The Liminal Worker examines the experience of work, employment, employment insecurity and precariousness in a context of high unemployment and welfare state crisis in modern Greece. A theoretically-informed, anthropological exploration of the notion of work in contemporary western society and its relation to processes of political decision making, this book challenges the mainstream conception of work as an economic or purely productive activity, presenting a comparative analysis of work as a social phenomenon. Drawing on original empirical research, it explores the key themes of the transformation, experience, meaning and narrative of work and its relation to attendant social policies. A unique examination of the complicated experience of work and labour relations within power systems, institutions and organisations, as well as the reactions and survival strategies of ordinary actors facing precariousness in their daily existence, The Liminal Worker elaborates upon the notion of the anthropology of work and investigates the connection between ethnographic data (and its critical analysis) and the formation of policy. As such, it will be of interest to anthropologists, sociologists, policy makers and geographers concerned with questions of work, labour relations and policy formation.

The Liminal Worker examines the experience of work, employment, employment insecurity and precariousness in a context of high unemployment and welfare state crisis in modern Greece. A theoretically-informed, anthropological exploration of the notion of work in contemporary western society and its relation to processes of political decision making, this book challenges the mainstream conception of work as an economic or purely productive activity, presenting a comparative analysis of work as a social phenomenon. Drawing on original empirical research, it explores the key themes of the transformation, experience, meaning and narrative of work and its relation to attendant social policies. A unique examination of the complicated experience of work and labour relations within power systems, institutions and organisations, as well as the reactions and survival strategies of ordinary actors facing precariousness in their daily existence, The Liminal Worker elaborates upon the notion of the anthropology of work and investigates the connection between ethnographic data (and its critical analysis) and the formation of policy. As such, it will be of interest to anthropologists, sociologists, policy makers and geographers concerned with questions of work, labour relations and policy formation.

The Conscious Cultural Worker: Counter-Narratives of Black Women Artivists as Radical Educators uses narrative inquiry and Black feminist and womanist pedagogy to look at the teaching identities and lived experiences of Black women artivist educators in the current neoliberal anti-woke moment. Their counter-narratives are presented as vignettes to look at a certain time in the lives of Black women artists who use rap, spoken word, or visual art to turn public places like bars, clubs, galleries, lounges, and alleys into unofficial educational spaces that the author calls "Communities of Reciprocity" (CoR). This book adds to what is known about situated learning, teacher identity, and the co-creation of communities of practice by focusing on the point of view of Black women as conscious culture workers. It does this by bringing attention to the fact that culture work is a kind of conversation between creatives as expert practitioners and audiences as spect-actors, who co-create liberatory educative texts. In this book, Black women "work" the culture by challenging hegemonic discourse and hidden curricula wherever people who want to learn come together.

The Liminal Worker examines the experience of work, employment, employment insecurity and precariousness in a context of high unemployment and welfare state crisis in modern Greece. A theoretically-informed, anthropological exploration of the notion of work in contemporary western society and its relation to processes of political decision making, this book challenges the mainstream conception of work as an economic or purely productive activity, presenting a comparative analysis of work as a social phenomenon. Drawing on original empirical research, it explores the key themes of the transformation, experience, meaning and narrative of work and its relation to attendant social policies.

The hospitality and tourism sector is a large and rapidly expanding industry worldwide, and can rightfully be described as a vehicle of globalisation. Hotels are among the cornerstones of the industry often drawing workers from the most vulnerable segments of multicultural labour markets, accommodating and entertaining tourists and business travelers from around the world. This book explores the organisation of work, worker identities and worker strategies in hotel workplaces, as they are located in heterogeneous labour markets being changed by processes of globalisation. It uses an explicitly geographical approach to understand how different groups of workers experience and respond to challenges in the hospitality industry, and is based on recent theoretical debates and empirical research on hotel workplaces in cities as different as Oslo, Goa, London, Las Vegas and Toronto. A multi-scalar analysis is taken where concrete worker bodies and their physical, emotional and embodied labour are seen in relation to, among other aspects: the regulation of national and regional labour markets, city governments with global city ambitions, and global corporate actors and labour migration patterns. The book sheds light on the hotel workplace as a hierarchical and fragmented social space as well as addressing questions on worker mobility, the fragmentation of work, scales of organisation and how workers can help shape the regulation of their industry. This timely volume brings together contributions from international academics and is valuable reading for all those interested in hospitality, tourism, human geography and globalisation.

In a time of flexible and mutable work arrangements, there is hardly a domain of organizing that has not been affected by liminality. Temporary workers who switch companies based on projects, consultants who operate at the boundaries between the consultant and the client companies, or ‘hybrid entrepreneurs’ who start new ventures, while still keeping their previous job, are examples of liminality in organizations. Liminality is also felt by managers who handle interorganizational relationships within customer-supplier networks or scientists who, albeit affiliated with R&D units, have strong ties with their scientific communities, acknowledging that they belong to neither setting thoroughly. Precious hints for enriching our comprehension of liminality in organizational settings can be conveyed by the reflection that has flourished in different fields. This book advances knowledge of liminality management by elaborating on a model that puts together aspects of the liminal process that have been mostly described in a separate way so far, benefiting from the input provided by experience in sociology, medicine, and education. Through the articulation of a model that accounts for the antecedents, content, and consequences of liminality in organizations, the book intends to prompt quantitative research on this topic. It will be of value to those interested in organizational behavior, organization and management, marketing, sociology of work, and sociology of organizations.

Drawing on a unique dataset of real women and their experiences of engaging in paid and unpaid work, Women in Work in Mid-Life explores the specific challenges that women in the UK workforce face, including women’s health, pay inequality, gender bias, and the struggle to balance work and family life. From pay inequality and gender bias to the struggle to balance work and family life, the experience of women in the UK workforce is complex and multifaceted. We live in an economic climate where the population and workforce is ageing, and the over 50s are encouraged by governments to engage more fully in paid work. However, the path to achieve this is unclear. Through interviews with women in work, as well as an examination of policies and initiatives that can help support women’s career development and encourage workplace retention, it points to a future for this demographic in employment. Women in Work in Mid-Life is an invaluable resource for professionals and policy makers seeking to promote gender equality and create a more inclusive workplace culture in the UK, as well as undergraduate and graduate students in psychology and the social sciences.

More people are extending their working lives through necessity or choice in the context of increasingly precarious labour markets and neoliberalism. This book goes beyond the aggregated statistics to explore the lived experiences of older people attempting to make job transitions. Drawing on the voices of older workers in a diverse range of European countries, leading scholars explore job redeployment and job mobility, temporary employment, unemployment, employment beyond pension age and transitions into retirement. This book makes a major contribution and will be essential reading within a range of disciplines, including social gerontology, management, sociology and social policy.

From contributors to TheConversation.com, illuminating essays on how and why working in the twenty-first century is rapidly changing. Work has evolved tremendously over the last 50 years and even more so since the COVID-19 pandemic. In The Conversation on Work, editor Ian O. Williamson assembles essential essays from The Conversation to explore paradigmatic shifts in how people work—and what these changes mean for the future of labor. Covering diverse and urgent topics such as burnout and mental health, remote and hybrid working environments, unions, and job inequities among marginalized groups, the authors critically examine the future of the changing workplace. Essays on how artificial intelligence will affect workers and companies, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on workplaces, and other critical labor trends round out the collection. The Critical Conversations series collects essays from top scholars on timely topics, including water, biotechnology, gender diversity, and guns, originally published on the independent news site The Conversation.

Beyond Liminality: Ontologies of Abundant Betweenness examines the concept of liminality in the social sciences and humanities, and advocates for a more critical use of the concept while offering more precise alternatives. Originally conceived in response to the near-universal ritualization of changes of status (i.e., "rites of passage"), liminality was a welcome and much-needed correction to the reigning static and structural models of culture at the time. However, it soon escaped its initial realm and was enthusiastically—and mostly uncritically—absorbed by many if not all scholarly disciplines. The very success of the concept suggests that there is something about it that resonates with our own cultural sentiments. However, the assumptions that underlie diagnoses of liminality are seldom noted and even more seldom analyzed and critiqued. This book examines the history of the concept, its evolution, and its current status, and asks whether liminality accurately reflects lived realities which might better be described by fluidity, hybridity, multiplicity, constant motion and recombination, and abundant betweenness. Beyond Liminality: Ontologies of Abundant Betweenness is key reading for scholars and students across the social sciences and humanities interested in ritual, performance, identity formation, rights, ontology, and epistemology.