Emancipation of Career

'My hope is that, after reading this book, you will find that the emancipation of careers is not merely a utopian dream but, in many ways, an existing reality and therefore a feasible project for individuals, communities, institutions and societies to pursue."Sanna Toiviainen, Associate Professor, University of South-Eastern NorwayThis fascinating research monograph offers a new and comprehensive analysis of how career:emerged as a social categorycan be more rigorously theorised to support future analysis, andcan be reconceptualised to support new forms of living and working.Tristram Hooley and Rie Thomsen explore the concept of career in contemporary society and sociology, establishing career as an explanatory category for critical social analysis. They argue that the concept of career can also form part of a project of personal and societal emancipation.Drawing on historical, sociological and psychological evidence, the authors describe the contemporary environment for careers. Through a thorough analysis of the forms and rhetorics of career, they reconceptualise the concept, untethering it from its origins in twentieth-century capitalism and reimagining it as an emancipatory and democratic concept. This prompts them to consider how career can support people to rethink their lives and what they derive meaning from, imagine better worlds, and develop new forms of society.To date, research on career has largely confined itself to particular strands: the experience of the individual and how to support career development (career studies); the organisation (organisation and management studies); or, more rarely, how career fits into political economy and ideal society (sociology, economics and political science). This ground-breaking book brings these strands together to develop a new theory of career.