Naslov
Crisis as ‘the natural state’: The impact of COVID-19 on the work of the independent cultural sector in Croatia

Autori
Primorac, Jaka

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, neobjavljeni rad, znanstveni

Skup
12th International Conference on Cultural Policy Research - ICCPR 2022

Mjesto i datum
Antwerpen, Belgija, 19.09.2022. - 23.09.2022

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
cultural sector, COVID-19, pandemic, cultural work, civil society organisations, public policies, South-eastern Europe, resilience

Sažetak
Recent research on the impact of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic on cultural work in South-eastern Europe (SEE) (Cvetičanin and Dinić, 2021 ; Primorac, 2021), shows a significant drop of income, expected decrease in total earnings and continued trend of the necessity of additional work and self-exploiting practices. For cultural sector in SEE the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic has brought about a number of negative consequences, while the early measures in most of the countries were of limited impact and scope. This paper develops on these findings by contributing to a more in-depth analysis of the working conditions of the employed in the civil society organisations (CSO) in contemporary arts and culture as a part of a wider qualitative research on conditions of civil society sector during COVID-19 pandemic in Croatia. The qualitative research comprised 21 semi-structure interviews with representatives of CSOs in four different sectors (arts and culture, environmental, women’s rights and educational/youth organisations), which were executed as a part of the project ‘The social resilience of Croatian society in the midst and aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic’. In this paper I will focus on the results of the thematic analysis of the five semi-structured interviews with leaders of CSOs in contemporary arts and culture. The results show that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the framework of labouring in the civil society sector in general: there is limited space for topics that are outside the scope of the pandemic, the right to gather and work with users is limited, and the working conditions of CSOs that provide various social, educational and advocacy services have changed (Puđak et al, 2021). In cultural sector in particular, the structural differences between the public, private and civil society sector in culture were a blueprint for the different impact of negative consequences of pandemic on the working conditions of cultural workers. As the civil society organizations in the contemporary art and culture even in prepandemic times worked in the more fragile circumstances than other subsectors (Primorac 2021), this fact was amplified by the pandemic. Research results show that the crisis is perceived as ‘a natural state’, as a ‘state of permanent shock’, that is taken as given for the independent nature of working in these organisations. During the years, the CSOs have been sensitized to ‘get by’ through the different types of crises, which shows their resilience. However, the crises caused by the pandemic has deepened the existing problems of the civil society organizations in general (Puđak et al 2021) and cultural sector in particular (Krolo et al 2021 ; Primorac, 2021). The results show the traps of flexibility and 'resilience' due to the neoliberal projectification of the sector (Stubbs, 2007), and crisis has been used as an excuse for further marginalization of the civil society sector, especially its' advocacy role. It opens the question of the limits of resilience of CSOs and self-exploitation of cultural workers (Barada et al. 2016 ; Vidović et al. 2021).

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Sociologija

POVEZANOST RADA