Time, Discipline and Subjectivity: Performing Arts Worker Mobilisations in Italy during the Pandemic


Abstract


Based on the results of a qualitative study, this article aims to contribute to the debate on collective mobilisations, using the example of the labour struggles of Italian artists during the Covid-19 pandemic. The conditions typical to performing arts workers, such as precariousness, self-employment, individualisation, self-exploitation, social fragmentation, and geographical dispersion, have long been associated with low probabilities of collective mobilisation. In Italy, however, in the context of the numerous labour-related conflicts that emerged during the pandemic, mobilisations by performing arts workers were some of the most intense, widespread, and sustained. Addressing this counterintuitive finding and drawing on mobilisation theory, this article aims to identify the sources of conflict and antagonism of this mobilisation, and to investigate the factors and circumstances underlying it. We argue that the collective action of artists was motivated by a number of factors: a simultaneous mass experience of economic vulnerability and social insecurity; the breakdown of disciplinary mechanisms in artistic work; and the greater availability of “free time”. The findings shed new light on the mobilisation of precarious workers in work contexts characterised by disciplinary regimes based on subjective participation, self-exploitation and consensus.

DOI Code: 10.1285/i20356609v16i2p268

Keywords: mobilisation; pandemic; performing arts workers; subjectivisation; time; worker solidarity

References


Atzeni M. (2009), “Searching for injustice and finding solidarity? A contribution to the mobilization theory debate”, Industrial Relations Journal, 40(1): 5– 6.

Bascetta M. (2015), L’economia politica della promessa. Rome: Manifesto Libri.

Busacca M. (2018), “Il Valore Sociale Del Lavoro Culturale e Artistico”, in M. Gallina, M., Monti L., and O. Ponte di Pino (Eds), Attore... Ma di lavoro cosa fai? Occupazione, Diritti, Welfare Nello Spettacolo Dal Vivo. Milan: FrancoAngeli, 23–26.

Castells M. (2012), Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age, Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.

Chicchi F., G. Fontani F.G., Rinaldini M., Savioli F. and M. Turrini (2013), Soggettività intermittenti. Inchiesta sui lavoratori dello spettacolo. Ires Emilia-Romagna, Rapporto di Ricerca. (http://www.ireser.it/index.php/it/leftpubblicazioni.html?view=publication&task=show&id=279)

Corsani A. (2012), Dalla precarietà contrattuale alla precarizzazione esistenziale. L’esperienza dei lavoratori dello spettacolo in Francia, in E. Armano and A. Murgia (Eds), Mappe della precarietà, vol. I. Perugia: I libri di Emil, 19 – 36

Corsani A., M. Lazzarato (2008), Intermittents et Précaires, Paris: Éditions Amsterdam

Dex S., Willis J., Paterson R. and E. Sheppard (2000), “Freelance workers and contract uncertainty: The effects of contractual changes in the television industry”. Work, Employment and Society, 4(2): 283–305.

Ducret A.M.O., Glauser A., Moeschler O. and V. Rolle (2017), “Artistic work as a

“laboratory” of labour market deregulation”, Swiss Journal of Sociology, 43 (2): 239–251.

Edwards R. (1979), Contested Terrain: The Transformation of the Workplace in America. New York: Basic Books.

Fantasia R. (1988), Cultures of Solidarity: Consciousness, Action and Contemporary American Workers, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Federcultura (2019), Impresa Cultura. Comunità, Territori, Sviluppo, Roma: Gangemi Editori

FCSF - Fondazione Centro Studi Doc, (2021), L’Impatto del Covid-19 sulle industrie culturali e creative e sul mondo dello spettacolo. Retrieved 17 July 2021 (http://www.centrostudidoc.org/2021/03/08/spettacolo-nel-2020-il-covid-19-e-costato-circa-13-miliardi-di-euro/).

Fondazione Symbola (2021), Io Sono Cultura, Rapporto annuale 2011-2021. Fondazione Symbola e Unioncamere. Retrieved 05 July 2022 (https://www.symbola.net/collana/io-sono-cultura/).

Friedson E. (1990), “Labors of love in theory and practice: A prospectus”, in E. Freidosn (eds). The nature of work: Sociological perspectives, Yale: Yale University Press, 149–161.

Gamson W.A. (1995), “Constructing social protest”, in H. Johnston and B. Klandermans (eds), Social Movements and Culture, London: UCL Press, 85–106.

Gill, R., A. Pratt (2008), “Precarity and cultural work in the social factory? Immaterial labour, precariousness and cultural work”. Theory, Culture & Society, 25 (7-8), 1 –30.

Heery E., Conley H., Delbridge R., and P. Stewart (2004), “Beyond the enterprise: Trade union representation of freelances in the UK”, Human Resource Management Journal, 14(2), 20 –35.

Hesmondhalgh D., S. Baker (2011), “Toward a political economy of labor in the media industries”, in J. Wasko, G. Murdock G. and H. Sousa (Eds), The handbook of political economy of communications, Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 381–400.

Hesmondhalgh D., S. Baker (2010), “‘A very complicated version of freedom’: Conditions and experiences of creative labour in three cultural industries”, Poetics, 38(1), 4–20.

Huws U. (2019), Labour in contemporary capitalism: what next?, Berlin: Springer.

Inps (2020), Statistiche in Breve. Osservatorio Gestione Lavoratori dello spettacolo e sportivi professionisti. Roma. Retrieved 8 June 2022, (https://www.inps.it/webidentity/banchedatistatistiche/menu/enpals/enpals.html).

Istat (2019), Indagine conoscitiva in materia di lavoro e previdenza nel settore dello Spettacolo. Audizione parlamentare, Retrieved 05 May 2021 (https://www.istat.it/it/archivio/229955).

Kelly J. (1998), Rethinking Industrial Relations: Mobilization, Collectivism and Long Waves. London: Routledge.

Klandermans B. (1992), “The social construction of protest and multiorganizational fields”, in A.D. Morris and C.M, Mueller (Eds), Frontiers in social movement theory, Yale: Yale University Press, 77–103.

Lazzarato M. (2012), La fabbrica dell’uomo indebitato: saggio sulla condizione neoliberista. Rome: DeriveApprodi.

Lizé W., Greer I., and C. Umney (2022), “Artistic work intermediaries as industrial relations institutions: The case of musicians”, Economic and Industrial Democracy, 43(2), 793–809.

Loacker B. (2013), “Becoming ‘culturpreneur’: How the ‘neoliberal regime of truth’ affects and redefines artistic subject positions”, Culture and Organization, 19(2), 124–145.

Mackenzie E., A. McKinlay (2021), “Hope labour and the psychic life of cultural work”, Human relations, 74(11), 1841–1863.

McAdam D. (1988), “Micromobilization contexts and recruitment to activism”. International Social Movement Research (1), 125–154

McRobbie A. (2002), “Clubs to companies: Notes on the decline of political Culture in speeded up creative worlds”, Cultural Studies, 16(4), 516–531.

Menger P.M. (2001), “Artists as workers: Theoretical and methodological challenges”, Poetics, 28(4), 241–254.

Menger P.M. (2017), “Contingent high-skilled work and flexible labor markets: Creative workers and independent contractors cycling between employment and unemployment”, Swiss Journal of Sociology, 43(2), 253–384

Naclerio E. (2023), “Self-entrepreneurship in uncertain futures: The case of performing artists in Italy”, International Sociology, 38(1), 142–160.

Nixon S., B. Crewe (2004), “Pleasure at work? Gender, consumption and work-based identities in the creative industries”, Consumption Markets & Culture, 7(2), 129–147.

Nubile D. (2018), “Una rappresentanza imprevista. Il caso della società mutualistica per artisti”. Il Mulino, 4, 603–610.

O ‘Sullivan M., T. Turner (2013), “Facilitators and Inhibitors of Collective Action: A Case Study of a US-Owned Manufacturing Plant”, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 51(4), 689–708.

Percival N., D. Lee (2022), “Get up, stand up? Theorizing mobilization in creative work”, Television & New Media, 23(2), 202–218.

Percival N., D. Hesmondhalgh (2014), “Unpaid work in the UK television and film industries: Resistance and changing attitudes”, European Journal of Communication, 29(2), 188–203.

Ricci L. (2013). “Ecologia di sistema per le imprese di spettacolo dal vivo”, Economia della Cultura, 2, 231–244.

Snow, D.A. and Benford, R.D. (1992) “Master frames and cycles of protest”, in A.D. Morris and C.M, Mueller (Eds), Frontiers in social movement theory, Yale: Yale University Press, 77–103.

Snow D.A., Rochford Jr. E.B., Worden S.K. and R.D. Benford (1986), “Frame alignment processes, micromobilization, and movement participation”, American sociological review, 51(4), 464–481.

Tassinari A., V. Maccarrone (2020), “Riders on the storm: Workplace solidarity among gig economy couriers in Italy and the UK”, Work, Employment and Society, 34 (1), 35–54.

Throsby D. (1992), “Artists as workers”, in Towse R., and A. Khakee, (eds) Cultural Economics, Springer: Berlin, 201–208.

Throsby D., A. Zednik (2011), “Multiple job-holding and artistic careers: Some empirical evidence”, Cultural trends, 20(1), 9–24.

Tilly C. (1978), From Mobilization to Revolution, New York: McGraw-Hill.

Turrini M., F. Chicchi (2013), “Precarious subjectivities are not for sale: The loss of the measurability of labour for performing arts workers”, Global Discourse, 3 (3-4), 507–521.

Umney C., and L. Kretsos (2014), “Creative labour and collective interaction: The working lives of young jazz musicians in London”, Work, Employment and Society, 28(4), 571–588.

Umney C., and L. Kretsos (2015). “That’s the Experience: Passion, Work Precarity, and Life Transitions Among London Jazz Musicians”, Work and Occupations, 42(3), 313–334.

Ursell J. (2017), “What conditions and contexts enhance artistic creativity?”, TEXT, 21(Special 40), 1–9.


Full Text: PDF

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.
کاغذ a4
Bookmark and Share


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 3.0 Italia License.