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This chapter presents a new sociological theory of artist activism that addresses the question of how artist activists fashion their roles as artist activists. Specifically, the theory addresses how individual subjective orientations shape the repertoire of individual and collective actions and roles assumed and enacted by artist activists. The theory attributes individual variations in role assumption and enactment to artist orientations toward success, audience, risk, and career inspiration. This is a theory-building project of the new sociology of work. Research in the new sociology of work has addressed individual risk-management strategies for advancing individual careers and social mobility of free agents. In contrast, the sociological theory of artist activism presented here addresses how artist activists build a peer community for sustaining the livelihoods of individuals and the whole occupation.

This chapter describes how artist activists from Nashville are creating a “mechanically solidary” community of entrepreneurial artists alongside and partly from the ranks of an older, organically solidary corporate-era artist community. Nashville entrepreneurial musicians constitute themselves as a community by producing and performing for one another, showing up to each others' showcases, and extending mutual aid during trying moments in their lives. Here, the Nashville musician community has a tendency to “cross-promote,” and the chapter reveals how the community is largely very supportive of each other's art. In addition, the chapter also discusses the background of the present study and the approaches the author has taken in studying Nashville's artist community.

This chapter presents a new, post-bureaucratic research agenda in the new sociology of work derived from the sociological theory of artist activism. The agenda consists of three themes for future research. First is the generalizability of the Nashville model of artist activism across cities that differ in terms of their mix of art-production and -consumption activity and their levels and history of arts trade unionism. The second theme pertains to the influence of biographical pathways, risk orientations, and occupational socialization through intergenerational peer mentoring on the formation of the next generation of artist activists. The third theme is an assessment of the effectiveness of the several prevailing models of guild-like labor organizations for freelancers and artists on advancing individual and occupational professional and economic interests. The chapter concludes with policy implications for building and strengthening inclusive and expressive, urban occupational communities in an era of risk individualization and identity politics.