Isabelle Darmon

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.

‘Conduct of conduct’ or the shaping of ‘adequate dispositions’? Labour market and career guidance in four European countries

In this paper, we provide an analysis of the deployment of labour market and career guidance as an instrument of liberal governmental rationality, and hence as a key tool for shaping attitudes suitable for the labour market. We characterize such processes and their effects on both those in receipt of guidance and those delivering it, on the basis of a three-year study in France, Slovenia, Spain and the UK. This leads us to put forward the problematic character of the notion of ‘conduct of conduct’, especially owing to the conflation implied between adaptation to governmental ends and freedom. We suggest that Max Weber’s categories for depicting active adaptation in bureaucratic capitalism provide a more grounded grasp of the processes involved, and that the radical distinction he establishes between adaptation and the possibility of conduct may provide a new basis for conceptualizing resistance to liberal governmental rationality.

Senses and Sensibilities: Stabilising and Changing Tastes in Cross-National Couples

Abstract This article examines changes in tastes and practice in the context of establishing and maintaining a new cross-national couple relationship. Interviews provided accounts of the experience of change among fourteen Anglo-French couples. We describe two processes of change which, because accentuated in cross-national couples, reveal mechanisms lying behind the transformation and stabilisation of tastes and diets. Explanation of the evolution of taste and diet can be found in the interplay between aesthetic and ethical drives, incorporated bodily practices and social mechanisms of legitimation and integration. To make sense of gustatory and dietary change, tastes are best understood through their insertion in meaningful sequences, patterns and series.

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 on Music: Approaching Music as a Dynamic Domain of Action and Experience

Max Weber’s music writings (including his unfinished ‘Music Study’) have always mesmerized readers but their importance for analysing music as a cultural domain has only started to be acknowledged. This paper focuses on Weber’s approach to the inner ‘developmental momentum’ of the music domain through his study of the particular tension that pervaded Western harmonic music. By showing how composers, performers, instrument manufacturers, art recipients and the instruments themselves had to grapple with such tension, Weber was able to give an account of the inward connection to an art sphere and its structuring effects, whilst also bringing social, economic and technological factors to bear. In the current debate on the desirable ways for a renewed sociology of culture to develop, Weber’s music writings present us with a path at once precarious and bold, an account of inner connections and outer relations, which, against Weber himself, also provides bases for aesthetic judgement.

No 'New Spirit'? Max Weber's Account of the Dynamic of Contemporary Capitalism Through 'Pure Adaptation' and the Shaping of Adequate Subjects

This article takes issue with Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello’s already classic thesis according to which contemporary capitalism rests on a ‘new spirit’, bringing to bear a reading of Weber’s own account of the dynamic and spirit of the contemporary capitalism of his age, and of the way in which it mobilises workers and entrepreneurs. More specifically the article highlights Weber’s idea that advanced capitalism, far from relying on any ‘new spirit’, simply thrives by fostering ‘pure adaptation’ and both adequate and active ‘economic subjects’. This is shown to be due, in particular, to the dynamic of rationality and irrationality at the heart of the spirit that turned capitalism into a mass system.

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.

Editorial Statement: Tracing, Making and Locating Cultural Sociology:

An academic journal is a lot like an artwork. It is the product of collective activity, and the cooperation between participants is organised through joint knowledge of the conventional way of doing things. Editors, as core personnel, are expected to bring more than the technical skills required to assemble issue after issue; this status demands that they also have creative abilities and a vision that will lend the journal a distinctive character. The convention in the publishing world is for this vision to be articulated in the inaugural editorial statement, and depending on whether the editors see themselves as ‘integrated professionals’ or ‘mavericks’ (Becker, 1982), they also indicate the standards of taste to be upheld or introduced. While we will not deviate from this convention, we also see the editorial statement as a deeply symbolic act. It is the ritual equivalent in publishing to the handing over of keys, the changing of the guard, or the swearing in of new office holders. It is the editors’ first opportunity for social performance, where they can ‘display for others the meaning of their social situation’ (Alexander, 2004: 529), and their unwavering commitment to that which is held sacred in their scholarly community. Editorial statements by incoming editors capture a liminal moment in the life of the journal when it is betwixt and between the stewardship of old and new guardians. But in our case, the transition is laden with more significance, not just because it is the first handover in the journal’s history, but also because it aligned with its 10th anniversary volume. Milestones might be arbitrary temporal boundaries, but crossing into the journal’s second decade is experienced as a ‘mental quantum leap’ (Zerubavel, 1996) that prompts a form of biographical occasion to take stock of the journal’s history. To that end, we will begin our editorial statement by considering the position and legacy of the journal before placing ourselves in its unfolding narrative by offering our interpretation of the current state of the field. This sets the scene for the next section, where we reflect on what it means for the journal to serve as an ‘organ of self-consciousness’ (Inglis et al., 2007: 7) in cultural sociology today. In the final section, we identify some of the hot topics and critical conversations we would like to encourage in the journal, as well as our hopes for strengthening and widening the journal’s visibility.