Chroniques de ‘carrières’. Des trajectoires créatives sous fortes influences socio-économiques

Abstract

Employment in cultural industries is often punctual, short-term, flexible and unsure. Employers argue that such working and employment conditions are necessary because their main activity is organized around non-recurring projects- a movie, a video game, a play, a radio show or an exhibition-, and because it requires such a highly creative intensity that only flexibility can provide. Highly qualified people working in those cultural industries - e.g. designers, artists, producers, video game makers, directors, press officers, translators, sound engineers or editors – experience unsure professional situations and deal with blurred trajectories over time due to the lack of long-term stable organizational structures. Can we identify ideal-typical stable trajectories organizing those workers’ evolution over time, despite the high level of uncertainty and flexibility characterizing those cultural industries employment practices? Would a systematic and complete identification of such ideal-typical careers enrich our understanding of the social and economic dynamics underlying such working and employment conditions?Here are the ambitious questions which will be addressed thoroughly in this article based on the French jazz critics case study.

Keywords

• creativity
• cultural industries
• careers
• art critics
• jazz