Trial, error and reconfiguration. The emerging creative work during the pandemic in Mexico City

Abstract

This text reviews the emerging ways that creative sector workers have put into practice to produce their resources for their livelihood and creative pursuits over two years of the pandemic. The authors claim that some of the working skills and traits that resulted from the need to maintain social distancing transcended the emergency and are part of everyday life, especially those linked to digital technologies. Through qualitative analysis of interviews, quantitative data from public sources and reviewing of latest bibliography on the matter we identified different moments in which sanitary measures settled the pace of changes, adjustments, and innovations for creative work in the Metropolitan Area of Mexico City. A sector that before the pandemic was already characterized by work flexibility as condition of the labor market; during the crisis created new forms of interaction, production, and promotion of its creative work; and for whom an important consequence from the pandemic is the exacerbation of precarious working conditions in a reconfiguration that favors inequality in the access to resources and opportunities for the development of their professional career.