17.1: Introduction

This chapter elaborates the concept of revolutionary creative labor. The Arab uprisings, particularly the conflict in Syria, have given rise to a notion of creative resistance. Various activists, journalists, academics, and curators have used that phrase to celebrate a gamut of expressive practices and forms encompassing graffiti, digital memes and mash-ups, handheld banners, political rap, and others.¹ The wording combines two terms with overwhelmingly positive connotations that evoke human ingenuity and agency. But if creative resistance is to convey anything beyond a nebulous concept of ingenious rebellion, it needs to be systematically explored and situated vis-à-vis notions of activism, creativity, and labor in cultural production. One way to achieve that goal is to theorize processes of artful dissent as revolutionary creative labor.²

In order to develop a working definition of revolutionary creative labor, this chapter draws on a study of the body and activism in the Arab uprisings based on primary materials, most collected in 2011 and 2012.³ In this chapter I pursue the following questions: To what extent does the extreme duress of revolution shift our understanding of creative labor? Is revolutionary creative labor different from other kinds of creative labor? What does revolution add to our understanding of creativity and precarity in cultural production? To answer these questions, I engage with a few key texts. The chapter first zeroes in on the use of creativity in social movement theory, mainly in James Jasper’s The Art of Moral Protest.⁴ Then it reviews some work in media industries research that addresses precarity and creativity, namely Vicki Mayer’s Below the Line.⁵ A comparative analysis of “industrial”’ and “revolutionary” forms of creative labor follows. Finally, via brief references to the magisterial compendium provided by Hans Joas in The Creativity of Action ⁶ and to Lazzarato’s theory of immaterial labor,⁷ the chapter concludes with a theoretical elaboration of revolutionary creative labor.