Creativity Policy: Conserving Neoliberalism’s Other in a Market Assemblage?

Abstract

abstractMore than ten years of intensive academic discussion about the creative-industries script have brought about several dominant lines of critique, among which the neoliberal character of creativity policy and its related modes of governance are probably the most prominent. This article embarks on a critique of critique, whose aim is not to question this argument in general, but first, to reflect on its prerogatives, and second, to acknowledge that the relationship between a political–economic script and the techniques of governance into which it is translated are often more polymorphous than is assumed in much critical economic geographic work. I use the establishment of an agency for the procurement of studios and offices in Frankfurt, Germany, as an empirical example, and the four heuristic dimensions of articulation, representation, practices, and effects/projects as perspectives from which to grasp and map the heterogeneous effects of technologies of governance in the field of creativity policy. Reflecting on this example, I argue that market assemblages that aim to incorporate neoliberalism’s Other can paradoxically conserve it and create grounds for new forms and positions of critique from the inside. This surely holds particularly true for the creative industries, with their peculiar forms of work organization, but it is also a general and often neglected implication of assemblage thinking that is becoming increasingly important in economic geography more broadly.