Carlos Frade

New modes of business organization and precarious employment: Towards the recommodification of labour?

While much of the international debate on the future of work focuses on the links between new forms of employment and social protection, and especially on transitions between jobs, this paper addresses a still under-researched issue: the interconnections between employment regulations and business strategies in the production of precarious employment. It seeks to make a contribution to a new strand of research which has emerged in France, Britain and the United States and has cast light on the link between new modes of business organization and new forms of employment. The paper particularly highlights labour recommodification processes as the key instrument in this link and illustrates the dynamics at play in three service sectors known for a high incidence of precarious employment - call centres, performing arts, and domiciliary care for the elderly, in five European countries.

Social theory and the politics of big data and method

This article is an intervention in the debate on big data. It seeks to show, first, that behind the wager to make sociology more relevant to the digital there lies a coherent if essentially unstated vision and a whole stance which are more a symptom of the current world than a resolute endeavour to think that world through; hence the conclusion that the perspective prevailing in the debate lacks both the theoretical grip and the practical impulse to initiate a much needed renewal of social theory and sociology. Second, and more importantly, the article expounds an alternative view and shows by thus doing that other possibilities of engaging the digital can be pursued. The article is therefore an invitation to widen the debate on big data and the digital and a call for a more combative social theory.

Gobernar a otros y gobernarse a sí mismo según la razón política liberal (Governing others and governing oneself according to the liberal political reason)

Este articulo intenta analizar la razon politica liberal en sus dos arenas de despliegue privilegiadas: la relacion de empleo en lo que concierne a gobernar a otros y la agencia empresarial en lo que concierne a gobernarse a si mismo. Propone un marco teorico para abordar la razon politica liberal como razon gubernamental, a la vez que trata de ilustrarlo mediante algunos analisis y estudios empiricos concretos. El articulo parte de una lectura critica de Foucault y los estudios de gubernamentalidad y, en esencia, aspira a mostrar el doble imperativo, normalmente no reconocido, en que se fundamenta el liberalismo, consistente en aumentar la exposicion de individuos y poblaciones al mercado y en someter ambos a la disciplina y a los controles cada vez mas ferreos que tal exposicion inevitablemente conlleva. En particular, se muestra como la norma de empleo ha sido debilitada, y en parte sustituida, por un modelo de sujeto y de comportamiento impulsado por las politicas de empleabilidad y activacion, mientras que las grandes empresas y los negocios tienden cada vez mas a convertirse en puros modos de agencia revestidos de formas organizacionales cambiables y capaces de sustraerse a la inscripcion legal, a la trazabilidad estadistica y, en general, al control del Estado.

Formadores y usuarios frente al doble vínculo de la formación para la empleabilidad

This paper describes a field study carried out in three European countries (Belgium, France and the United Kingdom ) on the training of people in long-term unemployment. It throws light on what is involved in transforming vocational training organizations into labour market mediators, as advocated in the literature on transitions and the official discourse about activating social protection. In particular, this study shows the contradictory requirements weighing on the training organisation responsible for assisting the most vulnerable unemployed persons and reintegrating them into the world of work, since these organizations have had to classify jobseekers as either «employable» or «unemployable». Training organizations therefore occupy one of the

Weber and Simmel's philosophical and political stances : a dialogue in three acts

This article is an imagined dialogue between Weber and Simmel which makes a modest use of some of the resources of theatrical play in order to provide an overall portrait of both thinkers and to bring their thought to bear on our present. The dialogue consists of three acts focused on three central problematics in as many critical moments in Weber and Simmel’s lives: Act I takes place during the preparations for the first conference of the German Sociological Association and thus deals with the constitution of sociology as a socio-cultural science. Act II takes place amid the First World War and its theme is evidently politics. Finally, Act III, where our two characters correspond instead of maintaining a face-to-face dialogue, is situated towards the end of the war and focuses on the attitude to life and indeed to death, as Simmel’s tragic yet admirable death takes place then. A brief introduction explains how we tried to use the possibilities of the dialogical form to expound Weber’s and Simmel’s thought, to compel them to confront their own blind spots and ‘unthoughts’, as well as to explore new ways of teaching the classics and transmitting their thought.

Theatrical dialogue in teaching the classics

This article addresses some fundamental affinities between theatre and teaching and is based on emerging work in a long-term experiment which we began in the conference ‘Weber/Simmel Antagonisms: Staged Dialogues’, held at the University of Edinburgh on December 2015. Aimed at exploring the possibilities of the theatrical and dialogical forms for teaching the classics of social and cultural theory, it is a risky experiment whose initial results are presented in this special issue. In order to introduce the dialogues and situate them in the context of the broader project, the article does three things: first, it expounds the process of subjectivation at work in both theatre and teaching and explores some of the modalities of the subjective shift sought for in the public and students. Second, it explains the specificity of this experiment by contrasting it with other uses of theatrical dialogue in teaching. Finally, before briefly introducing each of the dialogues, the article clarifies the fundamental difference between the dialogical form and debate, as radically separating them is at the heart of any experiment in subjectivation, away from the stirring of opinions.