The precariousness of knowledge workers (Part 1): hybridisation, self-employment and subjectification
As new forms of precariousness spread across global labour markets, knowledge workers are placed in acutely contradictory positions. Required to be creative on the one hand and adaptable on the other, the demands of intensification, standardisation and self-commodification are inextricably intertwined with the ethics of self-activation. In this, the first of two special issues on the precariousness of knowledge workers, guest editors Annalisa Murgia, Lara Maestripieri and Emiliana Armano have brought together an impressive collection of empirical studies from across Europe, with theoretical insights from Brazil, focusing particularly on the ways in which the hybridisation of work and subjectification of workers are interlinked with new forms of self-employment.
Contents
The precariousness of knowledge workers: hybridisation, self-employment and subjectification
by Emiliana Armano, Annalisa Murgia and Lara Maestripieri
Effects of project-based research work on the career paths of young academics
by Maria Norkus, Nina Baur, and Cristina Besio
Knowledge work intensification and self-management: the autonomy paradox
by Oscar Pérez-Zapata, Amparo Serrano Pascual, Gloria Álvarez-Hernández and Cecilia Castaño Collado
Dimensions of precariousness: Independent Professionals between market risks and entrapment in poor occupational careers
by Paolo Borghi, Guido Cavalca and Ivana Fellini
Rejection, adoption or conversion: the three ways of being a young graduate auto-entrepreneur
by Elsa Vivant
‘Invisible, solidary, unbranded and passionate’. Everyday life as a freelance and precarious worker in four Italian radio stations
by Tiziano Bonini and Alessandro Gandini
New forms of employment in a globalised world: three figures of knowledge workers
by Marie-Christine Bureau and Antonella Corsani
Inventing new rights: precarity and the recognition of the productive dimension of life
by Carolina Solomao and Solange Souza
Work organisation, labour & globalisation 