Gretchen Purser – författare

The Covid-19 pandemic both popularized and politicized the designation of essential work. Interrogating the dialectics of essential work, this volume of Research in the Sociology of Work presents original research that explores the essentiality of work and highlights the experiences of essential workers during the pandemic, drawing on empirical studies in Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. Demonstrating an enduring struggle for recognition and dignity, as well as for revaluing and materially rewarding essential work, contributors examine the emotional labour involved in gendered care work, the impact of COVID-19 on residential care work, the politics of essentiality and the diversity and intersectional inequality of essential workforces. The final chapters are the first of a new recurring section spotlighting ethnography by presenting both new empirical research and in-depth reviews of extant contributions. Raising pressing questions about the essence of work and its place in contemporary society, Essentiality of Work inspires new debates about the centrality of the work experience and how labour is understood in modern life both for those undertaking work as well as those who benefit.

The Covid-19 pandemic both popularized and politicized the designation of essential work. Interrogating the dialectics of essential work, this volume of Research in the Sociology of Work presents original research that explores the essentiality of work and highlights the experiences of essential workers during the pandemic, drawing on empirical studies in Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. Demonstrating an enduring struggle for recognition and dignity, as well as for revaluing and materially rewarding essential work, contributors examine the emotional labour involved in gendered care work, the impact of COVID-19 on residential care work, the politics of essentiality and the diversity and intersectional inequality of essential workforces. The final chapters are the first of a new recurring section spotlighting ethnography by presenting both new empirical research and in-depth reviews of extant contributions. Raising pressing questions about the essence of work and its place in contemporary society, Essentiality of Work inspires new debates about the centrality of the work experience and how labour is understood in modern life both for those undertaking work as well as those who benefit.

Employability has become an increasingly widespread concept both in management and policy, but its meaning remains somewhat enigmatic and ambiguous. This volume offers a much-needed critical analysis of the ideology, practices, and policies of employability, reflecting significant transformations in the world of work and the individualizing experience of contemporary labour markets. This volume draws on a wide range of empirical studies to examine how discourses of employability have impacted both individuals and institutions.

Employability is often framed as an attribute of a person whereby individuals are lauded as “employable” or dismissed as “unemployable.” This language and logic of employability has spawned all kinds of myopic supply-side labour market policies coinciding with and giving fuel to neoliberal emphases on individual responsibility and commodification. The chapters in this volume employ diverse theoretical perspectives on the impact of employability across different empirical settings, including higher education, vocational training, and state policymaking, in the UK, US, Australia, Germany, and Brazil.

Arguing that employability has an elusive character that renders it in dire need of sustained, critical analysis, Employability provides a much-needed framework for thinking about the enigma of employability and for critically reappraising its consequences.

Employability has become an increasingly widespread concept both in management and policy, but its meaning remains somewhat enigmatic and ambiguous. This volume offers a much-needed critical analysis of the ideology, practices, and policies of employability, reflecting significant transformations in the world of work and the individualizing experience of contemporary labour markets. This volume draws on a wide range of empirical studies to examine how discourses of employability have impacted both individuals and institutions.

Employability is often framed as an attribute of a person whereby individuals are lauded as “employable” or dismissed as “unemployable.” This language and logic of employability has spawned all kinds of myopic supply-side labour market policies coinciding with and giving fuel to neoliberal emphases on individual responsibility and commodification. The chapters in this volume employ diverse theoretical perspectives on the impact of employability across different empirical settings, including higher education, vocational training, and state policymaking, in the UK, US, Australia, Germany, and Brazil.

Arguing that employability has an elusive character that renders it in dire need of sustained, critical analysis, Employability provides a much-needed framework for thinking about the enigma of employability and for critically reappraising its consequences.

Presenting cutting-edge ethnographic research on contemporary worlds of work and the experiences of workers from a range of contexts, Volume 35 of Research in the Sociology of Work offers fine-grained, exploratory ethnographic data to provide insights unmatched by other research methods.

Conscious of the social and economic upheaval that continues to transform the contemporary workplace and the wider landscape for workers across the globe, Ethnographies of Work, the first of two parts, features analyses of working from home, the gig economy, the food delivery sector, digital nomadism, workplace inequalities, the hospitality industry, and an alternative community. Rooted in ethnographic research, chapters also include ethnographers’ reflections on their experiences in careers outside of academia, as well as their personal feelings of precarity both within and beyond the field to create an enriched volume that makes the most of ethnographic through its representation in a variety of written forms.