Category Precarity
How are Foreign Domestic Workers Implicated in the Pro-Democracy Protests in Hong Kong?
by Charlotte Brill ‘’My eyes were very painful’’, said an Indonesian migrant worker who was caught in a cloud of tear gas on her day off. This tear gas came from nearby pro-democracy protests, which rapidly intensified since they started in June 2019. Riddled with fear, over 380,000 Foreign Domestic Workers (FDWs), comprised predominantly of […]
Desperately Seeking Futurity: Precarity and the Desire(s) of Higher Education Participation
by Matthew Clark Discourses on graduate employability have increasingly gained a prominent position in higher education (HE). Although a bemoaned topic for many and a source of melancholic longing for an educational era perceived to be bygone, graduate employability has come to be framed by successive governments as the core purpose of HE, and the […]
How Does the Necessity of Paid Work Impact Our Students?: Learning from the Global Studies Student Employment Survey
by Paul Robert Gilbert **This is the first of three posts on student experience, debt and austerity in higher education; the second post was published on October 15th.** There is little more grating, for those of us who work in Higher Education, than those portions of the British media who insist on propagating lazy stereotypes of ‘work-shy […]
No Paninis for Poverty Pay
by Rebecca Prentice Throughout the UK yesterday restaurant and food delivery workers walked off their jobs to protest low wages, zero hours contracts, and unpredictable work schedules—including those from Brighton’s two JD Wetherspoon restaurants, The Post and Telegraph and The Bright Helm. Writing in The Guardian, Owen Jones and Katie Southworth describe these strikes as […]
Accumulation by Dispossession, Solidarity in Precarity and the Future of Higher Education…
…A Quick Manifesto by a group of Anthropology and Global Studies students at the University of Sussex As both consumers of knowledge capital, and investors in our own education, we thought it might be useful to bring to your attention the concept of accumulation by dispossession, the precarity it entails both in academia and in the rest […]
Anthropologists on the Strike
Yesterday, lecturers began 14 days of strikes in over 60 universities across the United Kingdom. Nominally, the strikes are to oppose pension changes proposed by university employers that would end defined benefits and offload the risk of pension income onto lecturers themselves. Here at Culture & Capitalism, we will round up writing and interviews from anthropologists on the […]
Deliveroo Riders Aren’t Workers, Says London Tribunal
by Rebecca Prentice In a surprise setback for trade unions attempting to organise the ‘gig’ economy, a London tribunal has ruled that Deliveroo riders are self-employed contractors, not ‘workers.’ This means that the riders do not have basic rights to minimum wage, holiday pay, and health and safety protections. They also have no right to […]
The Gig Economy Strikes Back: Deliveroo in Brighton
by Rebecca Prentice May 1, 2017: On a rainy evening in Brighton, more than two hundred people took to the streets to protest economic precariousness. The ‘Precarious May Day’ march was led on bicycles by Deliveroo couriers, who deliver food to online takeaway customers. Accessing delivery jobs through an app on their phones, Deliveroo riders […]
