September 18, 2016 | By Ursula Huws |
A lasting legacy of this COST Action is the Dynamics of Virtual Work book series, published by Palgrave Macmillan.
Edited by Ursula Huws, Professor of Labour and Globalization at the University of Hertfordshire, UK and Rosalind Gill, Professor of Cultural and Social Analysis at City University, London, UK, this series includes the following titles, with more planned for the future:
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August 4, 2016 | By Ursula Huws |
As the Dynamics of Virtual Work COST Action draws to a close, Working Group 4 has been working hard to pull together all the results of its work on the policy implications of Virtual Work and, in particular, the research questions that will need to be addressed to enable these policies to be formulated.
April 23, 2016 | By Ursula Huws |
A meeting was held with policy stakeholders hosted by the Austrian Federal Chamber of Labour to discuss the policy implications of virtual work. Read More
March 1, 2016 | By Vicky Reid |
The final meeting of Working Groups and conference took place at ISM University of Management and Economics in Vilnius, Lithuania Read More
January 27, 2016 | By Vicky Reid |
An expert workshop was held in Brussels on February 18th, 2016, hosted by the Foundation for European Progressive Studies on the Measurement of Digital Work Read More
December 12, 2015 | By Vicky Reid |
A meeting of Working Groups was held in Pavia, near Milan, Italy on 21-22nd March, 2016, hosted by the University of Pavia. Read More
November 19, 2015 | By Vicky Reid |
The Dynamics of Virtual Work book series. was launched at the University of Westminster, on January 21st, 2016 following a meeting of the Management Committee. Read More
October 12, 2015 | By Vicky Reid |
CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS: CREATIVE HUBS IN QUESTION
Dr Tarek Virani and Professor Rosalind Gill are putting together a book proposal for an edited volume about ‘creative hubs’, developing out of our research as part of AHRC’s Creativeworks London http://www.creativeworkslondon.org.uk/research/place-work-knowledge/
The term ‘hub’ seems to be everywhere. Starting in and around 2003, the growth and proliferation of these types of largely urban industrial agglomeration has been exponential. From San Francisco to London to Moscow to Durban to Hanoi to Shanghai, creative hubs are on the increase. But the academic work on creative hubs is surprisingly scarce. Although the term is currently in wide use in policy circles its actual meaning is not always clear. The term has no commonly accepted definition and has been criticised for lacking clarity as well as being ‘all encompassing’. Hubs have been understood as co-working spaces, studios, incubators, accelerators, districts, quarters, zones and/or a mix of all of the above. The lack of clarity – let alone consensus – is especially troubling given that policymakers, research councils, consultants, and governments have been so quick to promote and endorse the effectiveness of creative hubs in catalysing growth and innovation in local creative economies, as well as producing urban regeneration.
We are looking for expressions of interest and abstracts for a book that will look critically at the idea of ‘creative hubs’ from interdisciplinary perspectives including Sociology, Geography, Media and Communications, Culture and Creative Industries, Critical Policy studies, Gender studies, Race and Ethnicity, and Urban Studies. Contributions may be empirical studies of actual hubs, or may be theoretical reflections on the concept of creative hubs. We are interested in what ‘creative hubs’ as a notion does performatively/ideologically in particular (global/local) policy contexts; we are interested in where ‘hubs’ are situated in relation to existing ideas such as ‘clusters’ or ‘co-working spaces’; we are interested in critically examining how hubs may intervene in geographies of inequality, austerity and injustice; we are interested to explore how the concept of creative hubs travels and materialises in different contexts, and in exploring how ‘creative hubs’ may relate to ‘knowledge hubs’ or ‘innovation spaces’ – either as an idea or in concrete locations. Above all we hope the volume will start a critical conversation that interrogates the taken-for-grantedness of ‘creative hubs’.
We have approached Palgrave who have expressed interest in considering such a volume. If you are interested in contributing, please send an abstract to Rosalind.Gill.2@city.ac.uk by November 13th 2015. If accepted, final drafts of chapters will be needed by November 2016.
Rosalind Gill
Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis
Room D610
School of Arts and Social Sciences
City University London
Northampton Square
London EC1V 0HB
October 12, 2015 | By Vicky Reid |
A Training School on Technologies of Digital Work was held at the Inter-University Centre Dubrovnik (IUC) in Dubrovnik, Croatia, on May 3-6, 2016.
September 25, 2015 | By Vicky Reid |
We are planning a series of exciting events for the final year of our Action –
Watch this space for more details.
