City Research Online City, University of London Institutional Repository Citation: Figiel, Joanna (2018). Unpaid work and internships within the cultural and creative sectors: Policy, popular culture, and resistance. (Unpublished Doctoral thesis, City, University of London) This is the accepted version of the paper. This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link: https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/22681/ Link to published version: Copyright: City Research Online aims to make research outputs of City, University of London available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the author(s) and/or copyright holders. URLs from City Research Online may be freely distributed and linked to. Reuse: Copies of full items can be used for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge. Provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. City Research Online: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/ [email protected] Unpaid work and internships within the cultural and creative sectors: Policy, popular culture, and resistance. Joanna Figiel City, University of London Centre for Culture and the Creative Industries Department of Sociology Thesis submitted for the qualification of Doctor of Philosophy Centre for Culture and Creative Industries School of Arts and social Sciences City, University of London September 2018 1 Table of contents: Publication list.………………………………………………………………………..3 Abstract………………………………………………………………………………..5 Abbreviations list……………………………………………………………………...6 Chapter 1………………………………………………………………………………8 Introduction: Experiencing theory Chapter 2……………………………………………………………………………..21 Literature review I: Work in the creative and cultural sectors Chapter 3……………………………………………………………………………..44 Literature review II: Unpaid work and internships in the creative and cultural sectors. Chapter 4..……………………………………………………………………………72 Policy: How does the question of internships materialise in policy discourse? Chapter 5..…………………………………………………………………………..106 Culture: How is the figure of the intern depicted, gendered, and normalised in popular culture? Chapter 6……………………………………………………………………………139 Activism: How are internships and unpaid work being mobilised against? Chapter 7……………………………………………………………………………174 Call you when I get there: Conclusions and further directions Appendix……………………………………………………………………………183 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………..188 2 Publication list: Joanna Figiel and Stevphen Shukaitis, ‘Class Composition & the Psychological Contract of Cultural Work in Precarious Times,’ Journal of Cultural Economy, forthcoming 2018 Joanna Figiel and Stevphen Shukaitis, ‘Watermelon Politics and the Mutating Forms of Institutional Critique Today,’ in John Conomos and Brad Buckley Who Runs the Artworld? Money, Power and Ethics. (Farringdon: Libri Publishing, 2017) 213-221 Joanna Figiel and Stevphen Shukaitis,‘The Factory of Individuation: Cultural Labor and Class Composition in the Metropolis’ South Atlantic Quarterly (2015) 114 (3), 535-552. Joanna Figiel, ‘Theorizing Cultural Work: Labour, Continuity and Change in the Cultural and Creative Industries,’ Journal of Cultural Economy, 8:6 (2015), 734- 737 Joana Figiel, ‘Chapter 5: Artists, organise? in Czarna Ksiega Polskich Artystow [Black Book For Polish Artists] ed. Kasia Gorna et.al (Warszawa: Krytyka Polityczna, 2015) Joanna Figiel and Sophie Hope, ‘Interning and Investing: Rethinking Unpaid Work, Social Capital, and the “Human Capital Regime”’ in TripleC Interrogating Internships: Conceptualizing Internships, Vol 13 No 2 (2015), 361-374 Joanna Figiel, ‘Lived realities of female artists work,’ in Słownik kultury [Dictionary of Culture], ed. K. Maniak (Krakow: Fundacja Imago Mundi 2015), PWB with Joanna Figiel, ‘Dictionary entries – Carrot, Intern, Free Labour’ in Garden Of Everyday Errors – Alternativa Book Of Practices, ed. A. Szylak, (Wyspa Institute of Art, 2015) Joanna Figiel, ‘Chapter 6: Summary and comments on focus group interviews,’ The Art Factory: the division of labour and distribution of capitals in the Polish field of visual art, Free/Slow University of Warsaw (Fundacja Bec Zmiana, 2014) Stevphen Shukaitis, Abe Walker, and Joanna Figiel, Ephemera: Theory and politics in organisation. Special issue: The politics of workers' inquiry (Vol. 14, No. 3, 2014). 3 Precarious Workers Brigade, ‘Free labour syndrome. Volunteer work and unpaid overtime in the creative and cultural sector,’ in Joy Forever: The Political Economy of Social Creativity, ed. Free/Slow University of Warsaw (Mayfly 2014) Precarious Workers Brigade, ‘Organizing Free Labour,’ New Left Project (2013); Joanna Figiel and Stevphen Shukaitis, ‘Metropolitan Strategies, Psychogeographic Investigations’, Cultural Studies <=> Critical Methodologies, September 2013 https://doi.org/10.1177/1532708613503781 Joanna Figiel and Stevphen Shukaitis, ‘Art, Politics and Markets,’ in The Routledge Companion to Arts Marketing, 2013 Joanna Figiel, Class action or class struggle? Review of Ross Perlin's 'Intern nation', Ephemera: Theory and politics in organisation. Special issue: The politics of workers' inquiry (2013, 13(4), 903-910 Stevphen Shukaitis and Joanna Figiel, eds, Subjectivity Special Issue: Collective Becomings, 2012 Joanna Figiel and Sophie Hope, Intern Culture – A literature review of internship reports, guidelines and toolkits, Artquest, 2012 Precarious Workers Brigade, ‘Tools for Collective Action-Precarity: The People’s Tribunal,’ in Hickey, Amber ed. A Guidebook of Alternative Nows. Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Press (2012) Precarious Workers Brigade, ‘The Working Woman – Photostory For Workers Performing Unstable Forms Of Labour, 8-10.07.2011,’ Wyspa Institute of Art 4 Abstract My thesis explores the interconnected issues surrounding unpaid labour, internships, and work placements within the creative and cultural sectors in order to show how the figure of the intern materialises across multiple sites and through various discourses. I extend the existing scholarship by examining how ideas about unpaid work and internships have emerged and mutated over the past decade in media, policy, and activist discourses. I examine the ways in which policy literature in the UK has dealt with the subject of internships over this same period and analyse how the question of internships is concretised in policy discourses. Following this, I undertake a close reading of the ways in which the figure of the intern is depicted in popular culture. Drawing on these insights, I locate the links between issues of gender, internships and unpaid work in the creative and arts sector and evaluate activist strategies to respond to these problems, engaging with my own experiences in the UK and in Poland. Altogether, my thesis demonstrates the variety of ways in which unpaid work and internships have become steadily normalised across the past decade or so, including by being rendered respectable as ‘educational’ or ‘training’ opportunities, and through their cooperation with highly gendered ideas of affective and creative labour. By analysing the research and activist efforts undertaken in response to this phenomenon, I outline a set of strategies for urgently required intervention against the exploitation and inequalities built into these burgeoning forms of work. 5 List of abbreviations ACE Arts Council England BECTU Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union BIS Department of Business, Innovation and Skills CCE Cultural Capital Exchange CCI Creative and Cultural Industry CCS Creative & Cultural Skills CIPD Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development CWC Carrot Workers Collective DLHE Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education ECU Equality Challenge Unit GLA Greater London Authority GPCF Gateway to the Professions Collaborative Forum HECSU Higher Education Careers Service Unit HMRC Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs 6 IPPR Institute for Public Policy Research LCACE London Centre for Arts and Cultural Exchange LLW London Living Wage LPC Low Pay Commission NCWE National Council for Work Experience NIKS National Internship Kitemark Scheme NMW National Minimum Wage NUJ National Union of Journalists NUS National Union of Students OFSW Obywatelskie Forum Sztuki Współczesnej (Citizens Forum for Contemporary Art) PWB Precarious Workers Brigade SMF Social Market Foundation SROI Social Return on Investment TUC Trades Union Congress UCU University College Union 7 Chapter 1 Introduction: Experiencing Theory My thesis explores the interconnected issues surrounding unpaid labour, internships, and work placements within the creative and cultural sectors. I extend existing scholarship by examining how the figure of the unpaid worker and intern has emerged and mutated over the past decade in the media and in policy and activist discourses in the US, as well as in the UK and Poland, where I live and work. I pay particular attention to the ways in which unpaid work and internships are gendered and normalised via policy, media depictions and discourses such as that of ‘employability’. Despite recent publications, such as the special issues of Triple C journal devoted to internships1 and the ephemera journal2, the area of unpaid work and internships, especially in the current political and economic climate, demands further urgent scholarly attention to extend our critical understanding