Overview
- Focuses on the intersections between digital technology, labour and politics
- Illustrates the ways in which diverging visions of technology bring to attention an underlying politics of contradiction
- Examines how digital technics are embedded in our society and how they alter the contexts, organizations, practices and routines of human work, work-life balance and labour
Part of the book series: Dynamics of Virtual Work (DVW)
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About this book
This book is situated in the nexus between technology, labour and politics. It focuses on contradictions as heuristic devices that uncover struggles, frictions and ambiguities of digitalization in work and labour environments. Topics include contradictions in automation, internet platforms, digital practices, creative industries, communication industries, human interaction, democratic participation and regulation. Three cross-cutting themes can be identified within the diverse chapters represented in the book. First, many authors argue that labour and economic valorisation occur outside of the traditional concept of working space and time. Second, digital technology is not fixed under capital. It is malleable and mouldable. Third, many political tensions are occurring without organized awareness or dissent. The book will, therefore, be of interest to researchers and students in the fields of sociology of work, media studies, cultural studies, gender studies, science and technology studies and Critical Theory as well as to trade-unionists and policy makers.
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Keywords
Table of contents (15 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Contradictions in Automation and Internet Platforms
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Front Matter
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Contradictions in Digital Practices and Creative Industries
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Front Matter
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Contradictions in Human Interaction and Communication
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Front Matter
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Contradictions in Democratic Participation and Regulation
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Reviews
“What distinguishes this collection is its thematisation of the contradictions attending computerized and networked labour. This seems to suggest an orientation towards contestations, complications, paradoxes and ambivalences that might have been flattened out or neglected in partisan polemics. As such, it could mark a ‘maturing’ of the digital labour debates, and as such is to be welcomed.” (Nick Dyer-Witheford, University of Western Ontario, Canada)
“In a world dominated by social media, widespread algorithmic direction of human activities, and, imminently, sweeping robotisation, this empirically wide-ranging analysis of the labour-technology relationship could not be more timely or pressing.” (Juliet Webster, Work & Equality Research, UK)
“Technologies of Labour and the Politics of Contradiction provides an excellent contribution to current debates in the trend toward labour capture in digitalized environments. Bilić, Primorac and Valtysson have gathered several extremelyimportant case studies and theoretical interventions, bringing to light a range of worrying contradictions and volatility of labour markets where the future is yet undetermined, where artificial intelligence hints toward barbarism and extreme working conditions are hidden behind black box mythologies.” (Phoebe V Moore, Leicester University Business School, UK)
Editors and Affiliations
About the editors
Paško Bilić is a Research Associate at the Department for Culture and Communication, Institute for Development and International Relations (IRMO) in Zagreb, Croatia
Jaka Primorac is Senior Research Associate at the Department for Culture and Communication, Institute for Development and International Relations (IRMO), Zagreb, Croati
Bjarki Valtysson is Associate Professor at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Technologies of Labour and the Politics of Contradiction
Editors: Paško Bilić , Jaka Primorac, Bjarki Valtýsson
Series Title: Dynamics of Virtual Work
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76279-1
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-76278-4Published: 24 May 2018
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-09450-8Published: 21 December 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-76279-1Published: 07 May 2018
Series ISSN: 2947-9290
Series E-ISSN: 2947-9304
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVII, 296
Number of Illustrations: 8 b/w illustrations
Topics: Media Sociology, Political Sociology, Social Structure, Social Inequality, Organizational Studies, Economic Sociology, Sociology of Work