Female artists work and creativity in the rural: Beyond core and periphery
本文批评经济地理学中简单的核心-边缘二元论，通过对瑞典农村女性视觉艺术家的研究，提出边缘地区并非孤立或低创意，艺术家通过策略性应对机制和跨地方网络实现职业发展。
In this paper we suggest that far too often economic geographic theory has been based on simple core-periphery dualism that mask the reality of creative work in rural or peripheral areas. We take a relational approach and suggest that being on the periphery does not necessarily mean isolation from the centre nor does it mean relegation to lower levels of professional and creative possibilities. The study examines a sample of female contemporary visual artists in the rural Swedish region of Värmland and suggests that affordability and work-life balance are the essential reasons for the locational choices of these peripheral artists. Once settled they employ two strategic coping mechanisms: embracing the creative possibilities of being on the edge; active creation of network spaces and relations. We suggest that for creative workers’ binary spatial divisions are not appropriate and that more nuanced relational geographies support both rural and individual creative careers. In particular, we emphasise one such binary: the presumption that whilst urban creativity is collective, rural creativity is individual and lacking the benefits of closeness and agglomeration. Rather than the dualism presented in the creativity literature, we suggest that the case exposes the importance of thinking relational, spatially and temporarily in terms of project and career life cycles. These artists are not making black or white choices between the social city and the isolated rural but attempting to mix the advantages of both together through translocal processes and networks. • We draw attention to how peripheral settings give female professional artists space for their working lives. • Locating to the periphery does not imply a divide between the core and periphery. • Professional cultural careers and creativity are possible in the rural and periphery. • Female professional artists use translocal spaces and practices to aid creativity and make connections to sectoral cores.