From precarity to precariousness and back again : labour, life and unstable networks

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticle

    Abstract

    This article explores the distinction and passage between "precarity" and "precariousness". In surveying the various ways in which these terms have circulated, we wish to establish a framework within which questions of labour, life and social-political organisation can be understood. The various uncertainties defining contemporary life are carried over - and, we argue, internal to - the logic of informatisation. Our aim, however, is not to collapse respective differences into a totalising logic that provides a definitive assessment or system of analysis; rather, we seek to identify some of the forces, rhythms, discourses and actions that render notions such as creativity, innovation, and organisation, along with the operation of capital, with a complexity whose material effects are locally situated within transversal networks. Where there are instances of inter-connection between, say, the work of migrants packaging computer parts or cleaning offices and that of media labour in a call centre, software development firm or digital post-production for a film studio, we see a common expressive capacity predicated on the dual conditions of exploitation and uncertainty.
    Original languageEnglish
    Number of pages24
    JournalFibreculture Journal
    Issue number5
    Publication statusPublished - 2005

    Keywords

    • Job security
    • Labor market
    • Social aspects
    • Social networks
    • Work

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