The Position of Cultural Workers in Creative Industries

Globalization has triggered many changes. They demand that we redefine our understanding of culture. In south-eastern Europe (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Montenegro, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia [FYROM]) the symptoms of globalization have accompanied the process of transition and social transformation. Countries in the region have changed their political and economic systems from socialism to capitalism in the shadow of the 19911995 war in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina and its consequences. The processes of democratic transformation opened up new opportunities as well as new problems for the region. The creative industries, by which I mean the publishing industry, film industry, multimedia and electronic publishing, design and advertising, architecture, and music industry, as well as the visual arts, were and still are a part of these processes, and within them we can see important aspects of social transformations, which are occurring faster than Dahrendorf predicted. People working in the creative industries sector were the first to sense these changes. Studies of the creative industries carried out in the last ten years at an international level neglected those people, known as for want of a better term cultural workers. For that reason I have made them the subject of my research.

The research aims to analyze the specificities of the position and experiences of cultural workers in south-eastern Europe. (For a definition of cultural workers and creative industries see Glossary.) I believe that at a time when new member states of the European Union (EU) are becoming integrated into the Union, insights into the position of cultural workers in south-eastern European countries are an important contribution to the discussion of European cultural policies and European cultural cooperation. (To find out what is included in the research definition of south-eastern Europe, see Glossary). I also hope that this research will contribute to a better understanding of some of the issues surrounding diversity that are pertinent for the development of comparative cultural policy, not only in south-eastern Europe, but also further afield.
The research was done primarily through interviews with cultural workers themselves, through data collection and desk research on cultural and other policy instruments in this domain. I have focussed on south-eastern Europe on the one hand because I come from Croatia, but on the other, because in some ways this is the most dynamic region in Europe right now.

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