Precariousness Community And Participation

This book attempts to explore the effects of neoliberalism on particular forms of community. Guy Standing (2011) has popularised the notion of precariousness to describe the unpredictable neoliberal conditions faced by radically different people throughout the world. Members of Standing’s ‘precariat’ lack occupational identities, treat work and other moneymaking activities instrumentally, are focused on the short-term and have no ‘shadow of the future’ hanging over their actions, leaving little incentive to sustain long-term relationships and productive, but unpaid, social activities. This issue presents an interdisciplinary account of the challenges faced by communities at a time in which neoliberalism seems unchecked and uncheckable by the rise of nationalist populism. At points, responses are presented, but it is perhaps reflective of the general sense of helplessness of those committed to tackling neoliberalism that the final article highlights serious deficits in an approach commonly presented as a practicable response: basic income. In the spirit of participation, each article is accompanied by a reply by a non-academic as well as an academic. This ought not to be seen as tokenism – the experience of the project has been that discussions can be advanced much more effectively through engagement with community members and professionals. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Global Discourse.

Does youth participation hold the potential to change entrenched systems of power and to reshape civic life? In Youth Power in Precarious Times Melissa Brough examines how the city of Medellín, Colombia, offers a model of civic transformation forged in the wake of violence and repression. She responds to a pressing contradiction in the world at large, where youth political participation has become a means of commodifying digital culture amid the ongoing disenfranchisement of youth globally. Brough focuses on how young people's civic participation online and in the streets in Medellín was central to the city's transformation from having the world's highest homicide rates in the early 1990s to being known for its urban renaissance by the 2010s. Seeking to distinguish commercialized digital interactions from genuine political participation, Brough uses Medellín's experiences with youth participation—ranging from digital citizenship initiatives to the voices of community media to the beats of hip-hop culture—to show how young people can be at the forefront of fostering ecologies of artistic and grassroots engagement in order to reshape civic life.

Drawing primarily on Judith Butler’s, Jacques Derrida’s, Emmanuel Levinas’s and Jean-Luc Nancy’s reflections on precariousness/precarity, the Self and the Other, ethical responsibility/obligation, forgiveness, hos(ti)pitality and community, the essays in this volume examine the various ways in which contemporary British drama and theatre engage with ‘the precarious’. Crucially, what emerges from the discussion of a wide range of plays – including Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem, Caryl Churchill’s Here We Go, Martin Crimp’s Fewer Emergencies and In the Republic of Happiness, Tim Crouch’s The Author, Forced Entertainment’s Tomorrow’s Parties, David Greig’s The American Pilot and The Events, Dennis Kelly’s Love and Money, Mark Ravenhill’s Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat, Philip Ridley’s Mercury Fur, Robin Soans’s Talking to Terrorists, Simon Stephens’s Pornography, theTheatre Uncut project, debbie tucker green’s dirty butterfly and Laura Wade’s Posh – is the observation that contemporary (British) drama and theatre often realises its thematic and formal/structural potential to the full precisely by reflecting upon the category and the episteme of precariousness, and deliberately turning audience members into active participants in the process of negotiating ethical agency.

This sharply argued book posits that urban revitalization—making "better" city living spaces from those that have been neglected due to racist city planning and divestment—is a code word for fraught, state-managed gentrification. Vanessa A. Rosa examines the revitalization of two Toronto public housing projects, Regent Park and Lawrence Heights, and uses this evidence to analyze the challenges of racial inequality and segregation at the heart of housing systems in many cities worldwide. Instead of promoting safety and belonging, Rosa argues that revitalization too often creates more intense exclusion. But the story of these housing projects also reveals how residents pushed back on the ideals of revitalization touted by city officials and policymakers. Rosa explores urban revitalization as a window to investigate broader questions about social regulation and the ways that racism, classism, and dynamics of inclusion/exclusion are foundational to liberal democratic societies, particularly as scholars continue to debate the politics of gentrification at the local level and the politics of integration and multiculturalism at the national level.

Precarious housing conditions are on the rise across Europe. Precarious housing refers to housing that is either unaffordable or unsuitable, for example, because it is overcrowded, in poor dwelling condition, poorly located or even unsafe. While there is much literature on the strong link between employment and housing insecurity and abundant investigations into different aspects of precarious housing, hardly any attempt has been made so far to provide a consolidated overview of the whole topic and thereby put these different facets into the joint perspective of housing-related poverty. This Critical Guide adds to the debate on causes, symptoms, consequences and possible solutions and makes them accessible for teaching, learning and self-study across multiple disciplines. It is the result of "PusH - Precarious Housing in Europe", a Strategic Partnership funded under Erasmus+. The seven chapters of this book examine a range of themes, focusing on how experiences of precarious housing intersect with other dynamics of precariousness, associated with insecure immigration status, racism and discrimination, class, wealth, and income disparities, and forms of homelessness and displacement. Each chapter draws on examples from across Europe to explore different experiences of precarious housing, and different responses to these conditions.

Since the renaissance of market politics on a global scale, precarious work has become pervasive. Divided into two parts, the first section of this cross-disciplinary book analyses the different forms of precarious work that have arisen over the past thirty years. These transformations are captured in ethnographically orientated chapters on sweatshops; day labour; homework; unpaid contract work of Chinese construction workers; the introduction of insecure contracting in the Korean automotive industry; and the insecurity of Brazilian cane cutters. The editors and contributors then collectively explore trade union initiatives in the face of precarious work and stimulate debate on the issue.

Examines the relationship of precarious employment to state policies on citizenship and social inclusion in the context of postapartheid South Africa.

Turkey now hosts the largest number of Syrian refugees in the world, more than 3.6 million of the 12.7 million displaced by the Syrian Civil War. Many of them are subject to an unpredictable temporary protection, forcing them to live under vulnerable and insecure conditions. The Precarious Lives of Syrians examines the three dimensions of the architecture of precarity: Syrian migrants' legal status, the spaces in which they live and work, and their movements within and outside Turkey. The difficulties they face include restricted access to education and healthcare, struggles to secure employment, language barriers, identity-based discrimination, and unlawful deportations. Feyzi Baban, Suzan Ilcan, and Kim Rygiel show that Syrians confront their precarious conditions by engaging in cultural production and community-building activities, and by undertaking perilous journeys to Europe, allowing them to claim spaces and citizenship while asserting their rights to belong, to stay, and to escape. The authors draw on migration policies, legal and scholarly materials, and five years of extensive field research with local, national, and international humanitarian organizations, and with Syrians from all walks of life. The Precarious Lives of Syrians offers a thoughtful and compelling analysis of migration precarity in our contemporary context.

Providing a radical new approach to labour migration, this book challenges the prevailing legal and political construction of the figure of the irregular migrant labourer, whilst at the same time reimagining this irregularity as the basis of an alternative, post-capitalist, sociality. The text draws on the work of contemporary philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, and more specifically his term ‘ecotechnics’, in order to examine how economic, political, and juridical norms deny the full legal status of certain people who are deemed to be irregular. This ostensible irregularity is revealed as a regular feature of labour market practice, and a necessary support for the conceptual foundations of capitalist legality. As this book shows, however, this legality – and with it, the technological subordination of life to the circulation of capital as if this were the only possibility for our being in the world – is not insurmountable. The book’s consideration of the figure of the irregular migrant labourer comes to provide an alternative basis for reimagining our relationship not only with migration and with labour itself, but ultimately with each other. This powerful analysis of contemporary labour migration is of considerable interest to legal and political theorists, philosophers, labour lawyers, migration experts, and others with theoretical, political, or policy interests in this area.

The condition of precariousness not only provides insights into a segment of the world of work or of a particular subject group, but is also a standpoint for an overview of the condition of the social on a global scale. Because precariousness is multidimensional and polysemantic, it traverses contemporary society and multiple contexts, from industrial to class, gender, family relations as well as political participation, citizenship and migration. This book maps the differences and similarities in the ways precariousness and insecurity in employment and beyond unfold and are subjectively experienced in regions and sectors that are confronted with different labour histories, legislations and economic priorities. Establishing a constructive dialogue amongst different global regions and across disciplines, the chapters explore the shift from precariousness to precariat and collective subjects as it is being articulated in the current global crisis. This edited collection aims to continue a process of mapping experiences by means of ethnographies, fieldwork, interviews, content analysis, where the precarious define their condition and explain how they try to withdraw from, cope with or embrace it. This is valuable reading for students and academics interested in geography, sociology, economics and labour studies.