In the Social Factory?

Abstract

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. 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. Permanent repository link

Affect and discourse – What’s the problem? From affect as excess to affective/discursive practice

“…Like other recent critics (for example, Hemmings, 2005;Thien, 2005;Laurier and Philo, 2006;Gill and Pratt, 2008;Papoulias and Callard, 2010;Pile, 2010;Leys, 2011;Blackman, 2012), the separation of human affect from discourse, and from mindfulness, seems to me unsustainable. Not least, this is built on a deeply problematic psychology (Leys, 2011;Wetherell, 2012, Chapters 2 and 3).…”

“…This dominant Massumi/Thrift analysis of affect and discourse is beginning to be extensively criticized (for example, Hemmings, 2005;Laurier and Philo, 2006;Gill and Pratt, 2008;Pile, 2010;Leys, 2011;Blackman, 2012;Wetherell, 2012, in press). Leys (2011), for instance, forensically takes apart the psychological studies on which Massumi's argument is based and argues that the foundations are flimsy (see also Wetherell, 2012, Chapters 2 and 3).…”

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“…According to Gill & Pratt (2008), "precariousness, precarity and precarization have recently emerged as novel territory for thinking -and intervening inlabour and life. " (3) The processes of precarization are being discussed by social scientists as increasingly relevant category for understanding new class formations and mechanisms of governmentality.…”

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