Creative work, self-organizing and autonomist potentiality: Snapshots taken from Amsterdam’s art factories

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This article argues that while creative spaces are believed to instigate creative production, their strongest value is in producing new possibilities for self-organizing. By zooming in on short snapshots of resistance against gentrification in creative spaces in Amsterdam, I investigate whether small-scale and grass-roots forms of resistance and self-organizing between independent workers in the creative industries can be understood as examples of the autonomist notions of ‘the common’ and ‘the multitude’. By placing observations of creative workers’ self-organizing practices alongside autonomist theory, I suggest that autonomist thought is a promising philosophy for a politicized view of creative production, because it celebrates multiplicity and uniqueness. This is a timely topic in a society with growing numbers of freelancers and increasing flexibilization of labour. This article contributes to research on self-organizing among creative workers and to the literature on work conditions in the creative industries.