The “Precarious Generation” and the “Natives of the Ruins”: The Multiple Dimensions of Generational Identity in Italian Labor Struggles in Times of Crisis

Abstract

Focusing on mobilizations around work, this article sheds light on generational identity as it emerges in activists involved in labor struggles in Italy in the past few years. Do Italian “millennial” activists perceive themselves as part of the same political generation? What are its main traits? And are the contextual elements that define it linked more to socioeconomic context or to experiences of collective action? The analysis shows a clear self-identification of Italian millennials, in the context of labor struggles, as “the precarious generation”: a generation mostly affected by the socioeconomic conditions of the past few years, with the explosion of labor precarity, of the economic crisis, and more generally, of neoliberal policies. While this shared identity refers to a specific socioeconomic context, there is a difference related to the experience of political mobilization: Activists are rather pessimistic when focusing on the youngest component of their generation, usually described as more individualist, due to their lack of exposure to intense waves of political mobilization. The contribution explores the multidimensional nature of generational identity and its asymmetric nature: If both the socioeconomic context and the experience of political socialization play a role in shaping a political generation, these dynamics do not always go hand in hand, and activists tend to actively work to reconcile the different dimensions of their generational identity into a coherent narrative.

‘What have you done to our world?’: The rise of a global generational voice

“…This is a criticism very frequently made of ‘generationalism’ by Bourdieu (1980): ‘generation’ must not become an optical illusion hiding strong intra-generational inequalities (Purhonen, 2016). Moreover, it is still very difficult to verify empirically the existence of a ‘generation consciousness’ (Thorpe and Inglis, 2019), as its operationalisation is difficult on an international scale: to date, research on this issue has focussed on a targeted sample of youth activists (Della Porta, 2019; Zamponi, 2019).…”

Youth multidimensional political activism between singularization and mutualism: the case of Up network

“…While the interviewees in our research sample claimed to be a generational unit sharing the same historical experience -that of being in the 'perfect storm' cumulating economic and environmental crises -they primarily expressed a new political stance more in tune with a context of post-industrial capitalism. This was especially evident in some areas of mobilization, such as workers' rights and struggles against precariousness, where identifying oneself with a generational unit is also a way to cope with the risk of individualist attitudes as 'exit strategy' (della Porta, 2019;Zamponi, 2019).…”

Precarious Workers’ Wellbeing: Identity Development Through Online Discourses of Quiet Quitting

“…However, a considerable stream of research has highlighted the increasing precariousness of work (e.g. Kalleberg & Vallas, 2017;Petriglieri et al, 2019;Zamponi, 2019), which denotes a trend in which less-secure employment arrangements replace more conventional employment relationships (Lewchuk & Dassinger, 2016). Precarious work may prevent workers to forge strong attachments to an organization, making it challenging to create and sustain a stable workplace identity (Petriglieri et al, 2019).…”