What does it mean to be precarious, and who self-identifies as part of the precariat? Is it a political position? And if so, how can precariats start to organize themselves? In this first episode of the Zero Infinite podcast we discuss precarity, anti-austerity and work through interviews with Alex Foti, Baruch Gottlieb and Henry Warwick. How did the precariat arise, and who exactly is part of the precariat? The second half of the episode is a homage to the work of the late Mark Fisher. We listen to audio clips from his talk at the INC event MyCreativity in 2014, in which he analyzed the nature of neoliberalism and its consequences for individual wellbeing. What influence does a social system have on mental health, and how can this responsibility become clear?
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The Institute of Network Cultures and the Learning Community Critical Making are proud to present the Post-Precarity Zine, a toolbox for beginning artists.Times have changed. The art world and the creative economy are no longer the ones we used to know. The digital economy, the pandemic, and the cuts within the cultural field are some of the many factors that influence our practices and the way artists live nowadays. While some claim that the golden eras are gone, and maybe they are, a community of young artists and thinkers meets to discuss the ways in which the narrative around art and its practices has changed and can be geared towards the future.What does it mean to be an artist today? How to survive as a cultural worker while making what you want to make? How can we use contemporary platforms to turn our anger into transformative power? What are the many strategies of organization and obstacles artists have to face nowadays for their practice to remain? By better understanding the structures of the art world and its economies, how can we counteract them and use them to our benefit and create sustainable and collective actions?It is with such questions in mind that the first Post-Precarity Precarity Autumn Camp was organized by the Institute of Network Cultures, Platform BK and Hotel Maria Kapel from September 27th until October 1st, 2021. This zine collects extracts of texts, testimonials, precious reports, summaries of our daily programs, quotes, drawings and notes from the many participants, references to relevant sources, an open letter to Dutch art academies with four demands for change, an essay on principles for post-precarity, and exercises you can do at home to recalibrate your ‘artistic biotope’. With this mumble jumble, we give you a window to our inspiring week, a toolkit, and a fragmented manifesto. We hope to inspire you with our critical reflections, optimism, and the actions taken during the Post-Precarity Autumn Camp!
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From the fast-food industry to the sharing economy, precarious work has become the norm in contemporary capitalism, like the anti-globalization movement predicted it would. This book describes how the precariat came into being under neoliberalism and how it has radicalized in response to crisis and austerity. It investigates the political economy of precarity and the historical sociology of the precariat, and discusses movements of precarious youth against oligopoly and oligarchy in Europe, America, and East Asia. Foti covers the three fundamental dates of recent history: the financial crisis of 2008, the political revolutions of 2011, and the national-populist backlash of 2016, to present his class theory of the precariat and the ideology of left-populist movements. Building a theory of capitalist crisis to understand the aftermath of the Great Recession, he outlines political scenarios where the precariat can successfully fight for emancipation, and reverse inequality and environmental destruction. Written by the activist who put precarity on the map of radical thinking, this is the first work proposing a complete theory of the precariat in its actuality and potentiality.
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The precarity in the cultural sector became exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the lockdowns, the sources of income for cultural venues and cultural workers vanished overnight, intensifying an already challenging labour market. Particularly freelance cultural workers were hit hard. While the immediate shock of the pandemic on the cultural sector has been well documented, the effects on the sector in the aftermath of the pandemic are still to be revealed and repaired. This project tackles these issues by zooming in on the case of the performing arts scene in Groningen. This scene constitutes the part of the cultural sector that was affected the most by the lockdowns. Currently, venues and event organizers in Groningen lack qualified freelance staff as many left the industry during the pandemic. At the same time, self-employed cultural workers find it difficult to generate sufficient incomes and develop sustainable careers in the city. The municipality is eager to support the industry, including freelancers, but is unsure about how best to do so. With a consortium composed of the university, the municipality, a knowledge organisation specialised in cultural entrepreneurship, and a network for creative freelancers in the North of the Netherlands the project is well-equipped to reach its two-fold aims of investigating this current situation and coming up with suggestions for solutions. The core component of the project is an interview study with three groups of self-employed cultural freelancers: experienced production staff, experienced performers, and nascent freelancers (both production staff and performers). Based on data from this study, the project provides a multifaceted picture of the cultural ecosystem in Groningen, highlighting how this system is experienced. This establishes a solid foundation for staging discussions on working conditions in the sector, enabling the project to eventually conclude with recommendations on how to improve the situation.
