Freelance creative workers’ adaptation to the international mobility. Case of professionals from Belarus

Abstract

This dissertation work was an attempt to clarify the benefits and effects of the
freelance creative work in the context of the international mobility. The author also
tried to uncover the strategies applied by the creative freelance workers to cope with
the negative consequences caused by the freelance type of the work and their
motivations towards being active in global mobility. The research was focused on
professionals originally from Belarus that allowed to examine the influence of the
national and/or post-Soviet background on the professional success. The dissertation
methods included interviews with creative professionals and focus groups with
students from the Belarusian universities. The findings showed a strong influence of
the origin of the creative freelance workers on their professional pathways. The work
nuanced existing literature about the role of the city amenities as determinants of the
creative class representatives’ international mobility and dependence between
mobility and creativity. This also contributed to the debates about migrating creative
workers as a resource of investments into a country of origin.