In the social factory? Immaterial labour, precariousness and cultural work

This article introduces a special section concerned with precariousness and cultural work. Its aim is to bring into dialogue three bodies of ideas -- the work of the autonomous Marxist 'Italian laboratory'; activist writings about precariousness and precarity; and the emerging empirical scholarship concerned with the distinctive features of cultural work, at a moment when artists, designers and (new) media workers have taken centre stage as a supposed 'creative class' of model entrepreneurs. The paper is divided into three sections. It starts by introducing the ideas of the autonomous Marxist tradition, highlighting arguments about the autonomy of labour, informational capitalism and the 'factory without walls', as well as key concepts such as multitude and immaterial labour. The impact of these ideas and of Operaismo politics more generally on the precarity movement is then considered in the second section, discussing some of the issues that have animated debate both within and outside this movement, which has often treated cultural workers as exemplifying the experiences of a new 'precariat'. In the third and final section of the paper we turn to the empirical literature about cultural work, pointing to its main features before bringing it into debate with the ideas already discussed. Several points of overlap and critique are elaborated -- focusing in particular on issues of affect, temporality, subjectivity and solidarity

After anti-racism?

Anti-racism as a political discourse and a form of collective social action has long been ignored as a serious field of research. In contrast, I envision the study of anti-racism as a vital lens on both 'race' and racism. First, the heterogeneity of anti-racism is demonstrated, spanning both pro- and anti-state-based analyses of the origins of racism. Second, a parallel discourse of 'anti-anti-racism' within the radical Left reveals the reluctance of many on the Left to identify the anti-racist project with anything other than its officialized, state-endorsed version. This raises important questions about the possibility for autonomy from paternalist control in the construction of radical anti-racisms. The article examines the relationship to anti-racism within these three shifts from anti-racism, to anti-anti-racism, to post-anti-racism. It asks what conclusions can be drawn about the status of anti-racism today: has it indeed exceeded its political utility, or is it a political project that is, in fact, yet to be born

Writing Dubai. Indian Labour Migrants and Taxi Topographies

Since the discovery of oil, the Gulf states have become the most sought after destinations, especially for job seekers from South Asia which, in turn, has resulted in a rapidly growing population in the Gulf states mainly due to the large expatriate work force [Kapiszewski, A. 2006. “Arab versus Asian Migrant Workers in the GCC Countries.” Accessed November 5, 2012. http://www.un.org/esa/population/meetings/EGM_Ittmig_Arab/P02_Kapiszewski.pdf]. Proceeding from Amitav Ghosh's pioneering essay, ‘Petrofiction: The Oil Encounter and the Novel’, where Ghosh maintains that despite its dramatic nature any literary engagement with the oil encounter and its main protagonists has remained ‘imaginatively sterile’, this paper examines the literary representation of Indian labour migrants in Dubai. With a particular focus on Shamlal Puri's novel Dubai Dreams: The Rough Road to Riches (2010), which centres around the lives of a group of Indian taxi drivers in Dubai and Ali F. Mostafa's film City of Life, it explores the forms and conventions of literary and filmic responses to petro-migrants within an urban context. As such, the novel and the film provide alternative narratives to the ‘muteness of the Oil Encounter’, as identified by Ghosh