Glamour and grind: New creative workers
Principal investigators
- Dr Deborah Jones, Victoria Management School
- Dr Judith Pringle, Auckland University of Technology
Associate investigators
- Ella Henry
- Dr Rachel Wolfgramm, University of Auckland Business School
- Dr Keith Randle, University of Hertfordshire Business School, UK
This project, funded by the Marsden Fund from 2008-2011, is based at Victoria Management School.
Glamour and Grind: New Creative Workers, is funded by the Marsden Fund from 2008-2011, which supports ‘innovative fundamental research’ that encourages new thinking and is not tied to specific policy agendas or outcomes. Our starting point has been the recent emergence of a ‘new creative’ worker, operating across the old boundaries of ‘arts’ and ‘business’ in what is now called the ‘creative industries’. The overall goal of Glamour and Grind is to develop theories about the identities and careers of ‘new creative’ workers, using the New Zealand film industry as our example.
Creative industries have entered the spotlight over the last decade, in New Zealand and internationally. There is a new generation of creative workers developing in this new environment, and a new framework for longer-term creative careers. The success of the New Zealand film industry has highlighted the work of local film-makers. In this project we explore the careers of ‘new creative’ workers, using the New Zealand film industry as a case study. Film industry work combines traditional arts and crafts with new technologies and forms of entrepreneurship. It includes subgroups from many types of creative industries, and overlaps with work in other creative media, and so may suggest trends in a wider range of creative careers. People often work as free-lancers, in a combination of jobs which make up a portfolio career. It has been argued that a ‘glamour’ factor attracts workers to creative careers, in spite of the ‘grind’ – the reality that pay can be low, work precarious, and conditions tough.
The project includes both Māori and non-Māori perspectives, asking film workers how they see themselves and their careers as they develop over time. This is a longitudinal qualitative study which examines film work and creative from the perspectives of insiders through initial life-history interviews and follow-up interviews. These will be analysed in the context of a preliminary series of industry interviews and an archive of extensive secondary data.
Glamour&Grind aims to contribute to knowledge by critically analysing the ways that the concept of the new creative worker plays out through individual (but networked) careers.We believe that New Zealand data will provide contrasts with existing studies from the UK and USA. We expect to contribute to both career theory and to the study of work in the creative industries, especially film.