Beyond the Social Centrality of Work and Post-Work Conditions: Creative Labour's Experience and Reaction to the Crumbling of Meaningful Employment in the Cultural and Creative Industries

Abstract

In response to the worldwide prestige and optimism of creative industries as a new promising pillar of global economy, the primary aim of this government-subsidised public policy research was to advance the understanding of the changing conditions and meanings of work in the creative workforce in Hong Kong. While referencing Hesmondhalgh and Baker's (2011) ethnographic study on creative labour in the United Kingdom that (re)conceptualised quality of creative works beyond traditional criteria such as wages and working hours, we also sought to investigate the actual experience and agency of different types of creative workers: how do they differently cope with the increasingly troubling contradictions between a persistent centrality of work in an advanced capitalist society and the crumbling of stable and satisfying employment (Frayne, 2015). By comparing the case in Hong Kong to the state of creative labour globally, this 18-month research drew on ethnographic methods encompassing 70 semi-structured interviews, informal dialogues and observations. All aimed to provide an overview of the reality of creative industries in Hong Kong, which intricately interplays with other underexplored and nuanced factors such as the immeasurability of immaterial labour; romanticisation of creative work; a declining sense of moral agency, social recognition and occupational pride; opportunities and threats derived from technological advancements; ambivalent views towards post-materialism, capitalism and neoliberalism; globalisation; and the structural containment-outsourcing of 'creative risk' within CCIs-to Asia, for enriching the literature on sociology of work and employment in Asia, also informing the future policy directions.