Creative Work, Self-Organizing, and Autonomist Potentiality: Snapshots taken from Amsterdam's art factories

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This article argues that while creative spaces are believed to instigate creative production, their strongest value is in producing new possibilities for self-organizing. By zooming in on short snapshots of resistance against gentrification in creative spaces in Amsterdam, I investigate whether small-scale and grass-roots forms of resistance and self-organizing between independent workers in the creative industries can be understood as examples of the autonomist notions of ‘the common’ and ‘the multitude’. By placing observations of creative workers’ self-organizing practices alongside autonomist theory, I suggest that autonomist thought is a promising philosophy for a politicized view of creative production, because it celebrates multiplicity and uniqueness. This is a timely topic in a society with growing numbers of freelancers and increasing flexibilization of labour. This article contributes to research on self-organizing among creative workers and to the literature on work conditions in the creative industries.
Original languageEnglish
JournalEuropean Journal of Cultural Studies
Volume24
Issue number2
Pages (from-to)394-410
Number of pages17
ISSN1367-5494
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.04.2021

Bibliographical note

I would like to thank all respondents and organisations which took part in this research. This article is dedicated to the memory of Julien Haffmans. The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the NWO (grant number 407-12-008), the University of Amsterdam’s CIRCA programme, and the Kunstenbond.

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2018.

    Research areas

  • Science of art - Autonomism, common, creative industries, creative work, multitude, resistance, self-organizing

DOI

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