Talk 'Gender-based Violence in Arts and Culture. Perspectives on Education and Work'
Marie Buscatto (IDHE.S, University of Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne - CNRS)
Discussant: Victoria D. Alexander (Goldsmiths University of London)
This talk will present and discuss the main findings of the recently published book Gender-based Violence in Arts and Culture. Perspectives on Education and Work.
Co-edited by Marie Buscatto, Sari Karttunen and Mathilde Provansal, this book offers a groundbreaking exploration of the pervasive issue of gender-based violence within the realms of art and cultural production. This collection of essays delves into both the overt and subtle forms of gender-based violence. It spans sexual harassment, assault, and the everyday sexism ingrained in creative workplaces and art schools, in both professional and private dimensions. The chapters not only examine the structural power dynamics that cumulate to perpetuate gender-based violence but also highlight efforts to challenge and dismantle these systems. The book covers a wide array of artistic sectors—opera, visual arts, music, and theatre—across diverse global contexts, from Europe to Asia and North America.
Marie Buscatto is a Full Professor of sociology at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and a researcher at the IDHE.S (Paris 1 - CNRS). She is a sociologist of work, gender and the arts and a specialist of qualitative methods.
Her current work focuses on the difficulties of access, retention and promotion of women in the art worlds, gender-based violence in the arts and the paradoxes of artistic work in Europe, in North America and in Japan.
Her more recent works published in English include “Does it work? ‘Fighting’ gender-based sexism, discrimination, and violence in jazz and improvised music”, Jazz Research Journal, Volume 18 (1-2), 2025 (with S. Raine); Gender-Based Violence in Arts and Culture: Perspectives on Education and Work (Cambridge, Open Book Publishers, 2025; with S. Karttunen and M. Provansal); and Making Jazz in Contemporary Japan. A Passionate Search for Self-expression (London, New York, Routledge, 2024).
Victoria D. Alexander (AB, Princeton; AM, PhD, Stanford) is Professor of Sociology and Arts Management at Goldsmiths, University of London teaching in the subject of Creative Industries and Creative Entrepreneurship. Her research sits at the intersection of sociology of the arts, sociology of organisations, and arts management. She has studied the funding of art museums, arts policy, visual understandings of neighbourhoods, mixed methods, legitimation in aesthetic fields, user-generated reviews of cultural attractions, and axiological and evaluative practices in cultural organisations. Her books include Sociology of the Arts (2003; 2021), Museums and Money (1996), Art and the State (2005, co-authored), and the two-volume Art and the Challenge of Markets (2018, co-edited), alongside numerous articles.
