Scenes of precarity: Conditions, dynamics and challenges for the post-pandemic future of cultural labour in Argentina

Abstract

Creative industries are often promoted as key for economic, social and cultural development, particularly in countries of the Global South. In Argentina, the impact of the pandemic nurtured cultural workers’ organization and collective action, which brought to public attention the precarious conditions of cultural labor, and brought into question the centrality of individual and private initiatives known as ‘culturepreneurship’ within culture production. This article discusses the issue through an approach to cultural labor in general, and theatre and live music in particular, based on interviews and focus groups with 23 cultural workers in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area. We argue that cultural labor precarity presents a specific set of characteristics that are not only material but also related to its symbolic and subjective character, which public policy makers and cultural workers themselves need to consider in order to improve these conditions in the post-pandemic period.