This book seeks to better understand the processes and influences that have driven professionalization in the arts. It develops an analytical framework that examines how processes of professionalization that typically influence and shape work conditions and occupational status are, in the creative sector, augmented by atypical worker efforts and choices to self-structure their protean careers.

The book brings together a collection of works that explore the specific trajectories of professionalization in a variety of creative occupations as well as the formative processes that work across many creative occupations. In particular, the scholarship presented focuses on the interaction of three key variables: field growth and institutionalization, mutual benefit organization within fields and occupations, and the intervention of cultural policy to validate and foster professional support structures. In the broader context of expanding globalization, growing awareness of diversity, and tectonic shifts in technology, this volume unveils research-based implications for cultural policy, cultural workers, and cultural organizations.

This book will be of interest to researchers, creative professionals, as well as undergraduate and graduate-level students in the fields of arts administration and culture.