Anglia Ruskin Research Online (ARRO)
Browse

File(s) not publicly available

Unveiling the subject behind diversity: Exploring the micro-politics of representation in ethnic minority creatives’ identity work

journal contribution
posted on 2023-07-26, 14:20 authored by Patrizia Zanoni, Annelies Thoelen, Sierk Ybema
Much literature on the cultural industries celebrates ethnicity as a source of creativity. Despite its positive connotation, this discourse reduces ethnic minority creatives to manifestations of a collective ethnic identity automatically leading to creativity, creating a paradox of creativity without a creative subject. Approaching creatives with an ethnic minority background as agents, this article investigates how they self-reflectively and purposely discursively construct ethnicity as a source of creativity in their identity work. Empirically, we analyze interviews with well-established creatives with an ethnic minority background active in Belgium. Most respondents construct their ethnic background as ‘hybrid’, ‘exotic’, or ‘liminal’ to craft an identity as creatives and claim creativity for their work. Only few refuse to discursively deploy ethnicity as a source of creativity, crafting more individualized identities as creatives. Our study contributes to the literature on power and ethnicity in the creative industries by documenting ethnic minority creatives’ discursive micro-struggle over what is creative work and who qualifies as a creative. Specifically, we show their counterpolitics of representation of ethnicity in the creative industries through the re-signification of the relation between the 'west' and the 'other' in less disadvantageous terms. Despite such re-signification, the continued relevance of the discourse of ethnicity as a key marker of difference suggests that ethnicity remains a principle of unequal organization of the creative industries.

History

Refereed

  • Yes

Volume

24

Issue number

3

Page range

330-354

Publication title

Organization

ISSN

1461-7323

Publisher

SAGE

Language

  • other

Legacy posted date

2018-05-30

Legacy creation date

2018-05-30

Legacy Faculty/School/Department

ARCHIVED Lord Ashcroft International Business School (until September 2018)

Usage metrics

    ARU Outputs

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Licence

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC