Deadline Submission: 31st January 2012
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In the past decades, deep economic and social transformations had a major impact on work, redefining its role at individual and collective level. There have been major changes that produced opportunities for workers but, at the same time, new challenges to the affirmation of their dignity and rights.
Work has no longer the same central dimension in the society as it used to have in the industrial era – not much because of its lesser importance in the construction of individuals’ identities – but, as expression of subjectivity, is now articulated by individuals in every dimension of their existence. Even if it’s no longer the primary vector of collective identities, work can certainly not be conceived as secondary for the life of the individual. Work maintains a well-defined role in the construction of individual biographies, both considering the positive aspects for self-determination and assertion of the existence of subjectivity then, on the other hand, considering the negative aspects on personality, such as corrosion of one’s temper.
The innovation of technologies and processes, the development of the Internet, the increasing access to education, reflected not only on products but on the ways in which they are produced. The gradual growth of used knowledge in work has opened up the possibilities for emancipation of individuals foreshadowing new paradigms in which knowledge is seen as essential, enhancing the creativity and skills of individuals. Nevertheless, we are nowadays witnessing to the emergence of new modes of exploitation, due to the accentuation of specific forms of domination increasingly pervasive that, on one hand, refer to practices of domination and, on the other hand, go straight to the discipline resulted in the internalization of subordination.
These modes of exploitation are accompanied by a variation of the insecurity that goes beyond the single dimension of work, to be extended to the existential dimension. In general terms, the logic of market and profit seems to impose itself on the chance to achieve individual and universal rights, leading to a crisis of democracy and representation that accompanies the economic one.
In opposition to these dynamics, different forms of reaction emerge. In some cases the individual isolation is transformed into an extreme individualism, aimed primarily at obtaining personal benefits. In other cases the need for protection involves the strengthening of professional corporatism, local and of other kinds.
Both instrumental individualism and communitarianism hinder the definition of a collective strategy for the affirmation of fundamental and universal rights, enabling the affirmation of each individual, through their work opportunities (careers).
On the other hand, forms of processing, strength and pursuit of alternatives to local and international emerge, aiming at affirming the dignity of labour and universal rights.
The third issue of New Cultural Frontiers aims at discuss these issues, accepting both theoretical or empirical, contributions encouraging a multidisciplinary approach to the debate