Fair practice reconsidered: Critical inside perspectives on grassroots policy development in the Dutch cultural labor market between 2012 and 2025

Abstract

This article examines the emergence, institutionalization, and limits of fair practice as a response to precarity in the cultural sector, focusing on the development of the Fair Practice Code and the Artist Fee Guideline in the Netherlands between 2012 and 2025. It situates Dutch fair practice policy within an international genealogy of grassroots initiatives that challenged underpayment and the invisibility of artistic labor through moral claims and self-regulation. These initiatives have reshaped norms around payment and professionalism in arts institutions. However, while initially effective, the moral approach of fair practice advocacy has limited its capacity to challenge market-oriented policy and funding regimes. In its implementation, fair practice policy has increasingly functioned as a mechanism for managing scarcity rather than addressing its structural causes. To be more effective in future efforts, fair practice advocacy requires a clearer heterodox political-economic vision and alliances beyond the cultural sector.