Apologies for cross-postings..
Call for Papers for an ephemera Special Issue on:
Consumption of work and the work of consumption
Deadline for submissions: 30 September 2014
Issue editors: Ekaterina Chertkovskaya, Rashné Limki, Bernadette Loacker
Work and consumption have always been intertwined, their interaction
shaped by social and historical circumstances. The ‘consumer society’
(Baudrillard, 1998/1970) that we arguably live in is often associated
with a fading interest in work. On this view, wage labour is seen simply
as a way of funding consumption during leisure time (Berger, 1964; Gorz,
1985). However, the boundaries between consumption and work have become
increasingly blurred. Consumption is no longer confined to leisure,
having become central to the employment relationship (Korczynski, 2007;
Dale, 2012), but also transcending it. At the same time, some
consumption has become productive in the circuits of capital (Arvidsson,
2005). While both the themes of work and consumption have been discussed
separately (including in ephemera, e.g. Beverungen et al., 2011; Dunne
et al., 2013; Egan-Wyer et al., 2014), this special issue aims to bring
them together by exploring consumptive aspects of work and productive
aspects of consumption within and beyond organizations.
Since the 1990s customer service and corporate branding have become
central elements of organizational production processes (du Gay, 1996;
Kornberger, 2010). In this context, concepts such as immaterial work and
affective labour have gained in importance (Lazzarato, 1996; Virno,
2005; Dowling et al., 2007). Indeed, customer focus and branding tend to
spread to all practices within organizations, from training and
development to organizational decor and artefacts (Russell, 2011), while
employees are encouraged to ‘live the brand’ (Pettinger, 2004; Land and
Taylor, 2010). This tells us that consumption now takes place at work.
For example, images of work have themselves become objects to be
consumed (Dale, 2012; Chertkovskaya, 2013). These consumptive aspects of
work are promoted via employer branding practices, which emphasise the
symbolic characteristics of work (Backhaus and Tikoo, 2004). For
example, skyscrapers often appear on the covers and pages of recruitment
brochures in the banking sector, which can be seen as a sign-value of
status. Such ‘opportunities’ for consumption are not only created within
large organizations with distinctive hierarchies. ‘Fun cultures’ (Butler
et al., 2011), self-management (Lopdrup-Hjorth et al., 2011) and the
rhetoric of authenticity (Murtola and Fleming, 2011) may also facilitate
the consumption of work-related sign-values as well as engagement in
hedonist consumption (Campbell, 1987).
While consumption has certainly entered into the heart of the employment
relationship (Korczynski, 2007; Dale, 2012), it also goes beyond it as
work increasingly happens outside traditional organizational boundaries.
For example, the rhetoric of personal branding (Lair et al., 2005) is
becoming increasingly prominent and the ability to ‘sell oneself’ is in
many cases now a condition for employment (Chertkovskaya et al., 2013).
Moreover, when addressing modern modes of consumptive work, we should
also reflect on how consumption can inform the meanings of work and work
relations. For instance, we cannot lose sight of critiques of the
degradation of work as the effect of consuming (other’s) vital
capacities (cf. Barrett, 1999; Moten, 2003; Federici, 2004). Indeed,
this ‘depletion’ (Rai, 2010) seems to be the condition of possibility
not only for contemporary modes of production but also for conspicuous
forms of consumption. Given the condition of precarity that increasingly
structures global labour markets (Standing, 2010), we are thus asked to
also think through the complex of worker/consumer relations and
subjectivities; most notably the increasing debasement of selves into
commodity forms.
However, consumption is not necessarily destructive but may also have
productive elements to it. We can now talk of working consumers, who act
according to their own interests and principles, and thereby serve
themselves and other customers (Rieder and Voß, 2010). While drawing on
co-creation and participation rhetoric, organizations often also build
their brands on the ideas, creativity and work of their consumers or
‘brand communities’ (Arvidsson, 2005). Online social media, like
‘Facebook’, is a good example here: while the organization provides a
(usually free) online platform for individuals and groups, their
communication within it creates market value for the organization, for
example via targeted advertising based on online user behaviour. The
consuming employees, as long as they consume in line with the image and
values of the organizational brand, may also contribute to the
maintenance and strengthening of the organization and its brand, with
their personal lives being mobilized for it (Land and Taylor, 2010).
In this special issue, we are looking for conceptual and empirical
contributions that critically discuss consumptive aspects of work and
productive aspects of consumption. We welcome studies that explore these
issues within and beyond organizational boundaries, and in various forms
and contexts of work. Possible topics include, but are not limited to,
the following:
• Forms and meanings of consumptive work/productive consumption
• History of the relationship between consumption and work
• Consumption through work processes within and beyond the employment
relationship
• Roles and use of (personal) branding in consumptive work/productive
consumption
• Employer branding and the image of work in organizational
self-presentations
• Depicting work through consumption
• Marketing and marketization of work
• Commodification of work and working subjects
• Consumption and production of affective/embodied labour
• Value creation/destruction trough consumptive work/productive consumption
• Ethical and political questions associated with consumptive
work/productive consumption
• Implications of blurring boundaries between consumption and work for
worker-consumer relations and worker/consumer subjectivities
• Work-life (im)balance of consuming employees/producing consumers
• Resisting consumptive work/productive consumption
Deadline for submissions: 30 September 2014
All contributions should be submitted to one of the issue editors:
Ekaterina Chertkovskaya ([log in to unmask]), Rashné
Limki ([log in to unmask]) or Bernadette Loacker
([log in to unmask]). Please note that three categories of
contributions are invited for the special issue: articles, notes, and
reviews. Information about these types of contributions can be found at:
http://www.ephemerajournal.org/call-for-papers. The submissions will
undergo a double blind review process. All submissions should follow
ephemera’s submission guidelines, which are available at:
http://www.ephemerajournal.org/how-submit. For further information,
please contact one of the special issue editors.
References:
Arvidsson, A. (2005) ‘Brands: A critical perspective’, Journal of
Consumer Culture, 5(2): 235-258.
Backhaus, K. and S. Tikoo (2004) ‘Conceptualizing and researching
employer branding’, Career Development International, 9(5): 501-517.
Barrett, L. (1999) Blackness and value: Seeing double, Cambridge, New
York: Cambridge UP.
Baudrillard, J. (1998/1970) The consumer society. Myths and structures.
London: Sage.
Berger, P. (1964) ‘Some general observations on the problem of work’ in
P. Berger (ed.) The Human Shape of Work. New York: Macmillan.
Beverungen, A., B. Otte, S. Spoelstra and K. Kenny (eds.) (2013) ‘Free
work’, ephemera: theory & politics in organization, 13(1).
Butler, N., L. Olaison, M. Sliwa, B. M. Sørensen and S. Spoelstra (eds.)
(2011) ‘Work, play and boredom’, ephemera: theory & politics in
organization, 11(4).
Campbell, C. (1987) The romantic ethic and the spirit of modern
consumerism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Chertkovskaya, E. (2013) ‘Consuming work and managing employability:
Students’ work orientations and the process of contemporary job search’.
Unpublished PhD thesis, Loughborough University.
Chertkovskaya, E., P. Watt, S. Tramer and S. Spoelstra (eds.) (2013)
‘Giving notice to employability’, ephemera: theory & politics in
organization, 13(4).
Dale, K. (2012) ‘The employee as “dish of the day”: The ethics of the
consuming/consumed self in human resource management’, Journal of
Business Ethics, 111(1): 13-24.
Dowling, E., B. Trott and R. Nunes (eds.) (2007) ‘Immaterial and
affective labour: Explored’, ephemera: theory & politics in
organization, 7(1).
Du Gay, P. (1998) Consumption and identity at work. London: Sage.
Federici, S. (2004) Caliban and the witch. Autonomedia.
Dunne, S., N. Campbell and A. Bradshaw (eds.) (2013) ʻThe politics of
consumptionʼ, ephemera: theory & politics in organization, 13(2).
Egan-Wyer, C., S. L. Muhr, A. Pfeiffer and P. Svensson (2014) ‘The
ethics of the brand’, ephemera: theory & politics in organization, 14(1).
Gorz, A. (1985) Paths to paradise: On the liberation from work. London:
Pluto.
Korczynski, M. (2007) ‘HRM and the menu society’ in S. Bolton and M.
Houlihan (eds.) Searching for the human in human resource management.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kornberger, M. (2010) Brand society: How brands transform management and
lifestyle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lair, D. J., K. Sullivan and G. Cheney (2005) ‘Marketization and the
recasting of the professional self: The rhetoric and ethics of personal
branding’, Management Communication Quarterly, 18(3): 307-343.
Land, C. and S. Taylor (2010) ‘Surf’s up: Life, work, balance and brand
in a New Age capitalist organization’, Sociology, 44(3): 395-413.
Lazzarato, M. (1996) ‘Immaterial labor’ in P. Virno and M. Hardt (eds.)
Radical thought in Italy: A potential politics. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press.
Lopdrup-Hjorth, T., M. Gudmand-Høyer, P. Bramming and M. Pedersen (eds.)
(2011) ‘Governing work through self-management’, ephemera: theory &
politics in organization, 11(2).
Moten, F. (2003) In the break: The aesthetics of the black radical
tradition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Murtola, A.-M. and P. Fleming (eds.) (2011) ‘The business of truth:
Authenticity, capitalism and the crisis of everyday life’, ephemera:
theory & politics in organization, 11(1).
Patsiaouras, G. and J. Fitchett (2010) ‘The wolf of Wall Street:
Re-imagining Veblen for the 21st century’, European Advances in Consumer
Research, 9(6): 214-218.
Pettinger, L. (2004) ‘Brand culture and branded workers: Service work
and aesthetic labour in fashion retail’, Consumption, Markets and
Culture, 7(2): 165-184.
Rai, S. (2010) ‘Depletion and social reproduction’, Working Paper
274/11, Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation,
Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick.
Rieder, K. and G. Voß (2010) ‘The working customer – an emerging new
type of consumer’, Psychology of Everyday Activity, 3 (2): 2-10.
Russell, S. (2011) ‘Internalizing the brand? Identity regulation and
resistance at Aqua-Tilt’ in M. Brannan, C. Priola and E. Parsons (eds.)
Branded Lives: The production and consumption of identity at work.
Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Virno, P. (2005) Grammar of the multitude. New York: Semiotext.
--------------------------------------------------------
MeCCSA mailing list
--------------------------------------------------------
To manage your subscription or unsubscribe from the MECCSA list, please visit:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=MECCSA&A=1
-------------------------------------------------------
MeCCSA is the subject association for the field of media, communication and cultural studies in UK Higher Education. Membership is open to all who teach and research these subjects in HE institutions, via either institutional or individual membership. The field includes film and TV production, journalism, radio, photography, creative writing, publishing, interactive media and the web; and it includes higher education for media practice as well as for media studies.
This mailing list is a free service from MeCCSA and is not restricted to members.
For further information, please visit: http://www.meccsa.org.uk/
--------------------------------------------------------
|
