The Politics of Expertise in Cultural Labour: Arts, Work and Inequalities

What is expertise? In the arts, or cultural work, the experts in this area are commonly regarded to be art critics, dealers or intermediaries. Why are they considered experts? What about the expertise of the artists or cultural workers themselves? This book provides a much-needed account of the concept of expertise in cultural work, providing new insights into the individual experiences of cultural workers and the role of social media in their creative practice and development of expertise. It also explores the potential reasons for inequalities in the sector which centre not only on protected characteristics such as class, gender and race, but increasingly the digital divide. Drawing on interviews with cultural workers and an innovative social media analysis, this book highlights the characteristics of aesthetic expertise in production ? the practical skills cultural workers hone and deploy over years of training and creative practice. This is a new take on aesthetic expertise, which is traditionally associated with those involved in the judgement of culture, such as critics, dealers and intermediaries.