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Title: | Post-Diversity, Precarious Work for All: Unmaking borders to govern labour in the Amazon warehouse | Authors: | ZANONI, Patrizia Miszczynski, Milosz |
Issue Date: | 2023 | Publisher: | SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD | Source: | ORGANIZATION STUDIES, | Status: | Early view | Abstract: | This paper investigates the (un)making of borders as a form of labour governmentality in one of Amazon's warehouses in Poland. Guided by a critical theory of borders as a form of labour governmentality under global capitalism, we identify organizational practices through which socio-demographic categories traditionally deployed as principles of organizing work (e.g., gender, age, ability) are unmade: the management of deskilled labour through an algorithmic system, the non-selective hiring of workers, the enforcement of social norms of interpersonal respect and a universal system of casualized employment. Together, these practices constitute workers as undifferentiated, interchangeable and equal labour, let them compete with each other under harshly exploitative conditions, and continuously dispose of the least productive among them, keeping all in structural uncertainty. The study contributes to the critical diversity literature by showing a 'post-diversity' governmentality that rests on equality, competition and precarization of labour as a whole, rather than segregation and marginalization through an 'ideal worker' norm. This labour governmentality operates by eliciting consent from historically subordinated workers and eliminating the advantage of historically relatively privileged ones. Unmaking borders within labour inside the organization, this governmentality at the same time crucially rests on borders outside it. | Notes: | Zanoni, P (corresponding author), Hasselt Univ, Sch Social Sci, Martelarenlaan 42, B-3500 Hasselt, Belgium. patrizia.zanoni@uhasselt.be |
Keywords: | algorithms;Amazon;borders;diversity;logistics;precarity | Document URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/1942/41567 | ISSN: | 0170-8406 | e-ISSN: | 1741-3044 | DOI: | 10.1177/01708406231191336 | ISI #: | 001077305100001 | Rights: | The Author(s) 2023 Open access | Category: | A1 | Type: | Journal Contribution |
Appears in Collections: | Research publications |
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Post-Diversity, Precarious Work for All_ Unmaking borders to govern labour in the Amazon warehouse.pdf | Early view | 234.54 kB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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