A Cultural Analysis of Collective Action against Precarity: The Moral Economy of Dignity

• In Event: 30426 - Cultural Processes of Worker Mobilization

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a consistent rise in studies centered around precarity that look at various political and economic conditions and consequences of this phenomenon. At the same time, however, there remains a significant lack of studies that take a deeper look at the cultural processes that shape worker mobilizations against precarious working conditions. While some scholars have speculated about the inherent contradictions within political and economic forces giving rise to flexible capitalism and non-standard employment relations, few have gone beyond studying campaigns with the aim of producing a list of successful strategies for labor victories. Cultural analysis has been predominantly focused on workers who have internalized and rationalized the constant disruptions and feelings of insecurity that rising precarity has given rise to. This has resulted in a limited understanding of worker agency in framing their own opposition to precarity. How do workers involved in collective action perceive precarious work? What cultural scripts do they rely on to justify their opposition to practices associated with it? Using ethnographic and interview data from two worker mobilization efforts in the service industry (rideshare and restaurant workers), I argue that workers construct their opposition to precarious working conditions by creating a coherent moral economic viewpoint that centers dignity as a fundamental aspect of the transaction between labor and capital. Workers neither completely oppose technological and organizational changes often associated with rising precarity nor do their actions simply reflect local dissatisfaction with workplace policies. Rather, by drawing from cultural ideas surrounding work that include both the recent past and the projected future, workers frame concrete material issues as dehumanizing and disrespectful. While the issues themselves reflect the specificities of the different groups of workers in the study, a coherent and shared moral economic vision demanding respect and recognition rationalizes the opposition itself.

Author

• Arnab Chakraborty, University of Southern California