Sociology: work & labour
Dealing in Uncertainty
Insurance in the Age of Finance
This book conducts an in-depth investigation of one of the largest and longest-established insurance industries in Europe: British life insurance. The author draws on over 40 oral history interviews to trace how the sector is changed since the 1970s, a period characterised by rampant financialisation and neoliberalisation.
Children’s Work in African Agriculture
The Harmful and the Harmless
EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. This book reframes the debate about children’s work and harm in rural Africa with the aim of shifting research, public discourse and policy so that they better serve the interest of rural children and their families.
Re-Imagining Sexual Harassment
Perspectives from the Nordic Region
EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. This book brings researchers, writers and policy makers into dialogue in an ambitious volume and moves beyond the juridical definitions of justice, coloniality, exploitation and work and offers knowledge that is immediately implementable into policy making.
Work and Alienation in the Platform Economy
Amazon and the Power of Organization
Drawing on interviews with Amazon workers and original empirical data, this book explores how different working conditions estrange and alienate workers, and how, despite these, workers find ways to organize and express their agency. This is an important analysis of work on the digital shop floor for the scholars of platform economy.
Welfare That Works for Women?
Mothers’ Experiences of the Conditionality within Universal Credit
This book analyses fresh empirical evidence which demonstrates the gendered impacts of the new conditionality regime within Universal Credit. Drawing on in-depth interviews with mothers, it offers a compelling narrative and policy recommendations to make the social citizenship framework in the UK more inclusive of women.
Migrants and Refugees in Europe
Work Integration in Comparative Perspective
EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. This book explores the labour market integration of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers across seven European countries. It investigates how legal, political, social and personal circumstances combine to determine the work trajectory for migrants who choose Europe as their home.
Affective Capitalism in Academia
Revealing Public Secrets
Drawing on affect theory and research on academic capitalism and 11 international case studies, this book examines the contemporary crisis of universities, from the coloniality of academic capitalism to performance management and the experience of being performance-managed.
Labour Conflicts in the Digital Age
A Comparative Perspective
This book offers a complete view of the new labour conflicts in the platform economy. Through case studies in advanced economies in Europe and the US and with an original approach that combines social movement studies and industrial relations, it provides a radical interpretation on the changing nature of worker movements in the digital age.
The Reformation of Welfare
The New Faith of the Labour Market
Inspired by ideas from economic theology, this provocative book uncovers deep-rooted religious concepts and shows how they continue to influence contemporary views of work and unemployment.
The EU Migrant Generation in Asia
Middle-Class Aspirations in Asian Global Cities
Drawing on a comparative study with individuals who migrated to Singapore and Tokyo in 2010s, this book demonstrates how migration to Asian business centres has become an alternative to a middle-class life in Europe and how the perceived insecurities of life in the crisis-ridden EU result in these migrants’ prolonged stay in Asia.
Politics of the Gift
Towards a Convivial Society
Drawing on French sociologist Marcel Mauss' influential theory of 'the gift', this book shows that trust is the only glue that holds societies together, and people are giving beings and they who can cooperate for the benefit of all when the logic of maximizing utility personal gain in capitalism is broken.
Older Workers in Transition
European Experiences in a Neoliberal Era
This collection explores a variety of job transitions for older people, including voluntary job moves, coming out of unemployment, temporary labour and passages into retirement. Each chapter hears the voices of older workers and employers, and is positioned within the context of various European countries, with important lessons for future policy.