The Deconstruction of Employment as a Political Question: 'Employment' as a Floating Signifier - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 3319936166 ISBN 13: 9783319936161

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

Synopsis

The wide-ranging European perspectives brought together in this volume aim to analyse, by means of an interdisciplinary approach, the numerous implications of a massive shift in the conception of ‘work’ and the category of ‘worker’. Changes in the production models, economic downturn and increasing digitalisation have triggered a breakdown in the terms and assumptions that previously defined and shaped the notion of employment. This has made it more difficult to discuss, and problematise, issues like vulnerability in employment in such terms as unfairness, inequality and inadequate protection. Taking the ‘deconstruction of employment’ as a central idea for theorising the phenomenon of work today, this volume explores the emergence of new semantic fields and territories for understanding and regulating employment. These new linguistic categories have implications beyond language alone: they reformulate the very concept of waged employment (including those aspects previously considered intrinsic to the meaning of work and of being ‘a worker’), along with other closely associated categories such as unemployment, self-employment, and inactivity.

About this title

About the Author

Amparo Serrano-Pascual is Professor of Sociology and Social Psychology at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain. 

 

Maria Jepsen is Director of Research at the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), Belgium, and Associate Professor of Labour Economics at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium. 

 

From the Back Cover

The wide-ranging European perspectives collected here aim to analyse, by means of an interdisciplinary approach, the numerous implications of a massive shift in the conception of “work” and the category of “worker.” Economic crisis and digitalization have exacerbated a crisis in those categories of thought and political action that previously allowed us to discuss―and problematize―vulnerability in employment in terms of unfairness, inequality, and inadequate protection. Engaging with the deconstruction of traditional employment as a central category for theorizing the phenomenon of work, this volume explores the new semantic fields and territories that have become available for theorising, understanding, and regulating employment. These new linguistic categories have implications beyond language alone: they produce a reformulation of the conventional wisdom concerning the whole category of waged employment (aspects previously taken for granted as to the meaning of work and of being“a worker”), as well as other closely associated categories such as unemployment, self-employment, or inactivity.

Edition details

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3319936166
• ISBN 13: 9783319936161
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 364
• Editor: Serrano-Pascual Amparo, Jepsen Maria