ABSTRACT
This volume collects empirical studies of aspects of career-making in several creative industries from around the world. These studies focus on what are often referred to as the ‘creative’ roles, jobs, and occupations in creative industries, leaving largely aside the essential and numerous roles, jobs, and occupations in creative industries that Caves (2000) calls ‘humdrum’ and Becker (1982) refers to as ‘support.’ The reason for this focus is that the primary and general interest in creative industries is usually associated with understanding the creative work, workers, and careers found in these industries. These are the roles and work that draw our attention to creative industries, as researchers and potential or active participants in these industries. A second reason for this choice is that there frequently are important differences in the manners in which ‘creatives’ versus ‘humdrums’ are employed in creative industries, with creatives more often hired on a project or freelance basis, whereas humdrums (from lawyers and accountants to cleaners and caterers) are often more stably employed by durable companies in creative industries or the companies that they contract with. This choice by no account underplays or marginalizes the importance of these roles in the production processes in creative industries—they are vital and in many respects no less interesting—it merely sharpens the focus of this book to one, albeit broad and often difficult to precisely define, class of occupations and activities. We return to definition issues below, and Chapter 2 by Bille is largely devoted to them.
