Dear Colleagues, Please find below a call for papers for the special session on “Creatives after the Crash” at the AAG Annual Meeting, April 12-16, 2011 in Seattle, WA. Betsy Donald (Queen’s University) and Meric Gertler (University of Toronto) are organizing the call. The session is sponsored by the *Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society*, which plans to publish a special issue on the topic in 2012.
Please send your abstract to Betsy Donald (betsy.don...@queensu.ca) by *October 18, 2010*. You will also have to register at the AAG website and forward your PIN directly to Betsy no later than October 20, 2010. If you are interested in participating, kindly send Betsy an email expressing interest as soon as possible. If you're already committed as a speaker somewhere else please indicate whether you would be available to serve as a discussant. Please pass this announcement along to your students and colleagues who might be interested. Thank you, Betsy Donald, betsy.don...@queensu.ca * * *AAG Annual Meeting. Call for Papers: Creatives after the Crash *April 12-16, 2011, Seattle, Washington *Abstract*. Much has been written about the rise of the creative class and the growing importance of creative work in advanced economies around the world. At the core of this thesis is the idea that employment in creative occupations has been growing considerably faster than the overall economy, and that this marks a long-term secular transition in economic structure. Moreover, the implicit contention underlying this approach is that creative workers are less vulnerable to economic fluctuations than those in lower-order service and manufacturing occupations. The recent worldwide economic downturn and subsequent halting recovery provide the first real opportunity to appraise the accuracy of these arguments. In particular, these events allow us to examine directly how creative workers have fared during and after the crash. Is it actually true that they have survived unscathed and continued to prosper, or has their prosperity and employment security in fact been undermined by the downturn? Is there evidence of differential impacts within the large and internally diverse creative class, whereby particular occupational subgroups have fared better or worse, suggesting possible segmentation? If indeed the crash has challenged the economic position of some categories of creative workers, what are the implications for the creative class thesis? Expressions of interest should be sent to Betsy Donald asap with abstracts due to Betsy Donald by October 18th . betsy.don...@queensu.ca
