The death of unemployment and the birth of job-seeking in welfare policy : Governing a liminal experience

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

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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

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