The power of lore: how occupational myths help precarious workers endure

Precarious work and its impact

The concept of precarious work pertains to employment that is ‘uncertain, unstable, and insecure, and in which employees bear the risk of work (as opposed to business or the government) and receive limited social benefits and statutory protections’ (Kalleberg and Vallas, 2017: 1; see also Kalleberg, 2009). Distinct from the idea of precarity as a ‘universal human condition’, precarious work is the specific product of ‘socio-economic conditions that create vulnerability’ (Doshi et al., 2026: 3; but see also Butler, 2012: 148). Precarious work is what arises from a ‘mode of governing’ that involves ‘dismantling the social welfare state and deregulating the labour market’ (Doshi et al., 2026: 4). Examples of precarious work include zero-hours contracts (Farina et al., 2020; Smith and McBride, 2023), seasonal work (Hedberg, 2021; Zadra and Elsen, 2025), temporary agency jobs (Bosmans et al., 2016; Håkansson et al., 2020), informal labour (Hammer and Ness, 2021; Han, 2018), casual hospitality work (Austin and Donley, 2023; Kearsey, 2020) and gig work (Kadolkar et al., 2024; Stanford, 2017).

The phenomenon of precarious work is not new (e.g. Rodgers and Rodgers, 1989). However, it is increasingly commonplace (Kalleberg and Vallas, 2017). Indeed, certain forms of precarious work (notably gig work) have proliferated massively in recent years (Wu and Huang, 2024: 183), particularly impacting those Lorey (2015: 11) labels the ‘threatening other’ – ‘women, foreigners, the poor and those deemed “abnormal”’ (Doshi et al., 2026: 4). Precarity also does not just effect those in classically low-skill occupations such as cleaning (Larsen et al., 2022) and taxi driving (Peticca-Harris et al., 2020). With the entrenchment of neoliberalism (particularly in the Global North), precarity now increasingly affects those in highly skilled occupations, such as airline pilots (Maxwell and Grant, 2021), and knowledge workers such as academics (Gallas, 2018; O'Keefe and Courtois, 2019), managers (Hassard and Morris, 2018), accountants (Beaverstock, 1996) and journalists (Chadha and Steiner, 2021) – albeit in markedly different ways.

The impact of precarious work is profound. Most obviously, it has a pronounced effect on workers’ social and economic security. Those in precarious jobs earn less and have fewer benefits than those in more standard forms of direct employment (Schneider and Harknett, 2021; Tremblay, 2016). Precarious work is also a well-documented determinant of health, with studies showing that precarious workers live shorter, less healthy and happier lives (Benach et al., 2014; Benach et al., 2016; Van Aerden et al., 2016). These effects are not just physical. Precarious work is widely shown to have a universally negative effect on workers’ mental health, driving ‘depression, depressive symptoms, psychological distress, stress, and suicidal thoughts’ (Jaramillo et al., 2022: 1; see also Llosa et al., 2018).

One way that precarious work negatively affects workers’ mental health is by diminishing feelings of autonomy and control (Wong and Au-Yeung, 2019). Contrary to the popular notion that precarious workers – and gig workers in particular – enjoy a flexible form of entrepreneurial independence (as in Ekman, 2013), for most people the opposite is true. The reality is that precarious workers generally have less autonomy and less control over their lives, with only the very successful few having much capacity to choose when and where they work, and how much effort they put into it (Berger et al., 2020; Glavin et al., 2021; Patulny et al., 2020).

One implication of this is the closing – the ‘contraction’ – of precarious workers’ temporal horizons (Carvounas and Ireland, 2008: 173). Precarity is shown to limit how far back, and how far forward, the affected habitually project themselves (Bone, 2019; Cuervo and Chesters, 2019; Fieulaine and Apostolidis, 2014). The thesis here is that the stresses and strains of the anxious present (e.g. with finding work and earning enough to live) limit workers’ ability to rationalize events, plan and live their lives. Indeed, it does not just limit them. Precarity locks workers into patterns of ‘volatile short-term responses to immediate problems’ (Carvounas and Ireland, 2008: 174).

Accordingly, another of precarity’s effects is that it fosters considerable feelings of social isolation. So while some precarious workers experience a ‘keen sense of communion’ with those they work with (Fincham, 2007: 200; see also Schwartz, 2018), most feel acutely detached from friends, family and even co-workers (Bobek et al., 2018: 73–81; Bosmans et al., 2016: 282). One reason for this is that latent uncertainties, such as scheduling ambiguities and the constant need to be available for work, prompt many to ‘[curtail] their social lives, leading to isolation and weakening of friendships and social networks’ (Irvine and Rose, 2024: 427). Put simply, it is difficult for precarious workers to fit into the rhythms of mainstream society because their jobs prevent them from making plans and from sticking to them when they do (León-Pérez et al., 2021; Premji, 2018). The result is, as Mai et al. (2023: 6) explain, a reduction in social integration and social capital more broadly (see also Glavin et al., 2021; Macmillan and Shanahan, 2021; Muszyński et al., 2022).

Lastly, precarious work also erodes workers’ sense of self and self-worth (Lamont, 2019; Padavic, 2005) – their understanding of who they are (Beech et al., 2016; Vallas and Christin, 2018; Padavic, 2005). As Hancock and Tyler (2025: 84) explain in relation to precariously employed performing artists: ‘uncertainties surrounding someone’s ability to acquire sufficient paid work to sustain a viable livelihood can lead to an internalized sense of frustration, failure and inadequacy. And, in turn, this can potentially undermine the ontological basis of a person’s psycho-emotional security and sense of self-esteem’.

Thus, precarious workers must undertake remedial work to ‘cobble together their identities as socially valued workers’ (Padavic, 2005: 115). Their identities are ‘upended’ because stable employers and working relationships are (typically) replaced with portfolios of unstable employers and unpredictable, transactional working relationships (Cropanzano et al., 2023: 500). Workers’ selves are destabilized because the organizations they work for do not convey important identity-implicative social rewards, such as the kind of status and belonging that was traditionally conferred in exchange for loyalty and hard work (Padavic, 2005: 115). So instead of forging coherent identities (typically via a single primary employer), precarious workers now struggle to fit in and align themselves with the very different roles and expectations of generally multiple different organizations. The result being, for many, a persistent and profound sense of ‘identity confusion, a lack of self-clarity, and discomfort’ (Caza et al., 2018: 704).

How and why precarious workers endure

With precarious work growing in prevalence, and its generally negative effects, scholars are increasingly interested in what Ettlinger (2007: 324) calls precarity’s ‘subjective aspects’: questions of ‘why’ and ‘how’ precarious workers endure. Scholars question why people take up and remain in precarious jobs, and how they survive and even thrive on a daily basis (Ashford et al., 2018; Cropanzano et al., 2023; Cueto, 2024; Peticca-Harris et al., 2020). Emerging explanations bisect along two distinct lines of argument. The first concerns the ‘relations, tricks, people and infrastructures’ (Graham and Papadopoulos, 2023: 653), workers mobilize to cope practically with their precarity. The second concerns the processes through which precarious workers (re)interpret their precarity and come to understand it in fundamentally (more) positive terms.

In relation to the former, extant studies show that precarious workers cope by upskilling themselves to broaden the range of employment opportunities open to them, increase their earnings potential and create the possibility of graduating to more secure forms of employment (Coulson, 2010; Hirschman, 1970). It also shows them trying to ‘mix and match’ different forms of employment in the hope that together they will provide a degree of economic security and resilience (Campion et al., 2020; Stokes, 2021). Lastly, it shows that precarious workers try to build collegial networks that will provide them with social support, shared resources and news of opportunities when and wherever they arise (Coulson, 2012).

In relation to the second bisecting line of argument, studies show that people take up and remain in precarious jobs when they are able to find meaning, value and enjoyment in what they do. They show that an ‘accepting orientation’ arises when precarious workers align themselves with ‘dominant hegemonic discourses’ (Purcell and Brook, 2022: 398). That is, when they harmonize their conceptions of work with (particularly in the Global North) neoliberal-inspired notions of freedom, autonomy and choice (Purcell and Brook, 2022: 398; see also Cueto, 2024). Here, in particular, the precarious are shown to endure and even embrace their work when the ‘entrepreneurial self’ comes to sit at the heart of their understanding of who they are (Cueto, 2024; Vallas and Christin, 2018: 4; see also Vaclavik and Pithan, 2018; Jamil and Noiseux, 2018). So while some may mourn the loss or inability to secure ‘decent work’, they may also revert to and revel in the idea – if not the reality – of ‘being their own boss’ (Cueto, 2024: 586; Jamil and Noiseux, 2018: 18). Put simply, the ability to choose when and where one works, and for how long one does it each day, is pervasive – particularly when the quality of alternative (e.g. direct) forms of employment is extremely poor (Barratt et al., 2020; Peticca-Harris et al., 2020; Rosenblat and Stark, 2016; Vaclavik and Pithan, 2018).

For others still, the process of (psychological) reconciliation is made easier by individuals (re)conceiving their precarious work, not in economic terms (e.g. as a source of financial stability), but as something socially significant they were built and put on this earth to do (as in Bunderson and Thompson, 2009). The thesis here is that precarious workers, but particularly those with access to higher ideals (such as performing artists), persist with their work for personal, altruistic and values-based reasons. They persist despite the obstacles and hardships they encounter because they are inspired by particular idealisms, and/or notions of passion and calling (Umney and Kretsos, 2015; Cinque et al., 2021). Viewed this way, their precarious work is not ‘worse work’ (Murray et al., 2023: 309–315). Instead, it is something socially valuable and personally rewarding, despite not being explicitly recognized and rewarded in these terms.

Precarious work and occupational mythology: Our research agenda

To surmise, in the first of the previous two subsections, we showed that precarious work is a growing phenomenon and that it is generally experienced negatively. In the second of the previous two subsections, we detailed our current theoretical understanding of why and how precarious workers persist. In this subsection, we set the research agenda for this article.

At the heart of the agenda, we set is the point that while precarity’s ‘subjective aspects’ (Ettlinger, 2007: 324) have attracted considerable attention (e.g. Cueto, 2024; Purcell and Brook, 2022; Rosenblat and Stark, 2016; Vallas and Christin, 2018; Vallas and Prener, 2012; Wood et al., 2019), the complex theoretical puzzle of why and how precarious workers endure remains incomplete in several areas. We suggest that one of these areas pertains to the sense precarious workers make of their lives – to the ideas they have about their work, where these ideas come from, and how they are mobilized.

In relation to such matters, the extant literature stresses the importance of neoliberal-inspired notions of entrepreneurialism, autonomy and heroic self-determinism, especially amongst those employed in the gig economy (e.g. Cueto, 2024; Jamil and Noiseux, 2018; Vaclavik and Pithan, 2018). It also stresses the importance of personal idealisms and notions of passion and calling, especially in relation to precarious forms of social and cultural work (e.g. Cinque et al., 2021; Umney and Kretsos, 2015). The cumulative significance of these studies is that they connect us directly with the pervasive effects of particular ways of thinking about and understanding precarious work. Crucially, they show that the ideas people have about precarious work (how they think about and perceive it) can overlay difficult lived realities in ways that are empowering and sustaining.

In fact, we do not dispute these arguments. Their explanatory power and theoretical purchase are clearly significant. However, we do suggest they are currently limited to a very narrow range of ideas and their associated effects. First, to diffuse economic and political doctrine (e.g. neoliberalism), which encourages the conception of precarious work as an entrepreneurial opportunity. Second, to individuals’ personal belief in (certain forms of) precarious work as a meaningful vocation tied to some higher purpose, which encourages the conception of precarious work as an end in and of itself. What is missing, we suggest, is the role and importance of other meaning-making systems. Specifically, ideas and ideological systems that derive from within the occupational community itself, such as occupational mythology. The gap we therefore identify concerns the role and importance of myths. These are locally formulated, locally relevant story matrices from which narratives about life are (or can be) generated, and which convey shared beliefs about (ideal) human behaviour (Hawkes, 1977). Our suggestion is that scholars have yet to integrate these into extant theorizing. Specifically, we suggest we have yet to integrate into extant theorizing those systems of ideas that are firmly rooted in an occupational community’s shared cultural heritage – the accumulated traditions, practices, stories, values and symbols that collectively comprise its mythology.

Defined in terms of traditional stories which embody and provide an explanation, aetiology, or justification for something (Malinowski, 1926: 19), mythology’s absence from research into precarity matters for a multiplicity of reasons. Most obviously, because myths convey laws and norms within communities. That is, because through mythology, culturally salient ways of perceiving the world are diffused, along with shared understandings about how to resolve latent contradictions and difficulties (Lévi-Strauss, 1955). As Malinowski (1926: 19) argues in his seminal works, myths are (regulatory) devices that impart ‘moral wisdom’ and sustain the social order (see also Mazurkiewicz, 2012; Ritzer, 1971; Siedin, 2021; Schilbrack, 2002). They legitimize institutions, guide conduct, manage conflict and generally make social structures feel natural and binding (Mazurkiewicz, 2012; Ritzer, 1971; Schilbrack, 2002). Myths are therefore not simply stories or fantasies (Gabriel, 1991). Rather, they are narrative constructions that guide individuals ‘toward self-realization and recognition of his/her true self’ (Bowles, 1989: 408). Accordingly, their absence from precarity research leaves a significant gap in our understanding of the structures that explain and help to sustain precarious workers. We use this article to try to close this gap – to integrate myths into our theoretical understanding of how and why precarious workers endure. We ask: How does occupational mythology help the precariously employed make sense of their work and sustain their commitment to it?

Empirical context: Professional opera

The empirical context for our study is the field of professional opera, an archetypally precarious occupation (Coulson, 2012; Coulson, 2010; Smith and Thwaites, 2019). Originating in renaissance Italy, opera is a 400-year-old form of ‘hybrid’ theatre (Brown, 2016: 2). It is ‘dramatic action, performed on a stage with scenery by actors in costume, the words conveyed entirely or for the most part by singing, and the whole sustained and amplified by orchestral music’ (Grout and Williams, 2003: 14).

As a form of art, the aim of opera is to ‘transfix the soul’ – to take audience members on an intensely emotional exploration of the human condition (Abbate and Parker, 2012: 4 and 8). It is about launching people on a ‘metaphysical flight’ and then letting them fall satiated back to earth (Abbate, 2002: vii–viii). Indeed, the point of opera is that people should land back on earth, not just satiated, but profoundly moved by some social injustice (the underlying theme in most performances). The point is that opera does not just explore the human condition. It is also a vehicle for making the world a better place (Brown, 2016: 2).

On stage opera plays out as a ‘battle between words and music’ (Abbate and Parker, 2012: 1). Singers compete, usually alone and without amplificatory support, against orchestras comprising as many as 100 people and their instruments. They do this in venues housing up to 4300 people (e.g. Chicago’s Lyric Opera House), using vocal cords measuring just 17–25 mm in men, and 12.5–17 mm in women (Sataloff et al., 2017). Setting aside its artistic component, the simple physiological act of performing opera is extraordinary in its own right. It is something only the very gifted, extremely well-trained few are able to do.

Another feature of opera is its resource intensity. As Abbate and Parker (2012: 1) put it ‘at no time in history has society at large managed to sustain easily opera’s outrageous costs’. Theatre buildings, dramatic scenery and huge orchestras require vast amounts of money. In fact, so much money that it is almost impossible for theatre companies to break even during the brief period performances are given. One consequence of this is precarity for the majority involved. Opera singers, like their conducting and orchestral colleagues, enjoy little occupational security. All are employed on short-term contracts, at the lowest possible price point, and with few (if any) fringe benefits.

Data

The data we present in our article comprise 55 oral history interviews with 39 professional opera singers. Primarily singing opera for a living was the main inclusion criterion for this study. Those we interviewed were mostly based in mainland Europe, the UK and North America. However, virtually all travelled widely around the aforementioned locales, as well as across Asia and Oceania.

Those we interviewed were initially recruited into our study through agents whom we approached directly, who then contacted their clients on our behalf. We also recruited participants through social media and via anonymous peer referrals. In relation to the latter, interviewees regularly introduced us to interested colleagues – to people who, as Phil put it, were ‘keen on thinking about the future of the opera world’. In this way, our sampling ‘snowballed’ (e.g. Parker et al., 2019); we recruited nine singers we would not have otherwise met.

Once contact was made with potential interviewees (by email, social media, phone and/or SMS), we worked to establish an initial rapport. We did this through informal discussions about our project. During these discussion, we described the aim of our research (to understand the occupational experience of opera singers), and emphasized that interviews were anonymous. This latter point was crucial, as many potential interviewees wanted the freedom to talk candidly about their industry.

With the establishment of trust, we then organized formal interviews (either online or in-person). The interviews we conducted ranged from 55 minutes to approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes. All but five interviews were conducted in English. The remainder were conducted in French. An anonymized list of the people who participated in the study is contained in Table 1.

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Table 1.

Study participants.

Pseudonym	Speciality	Gender	Career stage	Total time
Alun	Tenor	Male	Middle	0:59
Anna	Soprano	Female	Early	1:06
Antonio*	Tenor	Male	Late	1:19
Anwen*	Soprano	Female	Early	1:49
Arthur*	Tenor	Male	Late	1:55
Cennydd*	Bass	Male	Middle	2:29
Chris	Tenor	Male	Middle	1:58
Clara	Soprano	Female	Late	0:59
Delph*	Soprano	Female	Middle	3:34
Derek	Baritone	Male	Late	1:55
Emma	Mezzo	Female	Late	1:39
Ethan	Bass-Baritone	Male	Middle	1:34
Ffion	Soprano	Female	Middle	1:02
Gerry	Baritone	Male	Middle	0:59
Hector**	Baritone	Male	Middle	3:41
Ianto	Manager	Male	Late	1:44
Jac*	Baritone	Male	Late	1:56
Jill	Soprano	Female	Middle	1:02
Luiz	Baritone	Male	Early	1:32
Mae*	Mezzo	Female	Middle	2:32
Mair*	Soprano	Female	Middle	2:07
Mal*	Baritone	Male	Middle	2:10
Megan	Countertenor	Male	Middle	1:03
Morgan	Soprano	Female	Late	1:01
Nina*	Mezzo	Female	Middle	1:52
Palmer	Bass-Baritone	Male	Late	1:21
Pawl*	Tenor	Male	Middle	1:24
Pedro	Tenor	Male	Late	1:04
Pheobe	Soprano	Female	Middle	1:15
Phillipe*	Bass	Male	Late	2:21
Reg	Tenor	Male	Late	1:57
Rhiannon	Soprano	Female	Late	1:21
Rick*	Bass-baritone	Male	Late	1:35
Ryan	Countertenor	Male	Retired	1:51
Sion*	Bass-baritone	Male	Late	2:00
Tess	Soprano	Female	Early	0:48
Walter*	Bass	Male	Early	1:48
Will	Tenor	Male	Middle	1:20

*

Denotes interviewed twice.

**

Denotes interviewed three times.

Guided by established conventions for recording oral history (e.g. Shopes, 2011), the interviews we conducted were designed to capture the ‘lived realities’ of singers’ working lives (Noon and Morrell, 2017). We asked singers to narrate the story of their working lives. We asked them to focus on (and explored with them) where and when they trained and worked, for how long and what it was like at each stage of their careers. We also asked singers to describe the challenges they encountered and how they overcame them.

On completion of interviews, many expressed a desire to hear about the future results of our study. In particular, singers wanted to know how their other colleagues approached and managed certain challenges – particularly precarity, and the omnipresent intensity of working life as an opera singer. Accordingly, as the study progressed, we regularly communicated our findings back to those who were interested. We also organized additional interviews to test and advance theories we were developing.

The myth of resilience: Hard work conquers precarity

Centred on the idea that hard work conquers precarity, the myth of resilience was widely visible in our data. We traced it in the constant claims singers made about how difficult it was to make a living (e.g. Delph: ‘if I want to sing I have to endure difficult circumstances’), and their concurrent insistence that hard work, personal strength and durability were the solution to these difficulties (e.g. Mae: ‘hard work is a bare minimum [to make a living and survive]’. Hector was particularly instructive: ‘there is a story- a myth [about] Pavarotti- he had some talent. But [actually] he started from scratch- just like everyone [else]. He worked like hell- and [that was how he did it- that was how he succeeded]’ (Hector).

The central character in the myth of resilience was Hector’s Pavarotti-type figure – someone with talent but who actually achieved success through dedication and hard work. This figure was widely cited and identified with by singers such as Jul: ‘being an artist in such [precarious] circumstances is like being a soldier dedicated to a cause, I feel like sometimes I fight to survive. I mean, I work hard to survive, and it is that or being out’. These individuals idolized the image of the heroic, durable figure who sang on and succeeded despite the great trials they faced. For example, Hector cast himself as a ‘fighter’, while Philipe talked of being a ‘marathon man’. In their words: ‘this work is for strong people, you can see the artist as a romantic and fragile being, inspired by flowers and birds, but I am much more of a fighter’ (Hector); ‘[you can] never stop, never be stopped by failures, never stop running like a marathon man, this is my mantra’ (Phillipe).

For Delph, the character of the resilient singer – the venerable stoic fighting to succeed – was fundamental to her understanding of who she was, and who she thought singers had to be to cope with precarity. When we asked why she continued to sing despite earning so little, and never feeling like she was ever secure, she told us: ‘I would have been ashamed to quit . . . being tough is part of what it means to be an artist, you know, an artist is confronted with uncertainty almost by definition, we are intermittent workers, and also hard workers, so I see myself as an artist, that means not only the artistic moment, but all my life oriented by working, to never stop doing what I like, whatever the problems I have’.

Crucially, singers did not just align themselves with the image of the mythical, resilient and hardworking stoic. They fundamentally believed the idea – the mythical notion – that through such action, precarity could be overcome. Thus, they modelled and projected themselves into a fundamentally better future despite all the evidence to the contrary – despite the legions of hardworking colleagues they knew who had failed. Singers variously embraced the fantastic idea that success would ultimately come to those who toughed it out and soldiered on. Delph put things definitively: ‘if I want to sing I have to endure difficult circumstances, I know it, so it gives me more energy somehow to progress and work harder to show that I can do it, I can succeed.’

Another important facet of the myth of resilience was the idea that if a singer somehow failed to overcome their precarity, the fault was ultimately theirs. As Hector explained: ‘it is up to me and no one else.’ So, difficulties with finding work were cast as a personal (rather than a structural) problem. It was a singer’s problem, not a problem of chronic oversupply and poor resourcing within the industry. If a singer was unable to find work and overcome their precarity, it was because they personally lacked something; they didn’t have the strength, durability and resolve to do what was necessary to survive and be successful. Mae reflected: ‘as a system we don't have things in place to make singers believe anything other than whatever happens to them, it's because of them.’

To summarize: The myth of resilience – the storied mythical notion that hard work conquers adversity – mediated our singers’ experiences of precarity by rescripting structural insecurity as a personal and moral trial. It rescripted singers’ instability as understandable and to be expected, suggesting that singers must learn to endure erratic work, poor pay and constant rejections if they want a career. These latter acts were cast as the correct way to respond to precarious circumstances, and singers were encouraged to envisage the future in terms of (contingent) potentialities and possibilities. At the same time, the myth of resilience individualized risk, encouraged self-exploitation and intensified feelings of shame if (when) bookings declined and careers stalled (which most inevitably did). Via the myth of resilience, enduring hardship became evidence of commitment, while those who quit were perceived as lacking the resolve required to be successful.

The myth of perfection: Flawless performances ameliorate precarity

Centred on the veneration of flawless performances and a belief in their capacity to ameliorate precarity, the myth of perfection was similarly widely visible in our data. We traced it in the emphasis our singers placed on the idea that perfect performances directly translated into more, better-paid work. Ryan was very explicit in this regard. He told us: ‘There is this myth that if you do everything as best you can then everything will somehow work out . . . [it’s] this sense that if I can just- not make mistakes, and read everything perfectly, and [if] I can be functioning at this basically extremely high level . . . if [I] can do all these things [perfectly] then [I’ll] be good enough that the precarity will simply evaporate.’

The connection Ryan drew between (his) perfectionism and the amelioration of precarity was fundamental to this myth. It was also clearly fantastic. As Mae explained: ‘I’ve done some of my best singing with companies that I've never heard of since.’ Yet, the myth itself circulated widely and was embraced by our singers, even though it involved an impossible – or at least improbable – proposition. For example, when we interviewed Hector, he told us: ‘perfection is an idea, a myth, we never reach perfection, or maybe heroes like Caruso or Callas [do]- maybe. But we need this sort of idea- . . . this dream- [this myth]’. When asked to explain why singers needed this myth, he elaborated: ‘searching to be perfect is what permits me to believe that I will find contracts, that I will be sufficiently good to attract attention and resist, how can I say, not resist, but cope with the precarity.’

Compelled by this idea – by the belief that perfection(ism) can propel singers to future greatness – those we interviewed described the huge effort they put into preparing for their performances. They told us how they worked long, often unpaid hours to ensure they did not just mechanically enact their parts, but ‘[wore] the character’ in the most impressive way possible (as Ethan put it). As Antonio explained: ‘I don't want to do a love scene, where someone's not kissing me. If I'm doing a love scene, they are touching me’. Likewise, Pheobe said: ‘I would much rather if I was on stage, and someone had to slap me, I'd rather someone slap me, than fake slap, because I just feel- when I'm portraying a character, I want to do it 100 per cent’.

The important point for both Pheobe and Antonio was that the possibility of precarity-ameliorating perfection arose when they played their roles in the most sincere way possible. They enthused about kissing colleagues and taking slaps because they were trying to ‘go deep into the psychological roots [of a character]’ (Pheobe). Through these immersive practices, they were trying to create something really special on stage. In Pheobe’s words: ‘If I’ve come off stage, and I feel like I've ‘lived’ something, that’s when I feel like I’ve done a good job . . . the times I’m most frustrated at work is when I’m working with a singer and like I'm pouring out something really like heartfelt to them. And they’re just like. [blank face] And there’s not that- they don’t know what I’m saying to them. They’ve just learned their lines.’

Similarly compelled by the desire to deliver perfection on stage, singers talked about the great physical and mental suffering they subject themselves to. Pheobe told us: ‘in the practice room, you actually have to batter yourself to get everything the way it should be’. Hector was more extreme: ‘if you don’t [taste] blood in your mouth, it means, yes, you don’t give enough (. . .) you cannot expect miracles then’. Singers like Palmer explicitly avoided the kind of physical exertions described by Pheobe and Hector but still subjected themselves to great suffering in pursuit of perfection. The crucial difference was that they pursued perfection through more psychological (rather than physical) forms of suffering. In Anna’s words: ‘When I do a rehearsal, I am totally drained with the effort . . . It is a huge psychological strain . . . so after rehearsals you are absolutely exhausted’. Morgan told us that: ‘you just get little flashes of it sometimes, and it's like your pure essence coming out . . . but . . . It doesn’t always come. So then we have to keep studying and we keep going. And we have to keep going.’

To summarize: The myth of perfection – the belief that flawless performances will translate into more, better-paid work – structured how our singers experienced and responded to their precarity. It introduced the possibility that every performance might be a potential turning point in their careers; that if things went perfectly on stage, the struggle with finding decent work might finally be over. This future imaginary elevated the stakes of singers’ performances – an off-night, memory lapse or vocal crack was not a simple, inconsequential mistake, but a possible obstacle to future employability. As a result, the myth of perfection conveyed the message that singers should engage in intense regimes of self-improvement – often self-funded, in their own time and involving considerable hardship. The message this myth conveyed was that this was how working lives were made secure. Thus, via the myth of perfection, precarity was cast as a compelling reason to endlessly work on the self. It converted insecurity into a mandate for heightened self-surveillance and self-exploitation, all for the future possibility of a better working life.

The myth of transcendence: Extraordinary experiences attenuate suffering

Centred on the idea that moments of perfection can be experienced as something so extraordinary that past suffering is attenuated and possibly even forgotten, the myth of transcendence was the third myth we traced in our data. We traced this myth in the times our singers cast their work in dream-like terms, and argued this was why they endured: ‘Operatic work is about myths- . . . we are also surrounded by mythical people . . . Caruso, Pavarotti, Callas and some others. . . these are people who have stories told about them- about how they have actually reached perfection. . . . so I spend my days vocalizing, trying to reach the summit, dreaming about Caruso, . . . [because when I hit that level] I have some of these moments of magic, [and] this takes me away from my condition as worker, I don’t feel like being a worker- I just feel I am a lucky man who [gets] to sing (Hector).

The myth of transcendence was uniquely powerful because many singers had actually experienced moments of transcendence, as Hector attests above. Crucially, the moments of transcendence they experienced totally rescripted their relationship with precarity. Singers enthusiastically mythologized the sublimity of moments of perfection, as well as their power to attenuate day-to-day suffering. They described how such moments counterbalanced and occasionally even occluded completely ‘all the negatives and all the psychological pain that comes with opera’ (Pheobe). Antonio was particularly forceful on this point. He said: ‘on the nights when I know I ‘did [it]’ it's almost like I have amnesia at a certain point. I really feel fully in the moment, but I don't remember [it]- you lose, you [just] lose yourself’.

Echoing Antonio, Pawl told us that ‘the greatest experiences I have had on stage with certain performers have made me forget everything. I am in the moment, ethereal you may say’. Jul told us: ‘you know, take it when you can, I mean the pleasure to be doing what you like, and push away the consequences of [it] . . . that’s the game’. Emma said: ‘it may only happen a handful of times in your whole career, everything will work but on a level that’s just magic. And it’s that- that’s what we really all seek. It’s those moments . . . Something has to make it worthwhile, because of all the shit we have to go through’.

Our singers told us that transcendent moments were sustaining precisely because they were experienced so briefly and powerfully. Hector explained: ‘[it’s] moments of, if not perfection . . . but moments of felicity, maybe. Where for a few seconds, nothing wrong can happen, you are kind of supported by the universe.’ Echoing this point, Delphi told us about the ‘mystery behind certain performances’, casting her work as involving ‘miracles that you cannot really comprehend but that give you an immense strength to continue.’ The idea she explained was that ‘that’s it!’ moments delivered feelings of ecstasy and fulfilment that propelled her into an entirely different, very special psychic space that was distinct from the ordinary world she lived in. As Philippe described: ‘outside of the stage life is dull, it is made of work, constant rehearsals, anxiety to fail, doubt, frustrations and suffering, yes, physical pain.’

Transcendent moments were therefore mythologized as a major reason – sometimes the reason – why singers should stick with their work and endure the suffering precarity imposed on them. Such moments mattered because they impressed on singers the idea that their constant suffering would ultimately be rewarded; it enabled them to recast their (challenging) working lives in fundamentally more positive terms. The cumulative point our singers therefore made was that transcendent moments were conceived within the community as an epic endpoint to what Delph (but also Mair) called the ‘quest’ to perform opera in the purest, most impressive way possible. Such moments, when they happened, were occasions when singers effectively won what Jul called the ‘game’ of operatic life. Hector said: ‘we shouldn’t complain, I have chosen this world, but if you don’t understand that there is a price to pay, by your body . . . you won’t be authorized to have those minutes of almost, mystical experience, the perfect match with everything around you’. Alun told us how he was: ‘always trying to find a way’ to bring about his own transcendence, and that ‘you’d want to die trying’. Pawl said ‘you search for it because it has happened once or twice in thirty years, you are permanently living a holiday romance in work. [So you want] to create that one thing. [It’s], difficult and often impossible to achieve, but now and again [you do it].’

To summarize: The myth of transcendence – the idea that moments of perfection can overlay and occlude the negative facets of precarity – circulated widely amongst those we interviewed. It shaped our singers’ experiences of precarity by endowing their work with existential significance. This myth emphasized the point that opera was not simply a precarious form of (cultural) work, but a privileged route to transcendence that was only available to the fully committed few. In this way, precarious working conditions were recast as the sacrifices necessary to access these exceptional experiences. This sacralization of performances allowed singers to live precarity as an expression of vocation rather than of exploitation and suffering. At the same time, as with the myths of resilience and perfection, the myth of transcendence was deeply ambivalent: it offered a powerful repertoire for imbuing precarious lives with meaning, dignity and distinction while legitimizing and reproducing the very conditions it helped singers to endure.

Mythology as a mechanism for rescripting precarious work

Our first contribution is to research that directly connects us with the pervasive effects of particular ways of thinking about and understanding precarious work. It is to studies showing that the ideas precarious workers have about their work can overlay difficult lived realities in efficacious, empowering and ultimately sustaining ways (e.g. Cueto, 2024; Cinque et al., 2021; Jamil and Noiseux, 2018; Umney and Kretsos, 2015; Vaclavik and Pithan, 2018).

Specifically, we advance the idea that precarious workers endure, not just because of pervasive economic and political doctrine (Cueto, 2024; Jamil and Noiseux, 2018; Vallas and Christin, 2018: 4; see also Vaclavik and Pithan, 2018;). Nor just because of personal, altruistic and values-based reasons (Cinque et al., 2021; Umney and Kretsos, 2015; see also Bunderson and Thompson, 2009). Indeed, we do not discount the importance of either. We do not diminish the power of ‘dominant hegemonic discourses’ (Purcell and Brook, 2022: 398). Nor the power of high ideals that resonate with individualized notions of passion and calling. However, we do suggest a third possibility – that precarious workers might endure because community-specific mythologies fundamentally rescript their experience of precarity by regulating its intelligibility (its contextual sensibility), and their responses to it (what constitutes morally appropriate behaviour).

In relation to the former – to the intelligibility of precarious work – the first part of our argument is that occupational myths help precarious workers endure by rescripting salient experiences along culturally resonant lines. Grounded in the wider point that myths ‘help humans make sense of their existence’ (Abazari and Saarelainen, 2025: 2), we argue that myths provide the cognitive and moral grammar precarious workers need to read, interpret and make sense of their lives. Thus, we suggest that what our data show is myths fundamentally shifting (rescripting) the experience of precarity – from something unsettling, anxiety-invoking and even demeaning, into a meaningful test of vocation, commitment, character and artistry. For example, the myth of resilience rescripted singers’ constant struggles with finding work as a test of toughness and personal strength. The myth of perfection rescripted singers’ suffering in the practice room as an investment in future security. The myth of transcendence rescripted the emotional high of a great performance as proof that all the hardship was – or at least would be – worth it in the end.

Accordingly, the stories we traced in our singers’ narratives were not simply ‘idle tales’ (Malinowski, 1926: 19), but functioned as ‘guiding light[s]’ and cultural ‘reference point[s]’ (Siedin, 2021: 171). They were narratives that imbibed our singers’ lives with greater meaning and value and helped them to understand and accommodate adversity in the very fabric of their existence. Crucially, myths also helped singers endure by providing ready-made answers to the kind of problems they routinely experienced. Indeed, an important feature of these ready-made answers was, we posit, that they stopped the problems singers encountered (e.g. the difficulties they had with finding work) from becoming wider, broader and existential in nature. Thus, they derailed, subverted and generally discouraged singers from problematizing their clearly extreme(ly challenging) working lives. They stopped them from confronting the niggling question of ‘why am I doing this?’

The second part of our argument is that occupational myths rescript the experience of precarious work by regulating responses to it. By dint of myths encapsulating ‘the sacred traditions’ of a community (Malinowski, 1963: 249), they not only charted the social order, but also distinguished moral behaviour. The myths we identified therefore functioned (in aggregate) as a matrix of ‘master ideas’ (Czarniawska and Joerges, 1996: 37), not just about life, but how to live it. In particular, they imparted a sense of what feelings and actions were appropriate and which were not.

Indeed, all the myths we traced in our data contained messages about how life should be both perceived and lived. For example, the myth of resilience taught singers to take personal responsibility for their circumstances and to work tirelessly to achieve occupational security and career success. The myth of perfection taught singers to dedicate themselves to perfecting their art, amid an understanding that this was another good way of making their lives and careers more secure. The myth of transcendence added additional emphasis and moral weight to the active pursuit of perfection by casting it as both the right thing to do (as was what singers’ careers were all about) and as a plausible pathway to (the possibility of) moments of blinding sublimity.

In summary, then, we make our first contribution by arguing that occupational mythology constitutes an important additional answer to the question of how and why precarious workers persist. We suggest that integrating mythology into our theorizing creates a kind of conceptual middle ground – it broadens and deepens the scope of extant conceptual models. It does this by showing that ideas derived from within an occupational community can supplement the effects of both individually derived philosophies of work (e.g. personal, beliefs and values), and macro-level meaning-making systems (e.g. neoliberalism). We therefore neither discount nor diminish the efficacy of a priori theorizing but suggest that occupational mythology can play an important explanatory role, as well.

An important feature of the theory we develop is that it does not just apply to our specific empirical context. Rather, it travels – to other precarious occupational contexts. Most easily and obviously, our theory applies to other cultural and creative freelancers (e.g. Banks and Hesmondhalgh, 2009; Brook et al., 2020; Coulson, 2012; Hancock and Tyler, 2024, 2025) – to precarious workers whose lives are organized around broadly similar vocational imaginaries. Another possibility is casualized academics (e.g. Gallas, 2018; O'Keefe and Courtois, 2019) – a context saturated with community-specific myths in which precarity is variously made intelligible as apprenticeship, meritocratic sorting, or necessary sacrifice in the service of scholarly calling, and where appropriate responses include the moralized injunction to endure and be endlessly productive – the mythology of ‘publish or perish’ (De Rond and Miller, 2005).

In fact, we suggest the ideas we articulate apply when and wherever extant mythologies cover and define (i.e. regulate) how occupational insecurity is (or should be) interpreted and endured. The important point is that while the specific content of myths varies between occupational groups (every community has its own), they remain a common social device that helps people make ‘sense of their existence’ and live morally resonant lives (Abazari and Saarelainen, 2025: 2).

Mythology and precarious workers’ capacity to move beyond the anxious present

We make our second contribution by developing in more granular detail our theoretical understanding of precisely how myths enable precarious workers to endure. We do so primarily in relation to Carvounas and Ireland’s (2008: 173) point that occupational precarity spurs ‘a contraction of temporal horizons’ – that precarity limits how far back, and how far forward the affected habitually project themselves (see also Bone, 2019; Cuervo and Chesters, 2019; Fieulaine and Apostolidis, 2014). The significance of this contraction is that it impedes workers’ ability to rationalize events, plan their lives, and construct narratives that address important identity-implicative questions such as ‘who am I?,’ ‘why am I here?,’ ‘am I successful,’ and ‘who am I becoming?’ It is also significant because it locks workers into patterns of ‘volatile short-term responses to immediate problems’ (Carvounas and Ireland, 2008: 174), trapping them in the anxious present. This latter state being, we suggest, a kind of psychic space where suffering is most acute, and least meaningful.

The argument we make – the crux of our second contribution – is that occupational mythology counteracts the temporal contraction precarity imposes, along with its concomitant effects. We suggest that it does this by stretching precarious workers’ time horizons both forwards and backwards. In fact, we argue that a core part of mythologies’ social value in the context of precarious work lies in its mechanistic capacity to do precisely this – to extend what Elias (1994: 448) calls ‘a mental space beyond the moment.’ We suggest that it is important because it enables the (precarious) individual to (re)connect with the past and the future in ways that are meaningful, validating, and, ultimately, sustaining.

We suggest that occupational mythology pushes precarious workers’ temporal horizons forwards on those occasions when it involves imaginary ideals. That is, times, places, events or circumstances that are not real, but are distinctly possible and deeply alluring. In the case of our singers, the idea of stardom and success, for example. Think also of Fraher and Gabriel’s (2014: 926) grounded pilots ‘fantasies of flying.’ Indeed, we traced this operative effect in all three of the myths we identify and describe in our findings. For example, in the myths of resilience and perfection, and the emphasis these place on imaginary times when a singer is free from precarity, having worked their way to a better life. We also traced this operative effect in the myth of transcendence, and the emphasis it placed on the possibility that some magical moment was both attainable and just around the corner – provided the individual expends the necessary effort and energy.

A crucial feature of these myths – and of projective mythology in general – is therefore that it places the individual at the centre of a long-running story of development, growth and becoming. It casts today’s insecurity as simply the middle chapters in a storied, potentially never-ending journey to a better place. The ultimate effect being that constant, difficult and even egregious occupational demands – such as ‘extreme work’ (Granter et al., 2015) in return for poor pay and security – are justified by the belief in some future payoff, even when the prospect of it ever happening is objectively poor. Thus, myths help individuals endure (to claw their way out of the anxious present) by helping them visualize and cling to a better future – a time when and where everything is okay.

We suggest that myths push workers’ temporal horizons backwards by fostering connections between the precarious present and the storied past. That is, by linking the here-and-now with past greats and their legendary deeds. Again, these operative effects were similarly visible in (and generalizable from) our data. For example, in the myth of resilience, which stretched singers’ time horizons backwards by invoking the toils of predecessors in glorifying (and therefore normalizing) ways. Similarly, insofar as many singers had actually experienced magical moments on stage, or something approximating them, the myth of transcendence also stretched time backwards. This operative effect emerged because, once singers had such an experience, even if only once, they revisited and rehearsed it in their minds, mythologizing the moment and its effects for both their own benefit and for others. They also treated these past experiences as a defining, biographical anchor point. That is, as a memory that coloured the present and provided ongoing justification for enduring. Thus, by linking, to a storied past, the myth of transcendence protected the individual against their collapsing into the hopelessness of the present amid an understanding that there have been better times, and there will (probably) be more again someday.

In summary, we make our second contribution by adding granular detail to our theoretical understanding of how myths enable precarious workers to endure. The detail we add – the theory we develop – is that myths foster durability by enabling the precarious to envisage and project themselves into a plausible, better future, and to meaningfully recall the past. In the theoretical context of precarity closing down workers’ temporal horizons, we suggest that myths’ efficacy lies in their opening them back up again. We argue that in creating this mental space, myths enable precarious workers to resist despair and see past and beyond the anxious present within which they are (or might be) otherwise locked.