Labour activation policies and the seriousness of simulated work

Abstract

Labour activation is an integral part of neo-liberal policies that attempt to tackle the problem of employment and employability in the context of the drastically changing institution of work. Reflecting the difficulty of sustaining old frameworks, labour activation, as this ethnography reveals, is anchored in circles of simulative performances of employability and work. People's motivations to work blur the boundaries between the 'simulative' and the 'real' and performances of the seriousness of work are turned into serious acts of work. This fuels activation programmes in particular and nourishes neo-liberal doctrine in general. But where does it leave the actors themselves?

Not to Be Hungry Is Not Enough: An Insight Into Contours of Inclusion and Exclusion in Affluent Western Societies

“…He summarizes his work endeavor: “What was good about the one‐euro job was that it forced me to wake up every morning and get out of the house.” His is hardly a unique voice: the theme of work's lack of utility, of workers just passing the time, repeats itself in many other informants' narratives. The interviewed immigrants tended to present the labor activation activities they were involved in—courses, one‐euro jobs, and the like—through the metaphor of “play.” The aim of this play, my informants say, is not actually solving the problem of employability and unemployment, but rather, staging a show of coping with the problem and forging an illusion of normalcy by creating artificial occupation schemes and work niches (Roberman ).…”

Re‐learning to labour? ‘Activation Works’ and new politics of social assistance in the case of Slovak Roma

“…These ‘failed citizens’ (Anderson ) were targeted with policies of activation observed in various modes, from various temporary (re‐)training courses and EU‐funded projects of ‘re‐learning’ working skills (Hurrle et al . ) to state work‐to‐deserve‐welfare programmes and many other programmes that have proliferated over the last decade (Roberman ; Serrano Pascual & Magnusson ; van Baar ; van Berkel & Borghi ; Wacquant ).…”

“…In the case of post‐Soviet immigrants in activation schemes in Germany, Roberman () discusses similar processes and calls these acts of simulation ‘performances of the seriousness of work’. In his ethnography of redundant workers at a former socialist car factory in Serbia, Rajković () develops a concept of ‘mock‐labour’ to refer to the blurred lines between the category of work and the matter of social assistance in the context of unproductivity and staged simulation of work.…”

“…paid in cash as fuška ) labour markets. Thus, the use of activation workers for more skilled tasks resembles the precarious situation which Roberman aptly characterizes as ‘“working non‐workers”: those who, although employed, remain without the economic and symbolic rewards that the normative jobs provide’ (: 335). The precarity of the AW participants’ situation lies in its paradoxical nature: although they perform work, they are unable to do the same type of work in a different capacity, either formal or informal, for better financial rewards.…”

“…Within this shift from more protective forms of welfare towards a more disciplinary workfare state (Wacquant 2010;, 3 the state no longer appeared responsible for the unemployment of the poor; instead, it deployed a line of defining and tackling this problem by considering it as 'benefit dependence' , 'lost working habits' , and/or 'poor individual attitudes' of a certain category of people, implicitly deeming these citizens failing and immoral. These 'failed citizens' (Anderson 2013) were targeted with policies of activation 4 observed in various modes, from various temporary (re-)training courses and EU-funded projects of 're-learning' working skills (Hurrle et al 2012) to state work-to-deserve-welfare programmes and many other programmes that have proliferated over the last decade (Roberman 2014;Serrano Pascual & Magnusson 2007;van Baar 2012;van Berkel & Borghi 2008;Wacquant 2010).…”