‘I was not like them’. On quitting cultural work

This article examines the phenomenon of quitting cultural work. Drawing on biographical interviews conducted with Italian graduates in creative writing, it focuses on aspiring creative workers who dedicated significant time and resources to a creative education, attempted to find employment within the cultural industries, sought to establish a career, but ultimately quit. By investigating less visible areas in cultural work scholarship – quitting, creative education and creative writing schools – and by theorising quitting as an active choice, rather than as an individual failure or defeat, this article explores rarely discussed forms of agency among aspiring cultural workers. It argues that those who quit consciously challenge implicit expectations placed on creative workers, such as working for free, demonstrating unconditional flexibility and embracing self-entrepreneurship in the hope of future job opportunities. Through their acts of refusal, those who quit challenge structural features of work in the creative sector and contribute to reframing the negative connotations surrounding quitting. This study demonstrates that the research on quitting belongs to the scholarship on cultural work: by bringing aspirant creative workers’ biographies to the centre of the discussion, it contributes to a deeper understanding of cultural workers’ lives, agency, choices and values.