Dr Paul Rekret

I am Lecturer in Media Industries in the School of Media and Communication at the University of Westminster. I have previously held academic posts at Queen Mary, University of London, Richmond University, and Liverpool Hope University. I hold a PhD from Queen Mary, University of London, an MA from the University of Amsterdam, and a BA from the University of Toronto, and I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

I am the author of three books: Take This Hammer: Work, Song, Crisis (Goldsmiths Press/MIT Press, 2024); Down With Childhood: Pop Music and the Crisis of Innocence (Repeater Books, 2017); and Derrida and Foucault: Philosophy, Politics, Polemics (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018). I have also edited two volumes: George Caffentzis: Clipped Coins, Abused Words & Civil Government (Pluto Press, 2021) and Robert Linhart and the Circuitous Paths of Inquiry (Viewpoint, 2022). My research has appeared in leading academic journals including Theory, Culture & Society, South Atlantic Quarterly, Critical Quarterly, Journal of Cultural Economy, and Constellations.

My writing on art, media, and culture has featured in The Wire, Frieze, and Art Monthly, among others, and I am regularly invited to programme or speak at international cultural institutions including Tate (UK), BAK (Netherlands), CTM/Transmediale (Germany), and UnionDocs (USA).

From 2025 to 2027, I am Co-Investigator on Archiving Community, an AHRC- and British Academy-funded research and knowledge exchange project, undertaken in partnership with the British Library and the National Library of Scotland. The project investigates small-scale cultural producers and independent infrastructures in the context of platform capitalism.

My research spans sound and cultural studies, political economy, and media industries to explore how contemporary popular cultures and creative economies are shaped by broader social and economic transformations.

One strand of my work examines the relationships between global labour market conditions, the creative industries, and popular cultural forms; especially popular music. This ongoing project addresses themes ranging from the reconfiguration of ‘world music’ industries in light of a growing craft economy, to the impact of automation on dance music, and transformations in hip-hop amid expanding job precarity. This research culminated in Take This Hammer: Work, Song, Crisis (Goldsmiths Press/MIT Press, 2024). My earlier book, Down With Childhood: Pop Music and the Crisis of Innocence (Repeater Books, 2017), explores how shrinking labour markets and rising inequality have reshaped both the representation and working lives of children in music, film, and television. Across these projects, I continue to investigate the multifaceted intersections of economy and culture.

A second strand of my research focuses on lived experience in digital cultures, particularly as it is structured by global inequalities. I am interested in how a modern, Eurocentric conception of property underpins contemporary digital culture—especially within intellectual property–driven industries. This work situates digital cultural institutions such as streaming platforms within wider global infrastructures, linking them to extractive processes like e-waste dumping in Ghana and microchip manufacture in China as the abject conditions of contemporary digital society.

My most recent work turns to small-scale cultural production that circulates below the threshold of the formal creative industries and operates through independent infrastructures. In this context, I am Co-Investigator on Archiving Community, an AHRC- and British Academy–funded research and knowledge exchange project developed in collaboration with the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, and eight DIY online radio stations across the UK.

For details of all my research outputs, visit my WestminsterResearch profile.