Collective Practices and Appropriation of Knowledge By Three Figures of Knowledge Workers

We propose to analyse three figures of knowledge workers: art and entertainment workers in France, salaried- entrepreneurs and makers, of three points of view.

Firstly, we present the institutional framework. All of these workers are out of regular rules of employment. But their activity is framed by different institutional architectures. Art and entertainment workers are formally salaried but really quasi-independent. Salaried-entrepreneurs are formally salaried but really quasi-entrepreneur. Makers make autonomous spaces out of employment relationships.

Secondly, we analyse these figures not as professional groups, but through their practices of appropriation of knowledge. For art and entertainment workers, the discontinuous employment relationships constitute a precarious condition but at the same time, it is the condition for autonomous artistic and cultural production. For salaried-entrepreneurs the singular enterprise, Business Employment Cooperative is the space for production of common knowledge. Finally, for makers, free knowledge and co-production are the “core business”.

In all of these experiences we can show how collective practices invent singular forms of resistance to the neoliberal model of “self entrepreneurship”.