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Fighting Precarity with Co-operation? Worker Co-operatives in the Cultural Sector

Sandoval, M. (2016). Fighting Precarity with Co-operation? Worker Co-operatives in the Cultural Sector. New Formations: a journal of culture/theory/politics, 88(88), pp. 51-68. doi: 10.3898/newf.88.04.2016

Abstract

This paper explores avenues for resistance to precarious and exploited labour in the cultural sector. It investigates the potential of worker co-operatives to help improve working conditions and radically reimagine cultural work. The concept of worker co-ops focuses on democratising ownership and decision-making power. It challenges class divisions and promises to empower workers by giving them more control over their working lives. However, co-ops are constrained by competitive market pressures, creating tensions between economic necessity and political goals. Examining current debates on co-operatives the article explores co-ops as a radical pre-figurative political project, mobilised in a reformist attempt to create a more ethical capitalism or be integrated into neoliberal discourses of entrepreneurship and individual responsibility. It goes on to discuss the potentials and limitations of worker co-ops by looking at precariousness, inequality and individualisation of cultural sector work arguing that radical co-ops can play an important role within a larger movement that mobilises collectivity to confront neoliberal individualisation and capitalist realism.

Publication Type: Article
Publisher Keywords: co-operatives, cultural work, neoliberalism, capitalism, precariat, resistance, trade unions
Subjects: H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
Departments: School of Communication & Creativity > Media, Culture & Creative Industries > Culture & the Creative Industries
SWORD Depositor:
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