Method

Study setting

BM provides the context for this study. Considered a week-long, annual anti-market event in a remote, harsh desert setting (Kozinets, 2002), BM encourages discourses that disparage the market while nonetheless resulting in market products and services through participation in extreme activities, some of which use digitization as the means to solve challenges. As BM was conceived as an experimental project, with real and virtual activities which seek to alter participant practice, it is understandable that some activities are digitized. Furthermore, it is argued by Kozinets (2002), that is may be impossible to escape the market as BM seeks to do, given the results of participation that feed into business ventures. The Man is the central effigy for the event; it is burnt at the end of the week during wild night-long celebrations (Kozinets, 2002). BM originated in San Francisco in 1986, and now takes place in the desert in the US state of Nevada (Hall, 2019). Within the literature BM is variously described as bohemian, counter-cultural, partylike and drug infused, including “anarchists, drifters, and mystics in its community alongside the artists, engineers and academics” (Radziwill 8c Benton, 2013, p. 8). With annual attendances approaching 70,000, an ephemeral city called Black Rock City is established, which is dedicated to “community art”, “self-expression and self-reliance” (Radziwill 8c Benton, 2013, p. 8; Hall, 2019, p. 196). The festival is symbolized by the ritualistic burning of a giant male effigy, the “burning man” (Hall, 2019, p. 196). In 2004, BM’s Founder Larry Harvey laid out the “10 Principles of Burning Man” (Hoover, 2008, p. 5) which continue to act “as an informal social contract for the participants [...] providing a guide for how to relate to one another” (Radziwill 8c Benton, 2013, p. 8). These principles render BM a decommodified environment where financial exchanges are discouraged in

Digital workers, well-being & networking 229 favour of a gift-based economy, and where participants are required to be self-reliant - which requires them to bring all of their supplies with them and leave without a trace upon departing. According to Turner (2009) for many Burners (people who have attended BM) “these principles have taken on a spiritual cast” (p. 84), and, when combined with the harsh desert location, this creates a highly unique event environment for participants.

Limbach (2014) explained that Burning Man is best known for its abundant art, including large-scale installations that protrude from the monotone earth like surreal trees in an unruly forest. Digital technology is often incorporated into the art (Brill, 2003), often through co-operation with digital workers. As Brill (2003) observed, “many of the artworks are site specific, and some are temporary, burned at the end of the event, leaving only a memory” (p. 342). The way the art is both produced and consumed at BM represents a point of difference from more conventional arts festivals. With an emphasis on participation and co-creation, and “no spectators” being a festival slogan (Chen, 2012, p. 571), burners are encouraged to engage with artistic and other creative activities such as “elaborate costuming, designing and decorating a campsite, constructing and driving an art car, performing dance or music, engaging in performance art and other collective activities at theme camps” (Chen, 2012, p. 581; Hall, 2019, p. 196). Hence, BM is perceived as transformational, using innovative processes to engage participants in creative activities.

Approach

We undertook a qualitative study in order to explore digital workers in the broader creative industries. Hence, the study took an interpretive approach using a constructionist paradigm. The constructionist paradigm lauds subjectivity, suggesting a stance of equality between researcher and researched. Thirteen semi-structured interviews with digital workers were used to collect data, an approach that is widely used in situations where the researcher seeks to develop theory. Following Bryman (2001, p. 351) an interview guide was prepared for this study which allowed the researcher “to glean the ways in which research participants view their social world whilst ensuring flexibility in the conduct of the interviews” (p. 317). The interview guide and the interview questions were informed by reading the relevant literature, informally discussing the questions with scholars, exploring existing interview questions from within the literature, such as Mackellar (2004) and Park, Oh and Park (2010), and through piloting the interview questions and protocols. Interviewees were drawn from high-tech communities using a snowball technique, where one interviewee led to the recruitment of another (Chadwick, Bahr, & Albrecht, 1984). The interviews were conducted between November 2018 and March 2019. Interviewees were asked in-depth questions about their work lives and their Burning Man experiences. In undertaking the semi-structured interviews, the researcheranalysed the recounted experiences of adults who have attended at least one BM event, as a means of unpacking how their BM experiences affected their professional lives. Interviews containing over 76,000 words combined were digitally recorded and analysed thematically using NVivo 11. Themes were devised using first-order and second-order coding, in a two-stage process.

Participant profiles

Participant profiles are illustrated in Table 13.1 which shows that the 13 interviewees are well educated, with all except one holding a university degree, three holding a bachelor’s degree and the remaining nine holding graduate degrees. They are in their middle to mature years and have professional careers in innovation, as entrepreneurs or consultants, in technology, communications or marketing industries. The data are skewed with ten males and three females; ten people citing their ethno-racial background as Caucasian, one as Asian and one as Latino. Eight participants had attended BM multiple times, whilst five had been only once. Four participants reside in Australia, five are in North America, two are in Europe and two are in Asia. Table 13.1 summarizes the key demographics of the interviewees. Among the interviewees, all were digital workers with the majority being either entrepreneurs or being people who worked in roles where they need to employ entrepreneurial approaches or had entrepreneurial side-projects (some of which, such as a restaurant side-project, were not technology-focussed). Many of them were solo-entrepreneurs, or a founder or CEO of their own company. All of the interviewees held senior roles where they were responsible for leading the innovation processes of the workplaces or entrepreneurial projects they were involved with. Notably, most of them (8) hold multiple job roles, sometimes in diverse industries. Of the 13 interviewees, 11 had to fly vast distances in order to attend BM, whilst the remaining two interviewees resided in a state neighbouring Nevada and did not have to travel as far and could travel by land.