Keep hoping, keep going

Towards a hopeful sociology of creative work

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3544353
AutoresAna Alacovska (0000-0001-6620-5429, Copenhagen Business School, autor de correspondencia)
Año2019
Volumen67
Número5
Páginas1118-1136
Fecha de publicación2019-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Sociological Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0038-0261 • E-ISSN: 1467-954X
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0038026118779014
OpenAlexW2808491563
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas60
Referencias citadas44

This article explores the relationship between future-oriented temporality and precarity in creative work. Existing sociological studies implicitly assume an unproblematic causal link between creative workers' future-orientation and their precarity, subjugation and exploitation. This article problematizes this link and offers a more nuanced reassessment of creative work's futurity by arguing for the analytical potential of the notion of hope in gaining a better understanding of creative workers' hopeful - affective, practical and moral - responses to conditions of protracted precarity. Building on theories of hope, the article conceptualizes hope both as an existential affective stance and an active moral practice oriented towards the present - an orientation that enables workers to keep going in spite of economic hardship and job uncertainty. From 'an atypical case' study of creative work in South-East Europe, hope emerges empirically as the central quotidian practice of coping with precarity. Three practices of hope are discussed: (1) hope as therapeutic practice; (2) hope as informal labour practice; and (3) hope as socially engaged arts practice. In so doing, the article explores the possibilities of practising 'a hopeful sociology' of creative work

Creative industries · Creative work · Epistemology · Existentialism · Political science · Precarious work · Precarity · Sociology · Temporality · The arts · Work (physics) · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · Gender Studies · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law · Urban Planning and Governance