Invisible Labor

Invisible Labor PDF Author: Marion Crain
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520287177
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
"Demographic and technological trends have yielded new forms of work that are increasingly more precarious, globalized, and brand centered. Some of these shifts have led to a marked decrease in the visibility of work or workers. This edited collection examines situations in which technology and employment practices hide labor within the formal paid labor market, with implications for workplace activism, social policy, and law. In some cases, technological platforms, space, and temporality hide workers and sometimes obscure their tasks as well. In other situations, workers may be highly visible--indeed, the employer may rely upon the workers' aesthetics to market the branded product--but their aesthetic labor is not seen as work. In still other cases, the work occurs within a social interaction and appears as leisure--a voluntary or chosen activity--rather than as work. Alternatively, the workers themselves may be conceptualized as consumers rather than as workers. Crossing the occupational hierarchy and spectrum from high- to low-waged work, from professional to manual labor, and from production to service labor, the authors argue for a broader understanding of labor in the contemporary era. This book adopts an interdisciplinary approach that integrates perspectives from law, sociology, and industrial/labor relations"--Provided by publisher.

Invisible Labor

Invisible Labor PDF Author: Marion Crain
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520287177
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
"Demographic and technological trends have yielded new forms of work that are increasingly more precarious, globalized, and brand centered. Some of these shifts have led to a marked decrease in the visibility of work or workers. This edited collection examines situations in which technology and employment practices hide labor within the formal paid labor market, with implications for workplace activism, social policy, and law. In some cases, technological platforms, space, and temporality hide workers and sometimes obscure their tasks as well. In other situations, workers may be highly visible--indeed, the employer may rely upon the workers' aesthetics to market the branded product--but their aesthetic labor is not seen as work. In still other cases, the work occurs within a social interaction and appears as leisure--a voluntary or chosen activity--rather than as work. Alternatively, the workers themselves may be conceptualized as consumers rather than as workers. Crossing the occupational hierarchy and spectrum from high- to low-waged work, from professional to manual labor, and from production to service labor, the authors argue for a broader understanding of labor in the contemporary era. This book adopts an interdisciplinary approach that integrates perspectives from law, sociology, and industrial/labor relations"--Provided by publisher.

Art Work

Art Work PDF Author: Katja Praznik
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487538197
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
In Art Work, Katja Praznik counters the Western understanding of art – as a passion for self-expression and an activity done out of love, without any concern for its financial aspects – and instead builds a case for understanding art as a form of invisible labour. Focusing on the experiences of art workers and the history of labour regulation in the arts in socialist Yugoslavia, Praznik helps elucidate the contradiction at the heart of artistic production and the origins of the mystification of art as labour. This profoundly interdisciplinary book highlights the Yugoslav socialist model of culture as the blueprint for uncovering the interconnected aesthetic and economic mechanisms at work in the exploitation of artistic labour. It also shows the historical trajectory of how policies toward art and artistic labour changed by the end of the 1980s. Calling for a fundamental rethinking of the assumptions behind Western art and exploitative labour practices across the world, Art Work will be of interest to scholars in East European studies, art theory, and cultural policy, as well as to practicing artists.

Invisible Labour

Invisible Labour PDF Author: Indranil Chakraborty
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000180336
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
This book investigates the life, working conditions, and urban experiences of support service workers, such as janitors, security guards, culinary workers and carpool drivers, in the information technology (IT) sector of India. Largely omitted from academic discourse, support service workers are crucial to the Indian IT industry. Drawing on interviews with such workers in seven Indian cities with a large concentration of software service companies, this volume: Uses quantitative and qualitative analyses to map and assess workers' responses to migration from rural occupations to a modern urban employment setting; Explores the everyday grind of migrant workers in the context of the homogenizing effects of globalization in an alienating urban environment and discusses how their dislodgment from the structures of rural life – gender and caste roles – has placed them in a space of contestation between traditions and the opportunities and challenges offered by digital society in the form of freedom, individualism, flexibility and innovation; Traces the evolution of new areas of class, and identity formations, as well as the hegemonic relations within that ethos imposed by contractors and corporations. The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of sociology and social anthropology, urban studies, development studies, labour studies, social exclusion and South Asian studies.

Fed Up

Fed Up PDF Author: Gemma Hartley
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062856480
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
A bold dive into the emotional labor women have shouldered for far too long—and an impassioned vision for creating a better future for us all. Day in, day out, women anticipate and manage the needs of others. In relationships, we initiate the hard conversations. At home, we shoulder the mental load required to keep our households running. At work, we moderate our tone, explaining patiently and speaking softly. In the world, we step gingerly to keep ourselves safe. We do this largely invisible, draining work whether we want to or not—and we never clock out. No wonder women everywhere are overtaxed, exhausted, and simply fed up. In her ultra-viral article “Women Aren’t Nags—We’re Just Fed Up,” shared by millions of readers, Gemma Hartley gave much-needed voice to the frustration and anger experienced by countless women. Now, in Fed Up, Hartley expands outward from the everyday frustrations of performing thankless emotional labor to illuminate how the expectation to do this work in all arenas—private and public—fuels gender inequality, limits our opportunities, steals our time, and adversely affects the quality of our lives. More than just name the problem, though, Hartley teases apart the cultural messaging that has led us here and asks how we can shift the load. Rejecting easy solutions that don’t ultimately move the needle, Hartley offers a nuanced, insightful guide to striking real balance, for true partnership in every aspect of our lives. Reframing emotional labor not as a problem to be overcome, but as a genderless virtue men and women can all learn to channel in our quest to make a better, more egalitarian world, Fed Up is surprising, intelligent, and empathetic essential reading for every woman who has had enough with feeling fed up.

Implementing Inequality

Implementing Inequality PDF Author: Rebecca Warne Peters
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 1978808984
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
Implementing Inequality argues that the international development industry’s internal dynamics—between international and national staff, and among policy makers, administrators, and implementers—shape interventions and their outcomes as much as do the external dynamics of global political economy. Through an ethnographic study in postwar Angola, the book demonstrates how the industry’s internal social pressures guide development’s methods and goals, introducing the innovative concept of the development implementariat: those in-country workers, largely but not exclusively “local” staff members, charged with carrying out development’s policy prescriptions. The implementariat is central to the development endeavor but remains overlooked and under-supported as most of its work is deeply social, interactive, and relational, the kind of work that receives less recognition and support than it deserves at every echelon of the industry. If international development is to meet its larger purpose, it must first address its internal inequalities of work and professional class.

Invisible Women

Invisible Women PDF Author: Caroline Criado Perez
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1683353145
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
The landmark, prize-winning, international bestselling examination of how a gender gap in data perpetuates bias and disadvantages women. #1 International Bestseller * Winner of the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award * Winner of the Royal Society Science Book Prize Data is fundamental to the modern world. From economic development to health care to education and public policy, we rely on numbers to allocate resources and make crucial decisions. But because so much data fails to take into account gender, because it treats men as the default and women as atypical, bias and discrimination are baked into our systems. And women pay tremendous costs for this insidious bias: in time, in money, and often with their lives. Celebrated feminist advocate Caroline Criado Perez investigates this shocking root cause of gender inequality in Invisible Women. Examining the home, the workplace, the public square, the doctor’s office, and more, Criado Perez unearths a dangerous pattern in data and its consequences on women’s lives. Product designers use a “one-size-fits-all” approach to everything from pianos to cell phones to voice recognition software, when in fact this approach is designed to fit men. Cities prioritize men’s needs when designing public transportation, roads, and even snow removal, neglecting to consider women’s safety or unique responsibilities and travel patterns. And in medical research, women have largely been excluded from studies and textbooks, leaving them chronically misunderstood, mistreated, and misdiagnosed. Built on hundreds of studies in the United States, in the United Kingdom, and around the world, and written with energy, wit, and sparkling intelligence, this is a groundbreaking, highly readable exposé that will change the way you look at the world.

Doing the Dirty Work?

Doing the Dirty Work? PDF Author: Bridget Anderson
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9781856497619
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
There has been a tendency amongst feminists to see domestic work as the great leveller, a common burden imposed on all women equally by patriarchy. This unique study of migrant domestic workers in the North uncovers some uncomfortable facts about the race and class aspects of domestic oppression. Based on original research, it looks at the racialisation of paid domestic labour in the North - a phenomenon which challenges feminsim and political theory at a fundamental level. The book opens with an exploration of the public/private divide and an overview of the debates on women and power. The author goes on to provide a map of employment patterns of migrant women in domestic work in the North; she describes the work they perform, their living and working conditions and their employment relations. A chapter on the US explores the connections between slavery and contemporary domestic service while a section on commodification examines the extent to which migrant domestic workers are not selling their labour but their whole personhood. The book also looks at the role of the Other in managing dirt, death and pollution and the effects of the feminisation of the labour market - as middle class white women have greater presence in the public sphere, they are more likely to push responsibility for domestic work onto other women. In its depiction of the treatment of women from the South by women in the North, the book asks some difficult questions about the common bond of womanhood. Packed with information on the numbers of migrant women working as domestics, the racism, immigration or employment legislation that constrains their lives, and testimonies from the workers themselves, this is the most comprehensive study of migrant domestic workers available.

Data Feminism

Data Feminism PDF Author: Catherine D'Ignazio
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262358530
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
A new way of thinking about data science and data ethics that is informed by the ideas of intersectional feminism. Today, data science is a form of power. It has been used to expose injustice, improve health outcomes, and topple governments. But it has also been used to discriminate, police, and surveil. This potential for good, on the one hand, and harm, on the other, makes it essential to ask: Data science by whom? Data science for whom? Data science with whose interests in mind? The narratives around big data and data science are overwhelmingly white, male, and techno-heroic. In Data Feminism, Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren Klein present a new way of thinking about data science and data ethics—one that is informed by intersectional feminist thought. Illustrating data feminism in action, D'Ignazio and Klein show how challenges to the male/female binary can help challenge other hierarchical (and empirically wrong) classification systems. They explain how, for example, an understanding of emotion can expand our ideas about effective data visualization, and how the concept of invisible labor can expose the significant human efforts required by our automated systems. And they show why the data never, ever “speak for themselves.” Data Feminism offers strategies for data scientists seeking to learn how feminism can help them work toward justice, and for feminists who want to focus their efforts on the growing field of data science. But Data Feminism is about much more than gender. It is about power, about who has it and who doesn't, and about how those differentials of power can be challenged and changed.

Dangerous Sex, Invisible Labor

Dangerous Sex, Invisible Labor PDF Author: Prabha Kotiswaran
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400838762
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
Popular representations of third-world sex workers as sex slaves and vectors of HIV have spawned abolitionist legal reforms that are harmful and ineffective, and public health initiatives that provide only marginal protection of sex workers' rights. In this book, Prabha Kotiswaran asks how we might understand sex workers' demands that they be treated as workers. She contemplates questions of redistribution through law within the sex industry by examining the political economies and legal ethnographies of two archetypical urban sex markets in India. Kotiswaran conducted in-depth fieldwork among sex workers in Sonagachi, Kolkata's largest red-light area, and Tirupati, a temple town in southern India. Providing new insights into the lives of these women--many of whom are demanding the respect and legal protection that other workers get--Kotiswaran builds a persuasive theoretical case for recognizing these women's sexual labor. Moving beyond standard feminist discourse on prostitution, she draws on a critical genealogy of materialist feminism for its sophisticated vocabulary of female reproductive and sexual labor, and uses a legal realist approach to show why criminalization cannot succeed amid the informal social networks and economic structures of sex markets. Based on this, Kotiswaran assesses the law's redistributive potential by analyzing the possible economic consequences of partial decriminalization, complete decriminalization, and legalization. She concludes with a theory of sex work from a postcolonial materialist feminist perspective.

Bombay Hustle

Bombay Hustle PDF Author: Debashree Mukherjee
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231551673
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
From starry-eyed fans with dreams of fame to cotton entrepreneurs turned movie moguls, the Bombay film industry has historically energized a range of practices and practitioners, playing a crucial and compelling role in the life of modern India. Bombay Hustle presents an ambitious history of Indian cinema as a history of material practice, bringing new insights to studies of media, modernity, and the late colonial city. Drawing on original archival research and an innovative transdisciplinary approach, Debashree Mukherjee offers a panoramic portrait of the consolidation of the Bombay film industry during the talkie transition of the 1920s–1940s. In the decades leading up to independence in 1947, Bombay became synonymous with marketplace thrills, industrial strikes, and modernist experimentation. Its burgeoning film industry embodied Bombay’s spirit of “hustle,” gathering together and spewing out the many different energies and emotions that characterized the city. Bombay Hustle examines diverse sites of film production—finance, pre-production paperwork, casting, screenwriting, acting, stunts—to show how speculative excitement jostled against desires for scientific management in an industry premised on the struggle between contingency and control. Mukherjee develops the concept of a “cine-ecology” in order to examine the bodies, technologies, and environments that collectively shaped the production and circulation of cinematic meaning in this time. The book thus brings into view a range of marginalized film workers, their labor and experiences; forgotten film studios, their technical practices and aesthetic visions; and overlooked connections among media practices, geographical particularities, and historical exigencies.