ABSTRACT
In recent times research into the cultural industries has tended to focus on either conditions of consumption and reception or on the changing character of both the structures of the cultural industries and the changing character of the national, transnational and global structures in which they function. Cultural Work is an ambitious book for, if nothing else, it seeks to return to work, to an examination of the conditions of the production of culture in a large range of arenas, to map the changed character of work within cultural industries, to examine the increasing diversity of cultural work and to suggest new perspectives and new methodologies (or, at the very least, new methodological imbrications) with which to interrogate changed worlds and changed work. All of Cultural Work’s authors are teachers, researchers or practitioners, workers in cultural industries. But even these distinctions are fluid and partial, for many of them have either moved from cultural practice to education and research or manage to maintain profiles as both educators and practitioners. In a very real sense the character of cultural work as it is perceived, constructed and practiced within the academy has also changed.
