ACSIS seminar 8 October 2015 13.15-16
Tvärsnittet Kopparhammaren, våning 3, Kungsgatan 56, Campus Norrköping
Creative work in the era of new capitalism
George Morgan, University of Western Sydney & David Redmalm, Uppsala University
This seminar critically approaches the conditions of creative work by bring together scholars
from Sweden and Australia. David Redmalm’s presentation deals with the Hungarian IT
company Prezi that blurs boundaries between work and fun so as to produce a work
environment characterized by “openness” to social issues and innovative ideas. George
Morgan’s paper takes a theoretical approach in order to zoom in on how independent
creativity is harnessed by the new economy to generate wealth in processes of
commodification of art and intellectual work.
”It pays to be open”: The cultivation of openness in alternative entrepreneurship
David Redmalm, Uppsala University (Annika Skoglund, Uppsala University & Karin
Berglund, Stockholm University.
This is a presentation of an ongoing videographic research project focusing on the Hungarian
IT-company Prezi and how it engages in social issues such as gender equality, LGBT rights
and anti-racism. “Openness” is Prezi’s watchword which means having an open stance to
other people of different backgrounds, as well as keeping an open mind to innovative ideas.
This “openness” includes anti-racism and an emphasis on gender equality, an emphasis which
contrasts with the conservative political climate of contemporary Hungary. By highlighting
“openness”, Prezi aims to attract employees and stimulate a creative work process. This form
of “openness” is enabled in different ways: the architecture and homely interior design of the
office, the relationships encouraged in the workplace, the discourses proliferated in everyday
conversations and professional talk, the texts and videos that the company distributes
publically, and the events arranged by Prezi that often blurs the boundary between social
intervention and party. Informed by poststructuralist and queer theory, empirical examples
will be used to shed light on and problematize the alternative boundaries and subjectivities
that are produced by Prezi’s different forms of “openness”. It is suggested that while Prezi
creates a viable position that allows the company to spur social change, the cultivation of
“openness” can simultaneously be regarded as part of a commoditization of values
characteristic of neoliberalism.
Mythologies of New Capitalism
George Morgan, University of Western Sydney
Long chain production processes have seen the consignment of Fordist ‘old labour’ to the
factories of the developing world while the West relies on intellectual and creative insights,
and the production of intellectual property for economic salvation. However, those who
perform knowledge/symbolic work, whether directly employed in the cultural industries or
through (the more common) unconventional arrangements of subcontracting/ ‘flexploitation’,
were generally drawn to their interests for ludic and intellectual, rather than economic
reasons. This means that they are largely impervious/resistant to conventional Taylorist
management techniques. Those who generate intellectual symbolic value – through the new
oil of intellectual property - are not amenable to intensive close quarters oversight of their
work. Workers produce their own cooperation structures under which creative work takes
place, Lash argues, because the new economy thrives on the interchange of ideas. Other
commentators like Hardt and Negri and Shorthouse have argued that new capitalism has
increasing come to rely upon the existence of the ‘creative commons’ which exist outside the
field of organised production but which is inimical to its operation. This involves a partial
collapse of the work- life division and an attempt by capitalism to harness the energy of
independent creativity. Thus the separation of work and non-work, of private and public
realms, that was central to the rise of modernity, begins to break down in the post-modern
economy.
This paper will look at some of the myths of new capitalism that describe how cultural and
intellectual practices rooted in lifestyles – subcultures, university peer groups etc – can be
turned into intellectual property and generate great wealth. It will argue that these myths serve
to mollify the bohemian/ resistant misgivings about the commodification of art and
intellectual work.
About the participants:
George Morgan is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Western Sydney and has published
research on a variety of themes: settler colonialism in Australia, Islamphobia; minority youth,
precarity and creative labour. In recent years he has published in a variety of journals
including Sociological Review, Postcolonial Studies, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Journal of
Ethnic and Migration Studies, Journal of Youth Studies, Journal of Urban Affairs, Economic
and Labour Relations Review and the Journal of Cultural Economy. He is author of Unsettled
Places (Wakefield, 2006) co-editor with Scott Poynting of the collection Global
Islamophobia (Ashgate, 2012) and is completing a new book (with co-author Pariece
Nelligan) titled The Creativity Hoax.
David Redmalm is a researcher at the department of Industrial Engineering and Management
at Uppsala University. His current research focuses on the place of values in contemporary
forms of management, and the social identities and structures emanating from this
preoccupation with ideals, ethics and “openness.” Redmalm is also interested in the
distinction between human and animal and how the dualism affects identity construction and
social norms, a theme he has explored in several articles, and in his thesis An Animal Without
an Animal Within (2013).