longer hold sway, and that people's identities are now reflexively constructed. However, this research finds that there are residual effects of class and gender that continue to shape the biographical narratives and identities of working-class creative aspirants. By conducting a series of semi-structured life history interviews and through participant observation and narrative analysis, this thesis argues that class and gender norms continue to operate at the heart of society and specifically creative work, and that these norms have the capacity to guide people's trajectories and sense of self.

Date of Award	2014
Original language	English