Ray Griffin
South East Technological University, Business, Faculty Member
Jobseeking is an inescapable task within the modern labour market, especially, for the unemployed, who have obligations to find work imposed upon them by welfare conditionality. Finding work, selling yourself, scrutinising failures and... more
Jobseeking is an inescapable task within the modern labour market, especially, for the unemployed, who have obligations to find work imposed upon them by welfare conditionality. Finding work, selling yourself, scrutinising failures and chasing success are all imposed upon the unemployed under threat of sanctions. To understand this penitential journey, this chapter examines how the medieval model of pilgrimage shapes jobseeking, drawing extensively from Turner’s work on liminality. Specifically, pilgrimages begin with self-examination and are undertaken in contrition for sins, just as jobseeking is obligatory for the unemployed who are considered personally responsible for their lack of work. Through their journey of seeking salvation, both pilgrims and jobseekers relentlessly search for meaning, deciphering opaque signs from the market or providence; dangers and opportunities must be recognised. Finally, arrival at a shrine or job is considered transformative. Yet, in a world of precarious unemployment, these purifying and edifying journeys are not just required but recurrent, an interminable career of self-transformation, often under duress, in which individuals are repeatedly subjected to economic judgement, which decides their worth – usually through continuous rejection, relentless testing their hopes and faith in the labour market and themselves.
Research Interests:
Typically the CV is criticised as self-aggrandisement or the commodification of the self for the market. Building on emergent research on jobseeking, both off and on-line, this chapter examines CV advice books and the interface of... more
Typically the CV is criticised as self-aggrandisement or the commodification of the self for the market. Building on emergent research on jobseeking, both off and on-line, this chapter examines CV advice books and the interface of LinkedIn as a networked platform. Moreover the CV is explored here as a confession of the self; not just as a profession of faith in the self and the market, but as a process of self-scrutiny and reflection which avows unemployment as a personal fault. Following a longer history, the CV is an inheritor of the demand to ‘tell the truth about the self’ which is a transformative trial for the self, in a power relation, once with an abbot or priest, but now with a work coach. Furthermore, the audience of the CV is not always embodied, but distant – God or the Market is the judge of the worth of the person and the truth of their confession. Thus, the CV is not a neutral representation, but entices individuals to internalise the perspective of potential employers and the judgements of welfare officials.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Jobseeking is an inescapable task within the modern labour market, especially, for the unemployed, who have obligations to find work imposed upon them by welfare conditionality. Finding work, selling yourself, scrutinising failures and... more
Jobseeking is an inescapable task within the modern labour market, especially, for the unemployed, who have obligations to find work imposed upon them by welfare conditionality. Finding work, selling yourself, scrutinising failures and chasing success are all imposed upon the unemployed under threat of sanctions. To understand this penitential journey, this chapter examines how the medieval model of pilgrimage shapes jobseeking, drawing extensively from Turner’s work on liminality. Specifically, pilgrimages begin with self-examination and are undertaken in contrition for sins, just as jobseeking is obligatory for the unemployed who are considered personally responsible for their lack of work. Through their journey of seeking salvation, both pilgrims and jobseekers relentlessly search for meaning, deciphering opaque signs from the market or providence; dangers and opportunities must be recognised. Finally, arrival at a shrine or job is considered transformative. Yet, in a world of precarious unemployment, these purifying and edifying journeys are not just required but recurrent, an interminable career of self-transformation, often under duress, in which individuals are repeatedly subjected to economic judgement, which decides their worth – usually through continuous rejection, relentless testing their hopes and faith in the labour market and themselves.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Our approach is an ‘Archaic Anthropology’, a methodological combination of contemporary anthropological engagement with the historicisation of the present using genealogical methods, drawn from Nietzsche, Weber, Foucault and Agamben, a... more
Our approach is an ‘Archaic Anthropology’, a methodological combination of contemporary anthropological engagement with the historicisation of the present using genealogical methods, drawn from Nietzsche, Weber, Foucault and Agamben, a contribution to the emergent paradigm of ‘economic theology’. Specifically this entails taking contemporary discourses – from social policy to job-seeking advice – as constitutive of the society it purports to describe. Thus, contemporary conceptualisations, whether created by academic disciplines or popular culture draw from existing cultural models, including theology, to make sense of complex social and economic experiences, from national recessions or growth to personal careers or unemployment. Thus, government is not simply evidence-based but incorporates medieval pastoral power – following Foucault, or the market reflects an invisible hand which is equally providential as it is economic – drawing on Agamben’s theological genealogy. By combining key ideas and figures from cultural sociology and governmentality studies, our approach allows us to trace the ‘production of meaning’ – how cultural models are deployed to decipher meaning in even arbitrary events, shape identities continuously and give direction and purpose to social and economic life.
Research Interests:
The future of work is partially written in the organisation of the welfare state – particularly in social policies and practices which imagine a vibrant labour market with ever-more employment. Here, we offer a genealogy of the peculiar... more
The future of work is partially written in the organisation of the welfare state – particularly in social policies and practices which imagine a vibrant labour market with ever-more employment. Here, we offer a genealogy of the peculiar formulation of the term NEETs, ‘Not in Employment, Education or Training’ as emblematic of a deep cultural and organisational commitment to work. To understand this array of policies, we draw on the Foucauldian concept of the dispositif. We move between the authoritarian valency of the concept as used by Agamben, and the looser Deleuzian assemblage, to investigate the policy, discourses and material structures that guarantee the future of work. NEETS conceptually and practically narrows the broad liminal transition from adolescent to adult into a labour market transition – producing work-ready, employable subjects for any future. The future of work need not be NEETs, but to approach that future we need to attend to the overwhelming policy apparatus a...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Social welfare policy, particularly activation policy and especially welfare conditionality with behavioural sanctions attempts to reform and transform the unemployed, making them work-ready, re-training them and governing their... more
Social welfare policy, particularly activation policy and especially welfare conditionality with behavioural sanctions attempts to reform and transform the unemployed, making them work-ready, re-training them and governing their jobseeking. Not only is the effectiveness of these policies questionable, their cultural assumptions about work, reform and suffering are problematic. In this chapter, we argue that a purgatorial logic underlies activation policy, from the workhouse through to contemporary jobcentres, the idea is that individuals are responsible for their own unemployment, and that imposing harsher conditions, threats and punishments will serve a purifying and edifying purpose. Tracing the idea of purgatory through medieval theology to its widespread cultural resonance in early modern Europe, we suggest that the Protestant rejection of purgatory as a theological concept also marks its transference into governmental social policy, particularly in welfare and workfare – as dem...
Research Interests:
The power potential of the less-powerful within networks. A political sensemaking process (PSP) model of rapid network development and dissolution.
Unemployment is not just an economic category but is constituted by governmentality (Foucault, 2010), most evidently by the increase of interventions into the lives of the unemployed through Active Labour Market Policies (ALMP).... more
Unemployment is not just an economic category but is constituted by governmentality (Foucault, 2010), most evidently by the increase of interventions into the lives of the unemployed through Active Labour Market Policies (ALMP). Furthermore, the International Labour Organization (ILO) definition of unemployment as being without work, available for work and seeking work is a shifting classification which categorises unemployment on multiple temporal horizons, with the passive element of being without work increasingly superseded by the emphasis on seeking work. Through biographical interviews with unemployed in Ireland, spanning from 2012-2018, we trace this transformation of temporality empirically and conclude that governmentality constitutes multiple, contradictory, indefinite forms of time. Particularly, we offer an imaginative reading of two overlapping temporalities: Kairos, waiting, enduring, suffering nothingness in anticipation of transformation by getting a job, and Cronos, not cyclical time, but the devouring of time, where the days and leisure of the unemployed people are deliberately consumed by job-seeking. Ironically, states implement ALMPs in the kairotic hope of transforming their economy, yet these policies do little but make the experience of unemployment even harder to endure.
Research Interests:
Stigma is not the automatic outcome of power differentials, but a distinctive moral inscription generated through cultural evaluations and governmental processes. Research on welfare recipients records how the unemployed displace stigma... more
Stigma is not the automatic outcome of power differentials, but a distinctive moral inscription generated through cultural evaluations and governmental processes. Research on welfare recipients records how the unemployed displace stigma onto other welfare recipients, positioning other(ed) claimants as the ‘real unemployed’ or ‘scroungers’. Theoretically we adapt Butler’s analysis of the psychic processes whereby subjects are formed by disavowal of discourses which abjectify them. Arguably, this is functional for the governmentalising processes of generating jobseeking, with a latent function of reinforcing activation policies. Drawing on qualitative interviews, we trace how Irish individuals negotiate the stigma attributed to or foisted upon Welfare claimants, in welfare offices and informal social interactions and in job interviews – how they attempt to ‘pass’ as good JobSeekers and pass stigma on to others. Curiously, many welfare claimants suggest governmental interventions for d...
Research Interests:
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.
What are we to make of stories that are largely composed of silence and reports of non-happenings? Reporting on interviews in which we asked unemployed people about what they do, we encountered stories that dwell on the absence of... more
What are we to make of stories that are largely composed of silence and reports of non-happenings? Reporting on interviews in which we asked unemployed people about what they do, we encountered stories that dwell on the absence of identity, and the psycho-somatic consequences of unemployment; as well as stories about attendance, waiting, claiming, conforming and passing-time. Against these absences, we attempt to produce a narrative understanding of the experience of unemployment. Speculatively, we redeploy Kafka and Beckett as social theorists which allows us to interpret the telling silences of the unemployed as untold Kafkaesque and Beckettian stories.
Vladamir: What do they say?
Estragon: They talk about their lives.
Vladamir: To have lived is not enough for them.
Estragon: They have to talk about it.
Beckett, Waiting For Godot
Vladamir: What do they say?
Estragon: They talk about their lives.
Vladamir: To have lived is not enough for them.
Estragon: They have to talk about it.
Beckett, Waiting For Godot
Our approach is an ‘Archaic Anthropology’, a methodological combination of contemporary anthropological engagement with the historicisation of the present using genealogical methods, drawn from Nietzsche, Weber, Foucault and Agamben, a... more
Our approach is an ‘Archaic Anthropology’, a methodological combination of contemporary anthropological engagement with the historicisation of the present using genealogical methods, drawn from Nietzsche, Weber, Foucault and Agamben, a contribution to the emergent paradigm of ‘economic theology’. Specifically this entails taking contemporary discourses – from social policy to job-seeking advice – as constitutive of the society it purports to describe. Thus, contemporary conceptualisations, whether created by academic disciplines or popular culture draw from existing cultural models, including theology, to make sense of complex social and economic experiences, from national recessions or growth to personal careers or unemployment. Thus, government is not simply evidence-based but incorporates medieval pastoral power – following Foucault, or the market reflects an invisible hand which is equally providential as it is economic – drawing on Agamben’s theological genealogy. By combining ...
Drawing on contemporary research in sociology and social policy, this chapter describes the landscape of the contemporary welfare state, unemployment and Jobseeking in the labour market. In particular we examine active labour market... more
Drawing on contemporary research in sociology and social policy, this chapter describes the landscape of the contemporary welfare state, unemployment and Jobseeking in the labour market. In particular we examine active labour market policies (ALMPs) as an increasingly pervasive form of ‘governmentality’ – a term taken from Foucauldian ‘governmentality studies’. Across the international policy landscape activation scrutinises and assesses the unemployed, monitors their jobsearches, prescribes activities like training or skills development and threatens and imposes penalty sanctions. Critics of these policies as ineffective, ideological, commodifying labour or even a cruel punitive turn are also examined. Recasting this debate, we suggest that deep cultural codes drawn from Judeo-Christian religions which value suffering as a mode of transformation are the animating of contemporary activation: the Biblical ‘Trials of Job’ where contemporary jobseekers are required to demonstrate persi...
Contemporary welfare states attempt to govern unemployment using active labour market policies to reconnect jobseekers with the labour market. Critics suggest these reflect a punitive turn in social policy and are ineffective in any case,... more
Contemporary welfare states attempt to govern unemployment using active labour market policies to reconnect jobseekers with the labour market. Critics suggest these reflect a punitive turn in social policy and are ineffective in any case, leading to debates over the evidence-bases and ideological underpinnings of social policy. Here, we investigate the deeper cultural codes which inform how the state governs the unemployed and how individuals interpret their experiences of work and jobseeking in the labour market. Specifically, we argue that there are unrecognised theological models which animate the contemporary scene – explored through an approach which combines cultural sociology and governmentality studies, a historicisation of the present which we term ‘Archaic Anthropology’. We draw together Nietzsche’s genealogy of the revaluation of suffering, Weber’s thesis on the Protestant work-ethic, Foucault’s analysis of pastoral power and Agamben’s work on how the economy is given a p...
Revisiting the EU-wide tensions of the sovereign debt crisis of 2010, this chapter identifies the religious roots of the demand for fiscal rectitude in ordo-liberal and puritan demands for frugal self-discipline. Yet, beyond the different... more
Revisiting the EU-wide tensions of the sovereign debt crisis of 2010, this chapter identifies the religious roots of the demand for fiscal rectitude in ordo-liberal and puritan demands for frugal self-discipline. Yet, beyond the different religious histories across Europe, we identify the impulse towards welfare reformation within Ireland, despite being a late-comer to activation policy. Briefly restating the arguments of the book, we argue that welfare reform seeks to transform individuals by subjecting them to trials and tests, with the market as judge of their worth – based on long-standing theological impulses. However, here we also identify counter tendencies, the urge to alleviate suffering and the refusal of judgement in a charitable view – not just giving support generously, as the word charity also means love, care, understanding, a relationship of respect for individual circumstances and choices. Rebalancing the welfare state simply requires unconditional payments, neither...
Work is central to individual being and social belonging within modernity, with strong theological dimensions as identified in Weber’s ‘protestant ethic’ thesis. Drawing from a large corpus of qualitative interviews with unemployed... more
Work is central to individual being and social belonging within modernity, with strong theological dimensions as identified in Weber’s ‘protestant ethic’ thesis. Drawing from a large corpus of qualitative interviews with unemployed people, this chapter examines how work is not only desired as an economic or social good, but is positioned as an antidote to the trials of unemployment. In particular, this chapter builds on Weber by analysing Maslow’s idea of self-actualisation through work as recapitulating the theological idea of work as internally transformative. Furthermore, mainstream sociological theories of unemployment, particularly the ‘deprivation theory’ are reconsidered as reflecting these religious concepts of work as redemptive. Indeed, the ideal of the social goods of work is modelled on disciplined labour, in a history stretching through the factory back to the monastery, with the unemployed appearing as the rabble or beggars outside these institutions, in need of reform...
An often-told joke: Q: How do you know you work in the computer industry? A: You have had the same job at the same desk for 2 years and you have worked for 15 different companies.
Typically the CV is criticised as self-aggrandisement or the commodification of the self for the market. Building on emergent research on jobseeking, both off and on-line, this chapter examines CV advice books and the interface of... more
Typically the CV is criticised as self-aggrandisement or the commodification of the self for the market. Building on emergent research on jobseeking, both off and on-line, this chapter examines CV advice books and the interface of LinkedIn as a networked platform. Moreover the CV is explored here as a confession of the self; not just as a profession of faith in the self and the market, but as a process of self-scrutiny and reflection which avows unemployment as a personal fault. Following a longer history, the CV is an inheritor of the demand to ‘tell the truth about the self’ which is a transformative trial for the self, in a power relation, once with an abbot or priest, but now with a work coach. Furthermore, the audience of the CV is not always embodied, but distant – God or the Market is the judge of the worth of the person and the truth of their confession. Thus, the CV is not a neutral representation, but entices individuals to internalise the perspective of potential employers and the judgements of welfare officials.
Chapter 1 available Open Access via OAPEN under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Western culture has ‘faith’ in the labour market as a test of the worth of each individual. For those who are out of work, welfare is now less of a support than a means... more
Chapter 1 available Open Access via OAPEN under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Western culture has ‘faith’ in the labour market as a test of the worth of each individual. For those who are out of work, welfare is now less of a support than a means of purification and redemption. Continuously reformed by the left and right in politics, the contemporary welfare state attempts to transform the unemployed into active jobseekers, punishing non-compliance. Drawing on 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: Jobcentres resemble purgatory where the unemployed attempt to redeem themselves, jobseeking is a form of pilgrimage in hope of salvation, and the economy appears as providence, whereby trials and tribulations test each individual. This book will be essential reading for those interested in the sociology and anthropology of modern economic life.
Research Interests:
Digital interventions are re-constituting the state administration of the labour market, a set of changes that have rendered the social safety-net ever more precarious; not just work, but welfare is becoming precariatised by new forms of... more
Digital interventions are re-constituting the state administration of the labour market, a set of changes that have rendered the social safety-net ever more precarious; not just work, but welfare is becoming precariatised by new forms of governmentality. Discussions about the fourth industrial revolution, big data, AI, algorithmic knowledge, neural networks and robotics has captured public debates about the future of work. However, it is equally concerning when democracies, the public realm and the state adopt these digital technologies in how they administer, govern and construct welfare processes.
Research Interests:
Chapter 3 available Open Access via OAPEN under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Western culture has ‘faith’ in the labour market as a test of the worth of each individual. For those who are out of work, welfare is now less of a support than a means... more
Chapter 3 available Open Access via OAPEN under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Western culture has ‘faith’ in the labour market as a test of the worth of each individual. For those who are out of work, welfare is now less of a support than a means of purification and redemption. Continuously reformed by the left and right in politics, the contemporary welfare state attempts to transform the unemployed into active jobseekers, punishing non-compliance. Drawing on 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: Jobcentres resemble purgatory where the unemployed attempt to redeem themselves, jobseeking is a form of pilgrimage in hope of salvation, and the economy appears as providence, whereby trials and tribulations test each individual. This book will be essential reading for those interested in the sociology and anthropology of modern economic life.
Research Interests:
Chapter 1 available Open Access via OAPEN under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Western culture has ‘faith’ in the labour market as a test of the worth of each individual. For those who are out of work, welfare is now less of a support than a means... more
Chapter 1 available Open Access via OAPEN under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Western culture has ‘faith’ in the labour market as a test of the worth of each individual. For those who are out of work, welfare is now less of a support than a means of purification and redemption. Continuously reformed by the left and right in politics, the contemporary welfare state attempts to transform the unemployed into active jobseekers, punishing non-compliance. Drawing on 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: Jobcentres resemble purgatory where the unemployed attempt to redeem themselves, jobseeking is a form of pilgrimage in hope of salvation, and the economy appears as providence, whereby trials and tribulations test each individual. This book will be essential reading for those interested in the sociology and anthropology of modern economic life.
It is now twenty years since Gunnar Hedlund’s seminal contribution ‘The Hypermodern MNC – A Heterarchy?‘ in which he identified an emerging form of organising the multinational corporation (MNC); one associated with multi‐centred,... more
It is now twenty years since Gunnar Hedlund’s seminal contribution ‘The Hypermodern MNC – A Heterarchy?‘ in which he identified an emerging form of organising the multinational corporation (MNC); one associated with multi‐centred, differentiated internal structures, strategic roles for foreign subsidiaries, integration achieved primarily through normative control and flexibility in organisational tasks and governance mechanisms. On the back of this contribution, an academic discourse on subsidiary strategy has encouraged subsidiary managers to create and protect their subsidiary’s futures, to strategise. But subsidiary strategy‐making is rarely an overt process, and as a result does not lend itself to being easily researched. Much of what constitutes subsidiary strategy is privately held by the subsidiary management team and can only be evidenced by its outcomes‐ be they positive (for example gaining a new activity) or negative (such as suffering a divestment). Compounding this diff...
The paper commences by introducing the preliminary research question, which broadly asks about the nature and role of power and political process in relationship/network development in general, and within multinational corporations (MNCs)... more
The paper commences by introducing the preliminary research question, which broadly asks about the nature and role of power and political process in relationship/network development in general, and within multinational corporations (MNCs) more specifically. The paper then presents perspectives on power drawn broadly from the management and sociology literature before summarising some of the key orientations to relationships and change within the industrial network literature, and more specifically, the role within these of power and political process. It appears that the historically prevailing view has been that relationships within networks develop gradually and cumulatively over time, with power playing what might be termed a ‘concrete’ role in such a process, based primarily on identifiable resource dependencies. The concept of ‘system power’, beginning to emerge in the management and organisation literature, is not explicitly articulated. In short, the less-powerful are seen as...
Chapter 3 available Open Access via OAPEN under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Western culture has ‘faith’ in the labour market as a test of the worth of each individual. For those who are out of work, welfare is now less of a support than a means... more
Chapter 3 available Open Access via OAPEN under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Western culture has ‘faith’ in the labour market as a test of the worth of each individual. For those who are out of work, welfare is now less of a support than a means of purification and redemption. Continuously reformed by the left and right in politics, the contemporary welfare state attempts to transform the unemployed into active jobseekers, punishing non-compliance. Drawing on 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: Jobcentres resemble purgatory where the unemployed attempt to redeem themselves, jobseeking is a form of pilgrimage in hope of salvation, and the economy appears as providence, whereby trials and tribulations test each individual. This book will be essential reading for those interested in the sociology and anthropology of modern economic life.
Research Interests:
Digital interventions are re-constituting the state administration of the labour market, a set of changes that have rendered the social safety-net ever more precarious; not just work, but welfare is becoming precariatised by new forms of... more
Digital interventions are re-constituting the state administration of the labour market, a set of changes that have rendered the social safety-net ever more precarious; not just work, but welfare is becoming precariatised by new forms of governmentality. Discussions about the fourth industrial revolution, big data, AI, algorithmic knowledge, neural networks and robotics has captured public debates about the future of work. However, it is equally concerning when democracies, the public realm and the state adopt these digital technologies in how they administer, govern and construct welfare processes.
Research Interests:
ABSTRACT Although they are the recipients of welfare we argue that the unemployed are pathologized and scapegoated by the ungenerous nature of this gift. The suffering of the unemployed is explored here as emerging not from the lack of... more
ABSTRACT Although they are the recipients of welfare we argue that the unemployed are pathologized and scapegoated by the ungenerous nature of this gift. The suffering of the unemployed is explored here as emerging not from the lack of economic, psychological, and social goods, but from how gift-relations are imbued with power-relations, particularly as generated in activation policies currently spreading through the OECD. Inspired by theoretical consideration of Mauss, Girard, and others, we aspire to offer an imaginative rethinking of unemployment, moving beyond the simple notion that it is just a lack of work, to positioning unemployment as a foundational axis of punishment which is constitutive for modern society. In this way, the unemployed exist as imaginary scapegoats for political legitimization and as surplus labour which allows capitalism to function. Illustrative empirical data are drawn from interviews and media reportage in Ireland, where the switch to activation policies was made swiftly and dramatically since 2012.
Research Interests:
Drawing on the Weberian spirit, our key problem is trying to understand the irrational rationality of Active Labour Market Policies adopted across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, despite their limited... more
Drawing on the Weberian spirit, our key problem is trying to understand the irrational rationality of Active Labour Market Policies adopted across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, despite their limited utility. Rather than explaining these as inefficient policy formation or reflecting neo-liberal ideology, we suggest that the experience and governmentality of welfare is historically informed by the idea of purgatory. Drawing from the genealogical impulse in Weber, Foucault and Agamben, and adapting Weber’s concept of ‘world-images’, we suggest that the history of welfare, from workhouses to Active Labour Market Policies, is animated by the purgatorial logic of judging, punishing and purifying individuals. This resonance is clearest in the interpretation that jobseekers give to the time they spend unemployed, but also in political speeches, policy making and the creation of welfare systems. Counter-intuitively, this analysis is drawn from Ireland,...
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1. Introduction - Tom Boland and Ray Griffin Part I: Being unemployed 2. Talk: Nothing to be done - Tom Boland 3. Dialog: Focus groups with young and mature unemployed - Jennifer Yeager and Jonathon Culleton 4. City: Redundant workers,... more
1. Introduction - Tom Boland and Ray Griffin Part I: Being unemployed 2. Talk: Nothing to be done - Tom Boland 3. Dialog: Focus groups with young and mature unemployed - Jennifer Yeager and Jonathon Culleton 4. City: Redundant workers, forgotten citizens? The case of Waterford Crystal - Josh Lalor 5. Places: Graceful living: The experience of unemployment and the built environment - John O'Brien 6. Rural: Beyond the deprivation theory: examining rural experience - Gordon B. Cooke, Deidre Hutchings, Jimmy Donaghey and Isik U. Zeytinoglu Part II: Becoming unemployed 7. Forms: Up one: observations on decoding a form of unemployment - Ray Griffin 8. Spaces: Autoethnographies of Irish social welfare offices - Tom Boland and Ray Griffin 9. Job-seeking: Making a self for the labour market - Tom Boland 10. Experiencing activisation: Ireland's new pathway? - Tom Boland Part III: Knowing unemployment 11. Media: Nothing to be said - Tom Boland, Rose Shearer and Aisling Tuite 12. Statistics: On the statistical composition of unemployment - Ray Griffin and John O'Brien Conclusion Index
Research Interests:
This book explores green innovation and future technology skill development within regional small to medium sized enterprises. Notwithstanding the goals of a greener Europe, there has been little debate as to how the skills required to... more
This book explores green innovation and future technology skill development within regional small to medium sized enterprises. Notwithstanding the goals of a greener Europe, there has been little debate as to how the skills required to fulfil the goals of sustainable development can be imparted within regions and particularly, within rural business communities. The authors suggest that the pursuit of green skill enhancement should be based on cross-disciplinary collaborative action within an academic-practice partnership ethos. An inter-disciplinary team of academics and project specialists explore the gap from theory to implementation in green innovation and provide a series of cases which highlight the benefits of a stakeholder approach in this context. Green Innovation and Future Technology is distinctive in its cross-border, multi-disciplinary approach to the green innovativeness skill enhancement of SMEs. http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/green-innovation-and-future-technolog...
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on the other end of entrepreneurship – the disassembling of enterprises by insolvency professionals. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on empirical material from major insolvency... more
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on the other end of entrepreneurship – the disassembling of enterprises by insolvency professionals. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on empirical material from major insolvency practitioners (IPs) in Ireland; the paper identifies three different narrative positions – “clinical market operators”, “blame the entrepreneurs” and “professional detachment/disidentification” – that these specialists employed to story their working experiences. Findings – The paper suggests that IPs do not have a fixed narrative schema to narrate their professional identities, as they struggle to reconcile their professional acts with their personal ambitions. These findings point to a disconnection between the political rhetoric on risk taking and the acts perpetrated on entrepreneurs who fail, a central tension in the discourse on entrepreneurship policy. Research limitations/implications – The paper adds to the current debate on business failure, an area that is typically u...
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Research Interests:
Now in its second year, for five days next May, at Blackwater Castle Ireland, the Economy and Society Summer School will bring together 50 scholars – around 20 faculty and 30 business and social sciences PhD researchers for an intensive... more
Now in its second year, for five days next May, at Blackwater Castle Ireland, the Economy and Society Summer School will bring together 50 scholars – around 20 faculty and 30 business and social sciences PhD researchers for an intensive and convivial residential course dealing with theories, concepts and methods of inquiry.
The summer school is tailored to the needs of doctoral students in Business and Social Sciences, and aspires to help early stage researchers strengthen and widen their theoretical basis in ways that allows them to position their work amongst broader discourses, extend and sharpen their understanding of their theoretical and empirical practices and to contribute to their formation as independently-minded researchers. The school will be of particular interest to PhD researchers from sociology, politics, anthropology, geography and history on the one hand, and organisation studies, management, marketing, finance and economics on the other.
The School is a rich mix of conventional presentations, small group work, student-led seminars & discussions, peer-group presentations & feedback sessions; all arranged to promote discussion and argument around your research and how it fits into the broader themes of the economy and society. To that end, the number of participants is limited to no more than 30 and the cost of participation is kept low.
The Summer School is designed around three different kinds of learning formats and interaction: By providing these three different formats our aim is to enhance a structured, interactive but also informal way of discussing broader issues around each individual’s research. These formats are:
Key notes given by invited faculty followed by discussions
Short dialogical presentations usually delivered in thematically selected pairs
Small breakout reading groups based on selected key readings, functioning as small tutorial sessions on the talks and their relevance to student’s work
University College Cork and Waterford Institute of Technology jointly organise the school. The event is inspired by and organised under the auspices of ‘The President of Ireland’s Initiative’.
The summer school is tailored to the needs of doctoral students in Business and Social Sciences, and aspires to help early stage researchers strengthen and widen their theoretical basis in ways that allows them to position their work amongst broader discourses, extend and sharpen their understanding of their theoretical and empirical practices and to contribute to their formation as independently-minded researchers. The school will be of particular interest to PhD researchers from sociology, politics, anthropology, geography and history on the one hand, and organisation studies, management, marketing, finance and economics on the other.
The School is a rich mix of conventional presentations, small group work, student-led seminars & discussions, peer-group presentations & feedback sessions; all arranged to promote discussion and argument around your research and how it fits into the broader themes of the economy and society. To that end, the number of participants is limited to no more than 30 and the cost of participation is kept low.
The Summer School is designed around three different kinds of learning formats and interaction: By providing these three different formats our aim is to enhance a structured, interactive but also informal way of discussing broader issues around each individual’s research. These formats are:
Key notes given by invited faculty followed by discussions
Short dialogical presentations usually delivered in thematically selected pairs
Small breakout reading groups based on selected key readings, functioning as small tutorial sessions on the talks and their relevance to student’s work
University College Cork and Waterford Institute of Technology jointly organise the school. The event is inspired by and organised under the auspices of ‘The President of Ireland’s Initiative’.
Research Interests:
Drawing on the Weberian spirit, our key problem is trying to understand the irrational rationality of Active Labour Market Policies adopted across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, despite their limited... more
Drawing on the Weberian spirit, our key problem is trying to understand the irrational rationality of Active Labour Market Policies adopted across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, despite their limited utility. Rather than explaining these as inefficient policy formation or reflecting neo-liberal ideology, we suggest that the experience and governmentality of welfare is historically informed by the idea of purgatory. Drawing from the genealogical impulse in Weber, Foucault and Agamben, and adapting Weber’s concept of ‘world-images’, we suggest that the history of welfare, from workhouses to Active Labour Market Policies, is animated by the purgatorial logic of judging, punishing and purifying individuals. This resonance is clearest in the interpretation that jobseekers give to the time they spend unemployed, but also in political speeches, policy making and the creation of welfare systems. Counter-intuitively, this analysis is drawn from Ireland, a latecomer to Active Labour Market Policies, where the imposition of an increasedly purgatorial conception of welfare is clearly visible.
Research Interests:
Although they are the recipients of welfare we argue that the unemployed are pathologized and scapegoated by the ungenerous nature of this gift. The suffering of the unemployed is explored here as emerging not from the lack of economic,... more
Although they are the recipients of welfare we argue that the unemployed are pathologized and scapegoated by the ungenerous nature of this gift. The suffering of the unemployed is explored here as emerging not from the lack of economic, psychological, and social goods, but from how gift-relations are imbued with power-relations, particularly as generated in activation policies currently spreading through the OECD. Inspired by theoretical consideration of Mauss, Girard, and others, we aspire to offer an imaginative rethinking of unemployment, moving beyond the simple notion that it is just a lack of work, to positioning unemployment as a foundational axis of punishment which is constitutive for modern society. In this way, the unemployed exist as imaginary scapegoats for political legitimization and as surplus labour which allows capitalism to function. Illustrative empirical data are drawn from interviews and media reportage in Ireland, where the switch to activation policies was made swiftly and dramatically since 2012.