Abstract
In this chapter, we discuss how multi-professional organisations, such as mutual aid cooperatives of creative workers, operate as agents of differentiation within and between professions. Analysing the actions of individuals and organisations and how they influence each other is key to understanding their implications in terms of differentiation ‘within’ and ‘between’ professions, in the dual sense of a growing division of labour, and also rising inequalities amongst workers operating in the same occupational ecosystem but in different professional fields. Drawing on Lamont and Molnar’s concept of ‘boundary work’ that is already used in the sociology of professions, we seek to uncover and explain the relational dynamics that characterise the ‘professional closure regimes’ set up in creative industries as a result of the activities of cooperatives of creative workers and of the workers themselves.
Our work is grounded in a case study of an Italy-based creative workers’ cooperative employing approximately 8000 workers with different professional profiles; in the analysis, these are photographers, video makers, and lighting and sound technicians.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Dr Antonio Corasaniti and Prof. Luisa De Vita for collaborating in conducting the focus groups. Prof. De Vita also made worthwhile contributions to discussions about the research results, particularly concerning boundary-making and boundary-blurring dynamics. This chapter has been developed within the framework of the Researching Precariousness across the Paid-Unpaid Work Continuum ERC Advanced Grant, funded by the European Research Council under the Horizon 2020 programme (Grant Agreement No. 833577), with Valeria Pulignano as principal investigator.
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Lucciarini, S., Pulignano, V. (2023). Inequalities in Neo-mutualistic Professional Organisations: The Boundary Work of Creative Workers in Italy. In: Maestripieri, L., Bellini, A. (eds) Professionalism and Social Change. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31278-6_10
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