How youth become workers: Identity, inequality and the post-Fordist self

Abstract

Post-Fordism describes a situation in which precarity and un/underemployment becomes normalised while the requirement for young people to seek subjectivity through work is intensified. In this context, this article draws on interviews with youth living in regions of high youth unemployment to examine how young people create identities as workers. The article shows that young people approach the cultivation of a working self in terms of how the capacity for productive labour contributes to projects of ‘self-realisation’. Classed subjectivities are formed through the different ethics through which young people approach the formation of the self as a worker. This demonstrates how the disciplinary requirements of work contribute to the contemporary experience of class among youth. The article concludes by suggesting that generational shifts in the experience of youth currently associated with employment insecurity can be usefully understood in terms of the dynamics of post-Fordist labouring subjectivities.

“It hits me in the weirdest moments”: How future female workers experience loss in times of planetary crisis

“…Although many of the participants had part-time jobs, their primary institutional affiliation was not to a work organization. However, as several scholars have shown, the requirements of work permeate contemporary youth cultures and educational contexts, and young people are increasingly incited to create organizational and worker identities (Farrugia, 2019(Farrugia, , 2021Griffin et al, 2017;Lamberg, 2022). Hence, following recent studies challenging a dominant tendency to study worker identities only in organizations (Carr & Kelan, 2021;Dill & Morgan, 2018;Mackenzie & McKinlay, 2021), we designed our study with a view to exploring how young women reflect on themselves as future workers even before starting their professional careers.…”

Interdisciplinarity, art and immaterial labour in the creative economy: Maurizio Lazzarato and the production of value in ArtScience practice

“…Sociological inroads into the changes taking place in the field of artistic production have been especially evident in studies of the cultural industries (Hesmondhalgh, 2019; Hesmondhalgh & Baker, 2010), DIY creativity and hobbyists (Bennett, 2018; Threadgold, 2018), and forms of ‘aesthetic labour’ (Elias et al, 2017; Kardelis, 2022; Vonk, 2021). The article builds on such debates, while also contributing to sociological engagement with the idea of immaterial labour (Coffey et al, 2018; Farrugia, 2019; Gielen, 2009; Gill & Pratt, 2008; Jarrett, 2003). Where sociological engagement with the idea of immaterial labour has tended to draw on the work of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (Coffey et al, 2018; Gill & Pratt, 2008), Lazzarato's essay addresses directly the economic value of processes of subjectivation in those fields of cultural practice in which collaboration and communication are crucial.…”

Kaum Muda dalam The Social Dilemma: Sebuah Refleksi Kritis tentang Narasi Kerja, Waktu Luang dan Subjektivitas di Era Post-Fordist

“…Pertama, dalam konteks digital, kerja dan waktu luang tidak dapat dipisahkan. Temuan tersebut berkaitan dengan formasi kerja dalam konteks Post-Fordist di mana aktivitas kerja yang fleksibel cenderung berbaur dengan pengelolaan waktu-luang yang dinamis www.jurnal.ugm.ac.id/jurnalpemuda (Farrugia 2019a). Kedua, ketakterpisahan tersebut merupakan konsekuensi dari watak teknologi yang mendisiplinkan subjek melalui aktivitas konsumsi (Rose and dan Spencer 2016).…”