Postcapitalist precarious work and those in the 'drivers' seat: Exploring the motivations and lived experiences of Uber drivers in Canada

In this inductive, qualitative study, we observe how Uber, a company often hailed as being the poster-child of the sharing economy facilitated through a digital platform may also at times represent and reinforce postcapitalist hyper-exploitation. Drawing on the motivations and lived experiences of 31 Uber drivers in Toronto, Canada, we provide insights into three groups of Uber drivers: (1) those that are driving part-time to earn extra money in conjunction with studying or doing other jobs; (2) those that are unemployed and for whom driving for Uber is the only source of income; (3) professional drivers, who are trying to keep pace with the durable digital landscape and competitive marketplace. We emphasize the ways in which each driver group simultaneously acknowledges and rejects their own precarious employment by distancing techniques such as minimizing the risks and accentuating the advantages of the driver role. We relate these findings to a broader discussion about how driving for Uber fuels the traditional capitalist narrative that working hard and having a dream will lead to advancement, security and success. We conclude by discussing other alternative economies within the sharing economy

The Cosmos of a Public Sector Township: Democracy as an Intellectual Culture

The public sector plays an important role in responding to the rights of citizens and evolving norms of social interest (Qu 2015). Qu argues that the nature of public enterprise is never final and there is a constant negotiation between the private and the public emergence of life and rights. One such space where the tension between the private and the public manifests itself is the public sector township or the residential colony in India. The sociality of hierarchy in public sector organizations manifest itself in the public sector township and may nurture everyday aspirations, angsts and divides. The officer lives in a bigger hone, in a bungalow, and the clerk lives in a smaller home, many times with a larger family. [excerpt

The perils of project-based work: Attempting resistance to extreme work practices in video game development

This article examines two blogs written by the spouses of game developers about extreme and exploitative working conditions in the video game industry and the associated reader comments. The wives of these video game developers and members of the game community decry these working conditions and challenge dominant ideologies about making games. This article contributes to the work intensification literature by challenging the belief that long hours are necessary and inevitable to make successful games, discussing the negative toll of extreme work on workers and their families, and by highlighting that the project-based structure of game development both creates extreme work conditions and inhibits resistance. It considers how extreme work practices are legitimized through neo-normative control mechanisms made possible through project-based work structures and the perceived imperative of a race or ‘crunch’ to meet project deadlines. The findings show that neo-normative control mechanisms create an insularity within project teams and can make it difficult for workers to resist their own extreme working conditions, and at times to even understand them as extreme

Exploring the Identities of North American Yoga Teachers From Different Perspectives on the Self

This qualitative study explores the work and identities of a sample of twenty-seven North American yoga teachers from two different ontological, epistemological and methodological perspectives. This study illustrates how the self can be understood and constructed in different ways using different readings of the interview material. The first reading of the interview material uses a symbolic interactionist approach and illustrates how a yoga teacher creates a sense of self using the meanings that they assign to their experiences. The second reading of the interview material employs Foucaults notions of power/knowledge and subjectivity and suggests that yoga teachers sense of self is constituted by various discourses. Here, yoga teachers have agency in selecting their subject position and how they wish to locate themselves within the discourses, but they are not able to operate outside of discourse. These readings of the self and identities are at times complementary and, at others, contradictory. Taking these readings together, this study contributes some important insights to the body work literature surrounding womens motivations for this form of body work/ care work, the interconnections between care roles and the leisure-framing of work that individuals may undergo for their own physical and emotional well-being

Globalization, academic knowledge interests and the global careers discourse

Purpose: This paper aims to present two objectives. The first objective is to identify the academic knowledge interests (managerial, agentic, curatorial and critical) prevalent in research on global careers. The second objective is to consider and critique the discourse constructed and perpetuated in academic texts on global careers concerning globalization, global careers and the global careerist. Design/methodology/approach: Using a critical discourse analysis, the paper analyzes 66 articles and book chapters and one book on the subject of a global career. The authors positioned the texts into one of the four academic knowledge interests – managerial, agentic, curatorial and critical. The texts were also analyzed with respect to the discourse manifested in relation to globalization, global careers and the global careerist. Findings: The authors found that the texts were driven by primarily managerial academic knowledge interests, followed by agentic and curatorial interests. Very few reflected critical knowledge interests. In addition, texts on global careers accept the globalization of business as natural and unproblematic and, consequently, construct a discourse about the global career and the global careerist which fits the idea that global business expansion in its current form is inevitable and inescapable. Originality/value: This paper is the first to analyze the academic knowledge production and discourse on “global careers” and the “global careerist” as it is emerging among career scholars. It is also one of the very few articles offering a more critical perspective on global careers specifically and careers more generally

A juggly mummys life history of teaching yoga: embodied postfeminism and neoliberal spirituality.

In this chapter, we unpack the embodied and economic precarity that envelops spiritual body work, such as yoga teaching, in neoliberal economies. Using a life history approach, we illustrate how Maria – a part-time yoga teacher and single mum of two – navigates acute experiences of embodiment (ill health, childbearing and childrearing) and the economic precarity of supporting herself and her family. We theorize how the mobilization of spirituality through doing and teaching yoga represents a reprieve and health-management tool, but also produces and reinforces neoliberal, postmaternal and postfeminist discourses. This ultimately results in the individualization of responsibility in terms of work, but also personal health and family demands

The perils of project-based work: Attempting resistance to extreme work practices in video game development

This article examines two blogs written by the spouses of game developers about extreme and exploitative working conditions in the video game industry and the associated reader comments. The wives of these video game developers and members of the game community decry these working conditions and challenge dominant ideologies about making games. This article contributes to the work intensification literature by challenging the belief that long hours are necessary and inevitable to make successful games, discussing the negative toll of extreme work on workers and their families, and by highlighting that the project-based structure of game development both creates extreme work conditions and inhibits resistance. It considers how extreme work practices are legitimized through neo-normative control mechanisms made possible through project-based work structures and the perceived imperative of a race or ‘crunch’ to meet project deadlines. The findings show that neo-normative control mechanisms create an insularity within project teams and can make it difficult for workers to resist their own extreme working conditions, and at times to even understand them as extreme

Postcapitalist precarious work and those in the ‘drivers’ seat: Exploring the motivations and lived experiences of Uber drivers in Canada

This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Organization and the definitive published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508418757332In this inductive, qualitative study, we observe how Uber, a company often hailed as being the poster-child of the sharing economy facilitated through a digital platform may also at times represent and reinforce postcapitalist hyper-exploitation. Drawing on the motivations and lived experiences of 31 Uber drivers in Toronto, Canada, we provide insights into three groups of Uber drivers: (1) those that are driving part-time to earn extra money in conjunction with studying or doing other jobs; (2) those that are unemployed and for whom driving for Uber is the only source of income; (3) professional drivers, who are trying to keep pace with the durable digital landscape and competitive marketplace. We emphasize the ways in which each driver group simultaneously acknowledges and rejects their own precarious employment by distancing techniques such as minimizing the risks and accentuating the advantages of the driver role. We relate these findings to a broader discussion about how driving for Uber fuels the traditional capitalist narrative that working hard and having a dream will lead to advancement, security and success. We conclude by discussing other alternative economies within the sharing economy