Creative Hubs as Assemblages: Understanding the Reciprocal Forms, Formalised Function and Territorialisation of Creative Hubs

The co-location, internal processes and activities that creative hubs — defined here as co-located spaces where heterogeneous elements engage in various activities that support and develop startup companies — enable are widely recognised to be a core part of their value. However, the interrelations of the heterogeneous elements that is a fundamental cause of these valuable configurations remains under-explored. This thesis thus presents a novel perspective on creative hubs as assemblages, centring on the question: how does the Assemblage of a creative hub define the interactions of its heterogeneous elements? Methodologically, I conducted (i) a qualitative study of three creative hubs in the UK; (ii) an ethnographic study of a startup accelerator in Indonesia; and (iii) a mixed-method study of virtual hubs across the globe. My analytical devices, drawing from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s theory of Assemblage, are formalisation, reciprocal presupposition, formalised function and territorialisation. In the first study, I framed six themes of the relational aspects of creative hubs as the conditions that organise bodies. In the second study, I showed how an accelerator assemblage —“seed accelerator” and “seed funding”— structures and legitimises the intensive interactions in the startup accelerators. In the third study, I showed how the idea of a virtual hub normalises the work-in-progress of digital incubation. Through these studies, I argue that the Assemblage of creative hubs works through a provisional, rather than an established, arrangement. Ultimately, this thesis contributes an Assemblage-oriented understanding of creative hubs. In this understanding, I argue that the Assemblage of creative hubs in its multiplicity requires, organises and structures human-activity-infrastructure, terms-themes-expectations and other expressions so that creative hubs function to provisionally support the provisional in the creative industries. In turn, this understanding has implications of both setting a ‘limit’ for creative hubs’ operations and providing a ‘map’ for understanding creative hubs.