You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
"Demographic and technological trends have yielded new forms of work that are increasingly more precarious, globalized, and brand centered. Some of these shifts have led to a marked decrease in the visibility of work or workers. This edited collection examines situations in which technology and employment practices hide labor within the formal paid labor market, with implications for workplace activism, social policy, and law. In some cases, technological platforms, space, and temporality hide workers and sometimes obscure their tasks as well. In other situations, workers may be highly visible--indeed, the employer may rely upon the workers' aesthetics to market the branded product--but thei...
"As workers attempt new modes of employment in the era of the Great Resignation, they face a labor landscape that is increasingly uncertain and stubbornly unequal. With Handcrafted Careers, sociologist Eli Revelle Yano Wilson dives head-first into the everyday lives of workers in the craft beer industry to address key questions facing American workers today--about what makes a good career, who gets to have one, and how career progress in craft brewing might unfold. Wilson argues that what ends up contributing to divergent career paths in craft beer is a complex interplay of workers' own social connections, personal tastes, and cultural ideas about work, as well as crucial industry structures that are exclusionary. The culture of work in craft beer is based around normative white male ideals that can lead to select opportunities for some while limiting the advancement of women and people of color. A fresh perspective on this and other similar niche industries, Handcrafted Careers offers key insights into how people navigate worlds of work that promote ideas of authenticity and passion yet in reality can be unpredictable"--Provided by publisher.
Transnational customer service workers are an emerging touchstone of globalization given their location at the intersecting borders of identity, class, nation, and production. Unlike outsourced manufacturing jobs, call center work requires voice-to-voice conversation with distant customers; part of the product being exchanged in these interactions is a responsive, caring, connected self. In Phone Clones, Kiran Mirchandani explores the experiences of the men and women who work in Indian call centers through one hundred interviews with workers in Bangalore, Delhi, and Pune. As capital crosses national borders, colonial histories and racial hierarchies become inextricably intertwined. As a resu...
Why do people work for other people? This seemingly naïve question is at the heart of Lordon's argument. To complement Marx's partial answers, especially in the face of the disconcerting spectacle of the engaged, enthusiastic employee, Lordon brings to bear a "Spinozist anthropology" that reveals the fundamental role of affects and passions in the employment relationship, reconceptualizing capitalist exploitation as the capture and remolding of desire. A thoroughly materialist reading of Spinoza's Ethics allows Lordon to debunk all notions of individual autonomy and self-determination while simultaneously saving the ideas of political freedom and liberation from capitalist exploitation. Willing Slaves of Capital is a bold proposal to rethink capitalism and its transcendence on the basis of the contemporary experience of work.
What is work? Is it simply a burden to be tolerated or something more meaningful to one's sense of identity and self-worth? And why does it matter? In a uniquely thought-provoking book, John W. Budd presents ten historical and contemporary views of work from across the social sciences and humanities. By uncovering the diverse ways in which we conceptualize work—such as a way to serve or care for others, a source of freedom, a source of income, a method of psychological fulfillment, or a social relation shaped by class, gender, race, and power—The Thought of Work reveals the wide-ranging nature of work and establishes its fundamental importance for the human experience. When we work, we e...
"In her beautifully written, deeply researched, and elegantly argued book, Lynne Haney shows how much American policy-makers can learn from Hungary's social welfare experience. By unpacking the very different strategies that Hungary has adopted during the past half-century, Haney's account illuminates basic policy choices about how a society—any society—addresses the problems of poverty. It makes indispensable reading for those, on both sides of the Atlantic, who care about the lives of the poor."—David Kirp, author of Gender Justice "Inventing the Needy is a theoretically engaged and methodologically innovative ethnography of Hungarian welfare regimes from 1948 to 1996. Studying the s...
"Disability and the Academic Job Market" examines ableist structures in academia that inherently create obstacles to full-time employment for people with a disability. Based on historical and contemporary scholarship, it has been shown how disclosure of a disability can have profound repercussions for a scholar with a disability. Scholars with a disability are often inhibited from applying to or being promoted in academia because of direct discrimination, negative perception towards people with a disability, inaccessible physical and performance conditions, and social models of disability that characterize disability as unproductive, abnormal, and risky. While scholarship has addressed ablei...
The fabulous gown, the multitiered cake, abundant flowers, attendants and guests in their finery. The white wedding does more than mark a life passage. It marries two of the most sacred tenets of American culture—romantic love and excessive consumption. For anyone who has ever wondered about the meanings behind a white dress, a diamond ring, rice, and traditions such as cake cutting, bouquet tossing, and honeymooning, this book offers an entertaining and enlightening look at the historical, social, and psychological strains that come together to make the lavish wedding the most important cultural ritual in contemporary consumer culture. With an emphasis on North American society, Cele C. O...
Women's Activism and Globalization is a broad and comprehensive collection that shows how women activists across the globe are responding to the forces of the new world order in their communities. The first person accounts and regional case studies provide a truly global view of women working in their communities for change. The essays examine women in urban, rural, and suburban locations around the world to provide a rich understanding of the common themes as well as significant divergences among women activists in different parts of the world.
“Precarious work” contributes to rampant inequality, increased insecurity, and the crisis of public and mental health. “Gigs, Hustles, and Temps” explains why. In this profoundly troubling and incisive look at the state of work and welfare in Canada, Jason Foster reveals the long, often-hidden process that has left our jobs less secure, our livelihoods more uncertain, and the pockets of Canada’s wealthy fatter than ever. This phenomenon, the rise of “precarious work,” touches the entire economy and contributes to levels of income inequality unseen since the early 20th century. Our world is less secure than it has been in generations. Gigs, Hustles, and Temps describes how we go...