In this article, I propose an approach for the analysis of the so-called processes of flexibilisation, mobility, precarisation or, recently, platformisation or uberisation of work, considering the ...social relations of circulation and a proletarian condition of greater approximation or convergence between active and reserve armies. For that, I revisit the Marxian theory of value and the trends that can be observed by the process of accelerating and expanding the circulation of the labour-power. The article closes with reflections towards a possible research agenda for the study of contemporary proletarian condition.
In the context of the Dutch welfare state, precarisation entails particular pedagogies: citizens are taught how to feel about being insecure through the techniques of (1) accepting; (2) controlling; ...and (3) imagining. Welfare activation thus focuses on teaching citizens to accept their precarious position, to embrace it and to prepare for its continuation while remaining optimistic about its discontinuation. Perhaps cruelly, then, the state teaches citizens to develop optimism towards certain imagined futures while at the same time acknowledging the unattainability of these futures. Importantly, case managers in Dutch welfare offices are often precarious themselves too, making the affective labour they perform both difficult and essential for themselves. Contemporary activation and workfare programmes are therefore best understood as characterised by insecurity and precarisation on both the receiving and the providing end of state–citizen encounters.
This article provides a study of precarisation through the lens of dress work: the mundane practice of dressing the body for work. Based on intimate in-depth wardrobe interviews and analyses of ...workers’ narratives about their dressing practices, we develop a perspective on what insecure work feels like for workers in the interactive services and creative industries. We understand dress work as a materially mediated practice in which workers often aim to achieve a level of comfort: a state in which they are allowed to become less reflexive about their bodies. One of the ways in which precarisation makes itself known, we contend, is through the temporal logic of the interruption. The temporality of zero-hours contracts and short-term, insecure labour interrupts the achievement of comfort as workers are not allowed the time to experience their work, colleagues and spaces. The discomfort and sometimes pain of insecurity of post-Fordist labour is thus felt on the body.
In critical social research the concept of employability is associated with the neoliberal imperative that every individual should become a self-responsible, self-improving and enterprising subject ...in the increasingly precarious labour markets. Despite the prominence of employability in policies governing young people’s intra-European migration, few studies examine migrants’ subjectivities in this context. Building on narrative data, this article adds to our understanding on how neoliberal subject formations function as an instrument for governing young EU migrants’ lives in conditions of precarious labour. Central to this understanding, it develops the concept of passion to depict young migrants’ quest for obtaining work with opportunities for self-development and self-realisation. This concept contributes to the study of highly qualified intra-EU migration by allowing critical analysis of meanings given to mobility in relation to work; by highlighting dynamics of (self-)precarisation in this context; and by advancing debates on social-structural inequality among EU migrants pursuing their quest for passion.
This article gives a rare account of the working life of a sports psychologist in the English Premier League, the elite division in English professional football. It shows how members of emerging ...professions such as sports psychology are a new precariat. John is more successful than many sports psychologists, but his job security is dependent on his continued ability to navigate managerial change: using his skills as a psychologist in the defence of his own employment but simultaneously keeping the (potentially sensitive) ‘psychology’ label of the work he does hidden until circumstances are propitious.
Gentrification and labour precarisation constitute prominent responses to urban capitalist crises. They have typically been addressed in the literature as distinct processes. Even though they can ...indeed occur independently of one another, here we argue that they are also often deeply interconnected. To do so, we utilise a mix of fieldwork and secondary data to investigate how gentrification has both fostered labour precarisation but also how it has been supported by it, within a context of economic recession yet growing tourist inflows into two neighbourhoods (Koukaki and Kerameikos) in central Athens, Greece. Our findings show that the growth of precarious labour in construction has facilitated the development of several gentrification loci whilst, in turn, gentrification’s consolidation has encouraged the growth of poor working conditions in local lodging, hospitality/catering, and creative activities. Ultimately, in highlighting the role of labour precarisation in gentrification, the paper argues that these processes are more than mere parts of an opportunistic conjuncture. Instead, their interconnectedness constitutes an integral part of the city’s contemporary urbanisation, being a continuation of the crisis-struck, construction-driven economic models that have historically characterised much of the Mediterranean European Union.
La literatura sobre plataformas digitales de trabajo ha subrayado la tendencia a la precarización de las relaciones laborales. En contraposición con esta hipótesis, a través del análisis del ...funcionamiento de la plataforma digital Zolvers, este artículo se propone comprender de qué manera las plataformas pueden también contribuir a la formalización de las relaciones laborales en el sector del trabajo doméstico remunerado, donde la mayoría de las trabajadoras se desempeña de manera informal. El artículo explora los efectos de esta intermediación respecto a la formalización de la relación laboral. Particularmente, se focaliza en el impacto durante el primer año de la pandemia del covid-19.
Academic workers in crisis Hristova, Tsvetelina
Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation,
03/2024, Volume:
18, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Open access
Introducing this special issue, this article summarises the contributions and reflects on the conditions in which the labour processes of their authors reflect the increasingly stressful working ...conditions of academic workers in the post-pandemic context.
This article identifies the points of divergence and convergence between the discourses of technological displacement and low-skilled immigrant labour and argues for the understanding of a new model ...of neoliberal governance. New technologies, new managerial and organisational strategies, and new models of exploitation emerged in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis in the UK. What are the main features of this crisis? The article points to two different yet interconnected processes. First, due to demands for higher productivity and economic growth the advent of automation, robotics and AI is presented as an irreversible process capable of producing a new corporate environment in which low labour costs and efficiency co-exist with massive job losses, waning of workers’ collective defences and re-training programmes. Second, for all the increasing popularity of protectionist politics and of demands for tight immigration controls the need for low paid and low-skilled immigrant labour across several sectors of the UK economy remains unchanged. Demands for economic growth render the presence of low-skilled immigrants necessary as long as they are subjected to the minimum political, economic and social provisions such as wages, political participation and mobility. As a result, low-skilled immigrants must exist within a political and economic environment in which they are perceived as useful and at times essential accessories for sustaining economic growth and public services. The concepts of precarisation and precarity provide a useful insight into the underlying logic that connects and differentiates those two discourses. In particular, precarisation becomes at once the dominant mode of governing the population and the most effective means for capital accumulation. In contradistinction to old understandings of government that demanded political compliance in exchange for the promise of social protection, the neoliberal process of precarisation increases instability and provides the minimum of insurance. Precarisation is not limited to employment but more generally to the formulation of homo œconomicus as a collective neoliberal subject living in fear and uncertainty. Precarity, on the other hand, designates a sense of hierarchy amongst insecure workforce and the compensations they receive. The article concludes by arguing that the dividing lines between national and foreigner, domestic and immigrant, become integral notions of neoliberal governance for differentiating between precarious groups and maintaining order in contemporary capitalism.
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