Thai creative labour solidarity, (post)-pandemic precarity, and directions of production studies in the Global South

Abstract

This paper offers an overview of the creative labour solidarity that took place in Thailand during the pandemic by young film graduates and political-conscious workers. A dialogic reflection with research on creative labour studies largely based in the Global North is discussed. In addition to tracing the development of this local ‘turn to labour,’ the paper offers a closer look at the lives of below-the-line film crews based on ‘solidarity dialogues’ during and post-pandemic. The paper explores precarity gaps based on the type of production, age, family, and social relation, as well as micro-practices adopted by workers to navigate different shades of precarity. Adopting ‘South-South citations’ and a feminist approach to production studies, aspects of local class systems, the paradoxical nature of workers’ solidarity, and the persistent structural inequality between large-scale international productions and local film sets are examined with reflections on other countries in the Global South.