5 research outputs found
Enterprise and Caring in Community Arts Work: A Discourse Analysis
This thesis presents a discursive analysis of enterprising work of community arts: a domain of cultural work often portrayed as bringing important value to local communities (Matarasso, 2019; Jeffers, 2017a, 2017b; Moriarty, 2017; Matarasso, 2013; Kelly, 1984; Goldbard, 1993), yet lacking any significant academic research into this form of work and employment. Aiming to fill the existing knowledge gap on entrepreneurial work of community arts, this study draws on Foucauldian Discourse Analysis approach and an ethnographic outlook on research methodology. It explores how the discourse of ‘enterprise’ (Foucault, 2008; Du Gay, 1994a, 1994b, 1996, 2004; Du Gay & Salaman, 1992; Rose, 1992; Keat, 1991b; Gordon, 1991) pervades the work of community arts in Wales and whether an enterprising subjectivity is reproduced in this domain of work. The data for this study was collected in Wales from June 2021 to November 2022 principally by drawing on interviews supplemented through participant diaries, field observations, and participant-generated documents. The analysis of collected data highlights the proliferation of neoliberal enterprise in areas of cultural work not traditionally associated with commercial activity (Beirne et al., 2017), detailing the shape and form of entrepreneurial subject positions of workers primarily involved in prosocial activities within local community. Furthermore, this study sheds light on complex manifestations of enterprise reproduced within the context of collaborative, caring, and precarious work, which challenges paradigmatic portrayals of enterprising work (Du Gay, 1996) and highlights the role of non-economic discourses in the constitution of workers’ subjectivity (Fournier & Grey, 1999). A key finding of this study is the proliferation of the discourse of ‘caring about’ that acts both to operationalise the discourse of enterprise, as well as being a point of resistance for workers against identifying as entrepreneurial, self-interested, money-oriented, individualised subjects