Overview

Primarily on the basis of ethnographic case-studies from around the world, this volume links investigations of work to questions of personal and professional identity and social relations. In the era of digitalized neoliberalism, particular attention is paid to notions of freedom, both collective (in social relations) and individual (in subjective experiences). These cannot be investigated separately. Rather than juxtapose economy with ethics (or the profitable with the good), the authors uncover complex entanglements between the drudgery experienced by most people in the course of making a living and ideals of emancipated personhood.

Full Product Details

Author:   Chris Hann
Publisher:   Berghahn Books
Imprint:   Berghahn Books
ISBN:  

9781800732254

ISBN 10:   1800732252
Pages:   304
Publication Date:   17 September 2021
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

Preface Chris Hann Introduction: Work and Ethics in Anthropology Chris Hann Chapter 1. The Meaning of Free Work: Service as a Gift, and Labor as a Commodity for Ni-Vanuatu Labor Migrants Rachel E. Smith Chapter 2. On the Meanings of Pleasure: Work, Ethics, and Freedom in the Hunza Valley Katherine J. L. Miller Chapter 3. Ethics of Work and Freedom in the Argentinean Andes: Value Creation and Virtuous Self-Crafting through Miniature Production Olivia Ange Chapter 4. Pursuing Pleasure at Work: Friendship and Precarity at North Indian Call Centers Akanksha Awal Chapter 5. More Than Money: Work as Self-Realization in Accra's Private Media Anna-Riikka Kauppinen Chapter 6. Capitalism, Overwork, and Polanyi's Dialectics of Freedom: Emerging Visions of Work-Life Balance in Contemporary Urban China Goncalo Santos, Yichen Rao, Jack L. Xing, Jun Zhang Chapter 7. From Freedom to Loaf to Freedom to Work: The Late Socialist Countermovement and Liberalization from Below in Yugoslavia Ivan Rajkovic Chapter 8. Max Weber's Heirs? Work and Ethics among Small Business Owners in East Germany Sylvia Terpe Chapter 9. Click for Work: Rethinking Freedom through Online Work Distribution Platforms Ilana Gershon and Melissa Cefkin Chapter 10. Unicorn-Makers Working for Freedom (and Monopolies): The Work of Venture Capital Investors Johannes Lenhard Chapter 11. Individuality, Teamwork and Work Processes in a Financial Services Center in Germany Magdalena Dabkowska Chapter 12. Writing Without Fear-or By-Lines: Freedom and Frustration among US American Ghostwriters Deborah A. Jones Afterword Gerd Spittler Index

Reviews

This is an extremely important contribution to the anthropology of work. Unlike most existing approaches which focus on 'labor' as exploitation and alienation processes, the chapters in this collection explore the multiple valuations of work and the ambivalence often present in them. * Susana Narotzky, Universitat de Barcelona

Author Information

Chris Hann is a Founding Director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology (Halle/Saale) and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Prior to moving to Germany, he was Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Kent (Canterbury). Recent publications include Repatriating Polanyi: Market Society in the Visegrad States (Central European University Press, 2019) and The Great Dispossession. Uyghurs between Civilizations (LIT Verlag, 2020, with Ildiko Beller-Hann).

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