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The pandemic Covid-19 has highlighted the precarious working conditions that freelance performers and artists have always worked under. The aim of this article is to understand and explain freelance musicians' strategies and emotional labour for dealing with their ambiguous positions and careers. The article develops a theoretical approach, combining concepts of precarity and emotional labour with Bourdieu's theory of social practices. Interviews with 13 professional Swedish freelance musicians in the art music/classical genre were conducted in the winter of 2021. What is at stake in the gigs the freelancers have, are issues of social belonging and symbolic recognition. Aspirations for working life are negotiated in obvious and subtle ways, practically and emotionally. The freelancers strive to create a fixed point in a job on uncertain grounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article analyses mobilisation in climate and environmental movements as a social practice. The research questions concern why people take part in said movements, and how this makes sense to them, in relation to the specific context. The study aims to understand participation on several levels, thus filling knowledge gaps regarding the cross-section of civil society, social movements and Bourdieu's theory of social practices. The empirical study consists of two cases of current climate and environmental movements. The first case concerns local groups and networks mobilised to preserve forests and parks. The second case concerns local and global climate strikes and manifestations. The reasons for taking part in such movements are found on several levels. Firstly, the explicit concerns and cares, as well as frustrations, trigger the commitment. Taking part is a way to handle the crisis in a way that makes sense personally. Secondly, previous experiences, education and professional life enable a sense of belonging and a sense of being able to take part. Thirdly, the socialisation that takes part within the social practice contributes to an increased commitment. In the stories about previous and coming actions, values and traditions - of the right ways of doing and being - a practical sense/habitus for this social practice is reproduced. The conveying of concerns in public is understood and explained as a ritualised practice, contributing to the commitment, as a key resource. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the already precarious conditions of freelance workers. The aim of this study is to understand what it means for freelance musicians to be in pandemic limbo. Thirteen Swedish professional freelance musicians in the classical genre were interviewed about their experiences in the midst of the pandemic. A theoretical frame of reference is offered with concepts from Bourdieu, sociology of emotions and emotional geographies. This enables an understanding of what it means as a freelancer to be dislocated and disrupted in relation to places and spaces of work and investments in time and emotions. The conclusions are about the ambivalent emotions and processes of emotional management that are caused by the pandemic. For freelance musicians, depending on their access to the live-settings of gigs, auditions and social venues, it is like being thrown back in time and place (back to where careers were slowly built). However, while at a distance from the normal run of careers, constructive processes of critical reflection and re-orientation have been initiated. • Professional freelance musicians in the classical genre were interviewed about their experiences of being in pandemic limbo. • Theoretically the article addresses what it means to be dislocated and disrupted in relation to places and spaces of work. • The conclusions are about ambivalent emotions and processes of emotional management that are caused by the pandemic. • For freelancers, depending on their access to the live-settings of work, it is like being thrown back in time and place. • While at a distance from normal careers, processes of critical reflection and re-orientation have been initiated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]