No borders on a fragile planet: Introducing four lay models of social psychological precarity to support global human identification and citizenship

Psychological research has shown that lower socioeconomic status (SES) individuals experience higher levels of stress and tend to cope in more present-oriented ways. While some research in the field has sought to, for instance, increase future-oriented ways of being among lower SES individuals, we argue that such approaches may come at significant cost. We consider the construct of time-space distanciation (TSD) -the normative way in which time and space are abstracted from one another at cultural and individual levels -as a way to complicate psychological research on social class, stress, and coping. Across four studies, we present research on US geographical regions (Studies 1-2) and US participants (Studies 3-4) suggesting that adopting normative high-TSD orientations represents a double-bind for lower SES individuals: it allows one to enact more proactive coping strategies in the face of financial stressors such as debt (Studies 1-3), but it is also a source of disproportionate stress itself (Study 4), given the burdens faced by lower SES individuals trying to navigate time and space in culturally hegemonic ways in spite of precarity and material insecurity. We discuss how TSD offers a means of situating psychological research into precarity within the broader structural context of flexible capitalism.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 78%

In a double‐bind: Time–space distanciation, socioeconomic status, and coping with financial stress in the United States

Schmitt

Black

Keefer

et al. 2022

“…The dynamics of self-other/-world relations in becomings of precarity Whilst subjectivities and affective dimensions are linked to the processual nature of precarity in social science theorizing, papers in this special issue explore the dynamics of these processes in depth. Adam-Troian et al (2022) and Mahendran et al (2022) draw attention to the ways in which (different formulations of) precarity, experienced as 'threat', shape societal relations and political decision-making. Mahendran and colleagues (2022) further expand this view of societal relations through their use of the migration-mobility continuum (which locates all humans on a scale of migration) in exploring the differ-ent ways in which people make sense of, and might seek to change, our bordered world.…”

Section: Looking Outmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The final two contributions to the special issue speak to this methodological call for exploring precarity as something that is experienced by all. In Mahendran et al ( 2022 ), different models or manifestations of ‘psychological precarity’, identified as the sense of threat and insecurity that is inherent to people's identifications with ‘the global’, is explored through the development of an innovative methodology. Participants are given the ‘hyperagentic’ position of choosing how or if to construct borders on maps of the world, generating insight into the different relationalities (with both human others and more‐than‐human worlds) which constitute everyday understandings of precarity.…”

Section: Contributions To This Special Issuementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The special issue highlights the diversity of social psychological tools for developing understandings of precarity. The contributing papers draw on a range of social psychological concepts, theories and methodological approaches, including social representations theory (Mahendran et al, 2022 ), social identity theory and system justifications theory (Albayrak‐Aydemir & Gleibs, 2022 ) and time–space distanciation (Schmitt et al, 2022 ) and utilize quantitative (Adam‐Troian et al, 2022 ; Schmitt et al, 2022 ), qualitative (Hakim et al, 2022 ; Lukate, 2022 ; Mahendran et al, 2022 ), and participatory methods (Rua et al, 2022 ; Fine, 2022 ) to study precarity. More broadly, the contributions to the special issue highlight some interesting extensions to social science theorizations on precarity, drawing attention to questions of ontology and differential experiences in relation to time and positionality.…”

Section: Weaving Social Psychological Threads For Working With/in Pre...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Towards a social psychology of precarity

Coultas

Reddy

Lukate

2023

The concept of precarity has garnered significant attention in the social sciences in recent years evidenced by a steep rise in publications on precarity since 2017, however, less so in the discipline of (social) psychology (see Figure A1). In this special issue, we look to explore what a social psychology of precarity could be and support the situating of social psychology in and amongst work being done in other disciplines, such as in geography (Philo et al., 2019), sociology (Schierup & Jørgensen, 2016 and anthropology (Wool & Livingston, 2017). Butler's (2009 definition of precarity is a common starting point in these literatures -as 'that politically induced condition in which certain populations suffer from failing social and economic networks of support and become differentially exposed to injury, violence, and death' (p. ii). At quite a surface level, 'the psychological' in this definition could be seen in terms of the suffering that people experience in precarity-as-a-condition. However, psychology as a discipline is also implied, and incidental to the broader politics of Butler's conceptualisation of precarity; seen in the call to shift blame away from individuals who are experiencing precarity, towards more structural and politicized understandings of this condition, along with mobilizing collective action against it. Whilst this is a useful and important manoeuvre for scholarly work on precarity, the psychology that is implied herein remains rather reductionist and therefore ripe for discussion.In this special issue, we work to challenge this reductionist view and highlight the legacies of social psychological work which have generated insights beyond the individualist understandings of suffering and coping that underpin 'blame' discourses. These include critical and community psychologies (

“…These writers examine if and how, a high TSD, as an aspect of 'modern capitalism' widens disparities, reduces flexibility, imposes disadvantage and layers on substantial stressors for poor and working-class people, while parading as 'flexibility' and 'choice'. Mahendran et al 2022, with interdisciplinary theorizing and stunningly creative methodologies, situate subjectivities within an even more expansive field of global dynamics where precarity and migration intersect with agency and desire. They explore global and planetary consciousness with two interactive methods-the IWAH (identification with all humanity) global identification scale and the IWMT (international worldview mapping tool).…”

Section: Suturing Personal Subjectivities and The Materials World: Ec...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Prec(ar)ious knowledge and the neoliberal academy: Towards re‐imagining epistemic justice and critical psychology

Fine

2022

This epilogue is written in the ink of gratitude and provocation, reflecting on the essays that constitute the special issue on precarity. I briefly review the key gifts of the essays and then try to imagine how a social psychology of precarity could be theorized and engaged otherwise, with commitments to epistemic justice, designed with decolonizing methodologies and organized in solidarity with movements for social justice.