Investigative/Participatory Research for Exploration of Politics of Creative Labour

Despite his staunch opposition to British capitalism, Marx was in favour of the initiatives of the British government of conducting surveys and examinations of mills. The surveys aimed at regulating the working conditions of labourers in the factories. It was a result of these investigations that the British Government made the changes in the laws, putting restrictions on the labour that could be extracted from women and children.
The fact that such investigative endeavours were advocated by Marx and practiced by Engels establishes their potent necessity in exploring the working conditions of the marginalized proletariat and also the ‘precariat’. The term precariat has been in circulation since the 1980s but it has acquired prominence in the social movement struggles only recently. The term refers to the fluctuating and temporary nature of a job and other problematic complexities of housing, debt and exploitation that come along with them.
The term precarity can be extended to a number of labour practices. However, this write up is an attempt to emphasize the requirement of investigatory research into the politics and precarity of working conditions of the creative labourers. The word labour implies an act or work undertaken with intention of seeking wages in return and the word creative which originally signified divine intervention connotes newness, invention and innovation.

Creative labour is understood to be work undertaken for production of original, aesthetic, expressive and symbolic products as opposed to materialistic and utilitarian commodities. However, it is considered to be an act performed for personal fulfillment without any expectation of financial remuneration. Consequently, the term creative labour seems like an oxymoron where creativity is perceived as a self actualization activity unfit for demanding wages in return. As a result, those engaging in acts of creative labour have to strive hard for respect, recognition and remuneration.
Culture and creative labourers primarily work as freelancers on short term contracts that are counted in days and weeks with no permanent source of financial security. Intermittent spells of work coupled with uncertainty, low pay scales and absence of any health security amount to unfavorable working conditions and practices in culture and creative industries. The virtuousic nature of their work makes an assessment of their work, working conditions and wage systems all the more difficult. The end product of their labour, for instance the music of a pianist or the speech of a speech writer, is not a tangible end product which can be measured and paid for as in the case of traditional forms of day wage labour. Due to this abstract intangibility of creative labour, wherein it does not conclude into making of a materialistic product of utility, makes it subsume characteristics of political action. It would be germane to recall Hannah Arendt here, who compared virtuosos to those engaged in political action since an element of visuality, of making sure that one is visible to the audiences is involved in them both.
Furthermore, the industry is riddled with deep seated prejudices and inequalities based on multifarious patterns of race, gender, class, nationality and sexuality. In order to explore all these trajectories, uncover patterns of ‘flexploitation’ and contingencies of creative labour the participatory/parallel research methodologies could be employed, wherein not only the standpoints of the subjects are taken into consideration but they are encouraged to gather information as independent researchers