Boland, Tom and Griffin, Ray (2015) The death of unemployment and the birth of job-seeking in welfare policy : Governing a liminal experience. Irish Journal of Sociology, 23 (2). pp. 29-48. ISSN 0791-6035
Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)Abstract
The category of ‘unemployment’ is gradually being replaced with ‘job-seeking’, in contemporary welfare policy – driven by ‘liberal’ or neo-liberal politics. Here we attempt to go beyond the ‘deprivation theory’ of unemployment, emphasising how the experience of ‘unemployment’ or ‘jobseeking’ is shaping the way it is governed – drawing on the Foucault inspired governmentality approach. Firstly, we examine the apparatus of supervision, interventions and sanctions introduced in Ireland under Pathways to Work. Secondly, we analyse a set of interviews with job seekers in 2014, specifically focusing on interactions with the social welfare office, internships, sanctions and job-seeking activities. Building on these empirical investigations we suggest that unemployment/ job-seeking can be understood as an artificially produced liminality, characterised by uncertainty, self-questioning, tedious time to be filled and frantic seeking to escape to a job, and, in many cases, repeated failure.
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Additional Information: | Publisher Copyright: © Copyright Irish Journal of Sociology. |
Uncontrolled Keywords: | /dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3300 |
Departments or Groups: | |
Depositing User: | Admin SSL |
Date Deposited: | 19 Oct 2022 23:10 |
Last Modified: | 13 Aug 2023 16:05 |
URI: | http://repository-testing.wit.ie/id/eprint/4497 |
Actions (login required)
View Item |